LogFAQs > #911021556

So, I'm late to this, but I want to voice my opinion on the whole salary cap thing.

I would argue that the main benefit of a salary cap isn't that you get competitive balance immediately, it's that you get competitive balance in the long term. The idea of the cap is so that it rewards timing hitting your draft picks with the talent you can acquire with your other cap space in order to be a complete team. You aren't supposed to be able to break away from the pack any given year unless you:

A) Are utilizing players who are vastly underpaid, either willingly, or because they're either on their rookie contract and/or are having a breakout-type year when their previous performance hasn't warranted that kind of money.
B) Spend out the wazoo on free agents/renegotiated or renewed contracts

Once you hit that state of being, where you're one of the best teams in the league in all aspects of the game, you only have a couple of years, if that even, before those players who are in category A start clashing with those in category B. The cap is supposed to prevent a team from being able to be consistently good on both sides of the ball just by spending money, there's just not enough to go around. This year's Rams spent like crazy this offseason, but you know when it's going to start hurting? When Goff and Gurley, who are Category A players, have to get paid. The Ravens won a superbowl, and you know what caused their downfall? Paying Joe Flacco. If a team is consistently good, like the patriots, it's because when it comes time for those A players to become B players, they have already found new A players to replace the old ones. Yes, Tom Brady helps, but if what we saw with Peyton Manning in Indy a few years back is any indication, you cannot be one of the best with literally no one around you. There has to be some action on the front office to fill those gaps, and some teams simply do it better than others.

In terms of the yankees, as has been mentioned, they actually cut spending this year. For the most part they rode young guys like gleyber torres, aaron judge, and luke voit to success this year. A salary cap would help to curb the Yankees success in the long run, but it would do little to nothing to impede them this year or the next couple of years, it's when those guys need to get paid as well when they start hitting a roadblock.

I think it's really easy to look at the big market teams and go "lolbribing their way to victory yet again" when in some cases it's just not true. Of course, in some cases sure, there's that history with those big names like the yankees and the dodgers that can attract players, or a case like tom brady and the patriots, then those can grant certain situational advantages that other teams don't have, but they do not make up 100% of why that team is successful, this year's yankees being a prime example.

With all this being said, I would still be in favor of a salary cap for baseball.
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