Pirates spending too much?

By Jeff

OK, I'm a little late with this one, but it is certainly a story that would confuse any Pittsburgh Pirates fans.

Jon Heyman wrote a story last week for SI that said MLB commissioner Bud Selig is not happy with the amounts of money some teams are spending on draft picks. He singled out the Pirates and Washington Nationals for handing out bonuses of $17 million and $15 million, respectively. Apparently, Selig wants to put a cap on how much you can pay draft picks.

That's right. Selig is upset because the Pirates are spending too much money. Tell that to any Pirates fan and you'll be laughed at and called stupid by people who think Charlie Batch should be the starting quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Or called a jagoff by someone who thought the Pirates could have traded Matt Diaz, Lyle Overbay and Ronny Cedeno to the New York Mets for Jose Reyes.

The Pirates consistently have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. Local and national media alike tear the team to pieces because they never pay big money for free agents, or they trade away their top players rather than give them big pay days.

So hearing someone say the Pirates are spending too much money is a bit odd. I understand that Selig doesn't want unproven players getting huge deals, but with the way baseball works right now, this is how teams like the Pirates and Nationals have to operate if they want to build winning teams. They have to build through the draft, and they have to pay a lot of money to ensure these players sign.

By putting a cap on the draft, MLB would be putting small market teams at an even greater disadvantage than they already are with an uncapped league. Heyman makes a great point at the end of the article. Small market teams have to overpay for everything. From mediocre to star players, the smaller markets have to throw more money at players to entice them to play there. These contracts for good major league players are often greater than an entire draft class. I think it's much worse for a team like Minnesota Twins to wildly overpay Joe Mauer than for the Pirates or Nationals to overpay draft picks, considering the Twins are committing almost $200 million to Mauer and the Pirates and Nationals aren't spending $20 million on draft picks.

The Mauer, Jayson Werth, Vernon Wells, Barry Zito contracts are what Selig should be pissed about. All these guys are making way more than they should, which then drives the price up for everyone. And what is the cause of the these huge deals? The fact there is no salary cap in baseball. Every mid or small market team fears that they will lose their star players to the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox because they teams spend around $200 million every year to buy winning teams.

So until there is a salary cap for the league, which I doubt the union will ever allow, there should not be a cap for the draft. It is the only place where the smaller teams have a chance at the most highly regarded talent.

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