It’s not a classic, or even a movie I would describe as one of my favorites, but if I stumble upon Quiz Show while I’m flipping channels, I usually stay there for a while. The movie features a great story, some fantastic performances by the members of an ensemble cast-I’m partial to Rob Morrow as the self-made investigator dealing with issues of class and education in his interactions with the Van Doren family; and Paul Scofield as Mark Van Doren, the elite, even effete, academic father of the dashing protagonist-and some tremendous dialogue, particularly between Scofield and Ralph Fiennes as father and son. The movie, a docudrama about the 1950s scandal in which the game show Twenty-One, among others, was found to be rigged, with the producers supplying answers to contestants in advance and deciding which ones would win and for how many shows, holds up well over multiple viewings.
There’s a scene in the film in which a contestant who has been told to give a wrong answer instead supplies the correct one, foiling the plot while on live television. Host Jack Barry, played convincingly by Christopher McDonald, is all set to turn to the opponent to get the correct response when he catches himself, pauses, turns, and goes back to the first contestant, asking in disbelief if he heard correctly. You can see the wheels turning…”You weren’t supposed to say that, sir. Now what do I do?”
That was me at 3 p.m. yesterday. After expecting the wrong answer for months, I was astounded to learn that the Yankees had signed the best free agent on the market, a player who fills a need for them and who upgrades their team on both sides of the ball. The signing of A.J. Burnett seemed to close off the possibility of adding Mark Teixeira, given that it was their second major commitment to a pitcher in the previous two weeks. With $40 million per year worth of starting pitchers in hand, a $20 million-or-more per season first baseman didn’t seem within reach. By inking Mark Teixeira to an eight-year deal worth $180 million, the Yankees cemented their position as the game’s evil empire to the other 29 fan bases, and reaffirmed their commitment to their own. They made a decision that might eventually cause even more targeted rule changes, but one that is clearly the right one for their franchise.
This is the Yankees at their best: signing the top free agents on the market. They’re leveraging not only the greater marginal revenue that can be generated by each win in New York City, but also their massive cash flow in an industry in which many, even most, teams are hoarding cash in an unsure economy. Other fans and other owners may complain, but the money is coming in; it can go into the team’s pockets, or it can be used to improve the baseball team. If the scale doesn’t work, change the scale-fix the revenue-sharing formulas to factor in market size and potential revenues, as Keith Woolner suggested forever ago-but don’t blame a team for trying to win. Ever. For all of the focus on the $420-odd million the Yankees have committed to three players, their 2009 payroll won’t be much more than the 2008 one, due to the absence of so many eight-figure salaries: Jason Giambi, Mike Mussina, Bobby Abreu, Andy Pettitte, and Carl Pavano all combined to make nearly $80 million last year.
Teixeira is at his peak, one he’s expected to maintain for a few more seasons. Check out his PECOTA card, generated prior to the 2008 season, and both the stable performance expected in 2009-11 and the tiny rate of decline. Teixeira’s fantastic 2008 season did nothing to lower expectations. He is as safe a bet as exists on the market, and when you also consider the defensive upgrade-Teixiera is generally a +10 to +15 defender, and he’s replacing the brutal Jason Giambi-few teams had as much to gain from signing Teixeira as the Yankees did. Teixeira may lose a few points of batting average in the move to the AL East, but everything else will be the same. He’s an inordinately safe investment for a free agent, which is a contrast to the contracts of Sabathia and Burnett.
This was simply a great baseball decision, and a great business one. The Yankees’ focus on signing starting pitchers will do little more than maintain the status quo. Sabathia and Burnett replace Mussina and Pettitte, who combined to throw 404 innings of 3.90 ERA baseball last season. With Sabathia moving to a much tougher competitive environment and Burnett not pitching for a new contract, it’s far from a lock that the two will combine to improve upon those rotation slots. The Yankees are paying just shy of $40 million next year just to maintain the run prevention they got at the front of the rotation a year ago. For the Yankee pitching to improve, the young starters-Joba Chamberlain, Philip Hughes, and Ian Kennedy should someone get hurt-will have to stay in the rotation and perform to expectations.
It’s easy to say that these moves make the Yankees the favorite in the AL East, but it’s not clear that’s the case. The Red Sox have certainly had a quiet winter, but they also had many fewer holes to fill. From the primary contributors on the team that fell six innings shy of the World Series, the only guys they’re losing are Coco Crisp and Jason Varitek; in both instances, the players are replaceable, and can even be improved upon. The Yankees have been active by necessity; the Red Sox have been quiet by choice. The Yankees appear to be basically even with the Red Sox now; the Sox’ edge is in their defense, while the Yankees’ lies in the likelihood that they’ll score more runs. Both are ahead of the Rays, who are likely to regress a bit in ’09 before being scary good in the years that follow.
If this winter signals that the Yankees are going to narrow their focus to the very best talent available and use their deep pockets to bring them into the fold, that’s a very good thing for Yankee fans who spent too many years with Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright instead of Carlos Beltran. What it means for the industry is less clear, although the most shrill voices are almost certainly out of key.
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C -Posada
1B - Teixeira
2B - Hudson
3B - ARod
SS - Jeter
LF - Damon/Swisher
CF - Kemp
RF - Swisher/Nady
DH - Matsui/Swisher
I like playing Nady only against lefties, otherwise keep him on the bench. Swisher plays every day and spells Damon or Matsui vs. lefties.
Dodgers just signed Blake and moved DeWitt to 2nd. Losing Kemp opens a HUGE hole for the Dodgers. One that Melky will never come close to filling.
You said Cano and Melky for Kemp+. Plus what? That wasnt enough to get Kemp in the first place. You know the Dodgers covet prospects. So any talks for Kemp would start with Jackson, Hughes, and then we can start adding guys like the 305 OBP Cano.
Obviously, the Teixeira signing was a good move, but we Yankees haters can hope...
If you start to look at the economics behind baseball, you start to realize that MLB is closer to a free market than any other sports league. While a completely free market is not ideal for a sports league (due to needing a sense of competitiveness in smaller markets and a lack of predictability from season-to-season), there are also good reasons for not starting all teams at an equal level. For example, if MLB wants to satisfy a maximum number of fans, it makes sense for large-market teams to win more championships than small-market teams simply because they have more fans.
There is a balance somewhere between a free market and a salary cap. MLB has tried to find that balance before, but they need to revisit the situation a little more often than every four or five years.
Were it a free market, I would enter it tomorrow, positioning my team in Brooklyn or Newark and asking to be placed into the NL Central. It would be a rough couple of years without any expansion draft, but with high draft picks and the massive New York metro area market, within about half a decade I\'d have a team worth a couple hundred million dollars or more, and I bet that I\'d be winning half (or more) of my games.
OK, barriers to entry preclude that--one can\'t just \"join the NL.\" I\'d like to move the Milwaukee Brewers to Newark, then. I\'d also like to move the KC Royals to Mexico City. Each team would be far more competitive with their new market.
What? Moving a team takes league approval? That\'s not a free market--it\'s a Congressionally-sanctioned exemption to anti-trust laws. And, because it\'s not a free market, unless the leagues (or the lawmakers) take action to ensure competitive balance, the current situation will continue.
A higher baseline from bleeding money off the high revenue teams and redistributing it to the lower revenue teams would (in theory) level the economic playing field more such that success would be more dependent on proper management and talent evaluation. Of course, the short term effect would be an increase in salaries to rather marginal free agents so the owners would never go with this.
First, the Yankees success over the last decade had at its foundation player development and scouting, not money. The core of the good teams consisted of Jeter, Bernie, Posada, Pettite, Rivera, etc. Certainly the money helped build on top of this (e.g., Clemens), but the bulk of the work was done with development and scouting. The Braves have been similarly successful at reaching the postseason in the NL. If you want to eliminate one team being \"systematically more competitive\" than the others, then you should also be advocating lobotomies for the smart GMs in the game.
Secondly, who cares about a \"fair\" (as in, redistributionist) system? I don\'t. And, more importantly, fans don\'t. The game is now as popular as it\'s ever been, despite the ever increasing spending of the NY clubs. I don\'t want MLB run like a fantasy league. That would be atrocious.
I decided to check it out. Per USA Today, the Yankees had an Opening Day payroll of $209,081,577 last year, while the Pirates had a payroll of $48,689,783, a difference of just over $160 million. That difference in salaries would roughly translate into a Yankees team without their nine top-paid players: Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreu, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Johnny Damon, and Hideki Matsui. Those nine players, whose salaries were slightly less than the $160 million difference in payrolls, combined for 48.4 WARP1. The difference between the two teams last year was 22 wins, so at first glance it seems that the payroll more than accounts for the difference.
Certainly there are other factors, including Yankees prospects who might have earned more WARP1 with more playing time and the strength of the respective divisions, but 48.4 WARP1 represents a lot of wins. It’s tough to escape the point that the big Yankees payroll is a major factor in its multi-year dominance of MLB’s toughest division.
By the way, the Pirates beat the Yankees 2 out of three games last year
The problem for the Yankees and other big market teams is that since they often do not get access to the premium payers in the draft because of their high draft position (OK, the Yankees have compounded this by making poor selections among the choices they did have) they often find themselves in the position of having to fill a key position, 1B in this case, through free-agency or a salary-dump trade.
There\'s no need for the Yankees to apologize for signing Sabathia or Teixeira (Burnett might be another story). The Teixeira signing avoids the mistake they made with Carlos Beltran 4 years ago. They still don\'t have a CF.
Yes, teams in cities like Tampa Bay, Milawaukee and Pittsburgh won\'t be able to contend every year. Their advantage is that they are often in a position to rebuild through the draft, supplemented by key trades and modest free-agent pickups like Carlos Pena. Do you think the Yankees would like to have BJ Upton, Evan Longoria, David Price or Ryan Braun?
The Yankees get beat up just as bad in the media when they collapse into a re-building mode (remember the Stump Merrill years?) and in any case, their business model won\'t allow it any more. No one is going to pay hundreds of dollars per game to watch the Andy Stankiweiczs and Matt Gallegos of the world in pinstripes. I\'m not really defending this situation because I don\'t like it either but it is what it is.
Pittsburgh has been mismanaged for nearly 20 years. It\'s absurd to expect them to be able to compete for the premium major-league free agents but when they give big money to guys like Pat Meares and Matt Morris, use a permium draft slot to pick a John van Benschoten and try to convert him to a pticher, well now you\'re talking about self-inflicted wounds. The guys running that team have been content to make a profit by pocketing revenue-sharing and luxury tax money (a big hunk of it from the Yankees) and not invest in the team. You could have given those guys all the revenues of the YES network and Derek Jeter memorabilia and they would still have finished last. It\'s completely fair to compare their performance to other small market teams that have done a much better job.
Looking back at Nate Silver\'s excellent articles on market size:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6182
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6225
The biggest markets are New York, LA, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and, for media market purposes only, Atlanta and Washington DC. Six of the eight playoff teams were from the five biggest attendance markets. Of the eight teams from the five biggest markets, the only two missing the playoffs were the New York teams, and they missed postseason play by very thin margins indeed. All of the playoff teams from the major-market cities had high payrolls.
It truly seems that the Rays and the Brewers are the exceptions, well-managed smaller-market teams able to reach the playoffs--but not able this year to win a World Series--on years when things \"came together.\" But when 75% of the teams from major markets and only 9% of the teams from all other markets reach the Divisional Series, it seems that revenue plays an overwhelming role in determining which teams can compete.
Being able to sign a Mark Teixeira or a CC Sabathia wouldn\'t help the Pirates. Even at a heavily discounted price those guys would be an appalling waste of resources for the Pirates or the Marlins or the Nationals. How many years did Teixeira play in Texas (a better team than the Pirates) without the Rangers making the playoffs? These are guys you sign to fill in a key missing piece not to build around when you\'re a non-contender.
The Pirates need to focus on finding the NEXT Teixeira the way the Rays focused on finding guys like BJ Upton, Evan Longoria and David Price by maximizing the advantage they had in their low draft position. This the Pirates have failed miserably in.
I disagree with your final point about the Rays and Brewers being exceptions. For one thing, the Rays with the core of young players they have (and trust me, the Yankees would kill to get some of them) will be in contention for a while although they will not make the playoffs every year. We\'ve seen the Twins and A\'s make multiple playoff appearances in the last decade so it can be done.
signed - fan with 2 world series championships in the last 11 years.
I didn\'t fail to admit anything. I already acknowledged previously that the NY clubs have much greater financial resources than the other teams. I just don\'t really care, and I think the advantage is completely overblown.
He\'s the same guy that signed Pavano and Wright. Played Melky, resigned Pettitte. He\'s average AT BEST.
Yes, the Yankees are playing within the rules but that is not the point. The question is whether the rules serve the best interests of baseball. The current rules regarding local media revenue give one team (the Yankees) a ridiculously unfair advantage, give several teams (e.g., Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs)a fighting chance and place the vast majority of teams behind the proverbial 8-ball. How can that possibly make the sport better? How does that possibly benefit the fans of Kansas City or are those fans simply not as important as Yankee fans?
In other words, a couple of years ago, the Red Sox spent 50% more than any other team in bidding for Dice-Ks services. That is the equivalent of the Yanks having offered Tex $270mil, rather than $180mil.
Sure. You could argue that the numbers are smaller and, therefore, don\'t mean as much. But you\'d sound foolish, because the principle involved is exactly the same: spend what you can, do what you have to do, to build the best possible team.
That\'s what ownership/front offices are supposed to do. It\'s what the Yankees do. And the Red Sox and the Oakland As, and the Milwaukee Brewers.
The Yankees have to pay a premium on any player they sign. that\'s a given. Unless the earth turns on its axis sometime soon, that\'s how it\'s going to be.
If the Yankees COULD spend $40mil less per season on it\'s 40, or so, players, they would. But they can\'t.
The Yankees\' fan base expects the best. Yankees\' fans don\'t expect a competitive team, or even a really, really good team that\'s got a good shot at the post-season. They expect the best team. And Cashman and Co. understand that very well. You\'ve got to give them credit for that.
The authors who\'ve been around for a long time (like Joe) have low numbers, and longtime subscribers (like me) have low numbers.
Heh heh. I could have hardly have come up with an encomium more laden with unwitting self-deprecation. Awesome.
Mussina/Pettitte: 358 IP, 4.33 ERA
Sabathia/Burnett (adjusting for the AL for Sabathia): 398 IP, 3.73 ERA
That\'s a *lot* better.
My pessimism stems from being leery of Burnett\'s IP, and of the pretty big jump Sabathia will be taking in competitive context. It\'s not just adjusting to the AL, but the AL East.
The Yankees\' problem last year wasn\'t the front of the rotation. Not by a long shot. Structurally, nothing\'s changed; the top two should be better, but not in a fortune-changing way. I suspect missing the competition change for Sabathia and buying into Burnett\'s innings are the issues, as well as not appreciating just how good Pettitte and Mussina were in their context.
Plus, there\'s an air of desperation around the franchise right now. Their much-vaunted player development system just doesn\'t seem to come up with the stars that Tampa Bay and Boston can produce. They need to go out onto the market and get the top items available. (Is there any doubt they\'re gonna get in the Manny conversation now?)
Actually, the Yanks don\'t go out and grab the top free agents every year (or even the best trade targets, as in J. Santana last off-season). In fact, they\'ve been relatively quiet on that score the last few years, outside of the Clemens pickups. But, the Yankee lineup is aging. They didn\'t have a true #1 starting pitcher...Giambi left, creating a massive lineup and positional hole at 1st *no offense to Swisher, which is another deal I love*. Did they overpay or overextend in terms of contract length for CC, AJ, Tex? I think AJ got 2 too many years and too much per season and Tex doens\'t justify a 23 million dollar per year salary...But, I think these moves were dictated much more out of true perceived necessity by the front office whereas 5 or so years ago (or more) they would grab whomever they thought were \'the best\' free agents, even if in reality, they weren\'t OR they would sign players they didn\'t truly need.
This system is broken and salary caps are not the solution. But people who claim this is a free market are way off. Baseball has an anti-trust agreement allowing it to explicitly not compete and that non-competition greatly favors big market teams. I go back and forth on trades with a Mets fan, but he stops chatting when he has to acknowledge that all his team has to do is try to make his team better while my team has to try to make its team better and manage its finances.
Is it coincidence that all the major FA\'s end up at major market teams? Of course not, and this is an unfair system.
If it\'s all about the money, how come the Padres finished well behind these teams that it significantly outspent? Here\'s a thought: Perhaps the Padres management isn\'t as smart as you think.
Ironically, from the inception of the amateur draft in 1965 through the beginning of free agency, the Yankees found themsleves with Horace Clarke at 2B, Roger Repoz in the outfield and, more often than not, in the second division.
The local revenue stream from New York gives the Yankees the kind of clout they had before 1965. This is not a happy day for those of us who want to see a level playing field that gives all of the teams a chance to succeed or fail on their own merits. Isn\'t that what most of us found compelling about baseball in the first place?
So, i\'m not at all scared of these Yankees and their new half a billion dollar trio. And i\'m excited that they probably won\'t stink it up like they did last season. The rivalry was starting to feel stale. In terms of addressing the salary issues, i\'ve been hearing some talk of an INDIVIDUAL salary cap. Something like $25 million a year limit. The agents would HATE it, but I think it would be interesting. Imagine if Tex had had to publicly choose between equal offers from the Yanks, Sox, O\'s & Nats? Its just an idea, and it certainly has its flaws, but few people (outside of those darling Yankee fans) could sit there and argue with a straight face that our beloved ballplayers NEED to make more than $25 million dollars a year. And I feel that it is so much more rewarding to get production from a homegrown player than to just go out and garrishly purchase \"good numbers\". But that is truly just my opinion. I think the NYY\'ll obviously do whatever they can to win (Cashman\'s \"do it ourselves\" ethos withered after one dismal [by Yankee standards] season). But that\'s why baseball is the best. Even as the only sport without a salary cap, its still up in the air every year, and it comes down to that perfect combination of talent, preparation, guts and luck.
For all the doom and gloom about how Teixeira guarantees the Yankees to be the best team in baseball history, why don\'t we look at the last 28 year old superstar 1B to sign a huge multi-year contract. This player was a better hitter, better fielder and more durable than Teixeira. This player was Todd Helton, who the Rockies owe $56.9m for the next three season (plus his 2012 buyout). That didn\'t work out so well for the Rockies, did it?
In any individual season, chance, injuries, player variation, etc. all play a huge factor. And some big market teams are managed much worse than some smaller teams. But if you combine smarts and money, look at Boston. Theo Epstein (former Padres asst. GM) and that crew have combined the two, and while Boston does not win every year, they are in the hunt every year.
The only way small market teams can compete is to invest heavily in the drafts, get a quality team that is under the FA age, and add some talent from the market or trades. That was how Arizona has been competing and now Tampa Bay. The trick is, this is what everyone is trying to do, so doing it better than everyone else is extremely hard. So, if you are rich team, and you have some holes from your farm, go and buy some replacements. If you are a poor team, tough luck, and re-start the re-building.
This signing is sad for baseball as a whole, not the best event for the future of baseball. Very Sad. I would love to see all the teams have a chance to win every year. We need balance between teams. Time to change the rules about free agents. How about a HARD salary cap? Baseball can not continue with just a few teams competing.
2001: Arizona Diamondbacks (1998 expansion team)
2002: Anaheim Angels (first-time appearance and winner)
2003: Florida Marlins (1993 expansion team; 2nd WS win)
2004: Boston Red Sox
2005: Chicago White Sox (1st WS since 1959; 1st win since 1917)
2006: St. Louis Cardinals
2007: Boston Red Sox
2008: Philadelphia Phillies (beat Tampa Bay Rays)
What was that again about needing to \"see all the teams [having] a chance to win\"?
And how would you like a HARD salary cap in YOUR profession?
1) The Cardinal\'s opponent in 2006 was the Detroit Tigers who hadn\'t been in a World Series since 1984 and had lost 91, 90 and 119 games the previous three seasons.
2) The Red Sox\' opponent in 2007 was the Colorado Rockies, also a 1993 expansion team, who were making their first World Series appearance.
You\'re argument is completely counterfactual.
Don\'t the Yankees now have the four largest contracts in the sport on the payroll? How many other teams have a budget that exceeds the combined salaries of A-Rod, Jeter, Teixera and Sabathia?
And one more thing -- other teams have certainly worked hard to build up their markets. Kansas City and Milwaukee are, however, only as big as they are. The population of those metropolitan areas of those cities cannot match the population of the New York area. Why should competition in baseball be a function of geography?
Moreover, the Yankees can build up their market all they want. They still need teams to play them on their homestands. Apparently, some of the pro-Stenbrenner-profligate spending posters here don\'t care if the Yankees play some high school team from upstate New York so long as the Yankees benefit. That\'s just dandy.
Over the Yankees\' profound and stubborn opposition, baseball has had more competitive balance in the last decade. But as many posters have observed, there is a tipping point where no one else can compete with the Yanks. Is that tipping point $200 million? $250 million? $300 million? $350 million? I don\'t know but I do know that this situation will harm the sport long term and may well cause a strike in 2011.
The Steinbrenners spend money to make money. Trying to penalize them for working hard to maximize revenue is silly. If it\'s just a matter of being in NY, why don\'t the Mets spend like the Yankees?
Merry Christmas
montanabowers
That\'s the point. The Yankees aggressively build markets and chase revenue, and created a cash cow franchise. They\'re not passively sitting back, counting the money that volunteers itself to them. They\'re constantly looking for ways to bring in more money and give themselves more finances to play with. The rest of the league doesn\'t have the same natural advantages that the Yankees do, but they also don\'t try as hard as the Yankees to expand revenues.
Point being that if the Steinbrenners owned the Angels for the last 35 years, and someone without the same drive owned the Yankees, the odds are we\'d be talking about the Angels being bad for baseball instead of the Yankees. The Steinbrenners probably couldn\'t have pulled it off in a small market like Kansas City, but with the Yankees they got a franchise with huge earning potential and they figured out what to do with it.
Boston\'s ownership, for one, is creatively chasing revenue as well, fwiw. Other teams should imitate these practices instead of trying to shut them down.
...but when the bet on David Dellucci doesn\'t work after year 1 of a 3 year deal, where can he turn? More hurtful, what if Travis Hafner really is a pumpkin? What can he do? When Carl Pavano doesn\'t work, the Yanks can turn to the next investment on the market the next year. Why? Because they\'re making $2500 a seat each night for the best seats in the house at the new Yankee Stadium and the money brought in from the YES network, etc. Other cities don\'t have those revenue streams and they\'re not all created from a wise owner. Steinbrenner has grown the Yankees exponentially, is overall good for the game, and a great owner...but he\'s not the only one and the fact he\'s in New York is an incredibly immense advantage.
The New York Steinbrenners are raging socialists when it suits their purpose (i.e., no team can move into New York and they want more public financing for their stadium) and are raging capitalists when that suits their purpose.
The people running the Yankees are really raging hypocrites.
How is it unfair for the Yankees to spend their money on their product (something their couterparts would never do), but it\'s fair for Pohlad and his ilk to pocket millions of Yankee dollars just because they\'re not in New York?
People forget the Yankees are a business first, and a ball team second. Their primary competitors aren\'t other baseball teams; but the entertainment industry in New York - and if you want to thrive in that environment you need to do more than just win ball games. You need to be seen and talked about all the time. The Steinbrenners NEED to spend money if (unlike their counterparts) they want their team to do more than just get by every year - even if it means taking a chance on (ugh) Carl Pavano. If that\'s bad for baseball, if \"parity\" is so desirable, then relocate franchises so none has any revenue advantage over Kansas City. Then we\'ll see how good for the game plummeting ratings and attendance are.
I\'m no Yankees fan; and I don\'t buy the argument that small market teams can compete year-in and year-out with the New Yorks and Bostons and Chicagos just through the draft. It\'s not possible. But the real problem with most teams (\"small-market\" or otherwise) is that they\'re owned and managed by small-minded men who have no clue what they\'re doing. The Yankees didn\'t tell the Mariners to hire Bavasi, or Pittsburgh to hire Littlefield. The Yankees didn\'t tell the Rockies to give Todd Helton and Mike Hampton huge long-term contracts; or the Giants to give Barry Zito the same. Arguing it\'s unfair that the Yankees can afford those kinds of mistakes begs the question. For most teams, the source of their \"non-competitiveness\" is in the nearest mirror.
Small market teams are at a material disadvantage to major market teams. Looking at win percentage and playoff participation bear that out. If salary was not a major factor, how come no major market team economizes on salary? There is always a marginal, expected impact. Or they would not spend it.
It has been awhile since reading Woolner, but it does seem like a cap is required that is linked to a fixed % of baseball revenues. Each team is required to spend that amount in salaries. If salaries are under the cap, they remainder has to be put in trust for future salaries, not to the team coffers. The teams have to share revenue to make the system work. You would have to leave some profit incentive for effective marketing and team management, but it could not have a material impact on salary bases across teams.
I doubt any defender of the current system is a fan of a small market team. To argue that the current system is fair is denial of the obvious.
With balanced payroll, some teams will succeed and others flail but that will be much more a product of the team management rather than underlying economics. Teams that flail under the new system should replace their management; they have no one else to complain. Actually, salary discrepancy insulates management. Top market teams can stay reasonably competitive even with making bad baseball decisions. Bad decisions by small market teams can be blamed on the inherent unfairness of the system.
Look at the NFL. There are successful franchises and unsuccessful, but that success can be easily attributed to the player drafting skill and coaching quality. Salary is just not a factor. Spending salary poorly is, but there is no inherent factor inhibiting one franchise from emulating another.
People who argue about the free-market system miss the point. The franchises are awarded markets and they are protected. They did not compete to gain access to those markets nor do they compete to maintain access to those markets. So, this is like a lottery not a free-market. Major market teams may vary in how they manage the windfall of their market\'s economic power, but that windfall was bestowed, not earned.
The Yankees may have made more of their position relative to other major market teams, say the Dodgers, but that does not change the inherent disadvantage of small vs. large. Does someone honestly believe if Steinbrenner owned the Kansas City Royals he would have the same impact on the industry and same spending capacity than if he happened to own a team in the most valuable market in the country? The Royals might be better, but is laughable to envision them as the \"global brand\" that people cite as evidence of Steinbrenner\'s acumen.
The payroll system is completely broken and it will rot out the core of baseball, slowly creating apathy at the extremities (small market teams) until it enters the major market teams as well. Fantasy sports and better analysis have improved engagement, but that cannot overcome over half the teams don\'t have a chance in a given year.
It is disappointing that the BP staff likes to ignore this fact, and, in the case of this article, trumpet an artifact of the imbalances. This seems to be because the BP staff intensely dislikes baseball owners, strongly favors the players\' rights, bristle at anything that might undermine player salaries. It is unfortunate that the owners are led by the ineffective and lethally unimaginative Selig. But, at the end of the day, this is not about labor vs. owners. This is about fairness to fans. Given that the MLB anti-trust exemption is bestowed by the government, I would argue there is a case for governmental intervention to enforce a system that creates salary balance.
This sport cannot thrive as it is. Even if you are lucky enough to have been born into a major market area, the vibrancy of competitiveness suffers and that pulls down the sport. With increasing outlets for entertainment, baseball cannot continue down this path.
I honestly do not understand how fans feel entitled that their favorite team spend the same as every other team. It is not about \"fairness\" it is about business. The government has way more important things to do.
The corrolary to this is that small market teams can\'t stay reasonably competitive if they make bad baseball decisions; so you\'re saying the system\'s \"inherent unfairness\" is that it forces small market teams to actually know what the hell they\'re doing.
Only 7 teams out of 31 haven\'t made the playoffs at least once in the last 10 years. Is that because they suffer from small market disadvantages that somehow don\'t apply to the Twins, A\'s, Rays, Padres, Rockies, Marlins, or Mariners - or because their ownership and management stink?
Just think if there were no yankees, sabathia might have signed with the brewers, burnett with the braves, teixeira with the nationals. Would baseball really be dying then?
the problem isn\'t that small market teams don\'t have the money, it\'s that there aren\'t any players left now that are worth that money. Because the yankees took them all.
This yankee problem doesn\'t have a good solution.
The other owners should ratchet up the luxury tax penalties for the only team that doesn\'t mind breaking through that barrier.There are 29 of them, they can do it.
But honestly, the only teams that have their playoff path blocked by the Gotham Gluttons are the other AL East teams. Maybe give them a larger chunk(all?) of the luxury tax revenues, so that the yankee excesses actually fund their main competitors with cash to compete.
As an NL fan, I can watch the spending with detached bemusement. It has no effect on my hope and faith.
The do excel at getting mercenaries though.
Seems if the true Yankee haters thought the signing was a stupid one, they\'d be glad the Yankees did the signing.
Instead the Yankees haters are left to argue from both sides of the fence, which just makes their arguments all that more inconsistent.
Frankly, the Yankees did overpay for Mark Teixeira. He\'s not Albert Pujols and does not deserve to be the highest paid first baseman in the game. Teixeira is, however, an excellent player offensively and defensively and would help any team. In terms of position players, the Yanks have essentially swapped Bobby Abreu and Jason Giambi for Nick Swisher and Teixeira. For 2009, that\'s probably a net minus. Nonetheless, by 2011 and 2012, Teixeira will liklely contribute more than anyone else in this \"swap.\"
Having said all that, many of those you call \"Yankee haters\" actually hate to see competitive balance endangered and also hate the concept of the Yankees driving the industry toward a strike in 2011. Based on the recent comments of Brewer owner Mark Attanasio and Red Sox owner John Henry, a strike looms as a very real possibility.
Percentage: Chance of reaching playoffs
7%+: 83%
6%: 67%
5%: 48%
4%: 38%
3%: 14%
2%: 14%
1%: 0%
It seems to me that payroll does matter, especially as one approaches the level where team payroll is double the MLB average of 3.33%. Nothing is guaranteed, as the 2008 Yankees proved, but money seems to make success more probable.
Conversely, for smaller-market teams, lack of money seems to make success roughly a one-in-seven chance. A team such as the Twins, with good management and luck, might do better, and a team such as the Pirates might do worse, but the group of teams with below-average payrolls--and that\'s a majority of MLB teams because the payrolls aren\'t distributed normally--can expect to see postseason baseball only once every seven years or so.
This whole discussion raises another question to me -- what percentage of each team\'s available revenue is spent on players? I believe Forbes did a study a couple of years ago and, if I recall correctly, the two teams that spent the largest percentage of available revenue on players were the Chicago White Sox and the Washington Nationals.
Claiming payroll alone, in a vacuum without any team context, determines playoff success is silly. Maybe ownership doesn\'t CARE if its team is competitive, in which case payroll isn\'t a reflection of disadvantage, but an owner\'s conscious business decision. We can\'t know that based on the data provided here.