leveland Indians $364 4. Baltimore Orioles $347 5. Los Angeles Dodgers $325 6. New York Mets $314 7. Colorado Rockies $305 8. Texas Rangers $294 9. Seattle Mariners $290 10. Boston Red Sox $284 11. Houston Astros $280 12. Arizona Diamondbacks $268 13. Chicago Cubs $242 14. San Francisco Giants $237 15. St Louis Cardinals $219 16. Detroit Tigers $200 17. San Diego Padres $197 18. Anaheim Angels $195 19. Cincinnati Reds $175 20. Milwaukee Brewers $167 21. Chicago White Sox $166 22. Tampa Bay Devil Rays $163 23. Toronto Blue Jays $162 24. Pittsburgh Pirates $161 25. Philadelphia Phillies $150 26. Oakland Athletics $134 27. Florida Marlins $125 28. Kansas City Royals $122 29. Minnesota Twins $91 30. Montreal Expos $89 League Average $233 With players now worth more than many franchises, and player salaries that are still rising every year it has created a situation that makes generating revenue a higher priority than ever before, and the gap between the rich teams and the poor ones keeps getting bigger. Herk Robinson, general manager of the Kansas City Royals said this about the latest round of player signings “The hole between us and the big revenue clubs just got a little deeper didn’t it?” The Royals ended the 2000 season with a $24.5 million payroll, which is $700,000 less than Alex Rodriguez’s average annual salary. Robinson goes on to say, “I can’t see anything beneficial about these signings at all, and the industry as a whole can’t support them. There is no doubt that it will deflate the fans here a bit, and make it harder for us to keep our guys.”The financial and competitive imbalance that exists between the small-market teams and the large-market teams has been created and fed by a disparity in revenue. It is not so much a question of the size of the market, but rather the amount of revenue that the team can generate within its local market. Some of the biggest cities in America li...
