Overtime

Here's a statement that shouldn't come as a surprise to any attentive baseball fan: Major League Baseball's revenue sharing system is completely broken.

Most baseball fans have known this for years. However, the recent leakage of team financial records to the media by unknown sources has only served to highlight just how wide the gap is between the system baseball needs and the one it has. Every frustration the media, fans and many of MLB's players and executives have over their revenue system is summed up in the shockingly large profits the Pittsburgh Pirates and Florida Marlins have posted in the past few years.  

The Pirates received $30.3 million in revenue sharing for the 2007 fiscal year and an absurd $39 million in 2008. While revenue sharing is meant to improve the performance of struggling clubs, the league largely lacks the means to force teams to spend the money wisely. Pittsburgh spent barely over $50 million in both these years on team payroll and $44 million on player development while earning net incomes of over $14 and $15 million. Between the amount of revenue sharing received and net income made, the Pirates were "over-subsidized" by roughly 24 million.

It's true that the Pirates have invested a significant amount of their revenue sharing slice to player development. But it's hard to argue Pittsburgh has done a fair job in making use of the gift they've been handed. One only has to look at the collection of talent the Pirates have shed over the years in an effort to cut payroll. Read the names and weep, Pirates fans: Jason Bay, Freddy Sanchez and Nate McLouth have all been pushed away from your team even as it was collecting this money and making a profit.

If the Pirates' actions are extremely frustrating, they still lead to a probably misplaced hope that the franchise can turn itself around due to its investments in player development. The leaked financial documents show that what the Florida Marlins have been doing with their revenue-sharing money is closer to outright fraud. Even more than their compatriots in Pittsburgh, the Marlins have benefited extensively from revenue sharing.

Florida received nearly $48 million in 2008 and almost $44 million in 2009. Meanwhile the club was basically forced by the commissioner to raise their payroll in 2009 in an effort to "stay competitive." Florida did, to the tune of $43 million. 43 MILLION! Marlins fans can attest to the team's penchant for refusing to keep together great teams. As quickly as the mercenaries on the 1997 world champions or the young talents on the 2003 champions were put together, Florida management let the great players on these teams, like Gary Sheffield and Josh Beckett, walk away.

While the Marlins have done a disservice to their fans by not doing everything they can to stay competitive, it doesn't even compare to the corporate fraud they pulled on the state of Florida and its taxpayers. Florida blatantly hid its fiscal situation from the state's government. The Marlin's new ballpark, opening in 2012 will cost generations of Florida taxpayers $2.4 billion. The team is paying only $155 million of the $634 million bill for the stadium complex and convinced Miami-Dade County to take on $409 million in loans to help finance the ballpark, presenting itself as a welfare case to its state's government and concealing the 48.9 million in profits. Marlins owner Jeffrey Loiria is a snake and brilliantly did everything he could to cheat the system and leave a fickle fan base footing the bill for his shiny new plaything.  If any situation could better demonstrate the gulf between fans and the people who run their favorite teams, I don't see it.

The embarrassment caused by these leaked documents should be a driving force for MLB to reform its revenue sharing system when the sport's next CBA agreement comes up. Unfortunately, there's no easy solution for bridging the gap between low-revenue clubs and high-revenue clubs. The proposals that have been presented in the media all have their positive attributes, but they also have flaws. MLB couldn't significantly lower its revenue-sharing totals without putting the success of small-spending teams like the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics in jeopardy.

Baseball needs as many teams as possible to be competitive. No one wants to see the Red Sox and Yankees winning the title every year. A salary cap would go too far in punishing the big-market, high-spending clubs who are legitimately using the resources they have to be successful. If a franchise cannot keep up with the spending of the Yankees, then it will have to outsmart them in another area, whether with a strong farm system or on the free-agent market.

So where does that leave us? MLB could start by lowering the Luxury Tax thresholds and increasing the tax rate on those that break them so willingly. This way, we'd have more teams contributing to the revenue-sharing pie and wouldn't put such a burden on franchises like the Los Angeles Angels ($16.4 million given away through revenue sharing in 2009). MLB would be well-served in exploring whether revenue sharing totals can be distributed according to market size. Teams who don't take advantage of their market size will receive a wake-up call and those from a small market would be assisted with their revenue stream more. Money would go toward the A's of the world rather than the Marlins. While baseball will never be progressive enough to put in a cap floor in the next few years, there needs to be more salary compression by MLB and the Commissioner's Office.

What these leaked documents reveal is a stain upon the game and a system which is a disgrace to those teams that are competitive every year, running a deficit, while helping to keep lower-rung teams alive. I don't have any magical solution for fixing revenue sharing, and I suspect no one else does ether. But I hope that these leaked documents are the stepping stone for Bud Selig to wake up and make revenue sharing more competitively balanced. Otherwise, the sport will become even less relatable to the average fan.