Fish out of water

It seems the Marlins won't be able to sign rising star Josh Johnson to a contract extension because they won't offer him more than a three-year deal. Hell, why would you want to lock up a 25-year-old stud who struck out 191 in 206 innings, had a 1.16 WHIP and a 3.23 ERA last year?

As much as I love baseball, this is the problem that keeps gnawing at me. If the Marlins can't (or won't) sign a guy like this long-term, what's the point of rooting for them? Way too many teams have this same problem, and it really takes away from the sport.

What's the solution? I don't know. A number of things would help (equal revenue sharing, salary cap, contraction) but none of these seem feasible because all of these options are unacceptable to either the owners, the players or MLB itself.

I will say this - eventually something is going to have to change. I don't know when or how drastically, but at some point fans of these small market teams are going to get really sick of being out of contention on May 15.