Originally Posted by
JGordon
I was incorrect about their home grown players, I don't follow the Yankees so didn't know they'd gotten such good production out of their farm system.
I was merely using the Marlins as a comparison, but it still holds true when looking at the Pirates or the Padres. I'd be just as much in favor of a salary floor as I would a salary cap.
All I'm saying is that the Yanks, by virtue of their massive income base, have an unfair competitive advantage over most other teams. Whether the Marlins owners are skimming off the top doesn't change the fact that the Yankees spent twice as much on payroll as any of the bottom 21 teams.
It's just such a huge disparity, and is incredibly frustrating for people who are fans of teams other than the Yankees. Baseball needs to look into ways of levelling the field, both by making sure that owners spend an appropriate minimum amount and that there is a reasonable ceiling on payroll.
In 2007, the teams with the two highest revenues (and coincidentally the two highest payrolls), the NY Yankees and NY Mets, showed losses of $47 million and $19 million, respectively. The only other team to show a loss that year was Toronto, with a much lower $1.8 million loss.
In contract, the smallest market teams in the league showed the following PROFITS:
Florida Marlins: $35.6 Million
Tampa Bay Rays: $29.7 Million
Colorado Rockies: $26.2 Million
Milwaukee Brewers: $19.2 Million
Minnesota Twins: $23.8 Million
This is far more of an issue on how the team is ran financially than big markets and small markets. You can get TWO all star players for the amount of profits these teams are pulling (net of exhorbant CEO salaries no less!).
This dichotomy clearly shows the differing mindsets of big market and small market teams: Yankees operate to win games. Small market teams operate to make money. They may get lucky and have a great season (Florida Marlins have won TWO championships since they came into existance, even the Arizona D-Backs have won a championship), but being competitive isn't necessarily their main interest.