Are the Small Market Teams Worried?

Major League Baseball has a big season and a big year ahead of them in 2016. Not only do they have the regular season, postseason and World Series but they also have a collective bargaining agreement that is set to expire after the season. MLB has enjoyed baseball every year without a work stoppage since the 1994 season that saw the World Series cancelled and teams like the New York Yankees and Montreal Expos wondering what could have been and the league intends to keep it that way if they can. You’re not going to get five people to agree on the same thing let alone 30 MLB team’s so finding a common ground is going to benefit some and take from others, that’s the business of things, but are the New York Yankees making the small market teams begin to worry yet?

In 2015 a record four teams paid into the luxury tax including about $70 million paid by the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees. The other two teams, the San Francisco Giants and the Boston Red Sox, paid just $3.1 million combined last season. With the Yankees newfound plan to use their farm system, to acquire cheap and young controllable talent and their plan to get under the luxury tax threshold (for real this time) are teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Tampa Bay Rays beginning to sweat a little?

The Yankees have paid the most in luxury tax since its inception and it’s not even close. The team has also paid in every single year since its inception adding a few dollars to teams like the Miami Marlins, Pittsburgh Pirates and others. How would these organizations look and run if that money were no longer there? I bring up the new collective bargaining agreement because things like the luxury tax and whether to raise it, stiffen the penalties or leave it alone will be discussed among other things. If the luxury tax is raised making it easier for teams like the Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox and Giants to get under the cap what do the small market teams do?

Pittsburgh won’t be able to keep Andrew McCutchen unless they gut the team and/or he gives the organization a steep discount while the Rays, Indians and other teams will not be able to hold onto their young starting pitching. The pendulum will sway away from the smaller market teams once again and the larger market teams will once again have the financial power to do as they please and dictate the standings, the free agency market and other areas. The “Get Greedy” era will return and that in itself is a great thing for us Yankees fans.