It's well known by baseball fans that Major League Baseball needs a salary cap, but not to keep the game competitive, but to keep it interesting. Take the Brewers and Prince Fielder for example. Fielder was drafted by the Brewers in the first round of the 2002 MLB draft. Even the bandwagon Brewer fan was aware of Prince--and excited. Now in 2011, it appears that Fielder is playing his last season in a Brewers uniform. Not because Prince isn't happy in Milwaukee, but because a contract that would satisfy him would be 23% of the Crew's current payroll. However, if Fielder got his $20 Million per year, he'd be the third highest paid player on the Yankees' roster. Fielder leaving the Brewers is a devistating loss for the Mid-Market community.
The Brewers are not the only team in this situation. The Minnesata Twins have been forced to trade away top talent due to a lack of revenue--ala Johan Santana, David Ortiz. This last offseason, the Twins couldn't afford letting homegrown, St. Paul native, Joe Mauer go. In turn, they overpaid for the often injured future first baseman. Mauer makes $23 million this year, more than the 2nd and 3rd highest paid players, Joe Nathan ($11.25) and Michael Cuddyer ($10.5). The investment hasn't paid off so far. The Twins are in 4th place in the AL Central, sitting at 43-57, 7 games behind the 1st place Tigers. To make matters worse, Mauer is having his least productive season since his first full season in 2005. He's played on 41 games, has 0 home runs, and is batting under .300. The Twins didn't have a choice, but to re-sign Mauer, but at a hefty price, otherwise the Yankees, Red Sox, or Phillies wouldn't have blinked twice paying Mauer's $23 million.
A structured salary cap is not a necessity for MLB due to keep competitiveness, but to keep it fun for the fans. The big market teams are over paying for their players and small markets are forced with tougher decisions. Free Agency is a good thing; however, when there are only 3-4 teams who can afford players, the fans are the ones getting dumped on.
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