Brilliant Baseball Blog Post!

[scotto313]

The DiaTribe
The DiaTribe a Cleveland Indians Blog
Monday, January 04, 2010
Results Based on Merit, Not Market

As the calendar turns and all eyes are either cast in the past or into the future, the events of 2009 continue to fester for me in terms of how the lessons of 2009 don’t necessarily point to a clearer future in 2010 and beyond in MLB. When Game 1 of the World Series pitted two former teammates, both former Cy Young Award winners, neither of them wearing the uniform that they donned in their Cy Young Award winning season (and neither of them having reached their 31st birthday), the ugliness that has been lurking under the surface in terms of MLB and the disparity created in the current structure reared not just an ugly head, it revealed itself for all to see on a cold October night in the Bronx.

Click the link for the full article.

[TribeFanInNC]

It is a good, well thought out article. Though I disagree that the 'using cap money to pay for offer sheets' plan would work. Bottom line: If owners don't want to spend money, they don't have to. They will use the tax money to sign players then still keep other money and still only have a $70mil payroll when they could afford $90mil. To some, it seems, baseball is a business like any other and the bottom line is more important than the product on the field.

[jaxmagicman]

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

It is a good, well thought out article. Though I disagree that the 'using cap money to pay for offer sheets' plan would work. Bottom line: If owners don't want to spend money, they don't have to. They will use the tax money to sign players then still keep other money and still only have a $70mil payroll when they could afford $90mil. To some, it seems, baseball is a business like any other and the bottom line is more important than the product on the field.

I think there is some merrit to the cap money. Take the Marlins for example. They spend the less and are probably in the top 15 in Market. It is so hard to be a fan because you know they make money and they have a good young team, but they never spend the money they make. It is a terrible thing to have to deal with. If they just opened their purses a little, the Marlins could easily win the East. They have the talent to finish second without even spending 40 mil.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

Bottom line: If owners don't want to spend money, they don't have to. They will use the tax money to sign players then still keep other money and still only have a $70mil payroll when they could afford $90mil.

MLB is a little like The Producers, where more money can often be made by putting out a flop rather than a success.

[mlyons]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

MLB is a little like The Producers, where more money can often be made by putting out a flop rather than a success.

That's the dirty little secret of the NFL, too. The most profitable team in the NFL over the last few seasons has been the Washington Redskins.

[BaseballMan]

If the NFL played 162 games and had only 8 teams in the playoffs would we
see the same big market teams make it as MLB?

[mlyons]

Originally Posted by BaseballMan

If the NFL played 162 games and had only 8 teams in the playoffs would we
see the same big market teams make it as MLB?

Possibly. 162 games radically changes the revenue structure, making teams both far more reliant on attendance revenue and more vulnerable to seeing their attendances fall off drastically if they don't perform well on the field. With only 16 games, your average NFL team has only around 500,000 tickets available to sell over the entire season, so it's almost impossible for them not to come close to selling out, no matter how bad the team might be. Compare that to your average MLB team, with around 3,000,000 tickets available to sell.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by mlyons

Possibly. 162 games radically changes the revenue structure, making teams both far more reliant on attendance revenue and more vulnerable to seeing their attendances fall off drastically if they don't perform well on the field.

On the other hand, the NFL has extensive revenue sharing (far more than in MLB), as well as minimum and maximum team payroll provisions (with the range between them not all that large).

[Jason Moyer]

When looking at $$$ I think operating expenses would be a lot more useful to have than "payrolls" (they're not really payrolls, they're just the salaries of certain members of the company).