I hate the Yankees.

[Gothamite]

No thanks, one major work stoppage is enough for a century or so. No reason to deliberately antagonize the union, unless you just like making trouble.

I have no problem with instituting a salary cap, but it ought to be realistic. You're missing a zero on yours.

But if you make the cap $100M, that's implying a $4M average per ballplayer. No, $10M is realistic. While I don't like the average player making as much as the President, I realize I can't cut it further.

Your number isn't even close to unrealistic. You can't put the genie back in the bottle - ballplayers make their teams lots of money, and want their fair share. Unless you think that owners will scale back ticket prices to $1 for box seats after they institute this intriguing new salary cap?

As for making more than the President, Babe Ruth's reply springs to mind. Heck, even .100 hitters have had better years than him lately.

[raysox]

When will the Yankees learn....

Team chemistry is the tool to winning games. I learned that this season with the Rays. I can't wait till we get to play them this year.

I thought better pitching was the tool to that.

It helped...a lot

[TC]

We need a :sarcasm: emoticon.

I believe is the officially-sanctioned, Unofficial Sarcasm Emoticon of the CCSLC.

Thanks for that.

The Nationals, Padres, Pirates, and Reds will make the playoffs in the NL, while the Royals, Mariners, Orioles, and Athletics will make the playoffs in the AL with the Nationals beating the Mariners in the World Series.

No, I'm pretty sure the Yankees are going all the way, especially since they have so much team chemistry.

[TalktoChuck]

No thanks, one major work stoppage is enough for a century or so. No reason to deliberately antagonize the union, unless you just like making trouble.

I have no problem with instituting a salary cap, but it ought to be realistic. You're missing a zero on yours.

But if you make the cap $100M, that's implying a $4M average per ballplayer. No, $10M is realistic. While I don't like the average player making as much as the President, I realize I can't cut it further.

Gotharnite is right. You need to have it at $100M if not higher. With the exception of maybe 7 teams, theres at least one player on the remaing 23 that makes at least $10M over a 2-year span. So $10M would definitly to be small. It would cause yet another strike.

[tBBP]

As a casual observer of the game of baseball, here's what I see and say about this whole situation:

Look at the names the Yanks have added over the years--Giambi, Damon, A-Rod. Big names (well, sorta, with Damon), with big bats, right? I think there's been a couple years when the Yankees led the league in homers.

Of course...there IS one drawback to that. Know what usually happens to homer-happy hitters? They may get a lot of homers...but they also usually get a lot of strikeouts as well, which can be counterproductive. And when you have a pitching staff that knows how to neutralize those big bats, one that plays with good, sound defense behind it, I see a recipe for success.

I look at both the 2003 Marlins and this year's Rays as examples--probably because there were many similarities. Back in '03, the Yanks had a good many heavy hitters. No matter, because Josh Beckett was just on another level of insane in that Series. That he also had A.J. Burnett (IIRC) on that staff with him (along with other names I can't remember right now) only added to that equation. IIRC, the Marlins then had a pretty good defense then, too, with Juan Pierre, Miguel Cabrera and them. Lights-out pitching + good defense = wins, in my book. Oh--and then there's this little thing called "small ball" the Marlins seemed to be so good at. But really, it was that pitching staff that shut the Yanks down in '03. Same thing with the Rays this year. I noticed that even though Scott Kazmir was the only name I recognized, they have a real nice pitching staff (here's hoping that David Price really develops into something special), one that, given some tiem together, could really do some damage--if they don't end up breaking up chasing more dollars.

Which kinda leads me into one last thing: someone asked what the Rays had this year? Something called 9=8. Nine players, playing together= playoffs (being that eight teams get in). It was a mentality Joe Maddon instilled in his young club. Play hard, play together. Chemistry, in other words. I look back at '03 when old-ass cigar-puffing Jack McKeon did the same thing with the Marlins--another young club that played hard and did the little things to win. (Shoot...maybe a young team with a glasses-wearing geezer as a skipper might be the recipe for success??? )

But yeah...that's just my outsider view on all this here.

Seem like the Yanks just like to throw money out there and grab up the biggest names they can and rely on star power to carry them. It hasn't worked for about six, seven years now. (Well, it almost did...but not quite.) That's cool, though. I like these little David v Goliath WS matchups that keep occurring...even more so when David slays Goliath. (That's the underdog lover in me.)

[wdm1219inpenna]

Here's my take on it, and I apologize for being so long-winded, and also if someone else mentioned this. I didn't take the time to read through all 6 pages of posts yet, I wanted to make mine before I read the rest.

I too, was once a Yankee fan. From 1974 at the ripe young age of 7, until the spending spree part II began sometime this decade.

The obscene amount of money being spent on more "star" caliber players for the Yankees has completely ruined MLB as a whole. The Red Sox are guilty to a degree as well.

Yes, you can argue that the Yankees haven't won it all in almost a decade, and yes you can argue that they haven't been in the World Series in 5 years either. Baseball does need a salary cap, a salary range if you will. There needs to be a minimum spent on salaries and a maximum cap. By implementing this system, you are just about guaranteed to generate more interest in baseball as a whole.

Why is the NFL so popular? Because practically every team in the league has at least 1 household name. When I say "Chargers" right away most of us think "L.T.". When I say Cowboys, we think "Romo, T.O.", when I say Steelers, we may think "Big Ben, Willie Parker, Troy Polamalu". But when I say "Padres" who do you think of? When I say "Rangers" or "Pirates" who do you think of? I cannot think of anybody on those teams at the present time. Even with the advent of free agency, it's still a league, the NFL this is, where just about every team has at least 1 household name. This contributed to the pitiful ratings of the 2008 World Series. I know a good number of the Phillies players, only because I live near there and hear about them ad nauseum. I didn't know even one Tampa player until the playoffs started. When I saw Evan Longoria, my first thought was "What's a Desperate Housewife doing playing ball?".

Even the Raiders are semi-interesting because of the cryptkeeper Al Davis, and the endless coaching changes. They have JaMarcus Russell, so even a team as pitiful as they have somebody identifiable. I can't name a single A's player. Years ago I could name many players from many baseball teams, now it's just too many teams, too many "deals", and the MLB network to begin in 2009 won't be a draw for me.

Couple this with the last decade of steroid use and abuse, and beloved and cherished records falling, and it being almost meaningless, and baseball really is in trouble. 162 game season, the games hardly get to mean anything until September. In the NFL and college football too, every game really matters.

Then there's the post-season. I understand people work, and aren't able to be home necessarily to watch 1pm or 4pm starts even. I realize a 7pm start for a World Series game, or Heaven forbid a 4pm start for a weekend World Series game can't possibly happen. For games to go until 2:00am EST, and NOBODY gets to watch, and they wonder why their ratings tank more and more?

"Spread the wealth" was a battlecry during the 2008 presidential election. And this "luxury tax" thing won't work because while other teams may get money, they won't use it for players. Going into every season in the NFL, most of the teams have a chance at least at a playoff berth. In MLB, you can already discount at least a dozen teams from making it, even before Spring Training.

If all 30 teams in baseball had some "stars" on their teams, it would generate more interest I believe. By having in essence 3 teams (Yankees, Red Sox, Mets) monopolize all the star names, you won't get many, if any fans, interested in the likes of the Rays, Royals, Brewers, Reds, Nationals, Marlins, Pirates, etc.

Another reason baseball is more boring to me too, and this may seem lame, but after all this is a logos based website, are the uniforms. They are far more drab and boring now. The NFL is far more colorful, and catches one's eye more, although there are certain teams I wish would brighten up their look somewhat.

The NFL is far from perfect, but it's much closer to perfect than MLB. This is just my humble opinion, but again, this outrageous spending spree by the Yankees has truly turned me off from baseball, coupled with 8:50 starts for World Series games, a season that lasts much too long, steroid use, cherished records forever being blemished by cheats.

R.I.P. MLB

[WJMorris3]

No thanks, one major work stoppage is enough for a century or so. No reason to deliberately antagonize the union, unless you just like making trouble.

I have no problem with instituting a salary cap, but it ought to be realistic. You're missing a zero on yours.

But if you make the cap $100M, that's implying a $4M average per ballplayer. No, $10M is realistic. While I don't like the average player making as much as the President, I realize I can't cut it further.

Gotharnite is right. You need to have it at $100M if not higher. With the exception of maybe 7 teams, theres at least one player on the remaing 23 that makes at least $10M over a 2-year span. So $10M would definitly to be small. It would cause yet another strike.

If the players strike, they can easily be replaced.