Why fans should care about payrolls

Bruce Sherman needs to spend on the Miami Marlins. I’ve been saying it for months and it’s still relevant. There’s no excuse for The Fish to not have a high payroll considering that Miami is a major market in the country. Better teams mean bigger profits, so investing in the team is the right thing to do. Any owner that can’t afford it doesn’t want to do this, should sell the team to someone who will do it. All of that said, spending wisely is the key here, and the fans should understand that payrolls are not simple.

Miami Marlins payrolls are should be important to the fans for several reasons.

Many Miami Marlins fans are well aware of the pros and cons of large payrolls, but some fans don’t understand how they work. Those fans think that payrolls are arbitrary and that owners have unlimited funds. They think that “bad contracts” don’t matter as it’s the owner’s money, so only they should worry about it. It’s obvious that it works both ways. If you don’t care about “bad contracts” because it’s not your money, you shouldn’t care how it’s spent at all then, since… it’s not your money!

Its obvious that the higher the Miami Marlins payroll becomes, the more it turns into a balancing act. Is the team gold enough to warrant losing draft picks as part of the luxury tax punishments? Are the players signed important enough to make a difference? Those factors need to be considered with every big contract signed. Losing draft picks is important, as it hurts the farm. The farm system is still the next and most efficient Kent way of building a perennially contending team.

Fans in general are often quick to demand that a team starts winning, but without a good farm and with a payroll that’s too high, a team can’t expect to be annually competitive for a long time. The Miami Marlins can be annual contenders, but it takes smart investments in the farm and free agents to make that happen. Bruce Sherman has the money and Kim Ng makes the decisions. For all their faults, you have to consider the payroll factor as well.