Red Sox Owner Advocates Salary Cap Following A-Rod Deal
The time listed on an e-mail from John Henry might just be an indication that the Alex Rodriguez trade to the Yankees prevented the Red Sox owner from getting a good night’s rest.
Others would say the reason A-Rod will play in the Bronx is because the Red Sox simply fell asleep.
One thing is certain: Henry couldn’t stomach the deal. Yankee owner George Steinbrenner said the indigestion was caused by sour grapes.
Steinbrenner was outraged by comments from Henry about the A-Rod deal. Henry said baseball should institute a salary cap to prevent the Yankees from “insanely” outspending other teams.
An incensed Steinbrenner responded with a statement that criticized Henry and accused him botching a chance to get Rodriguez by being cheap at the expense of Red Sox fans.
“We understand that John Henry must be embarrassed, frustrated and disappointed by his failure in this transaction,” Steinbrenner said. “Unlike the Yankees, he chose not to go the extra mile for his fans in Boston. It is understandable, but wrong that he would try to deflect the accountability for his mistakes onto others, and to a system for which he voted in favor. It is time to get on with life and forget the sour grapes.”
Henry’s reply:
“I’ve been asked by the Commissioner to not respond to the New York Yankees’ comments today. I’ve agreed and will abide by that request.
“The anticipation about the 2004 season is at an all-time high. So let’s shift our sights to the field. Let the games begin.”
Henry, who was out of the country earlier this week, made his first public comments about the A-Rod deal in an e-mail he sent Wednesday at 6:04 a.m.
“It will suffice to say that we have a spending limit and the Yankees apparently don’t,” Henry wrote. “Baseball doesn’t have an answer for the Yankees. Revenue sharing can only accomplish so much. At some point it becomes confiscation. It has not and it will not solve what is a very obvious problem.
“More often than not $50 million, on average, will not allow a MLB franchise to field a highly competitive team. Every year there will be an exception, but that is really the baseline number. So what has meaning are the dollars spent above $50 million. Most clubs can perhaps afford to spend $10 million to $25 million above that figure trying to compete. A few can spend as much as $30 million to $60 million above that.
But one team can and is spending $150 million incremental dollars and at some point 29 owners and their players say to themselves, we can’t have one team that can spend 10 dollars above the baseline for every incremental dollar spent by an average team. One thing is certain the status quo will not be preserved.”
The acquisition of Rodriguez increased the Yankees payroll to about $190 million. That’s $60 million or so more than what the Red Sox’s payroll -- the second-highest in baseball -- is expected to be, somewhere between $127 million and $130 million.
Henry cited an ESPN.com poll that stated 57 percent of baseball fans characterized the events this week as “disgusting” and “sad.”
“As for me, although I have never previously been an advocate of a salary cap in baseball out of respect for the players, there is really no other fair way to deal with a team that has gone so insanely far beyond the resources of all the other teams,” Henry said. “There must be a way to cap what a team can spend without hurting player compensation without taking away from the players what they have rightfully earned in the past through negotiation and in creating tremendous value. Revenue sharing alone, sufficient to address a problem of this magnitude, would require pure confiscation -- but there is a simple mechanism that could right a system woefully out of whack.”
Not surprisingly, Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling said a salary cap was out of the question.
“It’s naive of me to say this one move changed my mind. I don’t believe there should be a salary cap,” Schilling said. “Mr. Steinbrenner operates within the rules of the game. He just gets to play differently than everybody, than most. I don’t begrudge him that. It’s been that way for a long time. I’m not going to complain. I’m on a team with a $130 million payroll.”
That amount could force the Red Sox to pay a luxury tax for the first time since it was implemented as part of the collective bargaining agreement. The threshold this year is $120.5 million.
“My understanding is they didn’t want to go over it,” Schilling said. “Some things happened that allowed maybe to inch over it a little bit, but they felt it was worth it to the club. They did that with an eye toward the tax all the time. Mr. Steinbrenner doesn’t have to do that. And if I’m Mr. Steinbrenner, I wouldn’t either. I wouldn’t know what the answer is. Being on one of the haves, I’m very biased about it. I’m sure if I played in Tampa or in Montreal, I would have a different take.”
Henry, who had dinner with Rodriguez when the Red Sox were courting him, said he was glad that A-Rod got his wish to escape Texas.
“Personally, I am very happy for Alex,” Henry said. “He very much wanted to play in games that have meaning. This year he will get that chance. We will be ready as well.
The Yankees will have spent more than double the incremental dollars we will spend this year. It’s a huge advantage, but we’re not waving a white flag. We’re going to continue to work just as hard to bring home a championship and are fortunate to have fans that are as uncompromising as we are when it comes to demanding excellence.”