Saving Baseball

[Tuberski]

Why can't baseball have a salary cap?

Every other major professional sport does.

DOUBLEHEADERS!!!!!

At least 3 scheduled doubleheaders for each team, each year!

No DH, get rid of the juiced ball!

Teach pitchers how to pitch!

[Odin]

I can't wait to see my Twins murder the Yanks in the AL Championship. Any Kirby Puckett fans around? 1991 THAT was the year for baseball, Puckett homered the crap out of Atlanta.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Is it anymore funny than you supporting the very people fighting against bringing commie measures to baseball?

Actually, I agree with most people that reforms are needed. I think Vlad Antlerkov's suggestions are great. Personally, I'd like to also see the teams taken over by their municipalities, like the Packers. The Packers often field a very good team, and there's no danger of that team ever screwing over Green Bay.

[DinoDoc]

Thank you for finally explaining your position. It was kind of perplexing me.

[optimus2861]

Originally posted by Arrian
Despite insane ticket prices, there are about 40,000 people in Yankee Stadium right now to watch the Yankees play a godawful last-place club on a weekday afternoon. Hmm..

How many of those are individuals, and how many of those are corporate ticket holders? Any data available?

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
1994's strike RUINED baseball
That could have been Tony Gwynn's .400 season
62 home runs could have been hit sooner

All sorts of records... lost.

The Expos were on their way to a championship

Up until then they were not only a viable but a solid franchise. After that, they just died.

[ThePantaloonDog]

As much as I like the Orioles I honestly doubt Baltimore would die without them (though that would dry up some of the drug trade so you never know . )

Maybe the city will stop paying for new stadiums and build new schools.

[Arrian]

Ned,

Sorry, but the White Sox have ZERO excuse for being so bad for so long. Chicago ain't a small market, pal! A fan of a Chicago team whining about the Yankees is hilarious.

Like I said in my original post, I want reform too - reform that would hurt the Yankees. But I seem to be the only one concerned that revenue sharing would simply lead to people like Polhard (whatever his name is) pocketing the money and still not paying for a good team. The Twins are playing great this year DESPITE him, not because he wants to win. Hell, this is the guy that tried to have his own team contracted! And yet Steinbrenner gets all the heat. I love it.

Imran,

Yep, you're right that the Yankees can afford to make expensive mistakes (Sterling Hitchcock, anyone?), and that is a luxury most other teams don't have. Therefore, something must be done to fix that... I agree.

However, what concerns me with all of these socialist plans (well, that's what they are) is that they will penalize teams who develop their markets. The poster team for this would be the Seattle Mariners. They spent what little money they had intelligently, they made some great trades, they got themselves a great new ballpark, and they continue to spend to keep winning and keep the fans coming. They have gone from small market to large market in about 7 years (1995 - 2002). They're now in the upper tier of teams in terms of revenue and payroll. This is the same Mariners club that, up until 1995, made the present-day Royals look good. And because they invested in their product and made good decisions, they will have to pay out money to KC, Detroit, et al.

On the opposite side of the spectrum are the Chicago teams and the Phillies. Large market busts. How in the WORLD are the Phillies not making tons of money and putting a quality team on the field? Could it be because they are badly managed? Nah, it must be the Yankees, despite the fact they're in the other freakin' league.

-Arrian

[Imran Siddiqui]

However, what concerns me with all of these socialist plans (well, that's what they are) is that they will penalize teams who develop their markets

Then every company in the country is socialist (don't get all excited che ) inside their organization. MLB isn't 30 different organizations, it is one company with 30 different franchises! Just like McDonalds has franchises. Each McDonald's isn't a seperate company.

Moving on...

And because they invested in their product and made good decisions, they will have to pay out money to KC, Detroit, et al.

So what? I don't support a luxury tax so I have every team pay money to every other team (Through sharing their local revenues and gate reciepts).

Could it be because they are badly managed?

Of course they are badly managed, but that is a red herring. No one says that rich market teams don't bust (well maybe Selig). The real question is WHO WINS in the end. Since 1995, only 3 series have been won by a team that was in the bottom half of the league in revenue. That just isn't right. It shows that the teams that end up winning have the higher local revenue. THAT is the issue. Not the throw away idea that rich market teams always win and the small market teams always lose.


I can just see this being another long, lengthy Arrian/Imran baseball argument.

[dunk]

- A ticket-price cap. $3.

- No luxury boxes.

- No merchandising whatsoever. You want someone to wear your team's jersey, give it to them for free.

- No more public funds going to stadiums. Pennsylvania built 2 stadiums (Pittsburgh) 2 or 3 years ago and 2 more are in construction (Philadelphia). Total cost... about $1 billion. Maybe 1/3 to 1/2 provided by public funds, either state or county.

[Ned]

Arrian, I suspect you would advocate totally unregulated competition for the NFL as well? I actually think you would be the ONLY American who would advocate such a position.

As to the Chicago and Boston teams, you time and again see these teams selling off their good veterans and "retooling." It is only rarely that their teams accumulate enough young talent to compete. The Twins and the A's seem more adept than most in putting together winning teams from their farm systems. But even their teams are broken up if they have even one non championship season. (Remember Reggie Jackson, Conseco, McGuire, Eckersley, Catfish?)

Two years ago, the Sox had the best record in the American League. They compiled this record with the youngest team in the majors and with one of the lowest payrolls. However, the team was very shallow in talent. When the entire pitching staff came up lame armed and when Frank Thomas was injured last year, the team fell apart and fell out of contention.

This year was another fire sale and wait until next year or the year after.

The Yankees and Atlanta never seem to have a fire sale. They keep their talent and only add to it. This, of course, has a lot to do with their ownership and the size of their markets. But this turns baseball into travesty, as only the owners who are willing to spend or have the ability to spend the big bucks can ever compete.

[Andrew1999]

Only two more days until MLB self-destructs.

How long can they strike and still be able to finish the season?

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Ned


The Yankees and Atlanta never seem to have a fire sale. They keep their talent and only add to it. This, of course, has a lot to do with their ownership and the size of their markets. But this turns baseball into travesty, as only the owners who are willing to spend or have the ability to spend the big bucks can ever compete.

The Braves, however, originally built their team from their farm system. The sign a free agent or two but the majority of their players came up through their system.

[Sten Sture]

I gave up on baseball in '94, and feel pretty good about it.

The funniest thing about A-Rod's big contract is how Enron-esque bankrupt the Ranger's owner is. :lol Please, how much longer have they got?

[mactbone]

You know, football has revenue sharing, and the Jets and Giants are most CERTAINLY not paying to support any other teams. Apparently there's also a new revenue sharing plan set in place for this year.

Revenue Sharing: Sound Business Practice or Welfare?

I'm not a fan of the redistribution of wealth in any form. It does nothing but punish the producers and reward the non-producers. However, for the NFL
to thrive and survive as a successful entity, the revenue-sharing policy instituted by the NFL owners on January 17, 2001 ensures that the teams and the league will be profitable for some time to come.

Under the new revenue-sharing plan, which will begin this season (2002), 40% of the gate receipts earned by each visiting team in all preseason and regular season games will be pooled and then distributed equally among the 32 NFL teams. "Our traditional revenue-sharing policies have served the league and it's clubs well over the decades," said NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue after the meeting. "The additional step we approved today enhances those policies, and enables us to base future realignment on its merits, not on resulting
economics."

In addition, The NFL's revenue-sharing policy include an equal sharing of all network television, network radio, national sponsorship, and licensing
revenues as well as the 60-40 split of gate receipts. With realignment, we've seen an end to several divisional rivalries, meaning some teams will no longer play the the big-market road games they have in the past (the AFC North and the NFC South are good examples of this). When you look at how the new divisions are laid out, coupled with the new revenue sharing plan, everything should balance out as well as new rivalries being established.

Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson said "Realignment still won't be easy, but that pooling visitors' revenues will be helpful."

Because of the new revenue-sharing system, with a third of every team's gate receipts and club-seat revenue going directly to the NFL, you'll see more
and more teams move towards the dreaded PSL (personal seat license). I like the PSL idea, because of the perks that go along with it, but I think the prices for the PSL are outrageous to say the least. Teams will also move to maximize additonal non-shared revenue such as naming-rights fees, local media deals, luxury suites and in-stadium advertising and sponsorships.

The bottom line with all of this is money.

Face it, you'll have to pay to play. If you're a fan, depending on your seat and what you spend in addition to the ticket, it'll cost you $75.00 and up
per head for a day at the races in the NFL. Is it worth it? I think so. The NFL is the cream-of-the-crop of the sports world and nothing compares to an NFL Sunday (except maybe a Saturday in Knoxville at Neyland Stadium). If you don't like the price, don't go. Direct TV and the "NFL Ticket" are a great substitute.

James Boswell is the Publisher of ProFootballFanatics.com and is an affiliated member of TGNFU

[DarkCloud]

the one that really gets my goat is a-rod, who gets 252 million for being craptacular. that's one investment they wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy overpaid for. he's not alone, either, you've got people who're making fistfuls of money complaining about it at a time when the common, average joe is worried about losing his pension, his 401k, and his frikkin' job...

Remember Alex Rodriguez came to Texas "Not becuase they offered the most money" (Which they did) "But becuase I think they will win"
NO ONE THOUGHT THE ****ing rangers would win! And they didn't.

Which is one reason I hate him.

-
Revenue Sharing isn't a good idea- we want to see well managed teams. Not a communist-leage. We are capitalists are we not.

The same goes for salary caps.

But for DEFACTO SALARY CAPS the idea is different. People CAN pay as much as they want, but they get taxed for amounts over a certain amount, thus solving all problems and keeping the game clean

Salary caps would ruin the game and revenue sharing would drastically change it
Teams can climb up from the cellar (excepting the expos)
and at least make it to the playoffs every 15 years as the system is nowadays.

[Arrian]

Imran,

I do prefer revenue sharing to the luxury tax. I don't particularly care about the NFL, since I don't like football much, but I will say I don't want total parity. That, in it's own way, is just as boring as the Yankees winning every year. What I want is for each team to have the opportunity to improve and then sustain that higher level of play if they make good decisions (develop good players, and then be able to keep them). The main problem for teams like the A's is that despite excellent player development, they don't have the dollars to keep them. That is what needs to be fixed. The major problem with ANY form of wealth re-distribution, though (sorry if I sound like a broken record), is getting the poorer teams to use the money they get to improve their teams. A payroll "floor" presents all sorts of problems, and enforcing it or anything like it would require transparency of the teams' books. I think that would be a good thing on a number of levels.

You have a good point about each team being a franchise rather than a seperate company. That's true. At the same time, however, the nature of the sport requires direct competition between franchises, unlike McDonald's. The Yankees are SUPPOSED to try and beat the Red Sox.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

re: the Braves. Ah, finally somebody brought them up. Anyone care to have a look at that particular franchise in the 1980s? They were awful (for the most part) and poor. Now they're successful and rich. Why? Good decisions, coupled with a good market. In some ways, they mirror the Yankees, who didn't win for most of the '80's and were downright terrible from the late '80s through the early '90s. They made terrible decisions and paid the price for it, "large market" notwithstanding. No complaints then, were there?

Back to the issue at hand: fine, let's redistribute some of the wealth to help competition. How do we ensure this is the result of such redistribution? In my opinion, the anwer is that we can't. We cannot force owners to spend on their teams, let alone spend wisely.

Unfortunately, we aren't the ones doing this. The owners and players are. The players want higher salaries, so they don't want a salary cap or luxury tax (their proposal is deliberately devoid of teeth). The owners want to hold down salaries and grab as much of Steinbrenner's money as possible (tell me I'm lying!). Neither side gives a good goddamn about most of the issues WE care about, because they aren't looking at this from a fan's perspective.

-Arrian

ps Wanna hold down ticket prices? Don't pay them. EVER. I go to one game per year typically. I will probably stop doing that.

[Imran Siddiqui]

To allow teams like the A's to keep more of the money they make, revenue sharing is essential. Of course, this is coupled with a minimum payroll floor, and open bookkeeping, which would make sure that the shared money would be used for salaries or revnovations to the stadium, or kept in a safe for future Free Agent acquisions. This is one of the MAIN reasons I like revenue sharing and minimal payrolls. It'll open the books. Yes, it might hurt some players in the short run, but it'll make the league more competitive. It won't make everyone equal, but it'll narrow the gap. The Yankees will still have more money than anyone else, but not as much.

In the end it always comes down to scouting and development, and teams with money can spend more on those aspects as well. Sharing the revenue might allow for those small market teams to keep their young players that they've developed. Without any revenue sharing, a team like the A's in 4-5 years will be bare again. They need to be given a chance to resign Tejada, Chavez, their young pitchers to deals that are close to what they would be worth on the market.

Every team develops good players (even the Royals ), but the problem is if they don't have the money to keep them, what good is it? Sure, good management is needed, but you also need the money to keep your young stars, or you just end up trading them away for more prospects or losing them to Free Agency.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go get something to eat before I go to my Torts class .

[Arrian]

Oh no, you're in law school? Imran, Imran, Imran... *sigh* Just promise me 1 thing: never, EVER, use the phrase "cutting the baby." I hate that particular lawerese expression.

So we agree on opening the books and forcing teams to invest in themselves. Good. It'll never happen, of course, but we can dream.

How does one handle the teams that own their own networks or visa-versa? The Braves/AOL Time Warner, the Yankees & YES, etc. I could see those teams "charging" themselves almost nothing to air the games on TV so their broadcast revenue looks small, and then making a killing on the network side of things. YES would make a killing, whereas the Yankees would lose money. Steinbrenner owns both, and could just shift money between the two. The same goes for several other teams. How do you stop that?

The Royals do, in fact, occasionally develop a good player (though they seem to have real problems developing pitchers). They then don't want to and/or cannot pay him and send him to the big, bad, rich.... A's Damon, Dye... Billy Beane is a master. Damon is now with the Red Sox, of course, but you see what I'm getting at, right? The Royals could have $100 million to burn and that's exactly what they would do: burn it.

-Arrian

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Arrian

The Royals do, in fact, occasionally develop a good player (though they seem to have real problems developing pitchers). They then don't want to and/or cannot pay him and send him to the big, bad, rich.... A's Damon, Dye... Billy Beane is a master. Damon is now with the Red Sox, of course, but you see what I'm getting at, right? The Royals could have $100 million to burn and that's exactly what they would do: burn it.

-Arrian

Jermaine Dye came up through the Braves organization.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yep... the Royals made a brilliant trade... giving Michael Tucker for Jermaine Dye.

And yes, the A's got Damon... but then he went to the Red Sox, like you said. Dye will soon be gone (I bet on it).

As for the teams that own networks, that is a difficult decision. Of course, one of the ways to solve that is the idea that has been stated about having a MLB national digital cable channel. One of the things you can't do, though, is fake your payroll . If revenue comes up less than payroll itself, then the payroll should be used instead of revenue in sharing proposals.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Yep... the Royals made a brilliant trade... giving Michael Tucker for Jermaine Dye.

And I wonder why my Braves have only won 1 World Series in the last 12 years.



And yes I was even a Braves fan in the late '80's when they were losing 100+ games a year.

[Q Classic]

And I wonder why my Braves have only won 1 World Series in the last 12 years.

honestly, i couldn't tell ya. i love the braves... i don't know why, but they just suck in the post-season... no matter how good of a regular season they have.

[Arrian]

I think the Braves problems (such as they are... most teams would KILL to be as successful as they have been for the past eleven years) come down to the fact that in the postseason, they run into teams that can actually match their pitching.

During the regular season, the Braves can play .600 ball because more often than not, their pitching is superior (at times FAR superior) to that of their opponents. But teams that make the playoffs usually have good pitching too, and the Braves haven't been very balanced on offense, so they run into problems. Have a look at the Braves-Yankees games in the 2 WS they played. What you will see are a bunch of really close games. The Yanks managed to out-pitch the Braves, just barely, largely due to equal starting pitching, but a superior NY bullpen.

I didn't know Jermaine Dye's history, sorry, but I brought him up to display Beane's ability. And Man are the A's kicking ass right now... with that outrageous $45 million (?) payroll.

Tuberski, were you a fan of Joe Torre when he managed the Braves? The headlines when Steinbrenner hired himm were hilarious... "Clueless Joe" being the best.

-Arrian

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Arrian


Tuberski, were you a fan of Joe Torre when he managed the Braves? The headlines when Steinbrenner hired himm were hilarious... "Clueless Joe" being the best.

-Arrian

As amatter of fact, yes I was, So when he beat the Braves that first time I was happy for him.

Now, of course, I wish Steinbrenner would fire him!

[Imran Siddiqui]

And Man are the A's kicking ass right now... with that outrageous $45 million (?) payroll.

Wait a few years and the collective parts of this years A's (who will be all around the league by that point) will be making combined $100 mil. At least.

[Ming]

Only 3:45 left in the deadline. While they are saying both sides are getting closer, a few of the teams are already heading for their games later today

There is a report that a deal will be agreed to shortly.

[Vlad Antlerkov]

Just heard on MSNBC that they reached a deal.

/me wishes he had a link

[Ming]

Originally posted by Vlad Antlerkov
Just heard on MSNBC that they reached a deal.

* Vlad Antlerkov wishes he had a link

I'm watching ESPN's live coverage, and they say a deal is just a rumor at this point. But everybody agrees that a deal is possible shortly.

[Vlad Antlerkov]

Yeah, MSNBC is the only one reporting it. CNN says a deal hasn't been reached yet, either.