As I sit here listening and reading about the profitability of the Pittsburgh Pirates only one solution comes to mind….. the MLB should abandon its revenue sharing and adopt a plan that institutes a salary cap with an add-on clause forcing teams to dedicate a certain percentage to player payroll. If a team wishes to extend itself beyond the cap then there are substantial penalties and if a club falls shy fulfilling their cap minimum allocation, while remaining profitable, then they should too be faced with a forcible penalty.

In the case of the Pirates it isn’t hard to establish the idea that the baseball fans in Pittsburgh are getting the short end of the stick. According to cbssports.com the Pirates made 29.7 million both in 2007 and 2008. Think about the talent the Pirates could have brought in with those funds, or at the very least the talent they could have kept. The fact remains that Pittsburgh ownership, like the owners of the Royals and arguably the A’s, are not interested in fielding a competitive team. But the bottom-line is that it shouldn’t be up to the fans to force a team into submission or, more accurately, into competition.

The league should recognize these facts and act to stop the manipulation. The ole’ theory that weak market teams can’t be competitive has been totally abolished by the recent success of the Diamondbacks, Rockies, and Rays. In other words, if these teams can win against the likes of the Yankees, Phillies, Braves, and Red Sox then a historic program like Pittsburgh should have no problems.

However, adversely even if and when new regulations are enforced teams like the Pirates are still going to have trouble signing adequate talent. Players are in the market for long-term deals with high rewards but this doesn’t mean subjecting themselves to substantial misery in the process. In other words, the league can force a team to pony up but can’t impose rules and regulations for building the proper chemistry, coaching or cohesiveness necessary to handle the variety of egos and talents the league harbors. While directly we might all think that cleaning up the talent issue in Pittsburgh will automatically result in a better team there remain other expensive factors that might not be included in the new regulatory rules, thus ownership can still find a way to copout on their duty to the fan.

So for better or worse Pittsburgh seems to be in a mess for the duration despite a recent article in Sports Illustrated that suggests that Pittsburgh’s new ownership is working toward building a better franchise. What’s even more appalling is that even with league intervention we will find ourselves asking who will ultimately be the end benefactor?

Thanks for reading.