Free Agents Ain't Free. A Mets Shopper's Guide

[Theoldmole]

Which "why" is your "because" in response to?

Oh, he's in center field. We're not talking about him.

[batmagadanleadoff]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: In 1980, the Payson family sold the Mets -- the NYC NL franchise, ferchrissakes! -- for 21 million dollars. Last year, Johan Santana, inactive and past his prime even if healthy, made 25 million dollars in baseball salary alone -- and the NY Mets were valued at two billion dollars in a Bloomberg Report. So yeah -- things keep going up. And MLB will continue to explore new untapped revenue streams, including expanding PAY TV, pay internet and international expansion. They'll put a Major League Baseball franchise on a mountaintop in Afghanistan if their money guys tell them that the move'll make boffo money. They'll also put more American cities into baseball and more teams into the playoffs. Whatever it takes to make more $$, and they won't give a shit if MLB starts to resemble the NHL a little bit. The NYT $$ article I posted yesterday in the Finance thread stated that the Mets ability to acquire Free agents was improved because every team received an additional many millions more from MLB's new TV contract. I don't agree with that reasoning because increasing the money supply without increasing the quantity of available goods will only raise prices (salaries here). If the Mets are getting an additional $20M, then so is every other team. So where's the competitive advantage? This'll help the players more than the teams. If you wanna lower salaries, increase the number of quality free agents available (goods) instead of the money supply. Because if everyone was a millionaire, you'd need 10 million dollars to buy a starter home in an average neighborhood.

Despite the current lull in expansion chatter, my guess is that MLB will add two teams in the near future. 16 team leagues work much neater than 15 team leagues, not only because 16 is an even number, but because it's also divisible by four. I'd bet on another realignment to four eight-team divisions with the top two teams making the playoffs. I won't like it, but it makes sense schedule wise and also, because the owners are in it for the money and wouldn't turn down buy in fees no matter what.