FORT MYERS, Fla. — Boston Red Sox owner John Henry is renewing his call for a baseball salary cap.
Henry said Wednesday he thinks all owners would support an “enlightened” salary cap to improve competitive balance and that players might agree. He did not give details.
Here’s the thing: if there’s any team that can benefit from a cap, it’s the Red Sox. Henry probably figures they could institute a cap right around the luxury tax threshold, and therefore only really affects the Yankees. In exchange, they could institute a relatively high payroll floor, and make the Pirates and Royals of the world spend their revenue sharing checks on player payroll.
As has been discussed, this could kill small market teams, but it would be great for the Sox: they could keep spending about what they already do, the Yankees would have to surround their top five guys with a bunch of pre-arb players, and the small market teams would eat it up anyway (since they all seem to be masochists).
The Red Sox are very smart. They rarely do things for no reason, without putting serious thought into it. Granted, this could just be a political thing; big market owner fights for egalitarian policy, even though it has no chance of ever being put in place. But you never know, maybe they have something up their sleeves when they say they support an “enlightened” cap… whatever that means.
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