I said "they" could enforce a salary cap. And they could, based on what other sports have done. But they don't seem to care about competitive balance.
― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, 14 April 2012 20:42 (twelve years ago) link
what need is there for a salary cap when they're raking in money and no one seems to care about wastelands like the Royals? It's all just a farm system for the 8 or 9 teams that are trying to compete.
― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, 14 April 2012 20:43 (twelve years ago) link
"And they could, based on what other sports have done."
They could IF they were willing to lose a season at the very least and quite probably destroy the sport for a decade. But I guess that's less important to you than "competitive balance".
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Saturday, 14 April 2012 20:43 (twelve years ago) link
ewwww, Bowie Kuhn.
― onibaba o'reilly (Eisbaer), Saturday, 14 April 2012 20:44 (twelve years ago) link
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Saturday, April 14, 2012 8:43 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
why the quotes
― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, 14 April 2012 20:45 (twelve years ago) link
and yes I would be willing to lose a season of MLB for a league that has competitive balance.
― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, 14 April 2012 20:46 (twelve years ago) link
Well thankfully so far the owners haven't been as short-sighted as you are.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Saturday, 14 April 2012 20:48 (twelve years ago) link
There's lots of things I hate about baseball (high ticket prices, gouging taxpayers for stadiums, a generally terrible TV product) but I'm perfectly happy with how the league is structured right now. Most of the teams that are not competitive are not competitive because they are run badly (Blue Jays might be the one exception). I don't see how a salary cap changes that. It just reduces the salaries of the best players and forces the Yankees and the Red Sox to spend less (or pay a hefty luxury tax to shits like Jeffrey Loria.)
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Saturday, 14 April 2012 20:51 (twelve years ago) link
there are 6 teams that have less than a third of the yankees' payroll. This isn't because they are "run badly," it's because their owners are cheap/lack the cashflow.
― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, 14 April 2012 20:53 (twelve years ago) link
I mean if you want to fold all those teams that's ok too
one of those teams is the rays
they are an anomaly, tho
― mookieproof, Saturday, 14 April 2012 20:54 (twelve years ago) link
The people who think there isn't any competitive balance in baseball obviously haven't noticed that about 25 of the 30 teams have made the playoffs in the past decade. Also the past eleven World Series have been won by nine different teams.
And before you complain that Selig has ruined the game and baseball doesn't matter any more, consider that the LA Dodgers, who were a horribly-run team with disastrous finances and the shittiest baseball owner we've seen in our lifetimes, were just sold for two fucking billion dollars. I never liked Selig but you can't dispute that baseball have never been healthier financially. Attendance has been through the roof on his watch too.
Another write-in vote for Bettman.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Saturday, 14 April 2012 20:56 (twelve years ago) link
Look at what the Yankees have spent that payroll on though! It's not like overspending is some guarantee to success. You still have to scout, build a farm system, actually have a real organization. Also since you'll never see those teams balance sheets... well let's say I'm kinda dubious about the poverty of baseball team owners. And I think baseball is good for having a team as easily despicable as the Yankees (just like it benefits the NBA and the Premier League). Star teams are a big draw. That's comparatively lacking in the parity of the NFL for the most part.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Saturday, 14 April 2012 20:59 (twelve years ago) link
well the playoffs are partly crapshooty and the correlation is a lot more clearcut if you only look at regular season results
― iatee, Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:01 (twelve years ago) link
I mean you can really put a lot of the 'competitive balance' on the playoff system of these sports that allows worse teams the chance to 'win the season'
― iatee, Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:02 (twelve years ago) link
At one point the KC Royals had an outfield of Beltran, Sweeney, Dye and Damon. Farm system.
― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:02 (twelve years ago) link
btw, being willing to give up an entire season to restore competitive balance is the opposite of short-sighted.
― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:05 (twelve years ago) link
It's mostly just moronic.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:07 (twelve years ago) link
You do realize that teams generally have to field players other than outfielders, right?
dude they ended up keeping only one of them because they didn't spend the money
― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:07 (twelve years ago) link
what do you think the yankees would have done?
― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:08 (twelve years ago) link
Probably overpaid for them.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:08 (twelve years ago) link
Signing Jermaine Dye didn't do the A's much good.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:09 (twelve years ago) link
Outside of the Yankees and Red Sox (each of whom have missed the playoffs recently), the playoffs have largely been a revolving door of teams over the past few years.
And yeah, using the Royals as a counterexample to "prove" something about competitive balance in MLB is silly, it's like pointing at the LA Clippers and saying that some NBA teams aren't getting a fair shake.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:16 (twelve years ago) link
the yankees have missed the playoffs once in the last, what, 16 years? it certainly helps that they're well-run and god knows the mets/cubs/etc. have not done well despite financial advantages (though there's still a significant gap between the yankees and second). but it means that the yanks can absorb a fuckup like carl pavano or aj burnett that would bury other teams.
fwiw aj burnett is, i believe, the highest-paid player in pittsburgh sports history, although much of it is coming from the yankees.
i'm not saying that there should be a hard cap, but let's not brush over the fact that spending $200m will almost certainly get you into the playoffs.
― mookieproof, Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:23 (twelve years ago) link
The Clippers for decades failed to draft good talent. The Royals drafted good talent and let them go.
― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:24 (twelve years ago) link
the royals have the best farm system in baseball right now, what do you think is gonna happen?
― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:25 (twelve years ago) link
the royals have only dimly understood what talent is until v. recently, tbh
jeff francoeur's a great guy tho
― mookieproof, Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:26 (twelve years ago) link
toronto, baltimore, kc, washington, and pittsburgh are the five mlb teams that have basically been out of it come playoff time, but tbh i think toronto and wash are heading back to the postseason soon. so there are three teams that are perpetual losers and may be for years to come, though KC has obv promise. w/all those teams i think a lot of it has come down to terrible decision-making more than revenue.
― omar little, Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:28 (twelve years ago) link
but it means that the yanks can absorb a fuckup like carl pavano or aj burnett that would bury other teams
To me, this is the key. Once you cross some hard-to-define line, you may take forever coming back. Conceding the Jays are in a tough division, they've been stuck at the same impasse for 21 years now: they can't compete for Albert Pujols because they don't draw enough, they don't draw enough because they're never in pennant races anymore, and they're never in pennant races anymore because they can't compete for the Albert Pujols's of the world. They let a wildly successful team get a little too old at one point, and they haven't come back since. I have to believe that the luxury of over-spending in the off-season would have got them back on the right side of that line years ago.
Tampa Bay is a heartening exception right now. We'll see how long they can stay where they are.
― clemenza, Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:36 (twelve years ago) link
i can see the jays and rays being the 1-2 punch in the al east in a couple of years, though it won't be easy. feel like the yanks and esp. the bosox are on the cusp of possibly being mediocre for several seasons. depends on how they roll in free agency but imo those are squads that could collapse at any time.
― omar little, Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:40 (twelve years ago) link
My math needs some work. Twenty one years ago was 1991; the Jays had a couple of pretty successful years after that.
― clemenza, Saturday, 14 April 2012 21:46 (twelve years ago) link
Uh hay u guys, the average win % for MLB teams is .500 -- competitive balance!
― Où sont le Lord Custos d'antan? (Leee), Saturday, 14 April 2012 22:17 (twelve years ago) link
So for years and years cable companies were just letting baseball teams skate by with small broadcast fees? I don't get where the explosion in money is. It seems like a bubble to me.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Saturday, 14 April 2012 22:38 (twelve years ago) link
The Royals argument here is coming down more along the lines of punishing players - the Royals lost them because they got six years of major league service at below-market rates and then lost them to teams that were willing to pay market rates.
It's worth remembering that teams get a lot of time with young players before they're free agents - for great players, that's the age 27/28 season, for good players it's often age 31/32, when players are already declining. Outside of a few players (Poooooo-holes, etc.), free agency is a pretty shitty way to build a winning team. And even those players hold the risk of sinking the team they sign with near the end of the contract (Poooooo-holes again).
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Saturday, 14 April 2012 22:41 (twelve years ago) link
"the royals have the best farm system in baseball right now, what do you think is gonna happen?"
Screw it up! That's because they are the ROYALS! Not because they can't afford them.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Saturday, 14 April 2012 22:43 (twelve years ago) link
a few years old, but includes the average age of free agents signing long deals: http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2006/03/longterm_free_a.phppitchers: 31.6hitters: 30.5
those players were drafted at age 17-22, that's a lot of time to be tied up in the minors, on rookie-through-third-year contracts (teams get to decide what to give you out of the goodness of their hearts) and arbitration (which is better but still players much less than they could offering their services openly).
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Saturday, 14 April 2012 22:44 (twelve years ago) link
if anything is broken about baseball, it's the system that keeps the top-level young talent in the minors to save time/money for the team, IMOBryce Harper is terrible in AAA right now, but the whole game is more interesting if he had been given a real chance of making the team in Spring Training
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Saturday, 14 April 2012 22:46 (twelve years ago) link
Jays are probably the one example of a team that is really really screwed currently, but either the Red Sox or the Yankees could fall apart at any time. Having a slew of money /= running a team well as 80s/early 90s Yankees proved all too well.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Saturday, 14 April 2012 22:46 (twelve years ago) link
the Red Sox are in the process of falling apart already
the history of teams that had the highest payroll (or close) is pretty interesting, especially when you look at how many fucked it up with their signings (ie Albert Belle in Baltimore, everyone the Rangers signed before Tom Hicks went broke, etc.)
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Saturday, 14 April 2012 22:48 (twelve years ago) link
worth pointing out, too, that major league owners have no real interest in instituting a cap right now, since even the fuckin' Pirates are profitable
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Saturday, 14 April 2012 22:49 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm
thought I'd seen one that goes all the way back through the '90s, but I can't find it
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Saturday, 14 April 2012 22:52 (twelve years ago) link
Harper's a poor example though. I mean they are pushing him about as hard as a prospect can be reasonably pushed at the age of 19. I guarantee you if the Nats thought he was actually really ready, he wouldn't be in AAA right now--they'd be selling tickets off him in DC instead.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Saturday, 14 April 2012 22:52 (twelve years ago) link
Big sigh, Jays fans:
http://content.usatoday.com/sportsdata/baseball/mlb/salaries/team/1993
(You can get payrolls back to '88 there.)
― clemenza, Saturday, 14 April 2012 22:55 (twelve years ago) link
Having a slew of money /= running a team well as 80s/early 90s Yankees proved all too well.
the yankees didn't really bust out the big money until the early 2000s
they went from $93m in 2000 to $153m in 2003 to $184m in 2004 to $208m in 2005. that year, only one team spent *half* as much -- the red sox at $124m. they spent $20m more than the indians, brewers, pirates, royals and rays combined. it can't buy you a world series, but spending twice as much as everyone else can definitely buy you a playoff berth.
the angels and rangers seem to be catching up money-wise now that steinbrenner's heirs have reined in payroll (or at least not let it continue to grow). but i could be a pretty good gm with that kind of money too.
― mookieproof, Saturday, 14 April 2012 23:40 (twelve years ago) link
the Rangers' payroll jumped a bunch this year because of Darvish and players hitting arbitration, it was pretty impressive to take $55 and $70mn payrolls (IIRC) to the Series back to back
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Saturday, 14 April 2012 23:41 (twelve years ago) link
NFL needs a Chinese-American QB
― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, April 14, 2012 3:48 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark
RIP timmy chang
― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Saturday, 14 April 2012 23:52 (twelve years ago) link
baseball's competitive balance is fine right now but i highly doubt that it's sustainable. the new cba is going to be a big step in making it so--watching the sox and the yanks scramble to get their salaries in order this past offseason was the major signal that things are going to be different from now on.
― call all destroyer, Sunday, 15 April 2012 03:40 (twelve years ago) link
http://randomoverload.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/38f51f42se-traveler.jpg
― pplains, Sunday, 15 April 2012 03:44 (twelve years ago) link
he throws a football about as well as a 19th century Chinaman.
― onibaba o'reilly (Eisbaer), Sunday, 15 April 2012 04:17 (twelve years ago) link