Does MLB need to be blown up?

[brimontz]

After watching the Yanks go on their free-spending ways, I am convinced that MLB needs to be blown up with things started from scratch. Or 2/3s of the teams in the league -- those who have no legitimate chance of signing a top free agent year after year -- those 2/3 need to pull out of MLB and start a new league with true revenue sharing (including ALL broadcasting revenue -- national and individual team broadcasting revenue for broadcast TV, cable TV, satellite TV, radio, satellite radio, Internet, etc.) and a hard salary caps. No nonsense "luxury tax." For all of the talk about the great organizations in cities like NY and Boston, the league would collapse without the other teams.

Don't give me this "The Yankees can afford to spend because they are a winning organization, and if other teams would be willing to spend, rather than putting their luxury tax revenues in their pockets, they could be as successful as the Yankees" argument. That argument is utter nonsense, and it's not true.

Example: in the late 90s/early 00s, Cleveland was one of the top two or three teams in terms of player salaries. They paid into the luxury tax. The team WAS willing to spend money in order to compete, but eventually, they reached their limit. NY would outbid them on top available pitchers (Clemons and Randy Johnson come to mind) and eventually, they would start getting outbid on their own players to teams in the top 3 to 5 markets. Belle to Chicago, Ramirez to Boston, Thome to Philly, etc.

The Yankees are a winning organization and can afford to spend $400 million on 3 players for 3 reasons: location, location, location. Put the Yankees organization, as well-run as it may be (and that's in question, as they can spend to cover their mistakes), in a market like Green Bay, WI, Kansas City, MO, Cleveland, OH, or an even smaller market, and in about 2 nanoseconds, the Yankees would implode.

Until something happens to really change MLB, I think I'm done with it. I'm not spending another dime on this garbage. I'll watch Indians games on TV from time to time, but I'm not paying for anything. Which is sad, because baseball has been my life-long favorite sport.

Brian

[shyguy246]

I've given a lot of thought to the idea of a salary cap. If you create a salary cap in MLB, what do you think the salary cap will actually be? I can assure you it'd be more than $100 million a year. Maybe even something like $130 million a year. And you know what else? With a salary cap, you also need a salary floor. That floor would probably be like $60 million. Teams like the Red Sox would still be able to load up.
What MLB needs to do is make the luxary tax higher, and force the small market teams to spend luxary tax money on salaries.

[Lateralus]

I am also a lifetime Indians fan and Yankees hater. However, the more money they spend, the more fun it is to root against them. A day that either the Indians win or the Yankees lose is a good day in baseball. Everyone was all upset they missed the playoffs last year, now imagine if it happens with this year's payroll. Ohhh would I love that. I also hate the Red Sox.

So what do you think about Kerry Wood? Good move IMO, crossed-fingers for no injuries.

[Hoth]

Originally Posted by brimontz

After watching the Yanks go on their free-spending ways, I am convinced that MLB needs to be blown up with things started from scratch.

So, what part of the Rays winning the American League did you not see? You're complaining about the third place team in the division being perpetually unbeatable. And no, this isn't a new spending spree, their payroll may actually be down from last year.

As a Blue Jays fan I'm the one who should be annoyed at the Yankees and Red Sox, but I'm not, because they give me something to root against and I know a smart team with some luck can beat them in any given year no matter how much they spend -- and it's a whole lot more rewarding to beat the best when they have unlimited resources, too.

There's way more competitive balance now than ever before. Different suprise teams making the playoffs ever year, no repeat world champs this century. In the 50s and 60s, the Yankees won the league all the time and the season was over for every other team in August. Now, they haven't won it in 7 years. It's fun to watch them lose in the playoffs every year, and there are 7 other spots to wonder about.

Originally Posted by brimontz

The Yankees are a winning organization and can afford to spend $400 million on 3 players for 3 reasons: location, location, location.

If you want to lower the Yankee payroll, put a third team in New York. That would certainly help, though the Yankees were still dominant when they had the Giants and Dodgers in town, so you might need four or five teams.

Originally Posted by brimontz

Until something happens to really change MLB, I think I'm done with it. I'm not spending another dime on this garbage. I'll watch Indians games on TV from time to time, but I'm not paying for anything. Which is sad, because baseball has been my life-long favorite sport.

If you don't want to buy stuff, great, but don't bother with the incoherent competitive balance argument for it that would've made a lot more sense 10 or 20 or 50 years ago than in today's environment of record levels of competitive balance. Especially when your team isn't even in the same division as the Yankees.

I can predict that the Yankees will not win the 2009 World Series, and the odds are in my favor. Even if you give them the division they have about a 1/8 chance, since the playoffs seem a bit random or perhaps weighted in favor of the wild card.

[brimontz]

There's nothing incoherent about what I said -- that's just insulting.

Yes, Tampa Bay may have made the playoffs, but who has a better chance of winning the division or making the playoffs year after year, NY or Tampa? If you say the latter, you're kidding yourself.

When teams don't have the chance to keep the stars they help develop, the system is broken down. Starting with Albert Belle and going through CC Sabathia, the Indians haven't been able to keep even one. That's a problem.

New York can buy it's way out of a bad record. Other teams in other cities cannot. Things are not on an even keel.

Yes, it's a safe bet to say the Yanks won't win the World Series, but every year, the deck is stacked in their favor.

And to say that the competitive balance argument made sense 50 years ago shows you don't have much of an understanding of baseball. Back then, yes the Yanks won a lot, but then, it was about developing your stars. I have more respect for the Yanks of that era than the Yanks of the free agency era. The Yankees beat Bob Feller's Indians -- they didn't go out and buy Bob Feller the second he was elligible for free agency. Big difference.

The game is screwed up and has been for a long time. "Luxury taxes" don't work. Until there's a hard salary cap and true revenue sharing, baseball will always be a joke.

Brian

[brimontz]

Originally Posted by Lateralus

I am also a lifetime Indians fan and Yankees hater. However, the more money they spend, the more fun it is to root against them. A day that either the Indians win or the Yankees lose is a good day in baseball. Everyone was all upset they missed the playoffs last year, now imagine if it happens with this year's payroll. Ohhh would I love that. I also hate the Red Sox.

So what do you think about Kerry Wood? Good move IMO, crossed-fingers for no injuries.

I'm not that impressed. Wood has too much of a history of injuries, and he has only been a closer for one year. They could have better spent their money.

But like I said, I'm just not that enthusiastic about MLB at all anymore.

Brian

[Zephyr]

I think something definitely has to be done. I've felt this way since about 2000, actually, and it seems that finally more people are starting to see the light. I love baseball, best game ever by far, but the way MLB conducts its business makes it hard to invest much in it, as a fan. There are thirty big league teams, and when a single one of them (guess who) has the four highest paid players in the entire game on its roster, something is obviously out of whack. Go back and read that again. One team has the four highest paid players. It's got to the point where you have the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, Angels, and maybe another team or two that dominate the high priced free agents, and no one else really matters.

I thought this might happen this off season, what with New York having so much money coming off the books, moving into a new stadium, and missing the playoffs for the first time in eons. I noticed the Teixeira signing seemed to be the tipping point, precipitating talk of a hard salary cap. I peruse baseball blogs and news sites and there has been a marked increase in chatter about change.

I don't know if a cap is the answer. A lot of knowledgeable people seem to feel that a better system of revenue sharing (along with a salary floor) is the better way to go, hopefully negating the need for a cap.

New York can buy it's way out of a bad record. Other teams in other cities cannot. Things are not on an even keel.

That's the problem right there. Think of the contracts they've thrown around to Carl Pavano and Kei Igawa and other stiffs who didn't work out. For most teams, it would be financially crippling. Yankees just shrug it off and go sign somebody else. The money they've pledged to Sabathia and Burnett and Teixeira this off season seems obscene, and it would be a huge risk to almost any other club, but if any or all of them don't work it out, it doesn't matter to them. Money really is no object.

People say that money doesn't guarantee wins, and that's true. However, it indisputably makes things easier. It's no accident that year after year the playoff teams are over represented among the high spenders, and grossly under represented among the low spenders. You *can* make the playoffs if you don't throw money around like drunken sailors, but you have to be extremely smart and lucky to boot. Especially in the AL East. I don't see why the playing field has to be so imbalanced right from the get go.

[eekmd]

The problem is that the small-market teams that have to scout and develop their talent are unable to keep that talent after the player performs well for a season. Suddenly that talented pitcher's value goes up, and they go off to the highest bidder. (Yankees, Red Sox, etc)

In turn, with all of the big name talent, those teams win more often, which brings in more fans (along with the fans who just are around to cheer on superstars) That brings in more revenue, which allows them to buy up more big-name talent... and on and on and on...

True, My orioles have been a woefully mismanaged team over the last decade or so, but being in the same division as the yankees and red sox makes it seem like cheering for david to beat goliath. Yes, it may happen on occasion and it's great when it does, but the odds are stacked against it. I've been to Camden yards when they're playing the yankees. I might as well be in Yankee Stadium, there's so many opposing fans there! Heck, the only time that there is more than about 13k fans is when the yankees or red sox come to town!

----Just out of curiosity, is anyone betting on Tampa to be in the World Series (or even playoffs) again next year? If so, I'll gladly bet against you.

[shyguy246]

Originally Posted by brimontz

There's nothing incoherent about what I said -- that's just insulting.

Yes, Tampa Bay may have made the playoffs, but who has a better chance of winning the division or making the playoffs year after year, NY or Tampa? If you say the latter, you're kidding yourself.

When teams don't have the chance to keep the stars they help develop, the system is broken down. Starting with Albert Belle and going through CC Sabathia, the Indians haven't been able to keep even one. That's a problem.

New York can buy it's way out of a bad record. Other teams in other cities cannot. Things are not on an even keel.

Yes, it's a safe bet to say the Yanks won't win the World Series, but every year, the deck is stacked in their favor.

And to say that the competitive balance argument made sense 50 years ago shows you don't have much of an understanding of baseball. Back then, yes the Yanks won a lot, but then, it was about developing your stars. I have more respect for the Yanks of that era than the Yanks of the free agency era. The Yankees beat Bob Feller's Indians -- they didn't go out and buy Bob Feller the second he was elligible for free agency. Big difference.

The game is screwed up and has been for a long time. "Luxury taxes" don't work. Until there's a hard salary cap and true revenue sharing, baseball will always be a joke.

Brian

They didn't buy Bob Feller because MLB didn't have free agency until the mid 1970's.
I'm amazed that people actually respect the Yankees for how many championships they've won. There are three reasons as to why the Yankees have 26 World Series titles. Those reasons are Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and the lack of an Amateur draft from 1903 until 1964. See, back in those days, there was no division playoffs, or anything. The winner of the American League and the winner of the National League automatically played in the World Series. They did it this way until 1969, when the AL and NL had 2 divisions each. Also, back in those days(1903 until 1969) the players didn't get paid much money, at all, but they did get a bonus check for being on one of the two teams to make it to the World Series. That check was CRUCIAL for players. So, thanks to Babe Ruth/Lou Gehrig being dominant players, and the lack of an amatuer draft, young up and coming players would flock to the Yankees, because they had Ruth and Gehrig, and could almost guarantee themselves the World Series bonus check.

There is a reason the Yankees won 20 World Series before the Amatuer draft(and the integration of black players), and have won only 6 World Series titles since 1965.

[millenniumman75]

I haven't seen a game on television in a long time.

[mistermet]

as you can see from my name and avatar, i am a die-hard met fan (please don't ask about the last two years...it's been rough). anyway, coming from a fan of a large market team, i can say that though i love when my team gets new players (psyched about K-Rod and JJ Putz), the Yankees make me sick (only hate the Phils more than them) with all the spending and i believe there should be a salary cap (and salary floor for teams like the Marlins and Royals who pocket revenue sharing $$). i don't think it's killed the game as badly as people say, because the low revenue teams still find ways to win. however, it gets bad when those low rev teams can't hang onto their homegrown players. now as a met fan, the thing that disappoints me most is that the Mets will shell out for the big player most of the time (75%), but they seem to spend less in the draft which i truly hate. we've had our big prospects at times, with David Wright and Jose Reyes (through internt'l free agency) but other than that, the team doesn't pay out for the guys who fall through the cracks in the draft, so to speak, like teams such as the Red Sox do. i'd almost rather them spend more on the draft and build up a top farm system and ML team with homegrown talent, then buy all of these hired guns who tons of money, who are over the hill, anyway.

[shyguy246]

Originally Posted by mistermet

as you can see from my name and avatar, i am a die-hard met fan (please don't ask about the last two years...it's been rough). anyway, coming from a fan of a large market team, i can say that though i love when my team gets new players (psyched about K-Rod and JJ Putz), the Yankees make me sick (only hate the Phils more than them) with all the spending and i believe there should be a salary cap (and salary floor for teams like the Marlins and Royals who pocket revenue sharing $$). i don't think it's killed the game as badly as people say, because the low revenue teams still find ways to win. however, it gets bad when those low rev teams can't hang onto their homegrown players. now as a met fan, the thing that disappoints me most is that the Mets will shell out for the big player most of the time (75%), but they seem to spend less in the draft which i truly hate. we've had our big prospects at times, with David Wright and Jose Reyes (through internt'l free agency) but other than that, the team doesn't pay out for the guys who fall through the cracks in the draft, so to speak, like teams such as the Red Sox do. i'd almost rather them spend more on the draft and build up a top farm system and ML team with homegrown talent, then buy all of these hired guns who tons of money, who are over the hill, anyway.

As a Red Sox fan, I'd feel bad for you as a Mets fan, if not for 1986.

But your point about homegrown talent, it's right on. I love that the Red Sox can afford free agent's and not worry about a bust affecting their payroll, but the thing I love most is this: Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester, Jonathan Papelbon, Justin Masterson and to a lesser extent, guys like Clay Buchholz, Manny Delcarmen and Michael Bowden. Seeing homegrown guys succeed is a lot of fun.

[brimontz]

Originally Posted by shyguy246

They didn't buy Bob Feller because MLB didn't have free agency until the mid 1970's.
I'm amazed that people actually respect the Yankees for how many championships they've won. There are three reasons as to why the Yankees have 26 World Series titles. Those reasons are Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and the lack of an Amateur draft from 1903 until 1964. See, back in those days, there was no division playoffs, or anything. The winner of the American League and the winner of the National League automatically played in the World Series. They did it this way until 1969, when the AL and NL had 2 divisions each. Also, back in those days(1903 until 1969) the players didn't get paid much money, at all, but they did get a bonus check for being on one of the two teams to make it to the World Series. That check was CRUCIAL for players. So, thanks to Babe Ruth/Lou Gehrig being dominant players, and the lack of an amatuer draft, young up and coming players would flock to the Yankees, because they had Ruth and Gehrig, and could almost guarantee themselves the World Series bonus check.

There is a reason the Yankees won 20 World Series before the Amatuer draft(and the integration of black players), and have won only 6 World Series titles since 1965.

I know that free agency didn't exist back then -- that was my point. The Yankees would have bought Feller the moment he became elligible for free agency. Yes, there were things that still stacked the deck in the Yankees' favor, but other teams could still keep players they developed too. And those players were just as hungry for the bonus checks. While that may not have been as lucrative for the players, the set up then, even with the flaws you point out, was still more fair than the current set up.

As far as there being no playoffs until 1969, that's true, but there were also fewer teams in the league as well. Talent wasn't watered down as much as it is now, even though the league draws from a bigger pool of talent -- more international players now than in the past -- and the international players aren't subject to a talent draft either, I might add, so that problem is still in place.

Brian

[brimontz]

Originally Posted by mistermet

as you can see from my name and avatar, i am a die-hard met fan (please don't ask about the last two years...it's been rough). anyway, coming from a fan of a large market team, i can say that though i love when my team gets new players (psyched about K-Rod and JJ Putz), the Yankees make me sick (only hate the Phils more than them) with all the spending and i believe there should be a salary cap (and salary floor for teams like the Marlins and Royals who pocket revenue sharing $$). i don't think it's killed the game as badly as people say, because the low revenue teams still find ways to win. however, it gets bad when those low rev teams can't hang onto their homegrown players. now as a met fan, the thing that disappoints me most is that the Mets will shell out for the big player most of the time (75%), but they seem to spend less in the draft which i truly hate. we've had our big prospects at times, with David Wright and Jose Reyes (through internt'l free agency) but other than that, the team doesn't pay out for the guys who fall through the cracks in the draft, so to speak, like teams such as the Red Sox do. i'd almost rather them spend more on the draft and build up a top farm system and ML team with homegrown talent, then buy all of these hired guns who tons of money, who are over the hill, anyway.

The problem is that lower revenue teams that put together a great team cannot keep their teams together and have to rebuild far more often than the higher revenue teams. That's not fair, and if you are presenting a product where you claim that every team has a shot at winning the World Series, you should ensure a set-up for the league that is fair. This set up is not. Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, CC Sabathia, and others should all still be in Cleveland, the team that developed those players into potential HOF-calibur talent.

Brian

[mistermet]

Originally Posted by brimontz

The problem is that lower revenue teams that put together a great team cannot keep their teams together and have to rebuild far more often than the higher revenue teams. That's not fair, and if you are presenting a product where you claim that every team has a shot at winning the World Series, you should ensure a set-up for the league that is fair. This set up is not. Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, CC Sabathia, and others should all still be in Cleveland, the team that developed those players into potential HOF-calibur talent.

Brian

yeah, that's too bad with a team like Cleveland. they aren't a bad team at the moment, and would be incredible if they had some money to hang onto their guys. that's the one thing that makes me glad to be a Met fan. i feel that we'll hang onto our homegrown stars (i honestly hope that i don't ever see David Wright playing for another team) by shelling out the money. i just pray they don't go all Tom Seaver on DWright and Reyes.

shyguy246--

i am so jealous of teams like the Sox who have all of those homegrown guys. the Sox are going to be a force for years as long as Theo is at the helm. i go to school in Boston, (i guess you could say i've adopted the Red Sox as my AL team) so all i hear about are the Red Sox young prospects and how deep their system is. anyway my mets have always been about bringing in older guys from other places (our only major homegrown franchise guys are Seaver, Doc Gooden, Strawberry, David Wright and Jose Reyes over 45 years) so i guess the Mets system has been better of late at bringing up productive guys (DW, JR, Mike Pelfrey, Daniel Murphy, Nick Evans, Jon Niese, Eddie Kunz, Bobby Parnell, Fernando Martinez, etc). bottom line is i'm excited for this year...we just need to grab a starter (hopefully Lowe) and LF (Manny please) and try to dump off Luis Castillo on some poor sucker of a team.