Impossible is nothing

Ben Godar

Forget this steroid witch-hunt – the biggest threat to the integrity of The Game is still the payroll gap. For years, most baseball writers have acted like it’s not there. Now, some of them actually want to convince us that it’s gone.

It ain’t.

Robert Falkoff guesses that simply because there hasn’t been a repeat champion since 2000, competitive balance is restored. Sure, the last five years haven’t been a repeat of the five previous, when the New York Yankees won four World Series, two Super Bowls and a Stanley Cup. But the gaping hole in Falkoff’s argument opens when even he acknowledges it is still "unrealistic for teams in the lower third of the salary scale to think about hoisting a trophy."

If ANY team starts the season with no realistic hope of winning because of their payroll, the system is flawed – no matter the success of the Marlins or Astros.

A recent feature article in Baseball Weekly went down a similar road, assembling a hypothetical roster of studs for the league’s average salary. It was a fun little exercise, but it has less to do with reality than The Bachelor in Paris. Even with psychic powers to predict player development, no GM could assemble this All-Discount Team. Most of the true values are players too young for free agency and too good for arbitration to catch up. These players, think Victor Martinez or Carlos Zambrano, are exactly the gems that teams who really work within a budget are nearly powerless to keep from cashing out.

What both articles and a growing number of fans ignore is that just because it is hypothetically possible for a lower payroll team to contend doesn’t mean there is parity. Sure, a great GM can do more with less, and George Steinbrenner can certainly do less with more. But unequal resources mean the winner is determined by more than just what happens on the field.

A much more relevant Baseball Weekly article assembled the best team for each franchise made up of current Major Leaguers who came through their system. A few surprising teams, like Hypothetical Kansas City, looked tougher than several real-life contenders. You can chalk a few of the departed up to mismanagement, but the real story is utter lack of cash.

There’s some evidence that the luxury tax is starting to put a drag on the Yankees, but baseball needs more than a slap on the wrist. Until the league enforces a salary cap and a salary minimum, the hopes of a Championship in most small market towns is just a hypothetical fantasy.