I'll use my Jays as an example. JP Ricarddi likes to complain about the rising salaires and payrolls in baseballs but guess what .... ownership just approved a 3 year budget of 210 mil which means the Jays payroll will be about 70-75 mil next season, and 85-90 mil two seasons from now. By the 3rd year their payroll will most likely be in the top 10. I haven't heard one single complaint from JP about getting more money to spend on payroll. The fans that have harped about rising salaires haven't complained either.
Here's a good article by Stark where he says parity does exist in baseball and he backs it up with evidence
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/column...son&id=2010302
Also a commissioner can't force a salary cap because it has to be agreed upon by the owners and the MLBPA. The owners are the boss of Bud Selig, and if they don't like what he's doing, then they would just fire him.
Also small/low payroll teams have to build from within but even that doesn't always make financial sense. Beane had to trade away Hudson before he had 6 years of service time because abritration would have been too pricey. I wouldn't be surprised if Perez is dealt 2 years from now because of the potential arbritation salary. And you can also look at the Twins, because they wanted to lock up Santana long-term, they didn't have the budget to keep Koskie.
I'm not a fan of a salary cap, so I would like to see a stiff luxury tax in MLB. The current tax is a complete joke just like their steroid policy. The last CBA just proved the majority of baseball owners are liars about their ecomonics. A lot of them were crying about the rising salaires and then they agreed to a luxury tax that is laughable. My Red Sox had a 40 man payroll of 134.5 million and they only ended up paying 3.1 million in tax last season. Before the CBA was signed, I thought it would contain a dollar for dollar tax at a threshold such as 75 mil. A new CBA needs to have a min. payroll and a stiff tax, too bad I don't see it happening.
There will always be weak sisters (D-Rays, Royals, Pirates, Brewers, etc..) with the current MLB CBA and I don't see things changing in the future.
I guess it is the fans choice, you either continue to cheer for a losing ball club or you start cheering for another team that has a better chance to win year in, year out.
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