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Will MLB ever have a Salary Cap?  Not while Bud Selig holds the commissioner's chair.  In 1994, owner's were trying to get a salary cap into place with the new collective bargaining agreement.  They saw it as a way to improve player salaries and create more competitive balance throughout the league.  They said, with the new plan, that they expected from the average player salary to jump from 1.2 mil in '94 to 2.6 mil in '01.  Players saw it differently, and viewed it as a way for the owners to cheat them out of money they could make in free agency.  A lot of this was due to the MLBPA's distrust with then acting commissioner, now full-time, Bud Selig.  Selig and Jerry Reinsdorf were involed with collusion, that caused the loss of $280 mil in players salaries.  What exactly is collusion?  You might ask.  It's this:

"Baseball collusion refers to baseball owners working together to avoid competitive bidding for player services or player jointly negotiating with team owners.

Collusion in baseball is formally defined in the Major League Baseball Collective Bargaining Agreement, which states "Players shall not act in concert with other Players and Clubs shall not act in concert with other Clubs."  Major League Baseball went through a period of owner collusion during the off-seasons of 1985, 1986, and 1987.

Historically, owner collusion was often referred to as a "gentleman's agreement".  After the 1918 season, owners released all their players - terminating the non-guaranteed contracts, with a "gentleman's agreement" not to sign each other's players, as a means of forcing down player salaries." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_collusion

In Fact, the Congressional Research Service backed the MLBPA's claim that a salary cap wouldn't have improved players salaries.  They said that if a cap would have been put in place in '94, the players would have lost 198 mil in salaries. 

"The players got another boost when a Blue Ribbon Commission that studied baseball's economics said the game had some big problems, but did not recommend a salary cap to help fix them. They offered greater revenue sharing and a luxury tax on high payroll teams as the solution to baseball's woes." - http://www.andrewsstarspage.com/CBA/12-28cba.htm

I've been saying this for a long time.  Baseball doesn't need a salary cap, as of yet, they need a better form of revenue sharing.  Even with a salary cap, teams with little to no revenue still couldn't afford to sign free agents or pay their own from leaving for greener pasture with higher revenue teams.  Look at the Florida Marlins.  They have won two World Series since the stirke.  They bought one championship team, and had one of the lowest payrolls during their second championship season.  In fact, even with their success, they were unable to pay their own free agents or up-and-coming free agents and had to let them leave or trade them to get something in return.  Even with their success, hardly anybody cares about baseball in Miami. They could have went back-to-back with championships and still not sold out a game.  During their championship season in '03, they averaged. 16,290 fans at home games; 22,091 in '04; 22,792 in '05; and 14,384 in '06.  The NL avg for attendance over those years was 30,077.  The Marlins averaged 18,889 during that 4-year span, which is 11,188 lower than the NL avergage.  In '97, their other championship year, they averaged 29,190; which was right on par with the NL average.  As you can see, even with their success they still weren't able to generate the revenue needed to maintain a championship caliber team.  Does these circumstances apply to every team?  No, of course not.  Some really bad teams have a large loyal fan base, they just don't make the enough money to stop the Yankees or the Red Sox (more so the Yankees)from signing away their free agents.    

MLB already has a form of revenue sharing, which they introduced in their collective bargaining agreement in 2002. This is the jist of it:

"$258 million each year phased in over four years. A $175 billion base to be distributed to each club on a straight-pool basis with the remainder split by the Commissioner out of the central fund and discretionary fund.

Overall, 34 percent of locally generated money would be shared, which was up from the previous rate of 20 percent. Also, one-third of all revenue sharing funds must be spent on baseball operations." - http://www.andrewsstarspage.com/CBA/12-28cba.htm

They also included a revised luxury tax, which was aimed at the Yankees, to help curb richer teams from going too crazy in free agency.  This is sort of like a salary cap, just that it's not.  What it says is that you can only spend x amount of dollars on players' salaries, for every dollar that you go over you have to pay a tax to the league.  The penalty being for first time offenders was a 17.5% tax and for multiple offenders the tax can go as high as 40%.  Example:  In '03, the Yankees went over the 117 mil salary threshold by about 67 mil.  They paid a 17.5% tax on that 67 mil, which was 11.82 mil, to MLB. As everyone knows, the luxury tax hasn't stopped the Yankees from spending in the off-season.

In conclusion, a salary cap is not in baseball's future.  There is too little trust between the owners, the commissioner, and players.  Players are not willing to take the type of pay cut that a salary cap would impose, and the players HAVE TO agree on one.  MLB and owners can not, I repeat CAN NOT, lay down the law and say we will have a salary cap. That was a big reason why we had the strike in '94.  The revenue sharing plan seems to be having an effect, and there is less disparity over club revenues; with more clubs making around the league average.  Hopefully, in time, there will be less disparity and the players see a little to negligible hit in their salaries. If that happens, they can possibily increase the amount of revenue sharing.  This would help balance out team worth across the league, which would ultimately lead to increased competition in the league; because poorer teams will be able to afford free agents and richer teams will have less money.  It does seem to be working to some degree, as the revenue sharing system is now.  Since the new CBA the NL has had 9 different teams in the postseason out of 16 (4 teams * 4 postseasons)possibilities: NYM, SD, STL, LAD, HOU, FLA, CHICUBS, SF, and ATL.  The AL has had 7 teams in those 4 postseasons: DET, NYY, MIN, OAK, BOS, CHIWS, and LAA.  Every year there has been a different World Series champ as well (FLA, BOS, CHIWS, and STL).  It's still too soon to pass judgement, but it does seem to be working to some degree.  Only time will tell on this one. 

Salary caps are good in theory; but if you don't have the money or the fan base to buy tickets, you will never be able to afford free agents or to keep your own.  Once they decrease the revenue disparity in the league to a manageable number, then maybe they can think about implementing a salary cap.    

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