Commish Needs To Reevaluate Luxury Tax

Being that we are in the midst of the off-season there is one issue that Commissioner Bud Selig needs to revise; Luxury tax.

The issue isn’t that the richer teams that spend more money should have to share their wealth, but the problem is in how the other teams use that wealth.

If the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Mets, etc… have the money to spend then great, but not every team can go out and afford to throw money at a player like they can making it hard to stay competitive.

The whole point of the luxury tax was to help lower budget teams stay competitive, be able to re-sign their own players, and go out and acquire free agents to make their team better.

The problem however is that the owners don’t have to use the money to make the team better. Some owners are pocketing the money.

While I don’t know how much was put towards their teams, you can’t say that you think that the Kansas City Royals, Tampa Bay Rays, as well as other teams are using this money to their advantage.

If they were, they wouldn’t end up in last place season after season.

Little to no improvement has been show by many low budget teams.

It doesn’t matter if they want to use the money on player signings, scouting, or any of the other numerous important positions that are needed to pay for – but it is ludicrous for an owner to pocket even a penny of that luxury tax money.

This stipulation was not put in to make the owner any richer than they already are – it was put in to improve the game and help equal things out.

This money should be for baseball purposes only. If it is used to make the owners pockets any deeper, which seems to be the case for some teams, then this luxury tax is not being used for its actual purpose.

The owners should have to account for every dime of that money that they used to the commissioner and how it improved their team.

If there is extra money left over from what they were awarded, the money should not be allowed to be kept by the owners, but split back among the teams who put out the luxury tax.

The idea of the luxury tax was a good idea however, if not used only to improve ones team then it is not being used properly and the commissioner needs to step in and reevaluate how the luxury tax is spent.