Gerrit Cole made $36 million this season for the New York Yankees. The Cleveland Guardians lineup he’s facing is worth less than that amount.
Sometimes, we all need to stare the facts right in the face.
By no means should Cole’s salary be a shot at him or the Yankees. Cole is simply cashing in on his value as a professional baseball player, and the Yanks are spending what they deem a necessary amount to win games. Starting pitching is valuable.
If anything, Cole’s total salary shows the stark difference between a major-market team like New York, and the small-market Cleveland Guardians.
What does Gerrit Cole’s salary say about baseball
Cole’s salary suggests that not all teams are on an even playing field. A salary cap may not be the answer, but a salary floor could be. If an owner isn’t spending enough on his or her team to regularly contend, that shouldn’t impact teams like the Dodgers and Yankees who annually put a product on the field fans can be proud of.
The Guardians have some of the best player development staff in baseball. Their model works for them given the financial constraints the Dolan family places upon them. But, are those constraints really necessary? Cleveland has a tremendous product, if they’d spend a little more in free agency and via trade, couldn’t they improve their team even more?
The other side of that coin is teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates and Oakland Athletics, whose owners are enabled to spend less by using the Guardians as a shiny example of what can happen when player development and rebuilding pays off.
It doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be. And as impressive as Cleveland’s run has been, it should not be the norm in a sport run by billionaires. A profit is there to be made, even if they have to spend a little more on the on-field product.