Worst commissioner of the three major (American) sports

My favourite incompetent commissioner was of course Bowie Kuhn. Bumbled through the '70s--an amazing decade on the field, and I'm pretty sure financially, too--making one bad decision after another. On the other hand, he laid the groundwork for all the labour acrimony of the '80s and into 1994.

It seems like a bubble to me.

I disagree, I think people will pay top dollar for their own anesthesia.

"lol, the NFL, NHL and NBA have players unions too."

Largely broken, power-less players unions.

the nhl players have hired donald fehr, but the league just doesn't make the kind of money that nfl/mlb do.

Largely broken, power-less players unions.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Saturday, April 14, 2012 8:30 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not buying the myth of the unstoppable, unbreakable MLB players union. They haven't hit on some secret solidarity that NBA and NFL players can't find.

I'm not saying they are unstoppable or unbreakable. I'm just saying this idea that Selig could unilaterally establish a floor/cap is nonsense. Also baseball would probably lose an entire season if they even tried it right now.

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.

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.

"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".

ewwww, Bowie Kuhn.

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, April 14, 2012 8:43 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why the quotes

and yes I would be willing to lose a season of MLB for a league that has competitive balance.

Well thankfully so far the owners haven't been as short-sighted as you are.

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.)

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

well the playoffs are partly crapshooty and the correlation is a lot more clearcut if you only look at regular season results

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'

At one point the KC Royals had an outfield of Beltran, Sweeney, Dye and Damon. Farm system.

btw, being willing to give up an entire season to restore competitive balance is the opposite of short-sighted.

It's mostly just moronic.

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

what do you think the yankees would have done?

Probably overpaid for them.

Signing Jermaine Dye didn't do the A's much good.

well the playoffs are partly crapshooty and the correlation is a lot more clearcut if you only look at regular season results

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.

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.

The Clippers for decades failed to draft good talent. The Royals drafted good talent and let them go.

the royals have the best farm system in baseball right now, what do you think is gonna happen?

the royals have only dimly understood what talent is until v. recently, tbh

jeff francoeur's a great guy tho

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.

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.

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.

My math needs some work. Twenty one years ago was 1991; the Jays had a couple of pretty successful years after that.

Uh hay u guys, the average win % for MLB teams is .500 -- competitive balance!

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.

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).

"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.

a few years old, but includes the average age of free agents signing long deals: http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2006/03/longterm_free_a.php
pitchers: 31.6
hitters: 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).

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, IMO
Bryce 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

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.

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.)

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

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

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.

Big sigh, Jays fans:

http://content.usatoday.com/sportsdata/baseball/mlb/salaries/team/1993

(You can get payrolls back to '88 there.)