Evil Empire: The Adrian Gonzalez Trade

Cue "Baby Come Back" by Player

Years ago, the Red Sox brass created the nickname we all know today for the Yankees: the "Evil Empire."  It was an understandable name that sprung from everyone's frustration; the Yankees, with their financial wherewithal, were able to buy any player they wanted and cover up their mistakes thanks to their ridiculous budget.  Teams the like the Twins, who were forced to let players go in their prime because of budget restrictions, were unable to keep up with the way the Yankees ran their franchise.

However, the tables have, to some extent, turned nowadays.  Certainly, the Yankees still spend money like nobody's business, buying up free agents practically on a whim, but continue to use homemade players as their cornerstone (see Robinson Cano, Brett Gardner, etc.).  The Red Sox, for all their complaining, have become just as bad if not worse.  The Red Sox have continually displayed the same attitude to free agency as the Yankees of years past, throwing piles of money at guys like Daisuke Matsuzaka (total cost upwards of $100 million for a career 4.18 ERA) and J.D. Drew ($14 million a year for a .255 avg).

Regardless of the gripes of fans, this is the basis of free agency without a salary cap: teams with the most resources get the biggest prizes.  While a salary cap is needed to even the playing field, MLB isn't about to let that happen, and so the Red Sox and Yankees will be allowed to continue their ways.  This, however, isn't the true problem.  The true problem behind such financial weight lies in prospects.

The MLB likes to try and enforce a salary structure for draft picks.  Simply put, there is no reason to follow this structure.  Teams like the Royals have to follow it or avoid the more expensive (read: better) players, but teams like the Red Sox can draft elite talent in the later rounds and pay them like first rounders.  This, not excellent scouting, leads to bloated farm systems, which in turn allows them to throw away top prospects like Hanley Ramirez whenever they want without fear of an empty future.  Why care about how good your former farmhands are when you can throw money at others?

This brings us to the Adrian Gonzalez trade.  The Padres do not have the finances to support a large budget, forced to play with scrap heap players and young talent.  Unfortunately, this means that Adrian Gonzalez couldn't possibly last much longer in San Diego.  Gonzalez is an elite talent and deserves to be paid as such, especially after giving San Diego a huge discount at his last contract.  To maximize the returns on a player who's value is greatly inflated by the lack of a salary cap, the Padres had to trade Gonzalez.  The Red Sox can easily afford to pay Gonzalez ridiculous amounts of money and, thanks to nothing stopping them from stockpiling young talent via breaking the draft salary structure, can afford to lose all their best prospects regularly.

The Mariners are a fairly high budget team. When they're good, they can spend around $100 million.  They don't have the budget to break the draft structure regularly.  This means if the Mariners want to add big free agents or trade for big talent, they have to give away extremely valuable talent.  When a guy like Shin-Soo Choo succeeds so greatly in another city, it can destroy the future of the Mariners.  The Red Sox do not have to ever worry about this.  They can give up players who may end up among the best in baseball (Hanley Ramirez, for one) regularly without caring, thanks not to great scouting or management but simply thanks to their huge financial stores.

The MLB needs to make amends.  Maybe make the salary structure strict, like the NBA.  maybe impose a salary cap.  Whatever is done, it cannot be allowed for one team to be the best consistently merely because they have the most money.