A new season in Major League Baseball means optimism for all 30 teams. Every spring fans hold out hope that this season will be "their year."
Unfortunately for the teams without payrolls north of $100 million, that optimism will likely fade to disappointment by July.
Baseball is the only one of the four major sports leagues in the United States without a salary cap, and the disparity in spending is just not fair.
This season, the Yankees third and fourth hitters (Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira) salaries put together will be just percentage points off the total payroll of the 25-man San Diego Padres roster.
For years, the Yankees have been the face of the discrepancy between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' of baseball. But the Phillies, Red Sox, and Tigers aren't far behind.
It's just not realistic to expect that the teams within a small market to compete with the big boys.
Small market teams have to rely on drafting and developing young talent to field a competitive squad. Then, when they finally put a talented player on the roster they have to trade him because it's a foregone conclusion that he'll be wearing someone else's uniform next season. For a general manager your hands are tied because trading him is the only way to ensure you get something in return.
Adrian Gonzalez is a prime example of this. The Padres made him into one of the league's most competent first basemen, and the perennial All-Star loved San Diego. But at the end of the day what he could have gotten on the open market was far greater than what San Diego could have offered, so they traded him to Boston.
The Red Sox got a can't miss player, and the Padres got a handful of guys who should be good someday based on how they performed in AA (that is, if all goes as planned).
The current system takes all the skill out of putting a competitive team on the field. How hard is it to outspend everyone else for proven talent?
Try being the general manager in Pittsburgh. That'd be like entering a cook-off where one chef is working with fillet mignon and you've got to make due with grade D ground beef.
Bud Selig likes to pretend this isn't the case. He says that the revenue sharing system - which teams are taxed for spending beyond a certain limit and the money is distributed to low revenue teams - works just fine.
But the same teams consistently make the playoffs in baseball. There are seven franchises that haven't made the playoffs in the last decade; no other sport has more than four teams who haven't made it in the last six.
Granted only eight teams (10 starting this year) make the playoffs annually in baseball, but does anyone really think Baltimore stands a chance in the AL East this year?
I think not.
It's time to give Mariners' fans something enjoyable to watch in August while they're spending $11 on a beer.
It's the least we could do after taking the Sonics from them.
Email: tyler.cady@ubspectrum.com
