How Taxing

Three MLB teams—the Cubs, Red Sox and Yankees—will be subject to the luxury tax this year.  The Cubs will be paying $7.6 million, the Red Sox 13.4 million and the Yankees $6.7 million.  This offseason, the Cubs and Red Sox have indicated they want to shed payroll and avoid the tax next year while the Yankees have doubled down, so to speak, after signing Gerrit Cole to a $324 million deal.  Interesting.

I don’t like hard salary caps, especially when owns in the catbird seat (my daughter winces at the sound of that phrase) dictate them to players.  But baseball isn’t basketball, football or hockey.  The players know how to negotiate, and they accepted a soft cap, aka the luxury tax.  So be it.

What’s particularly interesting here is that the Cubs and Red Sox own their respective parks, the Yankees not so much.  According to the New York Times, public funding and tax breaks account for $1.2 billion of the cost to erect Yankee Stadium III.  You could say the good people of New York helped pony up for Gerrit Cole.  Hope that works out, not.

The collective bargaining agreement expires in 2021, after which, who knows?  Both sides can go at it like cats and dogs, for all I care.  I feel differently if a new CBA called for every baseball team to own its own facilities, without exception.  If the public can’t have a say in how teams are run, those teams shouldn’t have access to public financing.    

It’s as simple as that.