Baseball has become as much an efficiency exercise as a competition, writes williamfleitch
Dave Dombrowski celebrating with the William Harridge Trophy after the Boston Red Sox advanced to the 2018 World Series in 2018. Photo: Elsa/Getty Images When I was a baseball kid growing up central Illinois, there was no greater hero than Whitey Herzog, the White Rat. He was the manager and general manager of my beloved Cardinals, the leader of those old Ozzie Smith–Willie McGee–Vince Coleman Astroturf speed demons.
Now, obviously, every baseball team wants to win; it is easier to talk the taxpayers into paying for your stadium renovations when you’re winning, after all. But on the list of priorities for team owners and general managers in the world of baseball as it is currently constructed, to paraphrase Vince Lombardi, winning isn’t everything … and it’s definitely not the only thing. It’s probably not even the top thing.
That should have been the pinnacle, setting Dombrowski up for years to come. But that’s not how baseball works now. And the reason, of course, is money. For the Red Sox to win that championship, they had to raise their spending near baseball’s luxury tax, which is complicated, but is perhaps best thought of as a punitive tax on any payroll over $206 million.
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