If pay was more even, and teams were more competitive, you would see more and more players wanting to play in there home towns, most of which are small market teams. You can sit here and argue all day with me about the cap not working, but I will disagree til I die.
Ah, but the fundamental flaw in a salary cap is revenue sharing. Until baseball has a revenue sharing deal like football does, where 1 network buys the rights for ALL teams and everyone gets a share a cap will not work in baseball.
Now, being from Minnesota, I'd love to see a small markets get more competative. I just don't think a cap will do it.
Lets look at some numbers. The Yankees average 30mil a year for endorsements on TV/Radio because of their network. There is NO way that the Twins could ever generate that much dough.
Even if the Twins started their own network (they did, and it failed miserably) they could NEVER generate the cash that the Yankees do putting the games on TV. The large market teams make MORE money than the small market teams do. End of story.
Revenue Sharing in football ensures that even if the Arizona Cardnals suck and never sell out a game, they will still earn 30-40millions in TV/endorsement cash alone. You just don't get that security in baseball.
Let's say that there was a cap of $120 million put in place. Do you really think that Tampa would suddenly start spending $120 million on payroll? NO WAY. All you'd do is cap the Yankees and Red Sox from being GREAT, they'd just be REALLY GOOD.
If we were to impose a salary cap in baseball, the only thing it would do is bring down player salaries, in that players might agree to take less money in order to sign with a competative team (the way it happens in teh NBA where guys take the minimum to play for a great team).
I do NOT think a salary cap would make all teams more competative unkless you find a way to pool all the TV/radio money from all teams and then split it up. Teams like the Twins and the Devil Rays will never spend cash unless they know it is safe and they won't lose money. (this is the same reason why I think a cap won't work in hockey).
Anyway, just my $0.02 on the matter.
Jeff