The Red Sox bought out the right to talk about a contract for Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka for a solid $51.1 million. Once again we see the parody in baseball as the rich franchises spend and the small market teams sit idle. A step in the right direction for the level playing field that the MLB keeps saying is there. An unproven player (except during the World Baseball Classic) already is getting paid just to have his contract negotiated, but wait it’s the Red Sox money is no object here. It’s about winning, and rightfully so they do have a fanbase that will support the teams ability to sign players like him.

So say this guy comes in and wins 20 games, and ends up being an amazing pitcher. This could be great for baseball and achieving some more action from a foreign market like Japan. This is nothing new though, because year in and year out we see the richest half of baseball’s franchises signing the top tier talent. But what about the Cardinals they won this year? They have the 11th highest payroll in the league. Only the 2003 Marlins have won a World Series having a payroll in the bottom third of the League.

Meanwhile in the free agent market this year are some well known players like, Zito, Soriano, Lee, and Schmidt who are now licking their chops as the Japanese pitcher just made them a bit richer. So is there a competitive balance in the free agent market? Absolutely not!

I know baseball has been trying to show that anybody can win and that it’s a fair market but are you serious. Carlos Lee and Soriano should be getting close to $100 million contracts. Revenue sharing is a joke! There’s noway small market teams can compete successfully consistently. While they may have more money to spend in the market, it won’t matter in the end because the prices on player are skyrocketing. Just think about J.D. Drew could be possibly signing a contract worth over $50 million this off-season.

There is only one constant in this era of baseball and that is that big market teams win. The only exception to the rule seems to be Billy Beane. On the bottom third of the payroll chain only 11 percent of those teams have made the playoffs over the past 9 years. Since the MLB expanded to 30 teams, eight playoff teams over 9 years made it in that were in the bottom half of the listed payrolls and five times it was the A’s. The 2003 Marlins were the only ones in the National League that made the playoffs in the bottom third of the payroll, which is one of 32 over nine years.

So I guess it’s pretty simple the teams with the most money win the most. So if you’re a fan of a team in a small market then you better be hoping for a miracle, because aside from my favorite team (A’s) your chances are pretty slim! The main point I’m getting at is that teams aren’t equal even though we’ve had seven different world series winners the past seven years, but only one was a small market team (bottom third). Seeing Matsuzaka’s deal in the making, makes us believe that the small market is going to have it even tougher over the next decade to come. It’s too bad that most teams nowadays are farm teams for the big market teams.