MLB Tells Florida Marlins to Increase Payroll or Suffer Consequences

The Florida Marlins have been told to increase their payroll and send the revenue share funds they have received. The low payroll for the Florida Marlins has been a mark of the team in the past five seasons, and it's not going in line with the intent of revenue sharing in baseball. The idea behind revenue sharing is for the top earning teams to be able to help out the teams that can't afford the huge salaries at the end of the season, but it seems that Florida may not be spending enough of the revenue being given to them each year. Teams have complained to Major League Baseball, and now the union, MLB, and the Marlins have come to an agreement to spend those funds.

Over the past four years, the Marlins have had yearly payrolls of $15 million, $30.5 million, $21.8 million, and $36.8 million. Another way to look at this, is that in four years the Marlins haven't spent as much as it costs to pay for the payroll of several teams in one season. In fact, the New York Yankees routinely spend more than $200 million per season, and the Boston Red Sox aren't that far behind them. It's the typical argument of a small market team trying to compete against some bigger markets, but Florida still hasn't been spending enough of the money that they have been receiving to off-set that disadvantage. Now maybe the Florida fans will see an increase in players that stay on the roster for the long term.

The Florida Marlins have found a lot of success by trading off their super star players for prospects and then developing those prospects until they are ready to make real money. Then the trade cycle continues again, and it always ends up with Florida paying peanuts in salary compared to other teams. The strategy has worked, though, because, every few years, Florida is right back in contention before they start the process all over again. Now maybe the fans will come back to games because Florida will keep fan-favorite players for longer stints in Florida. It has yet to be determined just how far Florida will push their payroll, but it should at least get to around $50 million per season.

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MLB Chastises Florida