News for ya. In a free market, worth is determined by what the buyer will pay.

Worth to Atlanta pretty clearly != worth to Boston.

So you don't consider any player to be "overpaid". ;)

I think Andrew Jones, for one, wasn't worth his contract ;).

Ah, but see, now we're quibbling over different semantics.

'overpaid' is different from 'worth.' An item is 'worth' what the buyer is willing to pay, but that doesn't necessarily mean the buyer was smart with his money. :)

It's still early, but I really think that Washington might finish above Atlanta in the NL East this year.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's incongruous to have a discussion of a player's worth while at the same time saying he was 'chasing the money' in relation to loyalty.

If somebody's willing to give him $10m, and you're not willing to go over $5m, why is your perception of his loyalty worth $5 million? How will that affect him, either way? You can wish he remained 'loyal,' but his acceptance of an offer you weren't willing to tender isn't a reflection of his worth, positive or negative.

Well, I mean worth in, you know, his intrinsic worth, and not his market value ;).

I don't think anyone said "chasing the money" is a bad thing. But to blame the Braves for not paying more than they considered his actual value to be is silly.

Ken Burns is making a 10th Inning to "Baseball", covering the period from 1993 to 2008... it's to come out in Spring 2010:

MLB.com/Entertainment: News | MLB.com: News

Oh, I totally misread what you were saying.

You were ripping on the guy ebaying his rooting interest, not on Smoltz.

My apologies.

Oh yeah... I don't blame Smoltz at all.

:redface:, sorry if that's what the impression it gave off!

Now I'm eating these words. Kansas City is charging hard and it's just ridiculously frustrating when that money, if properly invested in a market where Pat Burrell is getting $8M per year, Adam Dunn and Ben Sheets are still out there, and Brian Fuentes made about $1M more than your team just handed Kyle Farnsworth.

Dayton Moore has just signed his way into 2009 being a make or break year for him and, frankly, he doesn't have the team on the field to do that. In a couple of short months, he's gone from "above average and having the team on the right track" to "how could you do this to the team?"

It's one thing when you don't have the resources to compete- you just can't do anything about that until MLB fixes its problems. It's another when you do actually convince the owner to open up the checkbook and then you spend it badly.

SI

Looks like Atlanta has signed Kawakami from Japan (there's a you tube of some of the curves this guy throws, just sick. Even with the smaller ball it's impressive), and will sign Lowe to a 4 year 60 Million dollar contract.

(and I'm impressed. I thought that when Lowe rejected 3/36 from the Mets he wasn't going to see a better offer)

While I would have loved to see Lowe with the Mets, I'm glad the Mets didn't play into Boras' hands.

Fixed.

That preceding argument is really starting to get old. If Florida and Tampa Bay can compete in this market, then so can and should Kansas City and Pittsburgh.

This seems like a bad year to have turned down ARB. Veritek will be lucky to get half of what arb would have got him

At least SI is acknowledging that his owner sucks, which is problem #1. I give him credit for that.

And no way do I give Lowe 4/60. Glad the Mets passed.

MUCH better than signing AJ Burnett.

I think we've gone down this road before just a few times but if you're going to call me out my quote specifically, I'm going to take a chance to respond. Especially when it's made with such a mindlessly repeated meme with no real thought behind it on this board and in the media, in general.



Yeah, how is that Florida and Tampa dynasty going? Florida won a World Series with a huge payroll, dismantled their team, and crushed their fan base. Only to do it a second time and how's that attendance down there now with that good young team?* And Tampa? Let's wait until they keep building and see how they do the next few years. Remember how Colorado was the hot up an coming team last season who would be around for years. Or Milwaukee? How'd that go last year? Minnesota's new GM isn't half the GM Terry Ryan was and in the next couple of years, that's going to eliminate half of the tandem of every big market fan's "what about Minnesota and Oakland" excuse which ultimately was more a product of Oakland and Minnesota having two of the best front offices in all of baseball along with Boston.

In short, yes, it's still patently unfair. If you're a large team which isn't run piss poorly (re: Orioles, etc), you can compete every year and reload, like a large college program. The smaller teams basically have to hope everything comes together in their window of a couple of years before it's time to rebuild again, flatten the salary and save money for the next time up. You can break that cycle, but it's the exception rather than the rule.

If you're New York, you can wallpaper over stupid ass moves like Carl Pavano with hundred dollar bills and overpay to keep your declining players like Bernie Williams so you don't have to roll the dice with marginal or young players. For smaller franchises, one move like that is crippling so you have to roll the dice a lot more and it's a lot harder to be lucky.

SI

*I don't really have time for this little dissertation today but baseball is going to get further and further behind the NFL, and not just because of the sport. Focusing just on a few stars or a few markets is what the NBA tried after Jordan and it's just now starting to recover from that mistake. Only emphasizing New York, Boston, LA, and Chicago makes for short term gain but is going to cost the sport in the long run as prolonged losing does irreparable long term damage to fan bases. In particular, just having hope for your team can sustain a fan base- but so many more teams start a baseball season with no realistic hope for the postseason than any other sport that it's a whole season of fandom lost for a lot of cities.

And that's the big problem right there in a nutshell. Big teams can take risks freely, because they can spend to cover that mistake. Small teams can't do so, as a result, they tend to be far, far more cautious about things (or they are aggressive only to realize it will last for one season, or even less - ie, the Brewers last season) and can't make the big moves that are needed to compete consistently because regardless if you can trade for a big guy that will cause your team to be successful this season, when Free Agency rolls around, you can't compete with the Yankees or Red Sox or Mets or Dodgers, etc in that market. And I say that as a Mets fan.

I won't get into a whole thing with you now sterlingice, but I'm curious, would you be in favor of a salary floor? Say $90 million. The union has come out against that, but I imagine they'd accept it before a cap. Increase the luxury tax if need be.

Oh look, you're over here too.

I'm glad we have the definitive opinion settled now, so we can see who the morons are.

Cap and floor, both, yes, in a heartbeat.

They have to be part of a combo, I would imagine, as I can't see why owners would agree to a floor as it gains them nothing.

SI

Am I missing some backstory or is this just being troll-ish?

SI

The problem with a floor is... look at the Rays last season. Would you have made them grab a few overpriced veterans so they could get to the "floor"?

Basically I think his Hall of Fame criteria is idiotic.

I just wanted to pop in and say that with the combination of Willy Tavares and Jerry Hairston Jr. in the lineup, the Reds aren't just going to beat people this year, they are going to fuck people up.

I just wish I could believe that the small market owners aren't just content to pocket the luxury tax and other revenue and just trick the fans into putting the blame elsewhere. It's a good business model.

The Royals have bumped their payroll an additional $20M over last year's club record payroll to $70M and are spending $250M on renovations to Kauffman Stadium to dramatically increase their revenue potential. There's some teams you can say might be stashing away revenue sharing income, but using KC as an example is a lousy choice.

Small market teams' fans have such short man's syndrome ;)

Disclaimer: The above statement was a joke.

You mean like when Florida spent less in payroll than their luxury tax share?

I watched some of those Kawakami highlights on youtube, he'll be better than Jo-Jo Reyes at least.

disagree all you want with the guy, but this nugget in here is absolutely true, and there's not really a way i can see anyone trying to argue with a straight-face that it is not.

Definitely agree.

They made the playoffs and lost in the first round to the eventual World Series champions. Nothing to sneeze at.

People will probably bury the Brewers because of Sabathia going to the Yankees and it certainly won't help. Ben Sheets possibly going elsewhere will hurt too (he could still come back if nobody ponies up more than a one year deal). But the offense remains intact for the most part with another exciting hitter in Mat Gamel close to ready to fill the hole at third base.

As it stands, the Cubs are certainly still the class of the division. The Brewers still project as probably an 84 win team. With a little good luck and good health that could easily turn into 90 again. A little bad luck and bad health and it could just as well be 78 wins.

I'm not denying small market teams are at a disadvantage, but leveling the playing field in terms of a salary cap will not help teams that pay $24 million to Jose Guillen, Kyle Farnsworth, Horacio Ramirez, Willie Bloomquist and Mike Jacobs. You could give them a $200 million dollar payroll and they'd still suck so long as you have yahoos like that doling out the cash.

A better leveler would be a more equitable revenue sharing, but, of course, the owners would have to be able to agree on that, and that's a tough order.

The problem is that the league doesn't have anything like the NFL as far as a National TV contract goes and taxing local revenue would likely slow the game's growth.

The game is making quite a bit of money, no? What with record attendances and the such?

Yep. That's the problem. A salary cap (and salary floor) are poor solutions, and the problem with the better solution (more equitable revenue sharing) is that it's difficult to sort out the actual, true revenue numbers since most of the revenue comes in the form of local contracts. And that's a problem when the local broadcast rights are owned by the same people that own the team in question - it makes it extremely difficult to verify the actual value of those contracts when the people in charge can shift numbers around to suit their purpose.

It's certainly unfair, though I disagree that it's damaging the game.

Part of that is that the MLB has more parity in terms of championships than any other sport. (Ripping this off from Gammons)

Different Champions in the Last 30 Years:
Baseball: 20
NFL: 14
NHL 13
NBA: 9

I know that's not a perfect stat and there's all kinds of different ways to look at parity. But it's not like the Yankees are winning every year.

I still don't see how baseball wouldn't be better off contracting 4-8 teams. Maybe those 8 teams could start their own independent minor league. That'd be cool, I'd follow it. I know that would suck for Royals fans, but it would make the league better. Teams in bigger markets generate more revenue.

Someone here once said that MLB would be as popular as lacrosse if they got rid of a handful of the small market teams - that's the sentiment I disagree with this. The recent era of "unfairness" has been great business for MLB - we actually have near-dynasties and great teams staying together again. That's not really possible with a billion teams and a salary cap. (The NFL had the Patriots run, which was great for business, but that was really a staff-driven run, not a player-driven one).

OBVIOUSLY shit is unfair.....but it's not going to change. We're NOT going to have a salary cap. EVER (short of a 2+ year game stoppage, and even then, we might see a new MLBPA league first). Increased revenue sharing, contraction, and a 3rd team in NYC (and perhaps a 2nd team in Boston) would do a ton to help competitive balance.

Oh, I definitely agree, it'd be very difficult, but I'm not seeing a slowing of the game's growth.

Lemme guess, before this season one of those teams would have been the Rays?

Agreed. Revenue keeps going up.

If it was 8, definitely, if it was 4, they'd be on the bubble.

Same with Minnesota, who was about to be contracted. They went on a run right after. I don't think that's the point. Any team is capable of putting together a run. But the Pittsburghs and Minnesotas (or whoever survived contraction) have more of a chance if they're getting a higher % of the Yankees luxury tax.

Aside from that, I just think smaller leagues are better - more teams have the chance of success. If everything were equal in MLB, and your team was average, you could expect a championship every 30 years - even the Royals already have that

If you tax local revenue it would run the risk of slowing the game's growth as it would lower the incentive to maximize that local revenue.

I am in favor of limited contraction for both the MLB and NBA. Or maybe they could give Portland, Las Vegas, San Antionio, Indianapolis, Charlotte, Vancouver and some other cities a team, plus a third NYC team, taking the total to 40. Then split the league in half and add a promotion and relegation system. It's the best way to ensure the Pirates' season lasts past August.

Is this the same type of argument that rich people would stop trying to make money if you tax their incomes? :D

I don't think that a 60/40 split, with the 40% being pooled and equally distributed would cause all that much problems with growth of the game. I mean did the luxury tax slow the game's growth in New York City?

You don't think that if a team went from making 100 cents on the dollar for each dollar gained in local revenue to 60 cents it wouldn't dampen the desire to pull each and every dollar you can out of local revenue?

The NFL doesn't touch local revenue. Neither does the NBA. Its a bad business model.

I'm definitely in favor of contracting but it's a tough choice. 30 years ago, it would have been the A's. 20 years, it would have been the Braves and Indians. 5 years ago, the Expos->Nats and Rays. Owners, GMs and players come and go, potentially changing the fortunes of the teams.

Perhaps a better solution would be maximize the fan base for X amount of teams. In other words, if the NYC area can easily support 3-4 teams, then let's have that - at the expense of small market/revenue areas. Both Florida and possible Arizona, should be in areas of large, solid fan bases - not struggling to make it year after year despite on-field successes. It also means that we could lose some historical teams like Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, definitely Kansas City. But that's been done in the past as population, demographics and fan interest changes.

Not really. They'd probably try to hide it more, of course.

And it isn't 100 cents to 60 cents. It's 60 cents + a 1/30th share of the pooled amount which their local money contributes.

And one of the reason that the NFL doesn't go after local broadcast revenue isn't necessarily because its bad business, but because its difficult to account for. Changing from local broadcasts to a national one (in 1960 for the AFL and 1962 for the NFL) really is a way of going after local revenue by transferring who had the rights to broadcasting games.

edit: Oh, and the NFL DOES go after local ticketing revenue. It's split.

Not really.

And the comparison to the NFL doesn't hold up. In the NFL, TV contracts are strictly national, there is no local TV revenue available to share. I'm less certain about the NBA, but I think the national TV contracts are the primary revenue for that league.

In baseball, revenue from local TV and radio deals outstrips revenue from the national TV contracts.