Salary Cap question. I have never followed MLB so forgive my ignorance

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I'm not trying to be a dictator or anything, but it seems like a great deal of parity would be added to the sport if you didn't have a handful of teams that could just buy whoever they wanted while others can't.

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Meh, yes and no.

The Cardinals are considered a small market team, and are a top franchise in baseball with a Top 10 payroll.

MLB participates in a luxury tax which then gets divided among the bottom tier of teams to share. It is a percentage of a teams salary over 162 million, like in 2009 when Yankees brought in CC, Tex, etc the Yankees had a team salary of 226.2 million and paid 25.69 million in luxury tax.

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small market type teams have to seemingly pinch every penny.

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This really isn't the case, the owners are multi billionaires with Minnesota Twins owner at one point being the richest MLB owner. A lot of the difference does come into play with media markets and television contracts but also teams willing to put those profits back into the team rather than pocketing them.

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but it seems like a great deal of parity would be added to the sport if you didn't have a handful of teams that could just buy whoever they wanted while others can't.

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Looking back at the past 10 years of Super Bowls and World Series, both the NFL and MLB have seen the exact same number of teams -- 14 -- compete for the ultimate prize. The Patriots (four appearances) and Steelers (three) have set the standard in the NFL, and the Colts have appeared twice. Meanwhile, the Yankees (three), Giants (two), Phillies (two), Red Sox (two) and Cardinals (two) are all repeat attendees in MLB.

(The NBA, for the record, is barely worth mentioning in any discussion of parity. Over the past three decades, only eight different teams have won an NBA title. Compare that with MLB, where eight different teams have won the title in the past nine years.)

Continuing with the championship discussion, consider this: The Super Bowl has been held since 1967 and has had 18 different winners. Pretty panoptic, right?

Well, no fewer than 20 teams have won a World Series title in that same time period (and there wasn't a World Series held in 1994).

Since 1995, MLB's first year utilizing the Wild Card, 27 of the 30 teams (the D-backs and Rays joined in '98 and have both since reached the World Series) have made it to October. In the NFL, in that same time frame, only one team -- the Houston Texans, who formed in 2002 -- has failed to reach the playoffs.
In the past five years, that gap has been erased. The NFL has seen 24 of its 32 teams reach the playoffs since 2006, or 75 percent. In that same timeframe, MLB has seen 22 of its 30 teams make it to October, or 73.3 percent. As Jayson Stark of ESPN.com recently noted, only 15 of baseball's 40 playoff teams (or 37.5 percent) in that five-year span had reached the playoffs the year before. Compare that with the NFL, which saw 29 of its 60 playoff teams (or 48.3 percent) repeat.

Over the last 15 years, 120 postseason slots have been available in baseball, and 61 teams (50.8 percent) have made a back-to-back appearance in the postseason. The NFL's percentage of repeat postseason entries in that same timeframe is nearly identical. Of the 180 available playoff spots, 90 (50 percent) have gone to teams that returned to the playoffs in consecutive years.

As baseball has gotten younger in recent years, its competitive balance has improved. Eleven of the last 12 World Series clubs have gone to different clubs, and only two of the top nine clubs in terms of Opening Day payroll in 2010 reached the postseason last year. Three teams from the bottom 12 in player payroll (the Reds, Rays and Rangers) advanced to October.

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How is there such a disparity between what teams can spend?

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some teams make more money than others and can spend more but like Baloo said, some teams manage to commit so much money to some players, that it leaves holes in their team overall

MLB also doesnt have rookies making millions of dollars, so teams can keep their young star players longer

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know some teams have no salary cap

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there is no salary cap in mlb. there is a tax for paying over a certain amt.

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while other small market type teams have to seemingly pinch every penny. Why is that? How is there such a disparity between what teams can spend? Do the larger cap teams like NY just get more natural revenue from tickets, TV, concessions, merchandise, etc? Where does the money come from?

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most of the revenue difference comes from LOCAL media rights. nyc charges a hell of a lot more than kansas city becuase the audience is much larger and the product is more popular. ditto with ticket prices and merchandise. the difference is media rights cost is astounding; about 10 years ago i read where the houston astros was about 10 mil/yr where the yankees was about 10x larger. that is super significant.

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but the small playoff field and long 162 season make it nearly impossible for a mediocre team to make the playoffs and get hot. They get eliminated in August. Really, outside of the Yankees, which is a big exception, there is tremendous parity in baseball. And the Yankees usually find a way to screw it up except for that 1996-2000 dynasty.

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Well, it depends on your definition of mediocre really, but I'd say adding the second wildcard will definitely make for some pretty average teams getting in (by baseball standards anyway). Certainly not as many crap teams as get in with the NFL/NHL/NBA mind you, I'll give you that.

And the Yanks are the big example, but outside of maybe 2-3 years the Red Sox or Yanks have won their division in the past 12-13 years, and the loser of the division of those two has been the wild card about half the time.

The main advantage of the high salary clubs is maintaining consistency, it's nearly impossible for any small-mid market teams to stay at the top for any extended time, even if they are run very well.

We'll see how things shake out in the coming years with both LA teams getting huge tv deals and joining the Yanks and Sox in the high salary club. Though the Dodgers have been mimicing the Yanks with retarded moves so they may sink themselves.

If MLB ever did put in a salary cap they would need a salary floor as well, since way too many owners are just pocketing the shared money.

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Though the Dodgers have been mimicing the Yanks with retarded moves so they may sink themselves.

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Dodgers payroll is 220 million and growing for next season.... Yankees currently at 180-185 million for upcoming season

Here is an article from September prior to many FA signings and arbitration

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2013 Payroll Commitments
By Ben Nicholson-Smith [September 4, 2012 at 10:00am CST]
While teams like the Dodgers and Yankees have already committed to nine-figure payrolls in 2013, others have less than $15MM committed to the '13 roster. Cot’s Baseball Contracts has compiled each team’s payroll obligations for 2013. Here's the list, starting with the largest commitments:

Dodgers, $193.8MM
Phillies, $133.1MM
Yankees, $119.1MM
Cardinals, $92.8MM
Angels, $92.3MM
Tigers, $90.2MM
Rangers, $84.4MM
White Sox, $83.3MM
Giants, $81.0MM
Reds, $74.1MM
Twins, $68.3MM
Marlins, $67.5MM
Blue Jays, $61.3MM
Nationals, $58.6MM
Diamondbacks, $55.0MM
Mets, $54.5MM
Orioles, $53.2MM
Brewers, $52.4MM
Rockies, $46.5MM
Red Sox, $45.6MM
Cubs, $41.8MM
Mariners, $40.5MM
Royals, $34.9MM
Pirates, $27.9MM
Padres, $26.0MM
Athletics, $23.0MM
Rays, $18.6MM
Braves, $15.2MM
Indians, $11MM
Astros, $5.5MM

Read more at LINK

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ers payroll is 220 million and growing for next season....

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I read that the Dodgers will set the all time mark for payroll next season. By the end of next season the Dodgers will likely have 7 players who will be owed 3/4 of a billion dollars.