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WinPitcher
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in Sports Talk
Originally Published: November 17, 2009
Money talks, but baseball won't listen
The high-payroll Yankees won again, but that's no reason for a baseball salary cap
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Bryant By Howard Bryant
ESPN.com
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Almost instinctively, as though he could anticipate the inevitable, undermining charge that his team had purchased rather than earned its 27th title on the field, Derek Jeter stood on the podium at Yankee Stadium moments after the New York Yankees defeated the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 6 of the World Series and offered his version of a pre-emptive strike: "We deserve to be here," he said before holding the championship trophy in his hands.
Jeter's declaration did no good, of course. The post-World Series narrative in the wind and cold of November has been that the Yankees finally bought the right hardware for their $206 million investment in player payroll. It could be heard in the stands, on the airwaves and, just as clearly even before they won it, inside rival big league clubhouses. A little more than a week earlier, during the American League Championship Series, Los Angeles Angels center fielder Torii Hunter mentioned the Yankees' massive offseason spending spree in seemingly every third interview, trying to soften his team's eventual fall.
Jeter
Jed Jacobsohn/Getty ImagesDerek Jeter and the Yankees deserved to win the Series whether the price was right or not.
"Their payroll is what, $10 billion?" he joked before praising the Yankees as a smart powerhouse team.
So the Yankees are champions, and thus begins an offseason that will be centered on money. Owners across the league this offseason will promote the creation of a salary cap, ostensibly for "competitive balance" -- a way to take money from the players and take down the Yankees simultaneously. All this at a time when the owners have a golden opportunity to improve the quality of the game but won't because they refuse to reduce their sizable profits.
For the record, the Yankees are World Series winners because when the championship points were played, the Yankees' stars all performed. Meanwhile, the wannabe showstealers in Minnesota, Los Angeles and finally Philadelphia forgot their lines when it counted the most. The Phillies, although valiant defending champs they were, received exactly two performances from their headliners -- one from second baseman Chase Utley, the other from starting pitcher Cliff Lee -- while any number of the Yankees' stars seemed to alternate auditioning for Series MVP.
Hideki Matsui eventually won it, hitting .615 with three home runs even though he started only half of the six games. Jeter hit .407, Johnny Damon .364 (and he erased his Game 4 misfire in the field with a superb baserunning play later that will not soon be forgotten). Alex Rodriguez's home run in Game 3 melted Cole Hamels, and then he devastated Brad Lidge (in Lidge's only 2009 Series appearance) the next night. Mark Teixeira ignited Game 2 against Pedro Martinez and fielded flawlessly throughout the playoffs. Mariano Rivera appeared in four games, saved two and closed out the finale, all without giving up a run. Andy Pettitte won two games. CC Sabathia pitched stoutly in two starts. And even wild, checkered A.J. Burnett outpitched the great Martinez in a pivotal Game 2 that kept the Yankees from going to Philadelphia looking up from a grave 0-and-2 hole.
The Yankees spent for this year's team as they always have spent. During the past 25 years, they have led the league in payroll 17 times; before this season, they'd won the World Series exactly four times during that stretch. They've led the league in payroll each season since 1999 and won the World Series three times, including an eight-year gap between the second title in 2000 and the third a few weeks ago.
Big-money winners
Since 1985, only six teams have won the World Series with the highest player payroll in the game, according to Major League Baseball.
1992
Toronto Blue Jays, $49.4 million
1993
Toronto Blue Jays, $51.9 million
1996
New York Yankees, $61.5 million
1999
New York Yankees, $92.4 million
2000
New York Yankees, $114.2 million
2009
New York Yankees, $206.7 million
In one title year, the 2000 season, the Yankees won all of 87 games, the fifth-best record in the American League and the ninth-best record in baseball. And during the past quarter century, only six teams have won the World Series by spending the most on players.
The last team other than the Yankees to lead the league in payroll was Baltimore at $77.3 million back in 1998. (The Orioles lost 83 games and finished 35 games behind the Yankees that season.) So in truth, the $442.5 million the Yankees spent this past offseason on Teixeira, Burnett and Sabathia represents business as usual.
Payroll in its own way represents a straw argument, for there is a general figure a franchise can reach -- roughly $145 million -- to be an elite team. Spending beyond that figure produces diminishing returns for the simple reason that a disproportionate amount of payroll pays star players. The Yankees, for all of their high-priced players, still went through the season with a young, untested bullpen; and when it counted, they had no fourth starter in the playoffs, two weaknesses common in modern baseball.
In other words, spending $500 million on payroll would still produce a team that would win between 95 and 105 games, as virtually all great teams do. It is the order of things.
Yet two differing strains of a common theme -- money and who gets to make it -- dominated the talk during the postseason and continue to be a top discussion point about the future. During the World Series, incoming union head Michael Weiner and his opposite number across the bargaining table, executive vice president for labor relations Rob Manfred, were both asked -- with limited success in eliciting answers -- just how seriously baseball owners will push for a salary cap when the collective bargaining agreement expires in two years. Commissioner Bud Selig has taken the nonchalant position that "the other three sports all have one, and the world hasn't ended," as he said last summer. Understanding its third-rail sensitivity, Selig has not hardened that anecdotal approach into a concrete policy, as the owners did back in 1994.
Salary caps generally are discussed for two reasons: The sport is hemorrhaging money, or a preponderance of teams cannot win. Yet baseball is not really making either argument in 2009, because neither case can be made right now.
The top-down approach of pinpointing the Yankees as baseball's biggest problem might create a more sympathetic argument in favor of a salary cap, but Selig has said annually in recent years that the league has made more money than ever ($6.6 billion in 2008, the most recent season for which figures are available) and has had a record number of teams in playoff contention each summer.
The Kansas City Royals, who in 1990 had the highest payroll in baseball at $23.6 million, have not made the playoffs since winning the World Series in 1985. Since 1993, the Royals have finished a season better than .500 only once, winning 83 games in 2003. They have not finished as high as second and over .500 since 1989.
[+] EnlargeBud Selig
AP Photo/Matt YorkBud Selig has yet to draw a hard-and-fast line in the collective bargaining sand about a salary cap.
But the Royals haven't demonstrated a great deal of front-office acumen lately, nor has baseball articulated a position -- with empirical data -- that suggests the on-the-field failures of the Royals, Pittsburgh Pirates, San Diego Padres and other poor franchise cousins stem from the game's financial structure rather than corporate incompetence. The Oakland A's, Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins (the Twins and the A's were among the teams the league establishment considered for contraction less than a decade ago) might have a greater claim to a cap argument. They've had some success on the field lately.
So before baseball tries to restrict the earning power of the players to address whatever financial woes it has -- and a salary cap surely would come couched in terms of player greed -- the game's central office needs to place more scrutiny on how its franchises are actually run. (I bolded this statement....Don)
Meanwhile, rivalries -- such as the ones the Yankees seem to spawn -- are good. They are good for fans. They are good for players. And they are good for the all-important television networks. In football, a salary cap made a certain degree of sense. The teams were sharing revenue at socialist levels anyway, and before the cap was instituted, if you weren't one of six teams -- Dallas, Green Bay, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Washington or Oakland -- chances were you weren't going to win the Super Bowl.
Here's what former MLB player Curt Flood, addressing how profit rather than the quality of the game is all that concerns ownership, wrote in "The Way It Is" in 1971:
Their protestations notwithstanding, the owners measure the Good of the Game in terms of the profits that remain after expenses are subtracted from receipts. Everything else is subordinated, including the quality of what takes place on the playing field. The proprietors of baseball have never hesitated to adulterate the game to make an extra dollar. Exhibit A is the profitably extended season of 162 games, plus pre-season exhibitions, plus in-season exhibitions, plus intraleague championship playoffs, plus a World Series that has become a travesty because the men are utterly exhausted before it starts.
All members of the game's quintet of power -- fans, players, media, broadcast partners and even owners -- seem to agree that the season has become dangerously elongated, stretching into November this year. The weather can undermine the health of the players and the quality of the sport's premier showcase, the World Series; and attending a late-October or early-November game can be hell on fans. Yet the game's leadership also agrees there is no way out: The schedule (with or without the World Baseball Classic in the spring) dictates that every few years, or even annually now, World Series games might be played in November. Nobody, it seems, likes this very much.
The only solution is for baseball owners to agree to return the season to 154 games or fewer. That would allow the regular season to end before the final week of September, and the World Series could end before horrible weather has the chance to ruin it.
[+] EnlargeRockies Fans
Doug Pensinger/Getty ImagesThese Rockies fans might as well have been watching the Winter Olympics last month.
And yet, it also is universally agreed that the same parties who will fight for a salary cap on the grounds of competitive balance will never cut back on the number of games because they don't want to lose the revenue from home dates.
"The clubs in Boston, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles would never, ever allow this," said a union official who asked not to be identified because he isn't authorized to speak publicly on policy. "And you have some serious math to do. Take away eight home dates, multiplied by 15 clubs, and you're talking about significant, significant sums of money."
Selig agreed, saying both at the World Series and later in a televised interview with Bob Costas on the MLB Network that the discussion of a shorter season was immediately "off the table."
Blaming the players for the imposition of a salary cap might be a popular -- indeed, populist -- move in a time of high unemployment, but it is a straw argument, one that Selig undermines every August when he trumpets how many teams from different financial situations are in playoff contention. If baseball needs cost containment, it also needs quality control. A salary cap would address only the easy side, curbing the players' earning power.
Nor will the commissioner's office curb its own lust for every dollar by fighting the television networks on behalf of the fans who attend games in increasingly worse weather or by demanding that northern-tier teams submitting plans for new stadiums find the additional revenue for a retractable-roof option. Baseball's economic experts estimate a retractable roof adds roughly $300 million to any new stadium project.
Sooner or later, the game will crash into a doomsday scenario: a Twins-Rockies World Series in blizzard conditions around Election Day. And when that happens, a salary cap will be the least of its worries.
Howard Bryant is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He is the author of "Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston," "Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball" and the forthcoming "The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron." He can be reached at Howard.Bryant@espn3.com or followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/hbryant42.
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Comments
The small market teams need "the perfect storm" just to make the playoffs for ONE YEAR (look at TB, who already has had to sell off key components of their 2008 WS team). Teams like the Yanks and Red Sox can fall out of bed and win 90 games year in and year out.
IMO, the sport of baseball is in for a world of hurt in the next 5-10 years as the economy continues to swirl down the drain. When fans of 1/3 of the MLB teams realize that they have NO SHOT of making the playoffs, they will stop buying tickets to conserve whatever cash they can, as inflation outpaces their annual raises in their paychecks. Contraction is inevitable, as there will be teams losing millions of dollars, and there will be nowhere to move them to because taxpayers in prospective cities will not vote to raise taxes to build a stadium.
We had the near-apocolype in the U.S. economy last year. I think the sports version is on the horizon.
<< <i>I'm a fan of the Red Sox, a team that is clearly one of the beneficiaries of the current system, and I think there should be a salary cap in baseball. At the very least, there has to be some sort of mechanism in place to provide a level playing field for every team in the league - something beyond the luxury tax, which clearly hasn't done anything to close the gap between the haves and the have-nots, and in fact, has only widened it. Yes, I realize that will mean fewer trips to the playoffs for my team, but for the good of the game, it has to happen.
The small market teams need "the perfect storm" just to make the playoffs for ONE YEAR (look at TB, who already has had to sell off key components of their 2008 WS team). Teams like the Yanks and Red Sox can fall out of bed and win 90 games year in and year out.
IMO, the sport of baseball is in for a world of hurt in the next 5-10 years as the economy continues to swirl down the drain. When fans of 1/3 of the MLB teams realize that they have NO SHOT of making the playoffs, they will stop buying tickets to conserve whatever cash they can, as inflation outpaces their annual raises in their paychecks. Contraction is inevitable, as there will be teams losing millions of dollars, and there will be nowhere to move them to because taxpayers in prospective cities will not vote to raise taxes to build a stadium.
We had the near-apocolype in the U.S. economy last year. I think the sports version is on the horizon. >>
I agree with a lot of what you wrote, but it will be real difficult to get a salary cap in and have a luxury tax. There are a lot of teams out there that rely on what they get from the luxury tax. I can't see the teams that pay the luxury tax also being willing to have a salary cap. In the same token, I can't see too many teams on the opposite end of the spectrum being willing to lose their luxury tax revenue. Baseball is a mess when it comes to salaries--take away the luxury tax and you'll see a few teams fold or leave town.
The thing that bothers me with the luxury tax is that there are some small market team owners that do not use the luxury tax income on salaries - they put it in their back pocket!
The Yankees had more stars, which is significant. They had a much larger margin for error, as they had better players. Also, the Yankees had two left handed starters, which meant they matched up well against the Phillies. As someone noted, spending the most money does not guarantee that you will win, but it puts you in the hunt every year. Would the Yankees have even been in the playoffs with a $100 million payroll? Probably not.
Link
<< <i>The point is the bottom spending teams NEVER win the title in baseball. >>
Should they win though? I know everyone loves the Cinderella story but wasn't Cinderella just a fairy tale?
"And lastly, fix the draft. There needs to be some sort of slotting system. Too often, the best player available isn’t being drafted because a team knows they can’t afford him. So that players slips to the big market teams. An example of this is Daniel Bard of the Red Sox. Coming out of North Carolina, teams were afraid to draft him, so this talented pitcher who should have been a high pick, slipped to the Red Sox. Second, allow teams to trade picks. And third, baseball is an international game—international players should be subjected to the draft so that the big market teams no longer have a monopoly on signing the top foreign players."
This issue was evident with Strasburg in the draft this year and the very real possibility that the Nationals weren't going to be able to afford to sign him.
Like how the Phillies got Cliff Lee?
Steve
Each team throws in 31`% of the gross and then that pie is split up among all the teams.
The small market teams get a larger slice of the pie.
So a team could throw in 31% of 30 million say and get back 50 million in revenue sharing.
Some teams get as much as (it has been reported) 90 million dollars when both are added together.
This before they sell one ticket, one beer, one hat, park one car.
Their is a reason why small market owners are not crying as loud as the small market fans.
All one has to do is look at the NBA, it has a cap yet 5 or 6 teams usually win it all. The Lakers have won almost as much as the Yanks
in the past 15 years.
In Football a cap seems to work, there just about anyone can win it all.
I have no idea what baseball can do, I only know that this is not new.
Big market teams have always done better there.
Steve
The NBA started the cap 25 years ago. During those 25 years 7 teams have won it all. That means that 23% of the teams have won while 77%
have won nothing.
MLB without a cap has had 24 WS in that time, (1994 no series) 18 Different teams have won a WS in that time. That equates to 60% of the teams
winning a WS.
The Tampa Bay team chose very well in the amateur draft, maybe baseball should give teams that finish lower in the standings more early picks?
Or if you spend a certain amount above the league average you lose such picks? We all agree that baseball needs to do something because EVERY team
deserves a chance to win. I just don't feel it should be restricting what players can earn. And FWIW the rich teams don't steal anyone players, these players are free agents and CHOOSE
to switch teams.
Steve
* Thanks to Al Novocent for doing the research.
<< <i>
The Tampa Bay team chose very well in the amateur draft, maybe baseball should give teams that finish lower in the standings more early picks?
Or if you spend a certain amount above the league average you lose such picks? We all agree that baseball needs to do something because EVERY team
deserves a chance to win. I just don't feel it should be restricting what players can earn. And FWIW the rich teams don't steal anyone players, these players are free agents and CHOOSE
to switch teams.
Steve
* Thanks to Al Novocent for doing the research. >>
Great points. How about a draft pick salary cap? Seems to work in football and basketball. In that sense a Strasburg couldn't hold a team hostage. Granted after X number of years that player could still leave, but when you look at what Tampa did with Longoria or Cleveland did with Sizemore (among others) by singing them to multi year deals early in their careers, a good nucleus could be built.
In the salary cap NBA world, a bad player with a big expiring contract is a valuable commodity, as once the contract expires you can sign a replacement player of similar cost despite the so-called cap. Complex and silly.
In the MLB it is just an anchor.
It doesn't cost a whole lot to have the best scouting, management, and minor league system - a lot less than a Zito sized error, but some small market teams don't even do those things well.
Bosox1976
Winpitcher said it best when small-market teams are getting huge sums of money back, but not putting it into player salaries. Maybe a minimum salary floor needs to be put in to make sure owners aren't screwing over their fans. Or maybe the small market fans should wisen up and stop going to the ballpark (which will happen eventually in cities like Pittsburgh, which is starting to ship off players while they are still arbitration eligible!)
<< <i>Some facts to ponder:
The NBA started the cap 25 years ago. During those 25 years 7 teams have won it all. That means that 23% of the teams have won while 77%
have won nothing.
MLB without a cap has had 24 WS in that time, (1994 no series) 18 Different teams have won a WS in that time. That equates to 60% of the teams
winning a WS.
The Tampa Bay team chose very well in the amateur draft, maybe baseball should give teams that finish lower in the standings more early picks?
Or if you spend a certain amount above the league average you lose such picks? We all agree that baseball needs to do something because EVERY team
deserves a chance to win. I just don't feel it should be restricting what players can earn. And FWIW the rich teams don't steal anyone players, these players are free agents and CHOOSE
to switch teams.
Steve
* Thanks to Al Novocent for doing the research. >>
<<< And FWIW the rich teams don't steal anyone players, these players are free agents and CHOOSE to switch teams. >>>
.....and the free agents just happen to almost always "choose" the team that can offer them the most money.
lol no chit. What would you do? Take the lesser offer?
I noticed you skipped over the Cliff Lee comment. I guess that does not fit your agenda.
Steve
<< <i>nd the free agents just happen to almost always "choose" the team that can offer them the most money.
lol no chit. What would you do? Take the lesser offer?
I noticed you skipped over the Cliff Lee comment. I guess that does not fit your agenda.
Steve >>
What agenda? - The Yankees have plundered and pillaged and stole other team's players for years - that isn't debatable. A team can either get walked all over by them or fight back...the Phillies have been fighting back, and in my opinion are the best run team in MLB. But there was a time when the Phillies got walked on...fortunately those days are over.
What Phillie free agent did the Yanks ever get?
You still have yet to say anything regarding how your team 'stole' Cliff Lee.
I guess it's ok for the Phillies to get over on a team but a NY team can't.
One last point, don't you think the player that leaves his team bares some of the blame?
The team after all made them wealthy, taught them how to be big leaguers, brought them into the league etc, yet at the first chance they
leave for the almighty dollar. Yeah blame the Yanks for everything Steve k, without the Yanks MLB would be a minor league enterprise.
one last lol for your statement claiming the Sillies are the best run organization.
I think you must be stoned.
Steve
Well, except for Beltran. He can suck donkey thingys for all I care. Little turd.
But I'm not still bitter.
<< <i>The NBA is kind of a different animal because it has always been a league of dynasties and mini-dynasties. It's commonly accepted that the team with the best player generally goes on to win the title (or at least compete for it).
Winpitcher said it best when small-market teams are getting huge sums of money back, but not putting it into player salaries. Maybe a minimum salary floor needs to be put in to make sure owners aren't screwing over their fans. Or maybe the small market fans should wisen up and stop going to the ballpark (which will happen eventually in cities like Pittsburgh, which is starting to ship off players while they are still arbitration eligible!) >>
Agreed. I can get behind a lot of what WinPitcher has said here, but you can't compare the NBA and MLB. There's only one real road to success in the NBA, and that's to bottom out, catch a high lottery pick, and hope like hell he turns into a superstar. Exceptions obviously do occur (Pistons in '04, for instance), but the fact that they're so often cited as exceptions only reinforces the validity of the rule. So, the fact that the NBA doesn't have competitive balance isn't due to the ineffectiveness of the salary cap- it's due to the fact that one player can so utterly dominate a game (or a series) that a team with lesser players simply can't hope to compete.
I do agree that the players get a free pass while the Yankees are continually vilified, and that's completely unfair. If the players are excused because they're 'playing by the rules', then it should be noted that the Yankees are also playing by the rules. If the owners of these small market teams actually gave a damn about this situation they would just sell their teams, or take the fees from contraction and be done with it. But it seems pretty clear that everyone's making money in this present set-up, and while the fans may wail and howl they still support their teams enough to ensure a state of inertia in the financial structure of baseball. If you think the system sucks, then start supporting your local AAA team.
<< <i>lol!!!
What Phillie free agent did the Yanks ever get?
You still have yet to say anything regarding how your team 'stole' Cliff Lee.
I guess it's ok for the Phillies to get over on a team but a NY team can't.
One last point, don't you think the player that leaves his team bares some of the blame?
The team after all made them wealthy, taught them how to be big leaguers, brought them into the league etc, yet at the first chance they
leave for the almighty dollar. Yeah blame the Yanks for everything Steve k, without the Yanks MLB would be a minor league enterprise.
one last lol for your statement claiming the Sillies are the best run organization.
I think you must be stoned.
Steve >>
Steve...you're being silly and you know better. It's not just about free agency and you know it...a number of teams are forced to "trade" their players because they know they won't be able to sign them, so they have to trade them sometimes for drek in return...you know that so stop being silly with your only focus on actual free agency as to teams losing their star players.
The Phillies lost a number of players for these reasons over the years, as well as many other teams who fared even worse and sometimes much worse - this isn't even remotely debatable. And with statements such as "without the Yanks MLB would be a minor league enterprise" considering your excellent knowledge of baseball, you are for whatever reason just trying to be silly tonight.
Finally we agree.
And no Steve I was not being silly, most movement is via free agency and how you constantly villify
the Yanks for picking up the free agents baffles me. What you do not want to understand is that when they become 'free agents' they NO
LONGER belong to that team.
Boo, you got my point very well.
Steve
Basically article stats the Pirates pocketed 5.5 mil each of the past two years and all 5.5 mil was spent on improving infrastracture of the team
Post Gazette Story from 12-7-09
The value of the franchise last I heard was about 275 million
subtract the 100 million they owe, (only God knows for what) and they have actually
made a cool 85 million dollars.
Methinks they ain't selling they just love all that free money they get every year.
FWIW I don't believe a word of it.
MLB is a 6 billion dollar a yr. industry.
Steve
Steve
For fun lets say they increased their current payroll to league minimum, they would have to borrow the money to do that based on current economics of the team. They would basically owe more than the team is worth in about 7 years if they don't win and increase gross revenue. Would you suggest thats a smart move?
Just because you don't believe they owe money or are spending money developing baseball in other countries doesn't mean its not true. Even if they pocketed 5.5 mil a year, that doesn't even buy a Placido Palanco in todays market. The could maybe get 2 mid relievers for that coin. They are investing in scouting and draft picks.
They have NO money, they owe MIllions, they lose every year. Why are they even in the league?
Steve
"In April 2008, Coonelly told the Tribune-Review the Pirates have used some of their revenue-sharing money to pay down the team's debt"
Isn't that money supposed to be for on the field use?
Steve
The Pirates also stated they didn't use any profits to pay down debt in 2 years. Sounds like conflicting reporting to me.
Bud Selig has requested owners pay down their debt, I doubt they would have done so without their consent.
Your arguing they have money to spend, they don't, they have to build through drafts and foreign FA's and shrewd trades. They haven't been good at that in the past, now they at least have a plan.
Steve
You win the C you move up to B, you win the B, you move up to A.
You come in last you move down.
Maybe then we all would not have to hear all the cry baby crap about the Yanks winning it every year.
Even though they hadn't won in a decade.
Steve
Oh I'm sorry, that's already been tried...the Yankees and Mets already try to use the other teams like their farm system...and as long as there is no salary cap in MLB, it will stay that way.
Looks to me like the Phillies used the Indians this yr as there private farm system.
Oh how hypocritical some can be.
Steve
Anyone with half a brain knows that.
Where would you rather play Stevek? NY, LA or buttfunk?
You keep harping on a salary cap like that is the cure all.
How has that worked in the NBA?
It works in Football, somewhat.
Steve
Steve do you really feel the league would be better without the Pirates? Just because they don't have the money to compete on the same level as the Yankees doesn't mean they should be contracted yet.
Morgoth why do you always bring up the Yankees? They (Pirates) don't have the money (it appears) to compete with 3/4 of the league.
If I'm not mistaken (and I can be) at least 20 teams outspend them year after year. Even the Phillies had to buy a pennant this year
with the accuisitions of Cliff Lee and Pedro Martinez. The fact remains, unless you are crappy for a long time and draft well (Rays)
or get lucky (Marlins) if you want to make the playoffs you have to pay.
Even the Phillies do it now. Of course Stevek would differ with that but they threw some big bucks at a few core players during the off season.
And I expect them to increase payroll this year too.
Steve
Steve
<< <i>Salary cap will not do a thing.
Anyone with half a brain knows that.
Where would you rather play Stevek? NY, LA or buttfunk?
You keep harping on a salary cap like that is the cure all.
How has that worked in the NBA?
It works in Football, somewhat.
Steve >>
And anybody with half a brain knows that MLB, the NBA and the NFL are different leagues and different sports, and a cap would affect the teams differently depending on how the cap was implemented. A salary cap would definitely work well for MLB in helping small market teams to compete...this is not even remotely debatable except to a closed minded NY fan like you who loves the way things are now.
Unlike small market teams who have to wait and hope a superstar develops in their organization, or hope that some player reject from another team turns it around somehow, or hope they sign some sore armed pitcher who miraculously heals, IE: these teams have to exercise patience...your NY teams can immediately cure all their ills in theory by throwing money at free agents...instant gratification...and you want to see that continuing.
Your Philly analogies are silly and you know that - it wasn't the Phillies who started it but thankfully the Phillies have stepped it up to compete with NY and not get pushed around any longer...but a number of MLB baseball teams aren't really in a position to do that.
But it's obvious at this point that the MLB owners don't want to do it for one main reason...money.
For a bit of perspective, if you look payrolls RIGHT NOW for 2013 - the Yankees payroll is $95M in 2013, which would rank them 13th in 2009....nobody else has more than $38m on the books for 2013, and the average is about $10m.
The thing is you are a bitter anti New York zealot who thinks just because he says something
it is not debatable, sorry chum many times you are not only wrong but look ridiculous in the process.
Your opinion is no greater then mine or anyone's for that matter.
Any other time (and their have been many) you would be using the NFL and NBA as reasons why a salary cap would work
in the MLB.
The bottom line is these so called small market teams need more revenue that we can agree on. Try capping the salaries and see if
your Phillies players show up for spring training.
Even with more revenue, I've already said "where would you rather play" in NY, LA or some other big market place or buttfunk?
Not too many endorsement deals coming out of buttfunk, but then again since you claim it is not even debatable I won't discuss that aspect further.
One way they could get more revenue is for each team to throw down ALL local TV monies, afterall who is going to watch the big bad NY teams if they have no one to play?
Then that money could be divided up equally among the 30 teams. I'd prefer if NL money stayed in the NL and AL money stayed in the AL but I'd take it anyway they decide.
Then and only then could MLB have what most people could call a fair playing field. Small market teams that can't get super star free agents (see above) could use it and
try to develop players who then can leave them after 6 years and go to the Yanks where guys like you would whine anyway.
Steve
Other teams could also do exactly what the Yanks do and did. The Twins for example are owned by a billionaire.
Ditto the Rangers, the Orioles owner is no pauper and the Tigers owner is also very wealthy. The list goes on and on.
They would not be the first owners that spent their own money on a team. Back in the day sportsmen type owners did that
all the time. Some teams would rather play just good enough so fans will come out. Some want to win at any cost.
Others could care less where they wind up as long as they get revenue sharing and luxury tax money.
The answer IMHO is the TV dough, not only the national contract but each teams local one too.
Steve
that said, the mets might be #2.
<< <i>easy there steve....any choke takes a back seat to the 2004 Yanks up 3-0 in the ALCS
that said, the mets might be #2. >>
I'm just warmin' up the smack for the upcoming 2010 season. Gotta hiss off the NL East fans to suck 'em in on another sigline bet.
Bottom line, the only way for teams like the Pirates, As, Twins, Brewers etc to win is to get lucky in the draft, hope they can increase revenue through winning enough to buy a few good FAs and then rebuild in 2-3 years. You hope to get the "perfect storm" of young players and vets and hope they get hot at the right time.
It is a pet peeve of mine for people to keep using the A's as an example of a team that "does it right". They have won 1 playoff series in 10 years and have been to one post season in the last 6 years. They are now into year 4 of their own rebuild and don't look to be any better next year.