Failure of Baseball Economics: Who is to Blame?

For those of you who haven't heard, there was a ridiculous trade in Major League Baseball a couple weeks ago.  Why was this such a record deal? Lets consider the numbers.  The Los Angeles Dodgers received 11 All-Star appearances, 3 Gold Glove Awards and wait for it- a whopping $261 million in salaries through 2018.  These numbers are combined achievements of Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett: some of the best players in the game.  So in the return the Red Sox must have acquired some pretty outstanding prospects or young talent, right? Wrong. This trade was purely a way for the Boston Red Sox to dump their high paid, under performing athletes in order to rebuild with all of the money saved from the traded contracts.  The Red Sox received a couple mediocre major league players along with $11 million in monetary consideration if clearing $261 million off their books wasn't enough.  So not only did the Red Sox dispose of their biggest contracts, they received a little cash on the side to "sweeten the deal." 

In a Huffington Post article analyzing the trade, Red Sox General Manager Ben Cherington said,

"It gives us an opportunity to build the next great Red Sox team.... We just felt like to get to be a team we believe in and a team the fans deserve, to sustain winning year after year, it was going to take something more than cosmetic changes. It was going to take something bold."

But is this the way to win? By signing huge contracts to high profile players and the organization promises them hundreds of millions of dollars.  If and when the team doesn't win the organization can just dump all their future monetary promises and start over?  This sounds pretty slimy to me.  But, unfortunately, what the Red Sox did is totally leagal, only if approved by the one and only- MLB Commissioner, Bud Selig.

Never having been a huge fan of Bud Selig, this trade, needless to say, infuriated me because the commissioner had to approve the deal since it was completed after the July trade deadline.  In his blog, Rob Rains of The STL Sports Page called out Bud Selig (picture below) for the only thing he really cares about:

"By allowing the Red Sox and Dodgers to complete one of the greatest heists in baseball history, commissioner Bud Selig showed his true colors once again – pure green, as in money.  This is all the man cares about. Competitive balance? No chance. A level playing field? forget it. The integrity of the game? Pardon me while I try to laugh that one off."

I could not agree more with Mr. Rains- all Selig cares about is money.  There will never be a time where a small budget team like the Pittsburgh Pirates has a legitimate shot at winning the World Series with Selig being blinded by dollar signs.  This sounds very similar to some liberal views of American society today- no chance for the little guy to succeed in a world dominated by the small rich percentage.  Well folks, Major League Baseball is no different.  This trade along with numerous acts by Bud Selig prove that changes need to be made in society to "level the playing field," if you will, in order to allow people and organizations with limited income the same opportunities as the wealthy. Otherwise the rich will continue to succeed and grow, while the poor, or the Little Guys, struggle with no blue skies in the future.