PAY-ROD: In Rodriguez, the Yankees field the sport's highest-paid player
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This is the type of story that gets Yankee fans’ blood boiling. They thoroughly resent it any time someone brings up the accusation that their favorite team is annually trying to “buy” a world championship. Since 1998, the Yankees have indeed had the highest payroll of any team in Major League Baseball, and they’ve managed to win four world championships during that time. One could, then, postulate that the best-paid team ultimately became the best team on the field in 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000.What about all those other years? We’ll get to that.
In the meantime, let’s get down to those Pinstriper fans’ concerns. Their primary point is paramount: there is no salary cap in baseball, so there is no breaking of the rules going on. The fact is that any of the 29 other MLB teams could do exactly the same thing — or spend more — than the Yankees annually do. The fact that those other teams don’t, or can’t, spend as much is the underlying reason why such animosity has been directed toward Boss George Steinbrenner’s free-spending ways.
The Yankees have indeed made their organization a very appealing place for a major-leaguer to want to ply his trade, although there is a bit of a chicken-and-egg question going on here: is New York a great place to play because it’s a great team and a comfortable environment, or has Yankee Stadium become an appealing spot because all the best players go there — because the team can offer its players more money than practically anywhere else? If the latter is the case, then it’s no wonder why the franchise can offer such luxuries as All-Stars and potential Hall-of-Famers manning nearly every position.
Why don’t other teams spend as much as the Yankees? Some do, but even the second– (Boston, at $120.09 million), third– (the Angels, at $103.47 million), and fourth-place (the defending champion White Sox) teams in term of 2006 payrolls are still well over $70 million shy of the $194.66 million that the Yankees are paying their roster this season. After all, the differential between number-one and number-two on the list — nearly $75 million — is itself more than 16 teams are paying their entire teams this season.
Now we’ll be the first to admit that the Marlins, who were World Series champions just two-and-a-half years ago, should not have dismantled their roster this past off-season, whittling their payroll down to a paltry $15 million in the process. And the other Florida franchise, the Devil Rays, should not still be collecting huge revenue-sharing and luxury-tax bounties each year while fielding only a $35-million team. The Rockies ($41m), Pirates ($46m), and Royals ($47m) also should be spending a lot more on talent than they are now if they want to legitimately remain viable Major League Baseball franchises. Not surprisingly, all four of those aforementioned teams are very familiar with the coziness of their respective divisions cellars in recent years. (Although it’s worth noting that the Indians, who nearly snared last year’s wild-card berth last year en route to a 93-win season, competed at a very high level despite a very modest $41-million payroll.)
But let’s admit it: no owner other than Steinbrenner has deep enough pockets to afford the team’s enormous payroll itself, plus the nearly $80 million that the team must forfeit in revenue-sharing/luxury-tax penalties, and no other team has radio/TV deals that net the organization nearly $100 million annually. Whether it’s poor marketing by the other teams or simple geographic market shares and interest, it’s not off-base to stipulate that few other clubs can reasonably compete with the Yankees in those areas (the Mets and Dodgers would seem to be notable exceptions).
So the Yankees franchise is not breaking any rules, and is merely adhering to the stipulations and absence of restrictions that are part of Major League Baseball’s M.O. Nothing wrong with that, right?
And the fact that the Yankees haven’t won a world championship this decade means that buying a championship is more a pipe dream than reality, right?
Well, as long as Commissioner Bud Selig and the grand poobahs of baseball resist the temptation to implement a salary cap of some sort — and note that MLB is the only one of the five major sports in the US (including Major League Soccer) that doesn’t employ one — then the Yankees are free to do as they want. It’s apparently in the organization’s best interest, and its fans’.
But when a baseball fan from say, Kansas City, looks at the Yankees’ starting lineup on a given night when the Pinstripers are in town and sees this:
1B: Jason Giambi ($20.42 million salary this season);
2B: Robinson Cano ($381,000);
3B: Alex Rodriguez ($21.68 million);
SS: Derek Jeter ($20.6 million)
— and realizes that those four players in the Yankee infield alone are earning $63.09 million, while the Royals’ entire team is paid $16 million less than that figure, well, you know as a Royals fan that your team’s at a competitive disadvantage right off the bat.
