Matt Holliday & Jason Bay to the Yankees & Red Sox? – MLB Baseball

Baseball’s financial inequities have taken a new twist, allowing the Yankees and Red Sox potentially to buy top players at discount prices.

Underbidding by the Big-Spenders?

There was a great article today on Yahoo! Sports today about baseball’s economics, specifically in regards to how the two most monied teams could actually end up signing the two premiere position players (Matt Holliday and Jason Bay) on the current free agent market at relative bargain prices.

Now I am the first to bemoan the imbalance between baseball’s haves and have-nots, even though my team, the Red Sox, is the second most financially well-off in the sport after the Yankees. The fiscal inequities are not good for the game, period.

As you may have noticed, I said relative bargain prices. Neither will come cheaply, to be sure. But compared to what Holliday and Bay may each offer their respective teams in terms of potential wins, they are currently available at a discount.

A lot of factors play into this situation beyond Boston and New York’s obvious financial strength, which is so sound that those two teams can buck an economy forcing even other big spenders to cut back. Premium position players are essentially a dime-a-dozen compared to their pitching counterparts, with new ones available in every free agent class. And since the Sox and Yanks have not shown great interest so far, other teams with offers on the table have not felt the competitive pressure they might otherwise to overspend (potentially) and lock Holliday and Bay in. The players have thus been willing to wait those teams out for more money–a tactic could eventually backfire. Even if their current suitors don’t eventually lose interest due to being spurned, if and when Boston and New York do make offers, they will be able to do so far below that which the players are hoping.

Holliday and Bay will then be forced to take what they can get… and both the Red Sox and Yankees provide a great chance to win a World Series, an opportunity with which few other clubs can compete.

Of course, this may have been the Boston’s strategy all along. As strong as the Red Sox are financially, the gap between them and the Bombers is still quite large. How the Sox have compensated for the Yankees’ largesse is by making shrewder business decisions (and developing from within–Boston has a loaded farm system). Where the Yankees simply spend, the Red Sox in general spend more wisely. This year they quickly seized up the premiere pitcher on the market, John Lackey, and now can afford to wait for Holliday and Bay to come down in price.

Unfortunately, most teams don’t have the money to spend, whether wisely or not. And that’s the problem baseball needs somehow to resolve.

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