How many teams in the NFL, NBA or NHL went bankrupt? When is the last time the Grizzlies, the Coyotes (and hockey teams we don’t even remember exist), the Lions, Browns, Chiefs, Clippers were a legit threat to win their respective championships?

The owners need to see what is in the best interest of baseball and stop this decline before it’s to late. Too late for what? Rehtorically speaking, why is competitve balance a birth right for Cincinnati Reds fans?

Drew Nelson: Lets say there was a present salary cap/floor in place, and say it is $75 million for the floor and $150 for the ceiling. Teams can go over the $150 if the monies are going to players already in their system/team, but can not sign or trade for no new players to put’s them over that ceiling. If something like that was in place how different would the WS look this year?

Yeah, piggybacking on what Matt WI said… I do not think this problem has a simple solution.

Your idea sounds simple and clean, Drew, but I think what you’d get is a slightly weakened Yankee team at the top end, and 6 or 8 teams at the bottom end nearing bankruptcy and possibly considering lawsuits against MLB for forcing them to spend themselves into oblivion.

You’d probably also have those low-end teams laying off tons of “regular people” and pinching pennies all over the place just so they could go out and sign, say, Mark Grudzielanek or I don’t know, insert name of mediocre overpriced free agent who can’t get a job w/ the big boys here… just so they could get above the salary floor.

Anyway… I’m not saying we shouldn’t be thinking about this at all. It has merit. (It does stink that owners do actually have the option of collecting their revenue sharing checks and just sticking them in the bank and running out a bargain basement team.) But fixing this problem is going to be complicated, I think.

Drew Nelson: Lets say there was a present salary cap/floor in place, and say it is $75 million for the floor and $150 for the ceiling. Teams can go over the $150 if the monies are going to players already in their system/team, but can not sign or trade for no new players to put’s them over that ceiling. If something like that was in place how different would the WS look this year?

No less than 12 teams would have to spend MORE money on salary to meet that $75mil floor in a salary cap. The Marlins would have to double their salary spending. The Pirates would have to put up over $25mil. Obviously those owners would have to decide if that was something they could commit to on an annual basis. What did $75mil get the Reds? Willy Taveras and a box of toothpicks.

As for contraction, I repeat my original question… How and why would the players association ever go for that? That would be volunteering to lose 50 very high-paying jobs to players. (Plus a lot of regular working joes would be out of work, not that the players association is looking out for that, but cities themselves would do all they can to resist that.)

I really don’t see contraction ever happening. Even the NHL hasn’t contracted teams, have they? And they’re in (as far as I know) a LOT more trouble than MLB is.

Dan: @Drew Nelson: No chance. They’d have to contract TWO teams to fix the problem, and how would the players association sign off on losing 50 jobs like that?I think more likely we live w/ the imbalance until they add 2 teams to get to 32, and then we’ll get the NFL setup — 8 divisions of 4 teams each.Anyway… I just don’t see why interleague is such a sacred cow. This is fixable right now.

I don’t see two cities getting expansion franchises in my lifetime. Where would you have teams? Thinking of other professional league cities… Charlotte, Sacramento, Nashville/Memphis, Oklahoma City, Indianapolis, Portland, San Jose, New Orleans, Salt Lake City… Montreal, again?

Many of these cities have AAA affiliates. Many probably couldn’t support another stadium. I just don’t see these markets growing enough to support another professional franchise given the current economic structure. If you went to a cap of some sort, maybe you could increase ownership potential.

Additionally, look at the talent pool right now. It’s limited enough as it is. I think this is the max teams MLB could hope to see.

Contracting teams is a far more likely scenario. I think you’d see either of the two FL teams contracted before two new teams came into the league.

Drew Nelson: What teams in the Reds payroll area have been to the playoffs say 5 out of the last 10 years?How many teams with the Reds payroll numbers have been in the world series?Lets look at this years WS champs the Yanks.How much did they spend on their 3 key additions?How could the Reds even afforded 1 of them let along 3?How different would this years world series look if the Yankees couldn’t spend over say $150 million total on team payroll?Yes money is not the sole determination, but when it is so out of whack as it is right now, all 32 teams are not playing on a equal playing field.

I completely concur, as you may have gathered from one of my comments above. And you probably meant it as a rhetorical question, but in any case I mentioned there that the Yankees spent $497M in guaranteed contracts for their 3 star off-season acquisitions.

I think more likely we live w/ the imbalance until they add 2 teams to get to 32, and then we’ll get the NFL setup — 8 divisions of 4 teams each.

Anyway… I just don’t see why interleague is such a sacred cow. This is fixable right now.

I don’t disagree with your sentiment. However, Bud Selig isn’t the only guy out to make money. No ownership group buys any corporation if the corporation is going to be a loser. What most fans forget is that winning doesn’t necessarily equate to higher revenues.

Dan: Since we’re talking about unfairness here… the most obvious unfair thing in MLB (in my opinion) is that the NL Central has 6 teams and the AL West has 4!!!

I say this every year. They aren’t going to adjust it anytime soon.

Drew Nelson: Also, could today’s Cincinnati Reds organization afford the 1975 team?

It’s such a simple question, but the answer is quite prolific. As a rhetorical question, I’ve got to give you kudos.