New CBA to curtail Pirates ability to spend in the draft

The future of the Pittsburgh Pirates may have taken a huge hit with the announcement of the new CBA for Major League Baseball.

It's no secret that a small market team like the Pirates will always struggle to attract top free agents to play here when teams like the New York Yankees can spend endless amounts of money and only pay a small percentage in "luxury tax" payments. 

The one area the Pirates COULD compete was by drafting players and paying higher amounts of money (over slot) for them.  A bit more risky, but drafting and signing a player was the only surefire way the Pirates could get talent. 

Now that will take a hit.

MLB announced today that part of the CBA includes harsh penalties for teams that go overslot to pay players in the draft.  The penalties also include losing top tier draft picks as well. 

So let me get this straight?  Certain teams can spend anything they want on existing MLB players, but the small market teams can't spend anything they want on unproven talent?

Anything to keep the Yankees/Red Sox machines humming I guess.

I'm sorry baseball fans, I can't actually
hear your pleas for competitive balance!

Some people are praising the fact there is no work stoppage this time around for the MLB, but sometimes a stoppage gets results.  The NHL came back from their work stoppage with legitimate fixes to a broken system, and the result is true competitive balance, plus a salary cap AND salary floor.

MLB needs the same. 

I find it completely laughable that Pittsburgh finally starts to spend money through the draft and the rules are changed to make it harder on them.  

I'm sure Bud Selig loves being able to point to a random small market team that has one big year out of nowhere and claim parity, but the truth is the same big market teams are usually claiming the playoff spots.  Hardly ever a year goes by where Boston or New York aren't in the running.  Philadelphia, Los Angeles, notice a pattern? 

Don't get me wrong, the small market teams need to be smarter with how they spend the money and in fact, some need to SPEND to begin with.  This includes the Pirates.  But then again that's the premise of the whole article.  The Pirates finally started spending and MLB implements this to prevent them from spending too much.

What a joke...