Really, Bud? We have competitive balance?

[sbrylski]

MLB experiencing an unpredictable era

 

"When we designed this thing in the '90s and we went through all this heartache, as you know, in January 2000 the clubs gave me unprecedented power

to fix the competitive balance problem," Commissioner Bud Selig said. "Well, it's years later and I think we can say we have dealt with it. And

the sport has never been better as a result. [All of the different World Series winners] are a remarkable manifestation of it. It's been great.

There's no doubt we have dealt with what was, in the late 1990s, a very difficult problem.

 

"We have more competitive balance than we've ever had," Selig said.

Um, can someone tell me what's changed? As far as I can tell there is still a vast difference between the haves and the have-nots. Just because a few small

markets have outsmarted the rest and snatched a few pennants does not mean there is no longer a competitive balance problem, not by a long shot.

[TheCrew07]

kramnoj should be around shortly to restore our faith that everything is right with baseball...

[trwi7]

That's a joke. I'm sorry, but when one team can boast a $200 million payroll and they are pretty much the only team that can do it, then there's a competitive balance problem. Yeah, they didn't make the playoffs this year, but it's quite simple. Is it easier to make the playoffs with a $200 million payroll than it is with a $120 million payroll? Is it easier to make the playoffs with a $120 million payroll than it is with a $75 million payroll? You bet.

 

Baseball has a long, long way to go before it's competitively balanced.

[ILuvDaBush]

No NY team in the postseason. Only one $20mil player in the postseason. I understand that there is an imbalance, but you have to admit, it is nice that we're not seeing the Cubs vs. the Yanks in the Series.

[sbrylski]

No NY team in the postseason. Only one $20mil player in the postseason. I understand that there is an imbalance, but you have to admit, it is nice that we're not seeing the Cubs vs. the Yanks in the Series.

 

Definitely. But its not because of a balanced playing field that they are left out. Its because they have been relatively stupid with where they've spent their gobs of money, and the short series length that makes it close to a crapshoot on who wins in the playoffs.

 

The Red Sox will probably continue to win and win, because they have adopted the "smart" baseball management techniques the small market teams have developed as a way to compete, and have an enormous payroll on top of that. The A's, Twins, Rays, Marlins, ect are going to be left in the dust again as more of the big market clubs get "smart."

[danzig6767]

I don't know how much more Bud can do

 

Between the big market owners and the players union, there will never be any sort of revenue sharing and fairly hard cap like we see in the NFL. The only very very slight chance to reach something even close to the NFL would IMO take a long strike and that's not a given to work. Baseball is to prosperous right now for a long protracted strike to mess things up.

 

If smaller market teams have a smart GM in place and fans show up, revenue sharing money added gives teams a reasonably fair chance to compete.

[Diskono]

Count me in the minority, but I don't like communism in sports (like the NFL). I don't like the across-the-board mediocrity of the NFL. I like major league baseball. Small market teams are guaranteed control of their own players for at least 6 years, which is very reasonable. I don't want to see bad teams get rewarded for making stupid decisions. It's fun to hate the Red Sox for buying championships, and I don't want that aspect of being a fan to be taken away.

[Ennder]

I agree with Selig 100%. The have nots are mostly small market teams with bad leadership. Any well run team should be competitive in baseball today by smart drafting and picking which players to keep. Which teams are really 'have nots' anyway? The Pirates, the Nationals, The Orioles, The Rangers and I guess maybe the Reds? The rest of the teams have been competitive at some point over the last 10 years. Not very many of those teams are even small market.

 

Don't get me started on what a sham the NFL is. Competitive balance in the NFL just means a short schedule that is set up to favor teams with a bad record so different mediocre teams make the playoffs every year. The same teams dominate year in and year out and the same teams stink year in and year out in football because some teams have to pay a ton more to get players to come to them so the salary cap doesn't really even things like people think it does. There are still haves and have nots it is just decided differently.

[bjkrautk]

2008: Philadelphia -or- Tampa Bay

2007: Boston

2006: St. Louis

2005: Chicago White Sox

2004: Boston

2003: Florida

2002: Anaheim

2001: Arizona

2000: New York Yankees

 

All 4 of the most recent expansion teams have made the World Series. It's not parity, but but the balance is far better than it used to be.

[Invader3K]

I would say baseball is fairly competitively balanced, much more than in the past. Big market teams will always have a slight advantage, but the odds of a team like the Rays, Brewers, A's, or Twins making the World Series are much better than they used to be.

 

With baseball doing so well right now, I doubt we're going to see any more big changes, like further revenue sharing or salary caps.

[JohnBriggs12]

Count me in the minority, but I don't like communism in sports (like the NFL). I don't like the across-the-board mediocrity of the NFL. I like major league baseball. Small market teams are guaranteed control of their own players for at least 6 years, which is very reasonable. I don't want to see bad teams get rewarded for making stupid decisions. It's fun to hate the Red Sox for buying championships, and I don't want that aspect of being a fan to be taken away.

The problem with your thinking Diskono is that leagues are marketing entities in themselves and individual teams are franchisees of that league. They aren't competing against each other in a business sense, they are competing with other forms of entertainment. The league is stronger when all teams have the ability to market winning or at least the perceived ability to win. Put another way, it doesn't help the McDonalds brand for one franchisee to put $20 million into making his location sparkle while the McDonalds a few miles away is a dump because the franchise owner isn't getting equal treatment from the parent company.

 

Having Pittsburgh be the Washington Generals to the Cubs Harlem Globetrotters is not all that entertaining to the people in Pittsburgh.

 

That's why the NFL has it all over MLB.

[kramnoj]

kramnoj should be around shortly to restore our faith that everything is right with baseball...

I'll play along. The New York teams missed the playoffs. The team from the smallest media market made the playoffs. Tampa is in the World Series after years of futility by acquiring young inexpensive talent through the draft. Teams that are run well do well, with a little luck. There could, and should, be more revenue sharing, but teams can compete if they make good decisions.

 

Large market teams did represent a large portion of the playoff teams this year, with both LA teams and both Chicago teams, and Philly is one of the largest markets, so money is obviously an advantage. But we were just a couple of games away from Minnesota being in it instead of Chicago and Arizona being in it instead of LA.

 

I do think there should be more revenue sharing, but I also think that should be accompanied by rigorous oversight of dollars received to make sure that this money goes to baseball operations to improve the team. I don't want a salary floor, because I think that just overpays mediocrity. But I do think that teams can do well with academies in foreign countries. I think baseball could do better to provide better baseball facilities to urban areas in the US to promote baseball.

 

Really, I don't think there's a team that is run well that can't make the playoffs. It's harder, and that's unfair, but the sport is making progress, and the cash from MLB AM certainly helps.

[dadofandrew]

As stated, Bud's done all he can. As Ben showed, no team is dominating, or even much better than the rest. One not need look past the Yankees of the 50's, or even the Reds of the 70's to see how unusual this is for the sport.

[endaround]

1) This has a lot more to do with the Wild Card that people want to admit. More playoff teams means more variance means more different winners.

 

2) A hard cap would kill baseball as we know it. A hard cap means you'll never see a Sabtahia trade again.

[Invader3K]

One other thing that hasn't been pointed out is that a lot of the teams that struggle to be competitive (Pirates, Royals, etc). have owners who are probably turning a big profit and simply pocketing a lot of that money. It's not like Bud can force the Pirates or Marlins to go out and sign big money free agents if they don't want to.

 

Some people will hate Selig no matter what, and ridicule pretty much whatever he says, for whatever reasons. That's fine. Personally, however, I feel the changes he's made to the game, like the expanded playoffs, have brought more good than bad to the game. There's still changes that could be made, like the aforementioned salary cap (maybe a soft cap?), an international draft (which they now have a provision to implement that very item), and other things...but with baseball doing so well financially, and more fans being able to cheer on their teams to the playoffs late in the season, it's harder to legitimately complain.

[sbrylski]

I agree that Bud can't do much more, but I think its ignorant on his part to think that all the problems with competitive balance are fixed.

[Invader3K]

Well, I don't know that he said "all the problems have been fixed". He said they "dealt with it", which is true.

[nate82]

Competitive balance? No. Competitive? Yes. Baseball is very competitive now than it was say 5-10 years ago. There are more teams that are good and even teams that are not so good (2006 Cardinals, 2007 Diamondbacks, 2008 Dodgers) making it into the playoffs and not making it into the playoffs (2008 Yankees).

 

The game is very competitive right now is it perfectly competitive no and I don't expect it to be the NFL isn't perfectly competitive either.

[squambaum]

Is it really that balanced? 7 of the 8 playoff teams this year were in the top half of the league in salary. The small market Brewers only made the playoffs because they 'operated in the red' and raised the payroll to 90 million. I'm all for a salary cap. The NFL is the most popular sport in the country for a reason and part of that reason is that almost every fan base has reason to be excited every few years. Sure horrible management runs some teams into the ground (lions) and some dynasties still happen (patriots) but at least you don't have teams like the Yankees who are in it almost every year because they can outspend everyone else.

[Ennder]

I'm all for a salary cap. The NFL is the most popular sport in the country for a reason and part of that reason is that almost every fan base has reason to be excited every few years. Sure horrible management runs some teams into the ground (lions) and some dynasties still happen (patriots) but at least you don't have teams like the Yankees who are in it almost every year because they can outspend everyone else.

 

Football is popular because it is fun to watch and only takes up 3 hours of your week. Has very little to do with the salary cap. I still question whether it is 'the most popular sport in the country' as well but that is probably a discussion for another day.

 

There are just as many teams that stand no chance year in and year out in the NFL as in MLB.

[squambaum]

Football is popular because it is fun to watch and only takes up 3 hours of your week. Has very little to do with the salary cap. I still question whether it is 'the most popular sport in the country' as well but that is probably a discussion for another day.

 

There are just as many teams that stand no chance year in and year out in the NFL as in MLB.

I guess we just have to agree to disagree. I don't want to get too off topic but I would argue that the salary cap is one of many reasons why football is so popular - it adds a true competitive balance to the sport (or at least as close as possible). I'd say that competitive balance is a huge reason for popularity as the more fan bases you can make excited about football the more popular the sport.

 

The teams that stand no chance in the NFL usually rotate. You may have a pretty good idea that your football team is going to stink but within a few years they can turn things around. There aren't as many Royals or Pirates in football as there are in baseball. I think part of that reason is if you stink in baseball it is a number of years before you see any impact players from the draft and if you couple that with the inability or unwillingness to sign impact free agents teams that stink stay that way longer.

[Ennder]

I guess we'll just disagree. The Salary Cap still favors some teams over others so there still isn't competitive balance. The Patriots, Packers etc pay a lot less to sign a FA than the Lions or Cardinals. There are still teams that haven't been competitive for 10+ years in a row. Sure they might sneak into the wild card occassionally because 2 or 3 lucky wins is enough to turn a 6 win team into a playoff team in the NFL some season but there are still teams with no chance even with the cap.

 

The salary cap is great at creating the 'illusion of parity' but it is really more the 16 game schedule and unbalanced schedule that creates it more than the cap itself.

[danzig6767]

I guess we'll just disagree. The Salary Cap still favors some teams over others so there still isn't competitive balance. The Patriots, Packers etc pay a lot less to sign a FA than the Lions or Cardinals. There are still teams that haven't been competitive for 10+ years in a row. Sure they might sneak into the wild card occassionally because 2 or 3 lucky wins is enough to turn a 6 win team into a playoff team in the NFL some season but there are still teams with no chance even with the cap.

 

The salary cap is great at creating the 'illusion of parity' but it is really more the 16 game schedule and unbalanced schedule that creates it more than the cap itself.

The biggest difference i see is that in football, teams for the most part have zero reason to use money as an excuse for not being able to win. All NFL teams can go into a draft and not have to worry about a Boras manipulating where players go. In the NFL, there are no Yankees or Red Sox that can sign nearly anyone they please. Low revenue teams like say the Vikings can resign all their top players and also compete for the elite free agents, unlike MLB. The ability of all NFL teams to compete financially is just more equal than it is in baseball, it's not even debatable IMO. That said, just like in baseball, smart management is what's most important.

 

One other thing to consider in why some NFL teams stay good for long stretches and others can stink for long stretches is the quarterback position is by far the most important in all of pro sports. Teams in the NFL who have an elite QB generally are pretty good to great year after year, while teams who struggle badly to find a good QB over a long stretch of years also tend to struggle to consistently win because it's so hard to win without a quality QB. Kinda like how teams in the NBA who land a true franchise player generally at least make the playoffs each year. In baseball, one single great player can't have the same impact.

[fallingleaves]

I think its important to look how the control of players is structured in baseball, the true tenor of sports equality. Sacrificing first and second round draft picks is an incredibly stiff penalty. Essentially FA signings are trades in baseball, completely foriegn to the NFL. Second, small market teams get to keep young talent for some of best years in baseball at the lowest prices.

 

Money only gets you so much in baseball. Sure it would be great to resign CC and I believe the Brewers can afford it. However, small market teams did control him during his prime, for much less money than the Yankees will give him. Not to mention that the Crew will receive a 1st round pick in compensation, ideally continuing the small market team business cycle.

 

In sum, smart teams, such as the Chicago Cubs trade for players such as Harden and then resign them without sacrificing draft picks.

[Crewin06]

The illusion of competitive balance in baseball has been created by killing the importance of a 162 game baseball season. No longer does a great regular season mean anything. Play above average for 6 months or just average as is the case for a couple of divisions each year and you are in the crapshoot called the Major League Baseball Playoffs.

 

If the Bud Selig Years operated under the pre 1969 LCS format. A top 5 payroll team in each league would have probably represented their league in the World Series every year in the World Series. That is not Competetive Balance.

 

A Baseball Series is basically a coin flip in my opinion. The Best team in Baseball each year usually has a winning percentage of 62%. When the best team plays against other top teams I bet that number gets dwindled to about 55%. Especially when you consider that they hardly ever even play three games in a row. Now can you see how adding more rounds to the playoffs creates the illusion of Parity. The Playoff format in baseball is a joke

 

Want more so called competitive Balance in Baseball. Open up the playoffs to 8 teams in each league, don't change the playoff format at all and make the regular season even more meaningless.