Will baseball always allow the richest teams to buy their wins, or will it ever…

Well, the Astros are 6th in payroll. And if you took out Justin Verlander’s salary (since he had Tommy John surgery and has been out for 2 seasons), they would have the 13th highest payroll.

The Braves are 15th.

The Dodgers, however, are the big spenders with the #1 payroll.

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1.Los Angeles Dodgers $194,839,000
2.New York Yankees $179,040,714
3.New York Mets $166,904,168
4.Los Angeles Angels $162,193,094
5.San Diego Padres $153,220,000
6.Houston Astros $150,300,833
7.Boston Red Sox $147,870,000
8.Washington Nationals $147,841,575
9.Philadelphia Phillies $139,665,962
10.San Francisco Giants $137,222,777
11.Colorado Rockies $129,513,333
12.Chicago Cubs $128,140,000
13.Chicago White Sox $120,454,166
14.St. Louis Cardinals $118,079,166
15.Atlanta Braves $112,759,375

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I'd say it's relatively even as is. 7 of the top 15 teams didn't make the playoffs.

The only thing that would likely ever be done to even it out is to have a salary cap, and I want no part of that. Something I always thought would at least be a better solution than the NFL Salary cap is to put a limit on how much you can spend on free agents from outside your organization. In other words, if you have a home grown player that you drafted and developed, you can freely negotiate a contract with him, with no restrictions other than your on budget constraints. The player would still have the freedom to elect to sign elsewhere, but other teams who sign him would take a cap hit.

This would reward teams for building from within, and curtail the monopolization of the free agent market by teams like the Dodgers and Yankees.

But that would probably never be approved by the players union, because that would ultimately drive down the salaries of players, with the big spending teams unable to inflate the market as much.

MLB has plenty of parity as the top spending teams don't always win or make the playoffs. Hell those with the highest payrolls usually comes from RESIGNING their own players and not grabbing every FA.

Yankees splurged on Cole but who else has been a big FA additions recently? DJ the Yankees got on a deal, Kluber was 10m these were players anyone could get. Same for the Dodgers their big move was Trevor Bauer, everything else was a trade and resigning.

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MLB has plenty of parity as the top spending teams don't always win or make the playoffs. Hell those with the highest payrolls usually comes from RESIGNING their own players and not grabbing every FA.

Yankees splurged on Cole but who else has been a big FA additions recently? DJ the Yankees got on a deal, Kluber was 10m these were players anyone could get. Same for the Dodgers their big move was Trevor Bauer, everything else was a trade and resigning.

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They also have Stanton's enormous contract, who they did not draft or develop. It's not a free agent acquisition, but it's still someone they were able to acquire, because they can afford his massive contract along with all the others they already have.

I'm not looking for parity, to be clear. That's why I don't really like caps. I don't like the fact that teams can monopolize the market, but I recognize that it's just the way it is. My idea was what I think would work best IF MLB ever decided to do something about it.

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How are the Astros always good


But the Rangers always suck

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The Astros have not always been good. They were bad for about a decade before their current run. They drafted and developed well. That's how you do it the right way. Same with the Braves and Rays. If you have a low payroll, you have to be good at scouting and development. It's much easier when you can throw a bunch of money at known commodities. At least the Dodgers do scout and draft well. It seems like the Yankees are hit or miss with that, but they stay relevant by going out and signing guys that most teams in the league can't afford.

As for the Rangers. I think they have a hard time selling themselves when all they ever do is lose. They can't get out of their own way.

They were willing to accept but so were other team's, remember he refused a previous trade to the Cardinals because he wanted to go to "his" place. Which I'm not a fan of that type of move

A lot of teams claim to be "poor" and just take in money. The Padres and Pirates got in trouble for this a few years ago. They kept payroll around 50-60m and raked in tens of millions from other team's that went over the threshold.

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Ok do the same for all the other teams with injured or suspended players

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I’m not positive, but I doubt it is common that the highest paid player on your payroll misses two complete seasons and is likely to never play for the organization again.