I greatly admire Albert Pujols as a baseball player.

Is he one of the greatest sluggers of all time? Yes.

Does he still have a few all-star games left in him? Yes.

Is he worth $30 million dollars? No.

I’m afraid that I have to agree with Chicago White Sox General Manager Kenny Williams that spending that much on a contract with Pujols is just “asinine.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to paying professional athletes gratuitous sums of money, especially if they rank among some of the best in their respective leagues. However, what I am vehemently against is the fact that many teams cannot afford to pay athletes these exorbitant amounts. Sure, maybe the Yankees can afford a 10-year, $275 million deal with Alex Rodriguez. And the Red Sox can afford a five-year $82.5 million dollar contract with John Lackey. But could the Kansas City Royals? Could the San Diego Padres? The Florida Marlins?

The answer is an obvious no. In fact, many of these teams have yearly payrolls comparable to those individual contracts. That’s the very reason why many “great” players on these smaller teams often end up in other cities. It’s why Mark Teixeira went to the Yankees. It’s why Carl Crawford went to the Red Sox. It’s an inevitable result of our society that many of these players will leave smaller clubs for richer teams.

Unfortunately, that means that teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cleveland Indians don’t have a chance of competing against teams with payrolls in the hundreds of millions of dollars. This explains why the Pirates, with their payroll of $38 million (which is slightly more than Alex Rodriguez’s yearly salary) have not reached the playoffs since 1992.

A similar situation could be described among the other bottom feeders in American professional sports. Simply because their owners do not have the necessary funds, these teams are relegated to last-place finishes, losing records and depressed fan bases.

As an Orioles fan, I know this phenomenon well. Over the past decade, I’ve seen some of the best talent enter Baltimore, only to leave within two or three years, often to our AL East rivals. I’ve also heard people defend this system by saying that it isn’t about the money. It might not be completely about the money, but the almighty dollar does play a role. If it didn’t, then Jason Giambi would have stayed with the Athletics in 2002 rather than going to the Yankees. Zach Greinke would have stayed with the Royals, and CC Sabathia would have stayed with Indians. I could go on.

Unfortunately, my preferred solution of suspending the Yankees from play is too extreme, but there are ways this problem can be fixed. First of all, Major League Baseball needs to get rid of the luxury tax. Sure, it might deter a few teams that are on the fence about paying large amounts for new talent. But it does nothing to stop the likes of the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox, who will continue to throw money at players on smaller clubs that can’t afford to offer such lucrative contracts.

What baseball needs instead is a salary cap. I’m not going to suggest any certain number or payroll ceiling, but a salary cap would certainly need to be lower than $200 million to have an impact. With a salary cap, teams like the New York Yankees would be unable to get around the system. They would be unable to entice players away from smaller teams that couldn’t afford to pay half of the New York payroll.

These teams would have a substantial chance. They would not immediately improve, but they could plan for the future. They would not have to worry about losing their best talent to richer teams. Thus, the Royals could have planned to hold onto Zach Greinke and built a strong foundation around the sensational pitcher. Instead, they lost him, another chaser of the almighty dollar.

The ability of these smaller teams to develop for the future would greatly improve the playoff picture. Instead of seeing the same select teams reach the World Series each year, new faces would emerge, leading teams to the playoffs that have not had a chance at the championship for decades.

Unfortunately, a look at the current reality discourages any idealism about a salary cap. Many players, such as Derek Jeter or Alfonso Soriano, would likely put up significant resistance to having their salaries cut in half, as would probably be required by a salary cap. They only way they would comply would likely be by having their own massive salaries grandfathered in, which only raise further opposition by teams.

Don’t look to see this problem resolved anytime soon.

Steven Keithley is a freshman in the School of Foreign Service. After the Whistle appears in every other Friday edition of Hoya Sports.