The New York Yankees and their $423 million in free agent spending during the offseason may have inadvertantly roused some Major League Baseball owners into banding together and start thinking salary cap.

While most teams have thus far held off on major investments the Bronx Bombers blew through cash like water, buying Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett, and there’s been no indication they are yet done spending.

While a salary cap reportedly isn’t on the table at their owners meetings ni Arizona this week at least two owners told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel they think a cap might be in the best interests of the game.

“I would ask, if it’s such a bad idea, what sport doesn’t have a salary cap other than us,” said Mark Attanasio, Milwaukee’s owner, in the Sun-Sentinel piece.

Oakland Athletics owner Lew Wolff followed: “I think there’s a lot of owners that would like to have that right now,” he said. “I think parity is what we’re looking for, and the more ways you can get to parity the better.”

I don’t necessarily agree that the goal is parity but I do think, especially with the YES Network and a brand new Yankee Stadium coming on board that Major League Baseball is going to have to do something to level the playing field.

I don’t care how much of a profit the Yankees make – that’s their business and they are entitled to maximize that in any legal way they want. But the discrepency between what they can spend on salaries and what teams like Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Oakland and Florida can pay simply skews the playing field too dramatically.

Hell, last year the Yankees paid more in luxury tax than the Marlins paid in salaries – and that’s a rip on both of those teams, not just New York. Neither of those sins against baseball should be allowed.

A salary cap isn’t the only answer. A salary floor must accompany a cap and some increased level of revenue sharing that includes spreading the wealth of television contracts the way the National Football League system functions will be necessary to completely even the playing field.

But right now the only reason the Yankees aren’t winning every championship is that their front office spending decisions have been bad. They still made the playoffs every year for a decade-and-a-half because when they made a mistake they could just spend more to fix it.

A cap would be a huge, dramatic start toward ensuring that the playoffs were decided more by the quality of a team’s player development and the quality of a team’s on-field playing and coaching rather than on a team’s ability to pay free agents and buy their way out of mistakes.