Just my thought Dtro. So many believe that Mauer will never leave but when George flashes that huge contract in front of him, he may be gone.

Not only the huge contract but also the very real possibility of winning a world series ring or 2.

He knows that even if the Twins were to sign him to a lucrative contract, they would never be able to add any talent to the team and may possibly LOSE talent because of the signing.

But then wouldn't everyone have to hate the Twins like they do the Yankees?

So where do you set the cap? You've got teams over $200 million in payroll, and teams around $50 million. So, you set the cap at, say, $110 or $120 million, you have teams hitting the cap every year and then do you still have teams around $50 million? If you set a cap, then also set a salary floor (hey...the goal is to make teams competitive, right? and this would be the only way that the players union would even have a thought of going for it). Set the cap at $125 million or so, and then set a salary floor at, say, $70 or $75 million. Make the Pirates and Royals get their salaries up there.

Small market teams – if they are out of contention - can gain a lot by trading high-salary players to contending teams for good, young prospects. There would need to be some mechanism within a salary cap that would allow this to happen…not allowing it would hurt the small market teams.

So, you also have to make allowances for trades through the season. Those salary cap and floor numbers would be the opening day roster salary cap and floor...do you allow teams to go above and below with trades during the season?

Should a low-revenue team be allowed to trade away a high salary player during the season, even if it brings their total salary below the designated salary floor? Why not, as it will only force the team to go out and spend money in the next off season? And the team that acquires the high salary player may the have trouble getting back under the cap…they will not have as much money to spend the next off season. In this scenario, the wealthy team might end up in a position where they are not able to spend as much money in the next off season.

Sorry. Now I'm rambling a bit...just thinking this through a bit...

Until they have one(never) why can you fault the teams listed above for trying to win a championship every year. I have no sympathy for our twins or any other club in mlb. You own a mlb team to win a title if not sell it!

I wonder how it can actually work with such a huge discrepancy in current payrolls.

If you set the cap at $125 million or something like that you have to go tell team like the Yankees that you need to drop $75-100 million in salary by next season. That means they would be cutting some big name talent most likely, or a lot of mid level talent.

I just don't see the big market teams that seem to run the show ever letting that happen. You would probably need to set the cap higher then the current highest payroll to make it even remotely possible but then you'd still have the discrepancy in payrolls. Some teams hitting the $200 million cap and other at $50 million still, what would you have gained?

You could put in a minimum salary cap as well but that's a tricky business. That would essentially be cutting into a teams profit. Some teams can't sell tickets to save their life so how are they going to react knowing that now they are required to spend more money in turn reducing the profits they make. Potentially some owners may decide enough is enough and opt to get rid of the team all together. After all they are in it to make money winning a title is just a bonus for most of them.

I just don't see this ever happening, the big market teams just have to much power over how things are done and they aren't going to let it happen.

If something doesn't happen soon, those numbers will only grow further apart, and the small market teams will be dropping like flies anyway.

It's "salary cap" not going to happen and we'll` "twins" have to settle on playing and running our team the way it is/was meant to be...

and settle for divison champions

Well, it looks like George's big money will buy another championship. A good reason to have caps.

I'm not a baseball fan, but I have to say that the current state of MLB payrolls is a disgrace to the sport. Again, I don't follow the sport, but that is all the more reason to respect the opinion of an outsider. It seems to me that every year the best players I hear about on TV end up being a Yankee the next year. That's crazy. How can Yankee fans have even an ounce of respect for a team that buys the Championship every year?

I'm not a Democrat and definitely not a liberal, so I don’t believe in a salary cap or revenue sharing (like hockey has). Although both a cap and revenue sharing undoubtedly level the playing field, they go against everything I believe in as a Libertarian/Capitalist. If the market supports a payroll that high in NY then so be it. I think that MLB needs to be looked at as one single organization with 30 separate satellite companies (so to speak) with each company looking out for the best interests of the collective group. I honestly think that the market will work itself out. It will take longer to happen than most people are willing to wait, but it will happen. First, people will get tired a watching the large market teams win every year so TV viewership will decrease. If TV viewership decreases, so will advertising revenue. As advertising revenue decrease, the only way to pay those high salaries will be through increased ticket prices. Increased ticket prices will equate to less demand and so on.

Remember that this is more about the sport than it is about the Yankees. MLB needs to impose whatever policies it sees fit in order to put a product on the field that people will be interested in. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the only people that really care about the Yankees are bandwagon jumpers and people in NY. I have even heard interviews with Yankee fans on TV talking about how they better win the Championship every year with a payroll like that. When I hear interviews like that from Yankee fans, that tells me that the free market system is already starting to work against the Yankees to level things out. The National TV ratings where very low this year for the World Series. MLB as an organization will have to address this problem because all of their teams will suffer from lower interest and viewership in the sport.

I can honestly say I haven't watched even 1 minute of the World Series. To be honest, I watched a couple innings of the Twins first playoff game, then got sick of the announcers, and haven't watched a playoff game after that.

Why would MLB want to level the playing field? They make more money and get better ratings when the yanks and/or red sox go to the playoffs every year. I personally can't stand either team, but MLB could care less what I think. As fun of a story as tampa bay was last year, it was bad for baseball in business terms. And unfortunately there's no reason to believe next year won't be any different than this year. As far as the dip in ratings go, I think that has alot more to do with the tv layout as opposed to the yanks being in the series. Baseball needs to be played everyday! And NOT in november!

Yes.

Sooooooooo tired of the Yankees