In my previous blog I mentioned that I was (am) a Yankees fan. I have been hated for it, insulted for it, and even worked at a place where I would be fired if I had shown up to work wearing any Yankees memorabilia. I am not a poor, suffering Yankees fan. There are no poor, suffering Yankees fans. We enjoy the most successful team in sports history.
I am going to defend the Yankees and Major League Baseball. Currently, MLB has no salary cap. There are a lot of people calling for one. They say it will be good for baseball and parity within the sport. Bearing in mind that the two other major U.S. sports are in a current work stoppage and the one Canadian sport had a work stoppage that ate a season a couple of years ago, maybe a salary cap is not the be all end all of helping sports, since that is one of the issues that has led to the lockouts/strikes. Baseball had a strike shortened season in 94-95. Ken Griffey, Jr. was the biggest casualty of that strike, but more on that later. In the time between the baseball strike and now, the NBA has had two lockouts. The NFL has the current lockout. The NHL has had the aforementioned strike.
Now, onto the meat and potatoes of salary caps and parity. Salary caps do not lead to parity. Look at the last decade of sports. The NBA has a salary cap. In the last decade or so(2000-2010), here are your NBA champions: Lakers Lakers Lakers Spurs Pistons Spurs Heat Spurs Celtics Lakers Lakers. This is parity? Of the eleven champion teams, five of them are Lakers, three Spurs, and three other teams. The 1990s had even less parity thanks to MJ and company.
The NFL's salary cap doesn't bring parity, either. What makes the NFL's teams' successes fluctuate more than baseball is that the right front office with the right draft picks can make a huge difference from season to season. However, once that right front office is found, there is very little fluctuation. Take Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots. The man drafts like a genius and has the most competitive team in the past decade. Rookies can make a huge impact in the game quickly. Look at what Indianapolis was the season before and the season after they drafted Edgerrin James. In the NFL, one player can make a difference, but there usually needs to be three to make any serious run at a championship. The QB, RB, WR trifecta is usually how these triplets work. Others build on the DL, LB, DB trifecta and just hope that their offense scores once, since once is usually enough with a lockdown D.
The point to all of that is that it is the players of the NFL that lend it parity. It is the management/coaching of these players that makes different teams contenders from year to year. The salary cap has nothing to do with that. Knowledgeable scouts and coaches create dynasties, or at least win championships. Moving these people around creates parity. Getting them to stay in one place (Belichick) for a long period of time creates dynasty.
In baseball, the draft doesn't have the impact that it does in the NBA or NFL. It takes two or three really good drafts to change a team in the NFL. It takes one right lottery pick to change a team in the NBA. This isn't salary cap, it is the way the draft is supposed to work. In MLB the draft doesn't have the impact because it is a draft right out of high school (which the other two sports no longer do) and college. Even after being drafted, players go through the farm system (the minors) before they even get playing time on a major league team. There are very very few exceptions (John Olerud being one who never played in the minors until the end of his career). Jeter was drafted in 1993 and didn't see consistent playing time in the majors untill 1996.
The slow developing new classes and longevity of current stars (see previous post on Jeter) makes baseball the slowest of the three major sports for turnover (insert joke on the slow pace of the game, as well, here). This is why there are teams that are dominant for long periods of time. However, if you bank on pitching (I'm looking at you, Philly), you'll be dominant for a shorter amount of time as pitchers rise and fall quicker than other position players, even if they only play every six days or so. The pitcher is the running back of MLB. Now that the steroid era is hopefully behind us, we won't see the pitching longevity as common as it has been. See: Clemens, Pettite (sniffle, how could you?). Legitimate long careers like Randy Johnson and any Braves 1-3 starter from the early 90s are few enough, and Tommy John surgery still doesn't guarantee a complete (or otherwise) comeback.
Every year, the Yankees are competitive. Every year they vie for the top spot in the toughest division. Yes, they throw more money around than other teams. They also contribute the most in the profit sharing. Look at the cellar dwellers: Kansas City (notorious for being skinflints); Pittsburgh (hate to break it to you, but their farm system has developed this year, they're one game out of first in their division and they're chasing St. Louis); Houston (contenders a few years ago, but they banked on pitching); Oakland (see Houston). With the exception of Kansas City (Thank you, Steinbrenner, for the money influx, we'll just keep that for ourselves instead of investing in making our team better), they were once recent contenders (Pittsburgh has spent a long time out of the playoffs, but seems to be making a mid-season run). If you accuse the Yankees of buying championships, then Steinbrenner and co. should probably get their money back, considering they've only won one championship in the last ten years (arigato, Matsui-san).
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