New York Yankees, MLB radical realignment plan

The New York Yankees and the game they play are strong. But The MLB might have come as far as it can in its current iteration. Here, now, is an unlikely solution that could be the future of the league.

The New York Yankees are flush with talent and flush with cash; baseball seems in the same situation. This, however, does not mean that there is not a problem and that the league could not be improved. The current free agent market and attendant headlines are two such indications; the trend of tanking is another.

Apparently, there is a gulf between what a team does when it can win and what it does when it cannot.

Before we go any further, I must make one thing clear. I know that many Yankees’ readers are looking for news that impacts the team in the now and that they consider anything else to be click bait.

To you I write, do not read this article. This is a thought experiment that delves deeply into some of the problems of the game and offers a workable but utterly hypothetical solution.

For those who love to think about the New York Yankees and MLB in depth, this might not be a waste of your time. Others might consider this prediction meaningless; you could be right.

On the other hand, the baseball world just found out that the Yankees consider 3B Miguel Andujar untouchable. Had you read this piece from six months ago in a sister site, YanksGoYard, you could have found that out then:

"The Untouchables for the New York Yankees SS Gleyber Torres: 20/SWB .287/.383/.480 3B Miguel Andujar: 22/SWB .320/.357/.508 CF Estevan Florial: 19/Tampa .298/.374/.476 It is an embarrassment of riches to have three untouchables."

But it probably struck you as meaningless New York Yankees click bait. The point is that you just never know.

Back to the Future

But back to the issues in baseball and for the New York Yankees. Some of these problems are likely to be exacerbated in a few years. Even the big market teams such as the Yankees and Dodgers have suddenly gotten serious about getting under the luxury tax.

This means that teams such as these will be more circumspect about employing free agents. And there is a ripple effect on baseball as agents hope the clubs with the most to spend will set the market for the other teams. When the bigger market teams sit on the sidelines, it hurts everyone.

But perhaps most significant is that the extra revenue produced by teams that used to go over the tax threshold will dry up, soon. And therefore teams that already underspend due to a rebuild or lack of convictions will have less money in the future. Do you think they are going to spend more of that cash or less?

Yep, that’s what I think, too.

This, in turn, will not sit well with the players. They can see the sport has never had more money in it. That’s why they pushed for a higher tax threshold: To encourage teams to spend more on free agency without penalty.

Instead, numbers-crunching GM’s are putting the squeeze on free agents.