Drought watch

[Guest Edgy DC]

You know (and for some reason I'm being ignored in this discussion), logic would suggest that just because some teams succeed despite being forced to play under a more restrictive set of rules doesn't mean that it's OK to continue to force them to.

[Elster88]

Edgy DC wrote: You know (and for some reason I'm being ignored in this discussion), logic would suggest that just because some teams succeed despite being forced to play under a more restrictive set of rules doesn't mean that it's OK to continue to force them to.

YES!!!! Why couldn't I have put it that way? Edgy how much to hire you to regularly take an incoherent set of five pages of thoughts and sum them up in one sentence?

[Willets Point]

And can we split off this parity discussion into another thread from the Drought Watch? We have the power, I just want permission.

[Elster88]

]Oakland, with their $35M payroll, outscored, outhit & outpitched the $100M Yankees. Yes, they lost the series in 5, but that series could easily have gone either way.

Of course, that $35 payroll included Giambi, Tejada, Hudson, Mulder and Zito (and Foulke?). It's pretty damn near impossible to get 5 players like that for under 40 million, let alone a team to play with them. That's again speaking right to my point. You have to have an extremely good (or lucky) fromt office to get a team with that talent for that little cash. And three years later they will all be gone.

That's why I consider teams like that to be the exception for the small-budgeters, not the rule.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Forty-four grand plus a half a dozen Met games.

Mezz seats. I've fallen for crap before.

[Guest Rotblatt]

Elster88 wrote: Of course, that $35 payroll included Giambi, Tejada, Hudson, Mulder and Zito (and Foulke?). It's pretty damn near impossible to get 5 players like that for under 40 million, let alone a team to play with them. That's again speaking right to my point. You have to be extremely good (or lucky) to get a cheap team with talent like that. And three years later they will all be gone.

Sure, but so long as small market teams draft (and trade for) and develop players well, they'll always have a pool of good young talent to draw from.

Oakland won 102 games in 2001, 103 in 2002 (without Giambi), 96 in 2003, 91 in 2004 (without Tejada) & 88 in 2005 (without Hudson or Mulder).

Meanwhile, they've got Street, Haren, Blanton, Harden & Crosby ushering in the new era, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them be in the mid-90's in wins again next year. Time will tell, I suppose . . .

]You know (and for some reason I'm being ignored in this discussion), logic would suggest that just because some teams succeed despite being forced to play under a more restrictive set of rules doesn't mean that it's OK to continue to force them to.

Sure, I don't have a problem with trying to establish a little more equity in payrolls. I just didn't want my favorite AL team getting their good reputation tarnished by Elster88. ;-)

It's a source of pride for most Twins fans that they've been successful despite a cheap-ass owner who pockets the Twin's revenue-sharing money. They probably want more equity in payroll, but I'm pretty sure they want a new owner--one who would pony up for a new stadium on his own dime--more.

[Elster88]

Rotblatt wrote: ="Elster88"]Of course, that $35 payroll included Giambi, Tejada, Hudson, Mulder and Zito (and Foulke?). It's pretty damn near impossible to get 5 players like that for under 40 million, let alone a team to play with them. That's again speaking right to my point. You have to be extremely good (or lucky) to get a cheap team with talent like that. And three years later they will all be gone. Sure, but so long as small market teams draft (and trade for) and develop players well, they'll always have a pool of good young talent to draw from. Oakland won 102 games in 2001, 103 in 2002 (without Giambi), 96 in 2003, 91 in 2004 (without Tejada) & 88 in 2005 (without Hudson or Mulder). Meanwhile, they've got Street, Haren, Blanton, Harden & Crosby ushering in the new era, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them be in the mid-90's in wins again next year. Time will tell, I suppose . . .

All true. Again, it's only the A's and Twins who seem able to do this. There's some schmuck in Tampa that wants his team to win.

Rotblatt wrote: ]You know (and for some reason I'm being ignored in this discussion), logic would suggest that just because some teams succeed despite being forced to play under a more restrictive set of rules doesn't mean that it's OK to continue to force them to. Sure, I don't have a problem with trying to establish a little more equity in payrolls. I just didn't want my favorite AL team getting their good reputation tarnished by Elster88. ;-)

Haha. Hey, I respect Minnesota a lot. I don't think it's fair that their forced to play under this system, and I just thought that they were playing over their heads the past few years.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Elster88 - "Edgy how much to hire you to regularly take an incoherent set of five pages of thoughts and sum them up in one sentence?"

Well, he is an editor. I would expect him to be articulate.

[Willets Point]

Rockin' Doc wrote: Well, he is an editor. I would expect him to be articulate.

And at the end of a day of great editing, all the writers gather around and throw Edgy in the air in celebration.

On Edit: Damnit, I need an editor.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Damn it, I love baseball.

[Frayed Knot]

"I still say it sucks to be a Pirate fan."

Agreed. Partially that's because of MLB's system but also partially because they've been run poorly over recent years.


"You know (and for some reason I'm being ignored in this discussion), logic would suggest that just because some teams succeed despite being forced to play under a more restrictive set of rules doesn't mean that it's OK to continue to force them to"

Also true. I'm not suggesting that the current system is where it should be -- just that I don't believe that the 'cap' alternatives are the answer especially when they've shown themselves to be no better at spreading the titles around or keeping the bottom feeders from consistently being bottom feeders.



"I think I'll go with this: Teams with more money have a HUGE advantage over the smaller market teams."

Of course they do and things would shirley be better it if incomes were more uniform throughout, although part of the differences in income is that some teams have been better at creating income by marketing and investing in their product better.
Point is that not only are the leagues w/caps not producing better results, but that the whole point of the salary cap has nothing to do with parity, it has to do with artificially holding down salaries across the entire league in order to ensure profit levels.

[MFS62]

The idea of a team having a $35 million salary budget makes my blood boil.

I may have posted this before, but please bear with me.

A few years ago (it may have been the Spring of 2003 or 2004), Selig testified before Congress about the financial state of Major League Baseball. He was trying to show how all but a handfull of teams lost money. On that day, USA Today printed a copy of the spreadsheet/ books he presented into evidence. I have tried several times to find a link to that spreadsheet, but have been unable to locate it. But I do remember one significant number.

Each major league club receives a total of $42.8 million per year from national tv and radio rights and royalties from MLB branded merchandise.
Let me repeat that number, $42.8 million per year.

That is before a single fan parks a car, buys a ticket, yearbook, scorecard or souvenir, or stops at the concession stand for some overpriced food and drink. And that does not include individual team revenues from local tv radio, or ballpark and scorecard advertising.

The fact that a baseball team can have a salary budget of less than that, and claim that they have lost money, is hubris.

I believe that each team's payout of the annual shared revenues should be established as a salary floor. And it should be mandatory that they use all of it each year, or they will lose their portion of the luxury tax payout. Maybe that will force some of the "smaller market" teams to be competitive when trying to acquire talent, in order to put a better prioduct on the field. It may not solve all the ills of competitive balance, but it would at least be a start.


Thoughts?
Later

[Elster88]

]The fact that a baseball team can have a salary budget of less than that, and claim that they have lost money, is hubris.

Baseball teams do incur other expenses besides salaries.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I don't go for salary caps or floors either.