You know there are issues in Major League Baseball when the owner of the New York Yankees is complaining about another team’s spending on players.
Hal Steinbrenner told Meredith Marakovits of the YES Network on Tuesday that the Yankees can’t keep up with the spending level of the Dodgers, especially when considering the riches of Steinbrenner compared to LA’s ownership group.
ESPN reports the Dodgers spent over $450 million this past offseason and “with the penalties for exceeding the $241 million threshold, the Dodgers' total payroll for this year likely will be in excess of $500 million.”
From Spotrac:
Their team payroll is currently at over $303.8 million.
The Yankees are third, over $273.3 million.
The Pirates currently have a total of $66,383,500, which is 26th out of 30 teams.
"It's difficult for most of us owners to be able to do the kind of things that (the Dodgers) doing," Steinbrenner said. "We'll see if it pays off."
In a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, Baltimore Orioles owner David Rubenstein said he is in favor of a salary cap.
"I wish it would be the case that we would have a salary cap in baseball the way other sports do, and maybe eventually we will, but we don't have that now," Rubenstein.
He added he hopes to have something similar to what the NFL and NBA are doing, “but there’s no guarantee of that.”
Until then, if the New York Yankees are complaining about another team’s spending, what hope is there for teams like the Pirates.
The Dodgers beat the Yankees in the 2024 World Series.