MLB Players and Their Big Money: Right or Wrong?

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Major League Baseball players are the highest paid athletes in the world and it’s no secret. Over the past few years, there have been some enormous contracts signed by MLB All- Stars all around the league. Some argue that they make too much, some that they don’t do enough to make that much money and some even say that baseball is too boring and pointless to be dishing over millions without batting an eye. The fact of the matter is, baseball players are some of the best athletes in the world and work hard for their money. Do they make too much? Maybe they do and maybe they don’t. But let’s be honest, I don’t think any pro is complaining.

In baseball, there is no salary cap like the other popular sports, but there is a luxury tax which is way different. In the NBA there are severe restrictions on adding new players when your team’s collective salary is at $58m, and shortly thereafter results in a dollar for dollar tax. In football the number is $120m but the restrictions are far more severe, making it basically impossible to add players after that point. But in baseball, the cap is $178m and the only penalty is a gradually increasing tax (22% to 40%). 95% of all tax collected since the last CBA had been paid by one team, the New York Yankees. Baseball has about the same number of teams, players, and revenue as the NBA but the threshhold is so much higher due to the fact that there is no salary cap. This results in a more open market for big, long contracts like Giancarlo Stanton’s 13 year, 325 million dollar contract and Miguel Cabrera’s 10 year, 292 million dollar contract. This brings me to my next point. There really is no risk in dishing out these huge contracts to these super stars.

Baseball players tend to play longer and are less prone to injury than any other athletes. The average career of an NFL running back is about four years. You wouldn’t give him a six year contract would you? With baseball players, you can hand out these long year big money contracts because big injuries are rare in the MLB. Most players who get injured are pitchers and it’s usually Tommy John and they’re back the next season better than ever. The MLB uses a minor league system to get incoming players ready for the big leagues rather than just letting them play in college and bringing them right up to the pros, which is very, very, very difficult for an athlete to do due to the fact that the games are substantially different at the college level. So when a baseball player gets drafted, they go to the minors to polish their skills at the level below the pros to get a better understanding of the game and how hard it is rather than jumping right into the spotlight like the NFL and NBA. This is why giving big contracts to rookies in the MLB are much less of a risk than the other two big sports.

There’s a number of players getting very lucrative, very long contracts – and then there’s a small middle class and a massive underclass. Like the modern day USA, this has happened over time as policies supporting a healthy middle class have fallen by the wayside. The NBA and NFL have various rules that push salaries towards a health middle range, which pushes salaries up collectively and limits the money available to super stars like LeBron James and Tom Brady. The MLB doesn’t have those rules and so teams are free to spend on stars and not their scrubs. This could happen in the NBA if they were to do away with the mid-level exception, the rookie salary scale, and limits on what a single player can make versus the cap. But those rules are seen as beneficial for the league so that won’t happen.

In conclusion, baseball players are free to make as much money as their hearts desire because if you’re an all star, your team doesn’t want to let you go so they’ll give you all the money you want until you stay and hit 40 home runs or win 20 games a year for them. There is no risk in giving these contracts because skill doesn’t fade due to the hard work and effort given from these athletes in the off season and that’s why they make more money than any other athlete in any other sport.