What I Hate About the MLB Trade Deadline

     I do not like the MLB trade deadline. No, I hate the MLB trade deadline. I love the fact that it is a brief period of rapid fire transactions around the league, but all too often it is the time of the year where the rich get even richer and the small market teams are beaten to the punch. Take the New York Yankees for example. More often then not, in both free agency and around the trade deadline, they use their immense resources and prestigious brand to draw players to them, and they are almost always successful. The Yankees' resources have practically  bought themselves championships, like when they offered Alex Rodriguez a contract that only the late George Steinbrenner would allow his team to write. Later on in his career, Rodriguez was given a contract larger than THE ENTIRE FLORIDA MARLINS' SALARY AS A TEAM! That is why the MLB needs a salary cap  like the NFL's my friends.
    
     The Yankees are not the only teams like this, however. The Boston Red Sox are nearly the same, as they have won many a star player sweepstakes, i.e. when they offered outfielder Carl Crawford a contract valued at $160,000,000, outbidding any other team by a huge margin. Over the course of his eight year, deal he will make wha would take the average American with a salary around the national average 3,200 years.  The raw capital they, along with the Yankees and even the Phillies, have has also allowed them to hire a higher number of high-quality scouts, which allowed them to develop consistent farm system that they ravage to trade for even more talented players. They cycle continues.

     However, the Yankees and their fans are like spoiled children, and when they don't get what they want, they whine, and whine, and whine. For example, when pitcher Cliff Lee signed with the Phillies for less money, the whole legion of fans attacked Lee, and one radio host claimed he could have donated some of his money if he had a higher contract, and therefore was killing children in Africa. See what I mean?

     The Phillies themselves however, are no better. They made headlines this year by signing the aformentioned Lee, and from it creating one of, if not the best, starting rotation of all time. They used their own bountiful resources to outbid and beat any small market team to the punch. Not only did they do that with Lee, they did it with Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt. This trade deadline was not different, and they dealt for left fielder Hunter Pence. The rich get richer.

     Dusty Baker, the manager for the Reds was quoted that he himself disliked the trade deadline because, "Around this time of year, the rich can only get richer." The MLB needs a hard salary cap....bad. I would love the trade deadline if the small market teams actually had a chance.