MLB’s Low-Payroll Teams: A Newfound Willingness to Spend?
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This story was originally published at Baseball Prospectus on November 26. You have probably heard a little about the Pirates and Marlins trying to sign the kinds of free agents you wouldn’t normally associate them with. Josh Naylor, Kyle Schwarber, Michael King? Looking to maybe bring in Nippon Professional Baseball’s Kazuma Okamoto now that he’s been posted to MLB? Sure, none of those guys are going to make Kyle Tucker money, but it’s still a surprise to see them even going toward a “we tried” result with that level of free agent.
Theories Behind the Spending Spree
The thing is, they probably actually are trying. Not to build a winner, necessarily, but to spend some money. Evan Drellich at The Athletic posited a number of theories as to why these two low-payroll bottom-feeders would be looking to spend some cash now, and they are both sound and had some backing from sources anonymous and otherwise. There is one that stuck out as the most-likely of the bunch, however, and it was supported by agent Sam Levinson.
“There is a possibility of a fight among clubs over revenue sharing, with the smaller markets seeing a greater contribution,” agent Seth Levinson said. “The payors (large-market clubs) will argue that insufficient revenue-sharing funds are being spent on player acquisition. Hence, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the smaller markets compete for talent in the free-agent market to convince the payors that they are committed to putting a better product on the field.”
A Change in MLB’s Economic Structure
The reason this one sticks out as more convincing than, say, the idea that this willingness to spend is about “opportunity”—please recall that the Marlins lost Kim Ng because they refused to rise to the challenge of spending even a little bit more to improve—is that whether it’s a salary cap or a revised revenue-sharing system, we’re in for a change to MLB’s economic structure, at least on the ownership side. And as has been said a few times now, the salary cap part feels unlikely, both because there is too much at stake for the owners right now, and because it’s not like the players are going to engage that topic for a second during bargaining.
That idea that the larger markets need to see evidence that teams like the Pirates and Marlins wouldn’t just pocket additional revenue-sharing funds, though? That they would actually use them to put a better product on the field? That checks out, especially since it wasn’t that long ago that a couple of those larger markets spoke up on the issue of having to shell out more of their cut to the rest of the league. In October, I wrote about the Red Sox and Dodgers being open to the idea of an expanded revenue-sharing model, which commissioner Rob Manfred has been pushing—one that pools broadcast revenue together and keeps clubs like Boston and Los Angeles from having quite as much of an advantage in that regard as they currently do.
A Salary Floor: The Best Hope for Competitive Balance
There is a way to convince these teams to go all the way with such an arrangement, even if it costs them money, because the overall health of the sport can make them plenty more, too. If the Pirates, Marlins, Athletics, and whichever other teams are just going to stick under $100 million payrolls forever, though—the Pirates already are profitable but pretend not to be, so it’s not immediately and inherently believable that they would be fine spending additional revenue-sharing money in the future—then why should the Dodgers and Red Sox play ball?
And then you have Yankees’ owner Hal Steinbrenner on the record supporting a salary floor, while not wanting to commit to adding a cap: “Something that would be reasonable enough that it would improve competitive balance significantly in the sport,” Steinbrenner said when asked about a possible salary floor. “Many fans already argue it’s not been enough. I think we made strides the last 10 years in some of the things we’ve done but as an industry probably not near where we need to be, at least that’s what the majority of the fans believe and there’s a number of ways to attack.”
The thing is, a salary floor isn’t likely—MLB would want to attach it to a cap, as they attempted to do during bargaining four years ago, and owners like Pittsburgh’s Bob Nutting would demand as much and be able to get enough votes to torpedo any deal that didn’t do that—so the best that the other owners can hope for is to get these teams to spend toward some unofficial point that suggests, okay, you’re being legitimate right now. And to do that, they have to threaten to withhold the revenue-sharing funds that the Pirates and Marlins so desperately want—a desperation that seems implied by their behavior early in this free agent season.
Now, whether the Pirates and Marlins will actually succeed in bringing in any of these free agents remains to be seen: neither is considered a destination players go because they actually want to be there, though, Miami can likely convince some players to make their way there so long as their new deals are sufficiently armed with opt-outs, and Pittsburgh, at least, can point to Paul Skenes as the kind of difference maker that could help the team thrive if only he had some help. If they can’t bring in free agents, though, and can’t raise their payroll as they would like it, it will be because of the reputations they have earned through their own action and inaction over the years. At that point, they will just have to hope they were convincing enough to get the Dodgers, Red Sox, Yankees, and others to agree that they at least gave this spending thing a genuine shot, or else there is going to be a lot of begging for expanded revenue-sharing over the next year.
