Bud Selig went to Washington to do what people do in Washington: lie. He went to Congress to cry poverty and insist that the only thing that can save baseball is some fundamental change in the game’s economic structure. While this made great copy–most media outlets ate it up like hungry curs given below-grade dog…
Several readers have written in to ask me about the comments I made in my latest ESPN.com piece, in which I argued that Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius are no longer useful baseball players, particularly given their salaries. The gist of the feedback is that because Martinez had driven in 100 runs in all of…
The Red Sox, a symbol of frustration, ineptitude and the cynicism of New England’s finest, are for sale. The Jean R. Yawkey Trust has controlled 53% of the team since Jean Yawkey died in 1992, and the team has been in the Yawkey family since 1933. John Harrington, a Yawkey family advisor and the closest…
Without much fanfare, the San Francisco Giants had the best record in the National League this season. The Mets didn’t put up as good a record as they did in 1999, but were never really challenged for the NL’s wild-card this time. Lineups (AVG/OBP/SLG/Equivalent Average) (Ed. Note: For players who played for multiple teams, their…
In the next few days, there will be much ink spilled over Fox’s big baseball gamble: paying $2.5 billion for complete rights to baseball’s postseason and All-Star Game television coverage for the next six years. And beyond the obvious benefits (for example, none of the cloying, ADD-inspired coverage NBC has used to ruin the Olympics)…
For the manager of a fourth-place team with few recognizable names, Felipe Alou has been in the news quite a bit lately. Boston observers have long considered him Dan Duquette’s first choice for the Red Sox managerial job, and speculation heated up when the Duke sold his current manager, Jimy Williams, down the Charles River…
Reaction to the Arizona Diamondbacks’ recent decision to increase the team’s debt load by $20 million has been loud and unanimous: the sky is, once again, falling. How could one of baseball’s "most successful" teams–a defending divisional champion–find itself in need of cash? As you might expect, there’s a lot more to this news than…
ANAHEIM ANGELS Acquired LHP Scott Karl and cash from the Colorado Rockies for a player to be named. [8/22] I’m sure the Angels think getting Scott Karl out of Denver will help, and while it can’t hurt, it won’t reverse years of decline. Karl’s road stats this year are still ugly: a 5.68 ERA, a…
Last week, I covered the technical problem behind revenue sharing: it’s so toxic to the penalized owners that it’s unlikely to work. Trying to convince an investor that he has already made enough money is like trying to convince Pat Buchanan that the last great anti-trade crusade gave us the Great Depression. It’s a fool’s…
The subjects of revenue sharing and fixing the alleged performance disparity between "large-market" and "small-market" teams won’t go away. This despite the stellar performance of the Chicago White Sox, Seattle Mariners and Oakland A’s, teams once firmly entrenched in the "small-market" camp. Indeed, to listen to WEEI (the great sports-talk radio station in Boston), one…
Everybody’s favorite whipping-boy/wonder-agent, Scott Boras, found himself in the news a few times in the past week. Boras is a lightning rod for criticism for no reason other than that he’s damn good at what he does. An agent is supposed to represent the interests of his client; that’s all. The real or threatened consequences…
When Jim Bowden announced the Barry Larkin signing, he managed to darken the mood slightly by admonishing the fans that they were getting exactly what they wanted…and that they’d have to pay for it. He told fans that ticket prices would be going up, perhaps as early as this season, because of the deal. In…
(Keith Law’s The Imbalance Sheet, a look at the business of baseball, will run every Thursday beginning August 3.) Don’t Believe Everything That Agents Tell You to Read Jeff Moorad, agent to such baseball stars as Raul Mondesi and Manny Ramirez, has a reputation as one of the industry’s shrewdest operators. Indeed, his ability to…
On Friday, Major League Baseball’s Blue Ribbon Panel of Certified Outside Experts released its report on competitive balance in baseball, issuing a list of recommendations on how to prevent the gap between extremely-rich teams and less-extremely-rich teams from getting bigger. The four-man group, which had access to all of the sport’s financial data, didn’t say…
I currently have three catchers on my team and need to drop one. They are Javy Lopez, Ben Molina and Darrin Fletcher. Who do you recommend dropping? –PG Always drop the guy with no hitting talent–in this case, Molina. –Keith Law What are your thoughts on Julio Lugo, the Astros’ new shortstop? Does his potential…