BY Bo Shek
Tuesday, December 10th. The day is in its final minutes. With the clock nearing midnight, emotionally akin to that of a Cinderella-like drama. Players, fans, and most notably, executives, are reflecting on the second full day of Major League Baseball’s Winter Meetings.
Tuesday saw SS Didi Gregorius reunite with his former manager Joe Girardi in Philadelphia. The Angels trade SS/3B Zack Cozart, a player entering the second year of a three-year deal he signed prior to 2019, to the San Francisco Giants where he’ll likely assume playing time as their new third basemen. Recently released Kevin Gausman also took his talents to San Francisco – inking a one-year/$9M deal. The Chicago White Sox, a team on the up-and-up, made a move to bolster the middle of their lineup, acquiring Rangers’ OF’er Nomar Mazara.
But none of these moves, as much as we love the press releases, drew as much a reaction as would one name; and that one name would set the sports world ablaze when it was announced by MLB Insider Jon Heyman, at 11:56 p.m., that Gerrit Cole was a Yankee.
The contract, as reported, read for 9-years, and a record $324M.
As a Yankee fan, I’m ecstatic. However, I cannot pretend to ignore a prevalent issue I have with free agency.
Only three teams were in talks with one of the most coveted free agents in recent memory. These teams, unsurprisingly, came from cities with area codes of 212 (the Bronx, NYC), and 310 (Los Angeles).
90% of the league was just priced out. In fact, Cole’s deal of 324 million is more than 18 teams generated in 2018.
This, to many, represents a huge problem that persists in baseball. The Cubs and Astros, who play in the big markets of Houston and Chicago, show the league that a three-year total tank job is the way to win. Now the MLB has half their teams making no attempt to upgrade. And most teams can’t compete in free agency anyways.
As an ardent fan and observer of the sports, this leads me to pose the question; how does a fan retain an interest in their team is working, “temporarily”, to be irrelevant on purpose. To be fair, for small markets, tanking appears to be the only chance they have to build a sustainable model for success.
The yells about MLB working to create a soft luxury cap to punish the spenders have some legs. However, rich teams are not spending as much as they would. Therefore, all you’re really punishing is the players. The Red Sox and Cubs, both big market teams, have been competitive the last couple of years, and now they’re selling off.
Now, we have big markets not being as competitive as they should, given their lack of spending, and with fewer teams competing, this reads as terrible for baseball.
After the 2017 season, the Miami Marlins, who had the reigning NL MVP in Giancarlo Stanton coming off a 59-home run season, traded off all their big-name players, including Stanton and next year’s MVP Christian Yelich. They have no chance of being relevant until 2023, which constitutes as tanking under the current rules, tells us that Jeter is doing the right thing. Why try to settle for 80-wins while spending 120 million on contracts. Tank, save money, spend that money when the team is good or making progress.
So I present to you a crazy out-of-the-box idea.
This, a mere quandary will give small-market teams a chance to compete on a yearly basis. Hopefully, that will help keep baseball relevant all over our country and help grow the beautiful sport.
This idea has flaws – particularly travel – but in my estimation, the pros outweigh the cons.
- Make the divisions in baseball off of team revenue of the past 5 years. How they’d currently look given the recent trends in spending for each team, are listed below.
| AL1 | NL1 |
| Yankees | Dodgers |
| Red Sox | Giants |
| Astros | Cubs |
| Angels | Cardinals |
| Rangers | Braves |
| AL2 | NL2 |
| Mariners | Phillies |
| Indians | Mets |
| Tigers | Nationals |
| White Sox | Rockies |
| Twins | Brewers |
| AL3 | NL3 |
| Blue Jays | Padres |
| Orioles | Reds |
| Royals | Diamondbacks |
| Rays | Pirates |
| A’s | Marlins |
With these new divisions, small markets only have to compete with other small markets. Smaller market teams such as the A’s and the Rays, who manage to remain competitive despite their payroll limitations, get rewarded and are able to stay good for very long. Teams like the Orioles and Marlins can sign a free agent or two and possibly even make the playoffs.
We know the Yankees can spend big, but under these circumstances, they would be competing in the same division as the other big spenders.
Revenues fluctuate given a team’s needs, so, as suggested, according to this model, a reshaping of the divisions would occur.
So Gerrit Cole signs with the Yankees. Who suffers? Only the other big market teams in this case…
