Burnett to Yankees, 5 years, $82.5mm

[danzig6767]

This is destined to not end well at all.

I think the odds certainly favor things not ending well, but my guess is the Yankees aren't focusing that much on the end over the present. From what i see with them, they are hoping that in say the next three years, Sabathia/Burnett help lead the Yankees to a title or at least multiple deep playoffs runs. If that happens, they'll live with fairly likely chance Burnett and/or Sabathia not being as effective or worse injured on the back ends of their long term contracts.

 

Come 5 years from now when Burnett's deal ends and 6-7 years from now when Sabathia's ends, i think they view it that they can afford to eat a bad year or two at the end of either or both contracts given the Yankees print money. Now if either or both break down physically fairly early in their contracts, then i'm sure the team would view that as a disaster.

[TheCrew07]

The problem with a payroll cap is that the owners would then rake in an obscene amount of the revenue generated by MLB, with the players taking far less. Kinda like crediting Joe Torre for winning those Yankees WS titles. Clearly the players are the employees that do the most to generate revenue. The owners wouldn't pass any savings on salaries to the fans, as long as they can still charge whatever they dictate for ticket prices. It's easy to pass off a payroll cap as competitive balance (which it may or may not provide), but in reality it just would make the people most responsible for producing the entertainment earn a disproportionately small amount, while the owners of teams would bathe in money. I'm not sure why people think that players earn too much money but would be just fine with owners making ungodly sums.

Huh? So it's okay for the players, the employees, to get filthy rich but it's somehow wrong for the owners to make a buck in all of this? The truth is that no one truly cares about the fans and sports in general are becoming too expensive as a family event for the middle class. Where does it stop? How does it stop? I can get behind most of what you say but to debate the merits of your post we'd have to do it on another forum as it is social economics.

 

Are you really suggesting that the owners take more than their fair share in the other sports? This isn't professional sports in the early part of the 20th century when players had to hold down 2nd jobs to support a family. Depending on what article you read and what sport we're discussing the players get 40 to 60 percent, that seems pretty reasonable given the fixed costs of operating a franchise. Just to maintain the facility alone probably eats up 20-25 percent of the income, lights, cleaning, heating, cooling, employee salaries, general maint, etc, etc... I'd be really curious how much it costs to operate miller park for a season when all employee salaries, front office salaries, utilities, and so on are considered. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the Brewers are a 150 to 160 million enterprise per year with a gross profit between 2.5 to 4 percent. The budget wouldn't be a fixed, they'd need to have to wiggle room both ways depending on attendance, injuries, and many other factors but I think any percentage under 5 is very reasonable. They wouldn't be making as much profit in a year as their highest paid employee...

 

I remember reading somewhere that the Packers have around $150 million banked (maybe someone told me when I was there, not sure) and I remember thinking that was very low for a team that was accused of taking money and being happy selling out stadiums with a crappy product on the field all those years. I always thought that was sort of funny because there was no owner to profit, the profits just go right back into the organization. I guess I'm not surprised that somehow the owners always come out the bad guys when a team like the Packers without an owner can get accused of gouging the fanbase for profit, but that strikes me as a cynical view. I'm sure there are cases where the owner or ownership group are gouging as much as they can, but I don't feel that's the norm in any sport. I'm not very educated on the NBA because I despise the one on one nature of the game, but I'm a huge fan of the NFL and NHL, and the salary cap in the NHL most affected my favorite team, the Red Wings. I don't see how the salary cap in any of the other sports has had a negative impact on the games in any way.

 

The salary cap rules are usually structured so the team that drafts a player has the option of retaining his rights for the duration of his career if they so choose. The player still gets paid and the fans get to grow attached to a player because they know he'll be their guy for a long time, the league gains some measure of consistency in this environment. MLB is the exact opposite, the Brewers have no chance of keeping of marquee player they draft around past arbitration unless they buy out a couple of years of FA, any large market team can just offer 1 or 2 more years for same amount of money and the player walks... after all who's going to leave 20 to 40 million on the table? Would any of us? What's so special about Milwaukee?

[phxMILWfan]

Jesus, what a terrible contract. It's a buyers' market and we're still seeing teams outbidding themselves.

 

They could have probably came close to signing Sheets and Lowe for about the same price combined, and then sold off some of their young SP to teams to rebuild the farm.

The Yankees can only sign 3 type A free agents to replace the 3 they lost. That is my understanding atleast. So it isn't in their best interest to get more type A free agents for the same price. They'd rather pay top dollar for the 3 best type A free agents. If it wasn't for that rule they would probably sign CC, Burnette, Lowe, Sheets, and Texeira. It's interesting to see the talent they are acquiring for the same price as the washed up garbage they let go. No one had a problem with the money they spent when they were spending it on the wrong players like Giambi.

[danzig6767]

The problem with a payroll cap is that the owners would then rake in an obscene amount of the revenue generated by MLB, with the players taking far less. Kinda like crediting Joe Torre for winning those Yankees WS titles. Clearly the players are the employees that do the most to generate revenue. The owners wouldn't pass any savings on salaries to the fans, as long as they can still charge whatever they dictate for ticket prices. It's easy to pass off a payroll cap as competitive balance (which it may or may not provide), but in reality it just would make the people most responsible for producing the entertainment earn a disproportionately small amount, while the owners of teams would bathe in money. I'm not sure why people think that players earn too much money but would be just fine with owners making ungodly sums.

Huh? So it's okay for the players, the employees, to get filthy rich but it's somehow wrong for the owners to make a buck in all of this? The truth is that no one truly cares about the fans and sports in general are becoming too expensive as a family event for the middle class. Where does it stop? How does it stop?

The fans hold most the cards in the rising ticket prices and rising salaries, not the owners and players. Baseball attendance is at all time high levels. The NFL sells out nearly every game. So long as fans keep filling up stadiums, what reason do owners have to lower prices? You lower prices in business when buyers avoid your product because they feel it's over priced. What business lowers the price of products that are selling well?

 

Teams set ticket/concession prices at amounts which they feel will sell well and at the same time bring in the maximum amount of revenue. It's basically the same as any business. If the Brewers charge 60 dollars for the box seats and people buy most of them up, why should they charge less just to be nice? If say the Yankees charge 200 for their box seats and they sell at that price, why should they charge less? If a team charges to much for certain seats in their stadium, fans won't buy enough of them and thus the price will need to be lowered.

 

Yea for some families the prices can be to high, so they'll just have to sit in the non-premium seating areas. That's life and not exclusive to sports. When say a band or solo act goes on tour, the fans with more money get to sit in the better seats, that's how entertainment works. Plus, if you attend a baseball or NBA game in most cities where it's not a sellout, generally the expensive seats will be full or largely full, it's the cheaper seats that are more empty.

 

As for the players, they hire smart people who are able to roughly gauge how much revenue the leagues bring in after the many expenses of stadium maintenance, minor leagues, all other non-player employees etc etc. They rightfully so want their piece of the pie. I understand why so many fans get turned off to the money demands of players and their agents, but those demands are only based off the revenues that they know are coming in. Owners wouldn't hand out 50-70-100-150 million dollar deals if their revenues couldn't support the contracts. There is no need to go shedding a tear for a guy like Attanasio, he's made plenty of cash since buying the Brewers. It's not just the players making out well in pro sports.

 

Like i said before, if sports fans actually mean it when they say they're fed up with the prices charged to attend sporting events and the players salaries, then they'll stop filling ballparks and stadiums. Minus that happening, owners will have no reason to lower prices for a product that's selling and thus revenues will continue to pour in which means more huge contracts to the guys those fans are paying their money to see play. Just saying the prices are to high is meaningless to any owner that looks outside and sees his stadium full or mostly full.

[Invader3K]

Great post, danzig. I agree 100%, pretty much.

 

The only way I see anything changing in baseball if a majority of the ownerships finally get fed up with teams like the Yankees buying up all the best players. I really don't see that happening anytime soon, since I think most teams are doing very well financially, as you mentioned.

[Fatter than Joey]

This is destined to not end well at all.

 

I don't know about that... Here is the way I look at it...

 

1.) They won 89 games last year, in a very competitive division -- and finished 3rd -- they need to do something.

 

2.) They are opening a new stadium this April -- Having CC, and co. opening in that new park is going to be electric.

 

3.) CC is probably the best LHP in baseball -- even if he starts to decline, he still is going to be better than the Jeff Suppan's of the league, i.e. Mount CC has a higher peak and slower decline than Mount Suppan.

 

4.) If CC/Burnett get 95+ wins over the next 4-5 seasons, and get the Yankees into the playoffs those years, they can probably suck in their last years, and still have provided good value.

 

The Yankees are probably trying to capitalize on their new stadium, etc... they will probably end up OK.

[RU Rah Rah]

2.) They are opening a new stadium this April -- Having CC, and co. opening in that new park is going to be electric.

Too bad that it probably won't be covered very much by ESPN, etc. We'll probably have to scour the Web the next day to find any mention.

[BrewCrewForever]

I hope they miss the playoffs again. I will really laugh, again. Can't wait to hear little Steinbrenner's excuse this season.

[paul253]

The problem with a payroll cap is that the owners would then rake in an obscene amount of the revenue generated by MLB, with the players taking far less

 

What about all the other sports that have caps? Are you saying their players arent being treated fairly because they arent making their fair share of the league revenue? You're going to have a hard time convincing me that even someone making the league minimum to play baseball is being treated unfairly or being used. The players need the owners just as much as the owners need the players. Not to mention a lot of players use their status to make even more money in endorsements. Perhaps you can look at it the other way around in that the reason prices are so high is because owners know they have to be competitive, and that the players can demand more because they know that. Who cares how much the owners make? They pay taxes on it. Its no different than the owner of a restaraunt making money....they've been successful enough (or lucky enough) to own a major league baseball team, so now we need to tell them what to do with their profits?

 

If there were a cap on salaries, not only would it make things more competitive and more "fair", but it would make it easier for fans to demand lower prices because the team doesnt have to spend a gazillion dollars to real in the best players. Right now its very convenient for an owner to say "hey, you want a competitive team, well the top players are going for $20 million a year. The only way I can make that kind of money is to raise prices". Then the fans are stuck with this choice of either not getting the best players or getting good players but paying out their behinds for them. If theres a cap, the best players may still be demanding $20 million, but one team may only be able to get one or two of them, not 4 or 5 like the Yankees, Angels, and Mets are doing almost every year. That alone would drive salaries down, which would make it harder for an owner to get away with raising prices.

 

Finally, I'm sorry, the luxury tax is not a salary cap. For one, its set at such a high number than only a few teams even have the resources to reach it, let alone go over it. Therefore for the vast majority of the teams, its not preventing anything that is already prevented by financial limitations. When a team like the Yankees has the resources that they do, does anyone really think a luxury tax is going to change their game plan?

 

Baseball is screwed up in so many ways (FA compensation, no cap, the draft, divisional setup, etc). I realize this has nothing to do with Burnett other than how his signing shows how screwed up baseball is becoming, so i apologize for that.

[crewcrazy]

I think it's safe to say that the Yankees learned nothing from the Carl Pavano signing. I hope they have fun paying about $40 million of that total to a guy who's on the DL. I don't know why they thought 5 years to A.J. Burnett made more sense than 2 years to Ben Sheets, but I guess that's not my problem.

 

I'll agree that baseball economics are pretty screwed up, but I think the Brewers offering Sabathia 5/$100M and the Nationals reportedly offering Teixeira 8/$160M shows that small-market teams are willing to spend if they think there's a player out there that will make them significantly better. For the most part, the best way to counteract a deficit in market size is to have a good GM with a good scouting staff and the common sense to know when another team is overbidding. Let teams like the Yankees pay more to guys on the DL than most teams pay their entire roster -- I guess it doesn't bother me as much as most people.

[phxMILWfan]

Everyone knows the only thing that kept the Yanks out of the playoffs this year is the fact that the NL doesn't use a DH!

[TooLiveBrew]

Huh? So it's okay for the players, the employees, to get filthy rich but it's somehow wrong for the owners to make a buck in all of this?

 

No. It's about proportion. If there were a payroll cap all it would do is make the owners take in a disproportionate amount of the revenue. What I will never understand is why so many fans seem to think the players are the villains. The owners are the ones ripping you off at the gate & concession stands, not the players.

 

Put it this way... if you work at Business X, which has seen its profits skyrocket in recent years, wouldn't you, as an employee, expect to see your wages increase? The scale of pay involved is irrelevant imo when discussing how employees should be compensated. The economy sucks right now, so people are getting laid off. When the economy goes well, people get raises. Just because baseball players make at worst hundreds of thousands of dollars doesn't mean they should be arbitrarily restricted in terms of pay scale.

 

If you don't like how much money they make, how about the amount that owners rake in? Why do they tend to be so immune from public scorn? It just makes little sense to me, other than that the players are more visible & that many fans have this image that the owner is just a fan, 'Just like me'

 

 

Teams set ticket/concession prices at amounts which they feel will sell well and at the same time bring in the maximum amount of revenue. It's basically the same as any business

 

Exactly. Just because the numbers are so extreme doesn't mean that it shouldn't be considered in that manner (in mho)

[phxMILWfan]

I agree with your point TLB. I think it's the fact that the players are on TV every day. We see them for 3 hours a day during the game, see the highlights. ESPN and other news sources report the players salary. They don't report how much the owners make every year. I don't think anyone would care as much about how much people make if the ticket prices, merchandise, and concession prices were anywhere near reasonably priced. Milwaukee probably has the lowest prices in the league and they are still outrageous. Living in Phoenix and seeing the Brewers when they come out here really is expensive.

[JJHardy7]

It is somewhat surprising to me, the difference in interest between Sheets and Burnett. I don't think Sheets has received any kind of multi-year offer, and here is Burnett signing for a deal until he's 36 at over $16M/year. Burnett has always been good when healthy, but never great. Sheets has as many full, healthy seasons as Burnett and has had a higher peak.

 

Sheets ended the year injured...never a good sign going into free agency. I think the main thing getting lost in the Sheets talk is how vague his injury has been reported. To me, that's the reason Sheets hasn't been rumored in deals...the injury is more serious than we know and my guess is he may not be ready for spring training.

 

4.) If CC/Burnett get 95+ wins over the next 4-5 seasons, and get the Yankees into the playoffs those years, they can probably suck in their last years, and still have provided good value.

 

Are you talking about the Yankees winning that many games or the two pitchers? I'd have to imagine that in modern baseball two pitchers haven't combined for that many wins all that often during that time period you mention.

[rluzinski]

To me, that's the reason Sheets hasn't been rumored in deals...the injury is more serious than we know and my guess is he may not be ready for spring training.

 

Can you honestly imagine a scenario where Sheets knows he has a chance of not being ready for spring training but would still decline arbitration?