Marlins win World Series

[oykib]

Originally posted by sterlingice
So, in the end, what this means is that for the first time in the last 15 years, a team not in the top half of payroll won a World Series so Fehr can point to that as a reason to not increase revenue sharing any more and to not touch the luxury tax numbers.

SI

This argument is faulty for another reason besides the one Ksyrup mentioned.

Good Players cost money.

That does not just hold true for free agents. That's true for players that you develop from your farm team. Very, very few players besides young pitchers are productive before they hit arbitration. So any teams at the beginning of a rebuilding process are going to (1) be bad and (2) have among the lowest payrolls in the league. So you have to figure at least on team per division, and sometimes up to three are in the beginning stages of rebuilding.

That takes care of the lowest quartile at least. It may even go up near the bottom half. Rebuilding teams don't make the playoffs ( big or small market)-- let alone win the World Series.

The other thing is that teams in contention routinely add big ticket guys at the end of the year. Even if it's just two five-milion-per-year guys and a couple of guys making the veteran minimum, it adds an agregate $5 million to each good team while subtracting it from the teams that are out of contention.

Btw, the Mets and Dodgers were nowhere near the post-season. The Mariners didn't make it either. The last time I checked New York and LA are the two biggest markets, and Seattle generated the second-largest amount of money in the majors.

The monetary advantage doesn't help you build a good team in most years. You still have to build through your farm system. Either to get young, cheap players or as trading chips. The big market teams just have an advantage in that they are able to stay at the top of the success cycle longer once they get there.

The core of the Yankee team are products of their farm system and international scouting, which every team can afford to do.

The only teams that have been successful at 'buying' championships were Arizona and the previous Florida championship team. Those teams were unique in that being expansion teams they were able to set up for a big push without having a lot of baggage. It's just like when you go 'empty cupboard' in a text sim and you win 3-5 years later.

[ISiddiqui]

The core of the Yankee team are products of their farm system and international scouting, which every team can afford to do.

It would be foolish to assume that money has no impact on scouting. When the Yankees spend almost twice as much on scouting than the 2nd highest spending team, that presents a HUGE advantage.

The lack of revenue sharing is really hurting the game. A salary cap is all fine and well, but that won't solve the disparities in scouting money being spent.

[SunDancer]

What makes the A's so successful (besides "building from within", but how and why)?

[Deattribution]

Originally posted by tucker342
After the Cubs and the Red Sox went out, this World Series meant jack shit to me.... I didn't watch one second of it. Plus I hate both teams....

Anyways.....

Congrats to the Marlins

I don't like the Cubs, Red Sox , Yankees or the Marlins , but I still had fun watching the series.


Typically the same with Basketball.


Although I do dislike the Yankees, so that played into it.

[oykib]

Originally posted by ISiddiqui
It would be foolish to assume that money has no impact on scouting. When the Yankees spend almost twice as much on scouting than the 2nd highest spending team, that presents a HUGE advantage.

The lack of revenue sharing is really hurting the game. A salary cap is all fine and well, but that won't solve the disparities in scouting money being spent.

I admit that money gives you an advantage. But the Expos have been better than almost anyone in scouting Latin America. They don't have and haven't had much money.

Most small and mid-market teams waste too much money on useless things. Dollar sign on the Muscle is a great read. It talks about how teams cut corners with scouting and how the central scouting bureau and the draft have actually hurt competetive balance. Interestingly, this book was written in 1980 and 81.

[haji1]

Some random thoughts:

When people ask about the Marlins next year a major point has to be whether or not Pudge is back. If he comes back they will be pretty good. If not they may fall to sub .500 quickly.

Look for the Yankmes payroll to be about 250 million next year if FA's want to come. Which leads me to my next point-

Will FA's want to come. I know it is the Yankmes but it is also Steinbrenner. As has been state before he casts a major shadow over this organization and a lot of people want out. Will that turn off some FA like Vlad who doesn't seem to want to be in that type of enviroment. My guess is, yes. There will be a number of FA who will bypass the Yankmes because Steinbrenner is there. The question is will there be enough that will still come in spite of Steinbrenner who want that ring?

My favorite play of the whole series was Jeter's error. My wife can't stand him and incessantly heckled him after that play. The run that led to was huge as it meant that a sole HR in the ninth would mean nothing.

Finally as a Dodger fan, LA was close this season, and will be closer next year when we sign Vlad.

[mckerney]

Originally posted by ISiddiqui
It would be foolish to assume that money has no impact on scouting. When the Yankees spend almost twice as much on scouting than the 2nd highest spending team, that presents a HUGE advantage.

Especially when overseas. Set up a camp in Central America and sign each 16 or 17 year old Dominican kid who looks talents, one of them is bound to turn into something.

[oykib]

Originally posted by mckerney
Especially when overseas. Set up a camp in Central America and sign each 16 or 17 year old Dominican kid who looks talents, one of them is bound to turn into something.

The point is that everyone can do it. Spend a couple mill setting up the academy and then sign the kids for beans afterwards.

[sterlingice]

Originally posted by oykib
This argument is faulty for another reason besides the one Ksyrup mentioned.

Good Players cost money.

That does not just hold true for free agents. That's true for players that you develop from your farm team. Very, very few players besides young pitchers are productive before they hit arbitration. So any teams at the beginning of a rebuilding process are going to (1) be bad and (2) have among the lowest payrolls in the league. So you have to figure at least on team per division, and sometimes up to three are in the beginning stages of rebuilding.

That takes care of the lowest quartile at least. It may even go up near the bottom half. Rebuilding teams don't make the playoffs ( big or small market)-- let alone win the World Series.

The other thing is that teams in contention routinely add big ticket guys at the end of the year. Even if it's just two five-milion-per-year guys and a couple of guys making the veteran minimum, it adds an agregate $5 million to each good team while subtracting it from the teams that are out of contention.

Btw, the Mets and Dodgers were nowhere near the post-season. The Mariners didn't make it either. The last time I checked New York and LA are the two biggest markets, and Seattle generated the second-largest amount of money in the majors.

The monetary advantage doesn't help you build a good team in most years. You still have to build through your farm system. Either to get young, cheap players or as trading chips. The big market teams just have an advantage in that they are able to stay at the top of the success cycle longer once they get there.

The core of the Yankee team are products of their farm system and international scouting, which every team can afford to do.

The only teams that have been successful at 'buying' championships were Arizona and the previous Florida championship team. Those teams were unique in that being expansion teams they were able to set up for a big push without having a lot of baggage. It's just like when you go 'empty cupboard' in a text sim and you win 3-5 years later.

The are quite a few holes in this, as well. In the NFL, don't good players cost money, too? Marshall Faulk, Priest Holmes, Bret Favre, etc- they all get paid more than lesser players, do they not? But football doesn't have anyone screaming at them for these problems. I want sports to be a competition of not only the best players on the field but the best an organization can put together to put on the field. And the only way you can really disagree with that is if you like the disparity and you live in one of those big towns that gets an advantage.

As for the examples of good teams... You know why the A's are so good- they have the closest thing to a baseball genius running their operations. If Moneyball is any indication- he may be a pompous ass, but he did pioneer a lot of revolutionary ideas and he is good with identifying talent. There's only one of those guys in the entire league and a few who are close. As for Minnesota and, for instance, Cleveland before them, Florida (this time), possibly Kansas City or anyone else who comes along- these teams had to endure hideous losing stretches and complete and total alienation of the fans. How do they succeed? Because they get a collection full of rookies and arbitration eligible players that have barely been in the league, that all came up together, and will then be broken up in 4 years.

You try living in a city where there is no hope for years on end and see how that effects your bottom line. KC had a great suprising year but they sold under 10K season tickets this past year and their money supply is awful. Why? Because fans are fickle- unless you are Boston or Chicago or New York or Los Angeles and have 10s of millions in a possible fan base and/or 100 years of history, you can't expect the average fan (i.e. not hardcore fans- I'll go to my 6 games a year no matter what but I went to 2 extra this year) to keep enduring 100 loss seasons. What your are saying is that "these large market teams should be allowed to have the advantage of being able to compete year in and year out but small markets should be forced to endure a cycle of crushing rebuilding that hurts them even more financially and keeps decreasing their odds before they possibly end up lucky"?

Come back and tell me I'm wrong in 2 years when the A's can only keep one of Zito, Hudson, and Mulder and not all of their rookies pan out because Beane finally runs out of magic. Then, he'll bolt and they'll be stuck with a rebuilding task that will leave them awful for 5 years minimum while, even if the Yankees were reigned in somewhat, their idea of a losing season would be a .500 year.

SI



I want to separate this from my hating of the Yankees as they should be two different ideas. The Yankees are the poster child for this gross spending. Pittsburgh stupidly signs Derek Bell and they ruin their financial structure because they can't afford to make a $5M mistake and it hurts them for 3 years. The Yankees call that Jose Canseco or Raul Mondesi or Sterling Hitchcock or-- (I could go on) they can shrug it off like it's nothing. I'll offer a rebuttal to self-rightous Yankee fans who love to claim they are home grown, they have great scouting, and that is the primary reason and not their cash

As for the core of the Yankee team being part of their organization, that's really turning a blind eye to the money involved. If Jeter or Posada had his the free agent market instead of resigning with the Yankees, THEY WOULD NOT have signed for contracts that average $12M and $17M, respectively. Why? Because they aren't worth that much. The Yankees overpay their players and that's why they can build the teams they have. Last I checked, all of their starting pitchers not named Pettite were mercenaries-- err.. free agents. They signed Mussina because they outbid everyone. They traded for Clemens because he exercised some sercret clause that said he could whine and be pissy and demand a trade despite it not being in the actual contract (yes, this is what happened) and that was after he tanked his last year in Boston. They traded for Jeff Weaver because he was the only good player the Tigers (tho, he has done a wonderful job of imploding since joining the Yankees) had but they couldn't afford to keep him. And they outbid the Red Sox for Contreras. How's that working out for them? Not only that, but they are spending $12M for their bullpen this year (not including closer) on top of their spending elsewhere.

SI

[oykib]

Like I said the Yankees have an advantage. But it's not insurmountable. Also, it's not some inherent Yankee advantage. They've just been the best big market team at exploiting it.

But is the advantage that the Yanks have over the Pirates really even close to the advantage that Miami has over Syracuse in college football? I don't think so.

You can field a team that'll be a contender for sixty million dollars. And you don't need Billy Beane to do it.


What people always miss in these baseball economics arguments is that baseball is not football. It's not basketball either. The economic system has to be totally different because of the development curve of the individuals.

In football and basketball it's fairly perdictable what you'll get from a first-round draft pick. In baseball it's not. And even if you think you've got something, it's something for four or five years down the road. It's most similar to hockey in that respect.

Also baseball players peak at 27. This while they are still under the control of their teams and at bargain prices.

All this is to say:

(1) the only advantage that rich teams have in building teams is that they can buy good to great players on the downside of their careers. Meaning that you can only get the truly great players through your own sytem most of the time. Buy the time they are free agents they will have dropped a notch.

(2) the only way to build a consistent winner is through the farm system. The teams that have tried to buy championships have all fallen on their faces eventually (Mets, Marlins, D-backs, Dodgers, Orioles, Rangers). Only the rich teams with a good foundation have been able to do well.

Anyway, I'm getting way from the point that the salary cap is counter-productive in the NBA as far as competetive balance. While the last time I checked, Major League baseball has had four different champions over the past four years, Basketball has had only two in the past six.

One question I always bring up in these arguments is: in the next two minutes, can you name the last ten teams to win the NBA championship (i.e. teams can only be counted once even if they've repeated). You have to go back more than twenty years to do it.

I'd rather be a Reds fan than a Knicks fan. The Reds actually have a chance, other than winning the lottery, of significantly improving their team. I spent the end of last season praying that the Knicks would miss the playoffs to get a, miniscule, chance to get one of the top three guys. The fact that they didn't makes me pray that they don't make it again. It's their only reasonable chance to improve.

That's better than what baseball produces?

As for the NFL, you can argue it either way. The balance of competition seems better because more than a third of the league makes the playoffs every year. If baseball were like that, the Mariners, Phillies, White Sox and Astros would have made it as well.

Also, the salary cap restrictions have led to even more turnover than is in baseball and a lower overall quality in league play. Which is why we get Dante Halls and every team having a 1300 yard reciever, even though most of the quarterbacks suck.

Still, it is better for the small market fan in football than baseball. And there is more actual competition even though not quite as much more as people make it out to be.

But it's almost all a product of the incredible amount of National TV money. Baseball actually has more revenue sharing than football when we talk about percentages of both communal and local revenues. It's just that most of baseball's money is made locally, and most of football's is made nationally. And the gap in national revenue is so huge that it dwarfs any other deals.

Basically, you are trying to call on the 'rich' owners to just give away hundreds of millions of dollars to the 'poor' owners who are in many cases just inept at tapping their markets.

My favorite example being Cleveland giving revenue sharing money to Philadeplhia (a market more than three times it's size) to the tune of fifty million dollars over five years. At the end of that period, the Phillies sign Jim Thome away from the Indians for a contract $50 million richer over the term than Cleveland can afford.

[Ksyrup]

Originally posted by haji1
Will FA's want to come. I know it is the Yankmes but it is also Steinbrenner. As has been state before he casts a major shadow over this organization and a lot of people want out. Will that turn off some FA like Vlad who doesn't seem to want to be in that type of enviroment. My guess is, yes. There will be a number of FA who will bypass the Yankmes because Steinbrenner is there. The question is will there be enough that will still come in spite of Steinbrenner who want that ring?

With the majority of the guys out there, I think they will choose the money over their dislike of playing for someone like Steinbrenner, especially if Torre is still there. But it works both ways. The Yankees should be wary of going after the Kenny Rogers-types, and Vlad could be one of them, so it could be a mutual non-interest.

What I would love to see happen is Steinbrenner get so pissed - maybe not this year, but maybe next year, lets say they either finish as a wild card because their starting pitching doesn't hold up (if Pettitte leaves, Wells is gone and Clemens really retires, you've got Mussina, then Colon maybe, Weaver, Contreras - some big question marks there) or otherwise don't make the playoffs or get knocked out early - and he dismantles the whole team, coaching staff, and front office, and can't get a single "A" list free agent to sign. The baseball version of the Chicago Bulls after Jordan retired and they cleared all that cap space, and no one wanted to play for them. I know it's just a pipe dream and the player's union won't let it happen, but it's fun to think about.