Yankees' Tanaka Signing Shows How Badly MLB Needs to Share More Revenue

When the Yankees announced the $155 million signing of Masahiro Tanaka today, a lot of people's initial thoughts were probably, "The %*!@$#m Yankees!?!?"

My initial thought was:

This is MLB's fault for not sharing more revenue like the NFL. RT @Ken_Rosenthal: BREAKING: Tanaka to #Yankees, 7 years
— Noah Pransky - WTSP (@noahpransky) January 22, 2014

Nobody outside of New York wants to see one team sign every good free agent available, but for the last decade or so, it's seemed the Yankees would. The problem with that is it minimizes the opportunity for teams in smaller markets who cannot sign the top players.

As many Twitter followers responded, the Yankees are simply playing within the rules established by the league. And that's why, for years, I've always said the inequality in baseball (as well as the reason why 19,000 fans a game at Tropicana Field aren't "enough") is MLB's fault.

The league isn't sharing revenue like the NFL does at a time where free agent salaries are soaring out of control for smaller teams.

Graphic courtesy of the Business of Baseball:

There's a LOT more money in the game these days, and its up to MLB to spead enough around to make sure all 30 teams have a legit chance of competing.