How the New Salary Cap Would Kill Baseball in Cleveland...
Updated: Sep 25
Now there wasn't enough room on the headline, but it should read: How the New Salary Cap Would Kill Baseball in Cleveland, Minneapolis, Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, and Miami.
But since Beacon of Speech is based just outside of Cleveland, we're going to start there.
According to Spotrac, these are the bottom 10 teams in payroll:
Year in and year out, the Guardians challenge for the playoffs while having a bottom 5 payroll in Major League Baseball. And every year, for the last generation, the team whines about how hard it is for a small market team to compete in the sport without a salary cap.
But, all of a sudden, in 2024, there was real traction for a salary cap in baseball. What happened? The Los Angeles Dodgers spent over a billion dollars in deferred salaries and even traditionally rich teams like the Yankees, Mets, Phillies, and Angels howled at the unfairness of the system.
Now there's a proposal of setting a salary cap in baseball at about $250 million dollars. In theory, a high cap seems fair....
Until you read the fine print.
29 of 30 teams (except the Dodgers) agreed that deferred money has to either be stopped or greatly reduced. There appears to be a consensus on that point and that has also been tied into the Salary Cap Proposal. What's not been well publicized is that there's a Salary Floor.
The Salary Floor would be $171 million. Why would that be a problem? The Cleveland Indians/Guardians have never spent over $135 million on salaries in their history.
Now listen, the Guardians wouldn't fold, the last major league sports team in the "Big Four"(football, baseball, hockey, basketball) to simply go defunct was the Cleveland Barons in the NHL back in 1978. But there has been all kinds of franchise movement in North America since then.
As soon as a salary floor is ratified, Paul Dolan will announce the sale of the Guardians to the minority owner, David Blitzer. Billionaire Blitzer, with absolutely no ties to Northeast Ohio, already has an option to buy the team in 2028. Blitzer will not keep the team in Cleveland if he has to spend $100 million more a year in salaries, that's an additional billion to players in the next decade (at minimum).
Right now, the Guardians are worth around $1.5 billion. Paul's Dad, Larry Dolan, bought the Indians for $325 million back in the year 2000. How will it taste for Cleveland Fans if Dolan makes a billion dollars off of the baseball team, then Blitzer moves the team to Nashville? Baseball cannot continue to exist in Cleveland unless Blitzer is willing to absorb huge financial losses. The Dolans were very upfront that the Guardians were a business and their goal was to make money at the end of every year.
I am specifically singling out Cleveland here, but the Minnesota Twins nearly folded after the 2001 season. Miami and Tampa and are traditionally 2 of the worst teams in MLB when it comes to attendance. The Pittsburgh Pirates have struggled in nearly all areas of baseball operations over the last 20 years. It is entirely feasible that if a Salary Floor is installed, up to 6 MLB teams could change cities. What would generate new revenues for the teams above? New stadiums or new eyeballs. Baseball wants owners worth billions to throw their money into a giant hole like they do in England's Premier League. Without a promotion/relegation model, it is hard to attract new suckers---
I mean investors.
Now either Miami or Tampa could end up in Orlando, but Portland, Raleigh, Salt Lake City, and Nashville are all aggressively looking for an MLB team. Would Austin or Oklahoma City look appealing to the Twins' Pohlad Family?
Las Vegas has already poached the Oakland A's, I think one of the unspoken aims of the new Salary Cap Proposal is to weed out small-market owners that traditionally don't spend money. It appears the Middle Class owners are as sick of the Dolans and the Pohlads as much as they're aggravated with the Dodgers' Ownership Group.
Now you say that all of this hand-wringing is for naught, you agree with Jeff Passan that there's a 0% percent chance that the Cap/Floor Proposal is ratified by owners?
I think there is a real fear from MLB owners that the sport needs to fundamentally change its foundation. The NFL is more popular than ever, College Football is expanding their footprint, and the NBA is perceived as America's second most popular sport.
But the wake up call for baseball was seemingly when the WNBA started to beat MLB games, head-to-head, in some markets over the summer. Major League Baseball should OWN summer ratings, not be in a horse race with a league that drives its ratings with drama and Jason Whitlock's style of Race-Baiting.
Our angle is that the owners are itching for a fight, but not with the players, with each other.
You know what though? A MLB Owners War would drive drama to the sport that other sports entities seem to thrive on.
I am not kidding, I am not using hyperbole.
I grew up loving the Cleveland Indians.
I went from loving the Indians to liking the Indians when baseball went on strike and cancelled the World Series in 1994.
I went from liking the Indians to being annoyed with the Indians when they changed their mascot and changed their nickname.
If Dolan sells the team, makes a billion dollars profit, then the team moves to Nashville (or anywhere outside of Ohio), I will find Paul Dolan....
And I will fight him.
Comments