Braves TV Announcer Brandon Gaudin Speaks Out on Status of MLB Free Agency
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Despite a mostly inactive offseason, the Atlanta Braves will have a top 10 payroll once again in 2025. So, Braves Country can hardly complain too much about the team's spending.
But there are MLB organizations that rank toward the bottom of the league in team salary every year. Those clubs have a better chance of buying a winning lottery ticket than trying to sign a big-time free agent.
While visiting his former high school, Braves play-by-play television announcer Brandon Gaudin wondered aloud what the MLB might be able to do to change that.
"The Dodgers aren't doing anything wrong. They're playing by the rules," Gaudin told Evansville Courier & Press' Treasure Washington. "They've just built an incredible team. But I think [the league is] going to have to figure out a way, with the way that these contracts are negotiated, to make it a little more fair for the smaller market teams. We'll see how they do that.
"You want your Milwaukees, you want your Cincinnatis to be able to compete, and you want superstars to go there as well. I'm curious to see how baseball finds that balance."
Gaudin isn't wrong. But it's a complicated problem that, in my opinion, simply comes back to cheap owners. Baseball player's union is unlikely to ever accept a salary cap. But what the league has is a self-imposed cap because of the luxury tax.
While it deters a lot of teams from spending, such as, perhaps, the Braves this offseason, it doesn't stop the really big market teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees and New York Mets.
If you're good enough as a player, you'll sign as a free agent with one of those teams. That's when you'll make the bulk of your money during your career. Owners of the smaller market teams will try to win with mostly second-tiered players or superstars playing on cheap contracts. They can do this in large part because they get the benefit of baseball's relatively new revenue sharing format.
How do you fix that? It's much easier to identify the problem than the solution.
Baseball does have a problem with the rich teams hogging the top players. But it's interesting that this continues to be such a big narrative around the sport when the league's big brother, the NFL, seemingly has all of the proper things in place for league parity, and yet, could have a three-peat champion this year.
For heaven's sake, one conference in the NFL has featured either Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady in the championship game every year since 2010.
Meanwhile, no team has won back-to-back World Series titles since 2000. The last time the Dodgers had a chance to repeat, the Braves knocked them off in the 2021 NLCS.
The Dodgers can spend all the money in the world, but that won't buy them a championship. They have to go earn it.
Still, it would be nice if other teams could spend too.