The Festo - The Yankees Don't Need a Gift Receipt for Their Christmas Present

How does it happen every year? It becoming annoying to say the least, but the New York Yankees have once again dug deep into their wallets and signed the biggest free agents of the year. This time it's been to the tune of more than 400 MILLION DOLLARS!!!!!! And this is for just three players.

Let's see: their major problem last year was pitching. Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina held their own, but Wang was hurt, they were aging, Pettite was going to be a free agent, and Mussina just happened to retire in the off-season. So, what do you do? First, give A.J. Burnett a call. He'll listen. Tell him you're ready to give him 5 years and 82 million, and he'll drop the phone and collapse. Let's face it: he's a middle-of-the-road pitcher who's had injury problems for literally the entirety of his career. But he was a markee name in the mix because of his first truly stellar performance with the Blue Jays last year.
So, that's one minor solution to the problem. The major solution: C.C. Sabathia, the Cy Young caliber pitcher recently of the Brewers and Indians. He had a monster second half of the year with the Brewers, so much so that although he started horrendously, he still garnered some NL MVP consideration. So, offer him the biggest pitching contract in MLB history. 7 years and 161 Million. No big deal, right? Just pocket change. That makes two big name pitchers to alleviate their woes from the mound. And they still have Wang coming back healthy and the option to sign Pettitte again. Joba Chamberlain can move back to the bullpen, and this team will have the filthiest rotation in the league.

From there, you may say that the Yankees' bats were a bit weak last year. I wouldn't necessarily, but maybe their upper management would. So, they go looking for a new bat. Not Mark Teixeira, though, because he was being pursued by the Red Sox, Angels, and Nationals, among others. Well, guess what? Everyone was wrong. Teixeira sat back and watched for weeks as teams offered him contracts of up to 160 million. The greedy bastard that he was waited on it, and sure enough, when it seemed as though no one was interested, the Yankees swooped in and offered him 20 million more than that 160. Yup. 8 years and 180 million. It's absurd.
For the two or three weeks prior, the Red Sox were the consensus frontrunners, but when Teixeira threw their 160 million back in their face, they pulled away. Then came the Angels, who offered a very similar hefty chunk of change but were denied. They pulled away also. The Orioles and Nationals, who were willing to dish out some serious cash as well, just never seemed like they would snag him anyway. So, it was the Yankees, who seemingly always use their power of green to win over their players, and in the course of about two and a half weeks, they managed to sign three of the biggest free agents in the market at a price of 420 million. And now, they're targeting Derek Lowe and Manny Ramirez, the two other big free agents this year.

The crux of the matter here is the lack of the salary cap. Every other major sport has one. And every other major sport is that much more competitive. The Major League has easily become the most top-heavy of them all, with only five to ten teams having a legitimate chance at winning the World Series each year. Some would argue the opposite, citing the Tampa Bay Rays of last year or the Florida Marlins of years past, but consider this: the Rays have loads of young talent. Everyone knows that. They also only have a 40 million dollar payroll each year. So, what happens when those young, talented players' contracts expire? Teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, or Mets will swoop in and scoop them up with lucrative contracts. The system is inherently flawed.

We saw the same thing happen with the World Series Marlins, who shipped off all of their markee players in the following two years. The MLB has no parody whatsoever, and it hurts no one but the fans. What's exciting about seeing the Yankees in the World Series nine out of ten times? Nothing. What's exciting about seeing the same teams in the playoffs every year? Nothing. What's exciting about watching as money and greed take over the sport instead of hard work and loyalty. Nothing. And this is coming from a Red Sox fan, who has watched his team use this system of no salary cap to perfection. But as a fan of baseball as a whole, these recent events have truly made me nauseous.

A potential solution would undoubtedly be a salary ceiling and floor. Say 120 Million and 60 Million just to inject some parody in the league. When stars are only going to one of a possible three or five teams, the league goes stale. A plan like this would eliminate that possibility and showcase some smaller market teams to the U.S. Because now, those small market teams are hurting terribly. If I'm a Pittsburgh Pirates fan or season ticket holder, where's my incentive to continue paying for the tickets? The Pirates aren't competitive every year, and most of us know how difficult it is to root for a bad home team. The MLB needs to implement some legislation to fix this problem. Otherwise, we're going to end up where the league started: with a few marketable teams left and an interest level that is solely attributable to the region in which you live.