Texeira to Yankees for 8/$180; Brewers Compensation for CC Drops to 2nd round (plus sandwich pick)

[danzig6767]

The players union won't do anything until some of it's members checks start bouncing.

 

This is the perfect time to take up this fight. Every other professional sports league can do it, so why cant MLB? When does the current labor contract expire? I would gladly, glady give up a season of baseball to gain a salary cap and salary bottom. Hey, and while you're at it, fix the draft and make it world wide!

I believe the labor contract was very recently extended and won't expire any time in the near future

[JoeH33]

At least Prince won't be going to the Yankees when he hits free agency!

...unless the Yankees are looking for a DH.

[ttsather]

At least Prince won't be going to the Yankees when he hits free agency!

 

This popped into my head too, but if the contract has an opt out clause (say, after 3 years), I could still see it happening.

 

EDIT: Or as a DH. Good point, Joe.

[Ennder]

As a 30 year fan of baseball and football I can say without a doubt in my mind that I'd quit watching baseball if they went with a salary cap. Football is so boring the way it is now that I don't even bother watching anymore. They have some work to do on revenue sharing etc but a hard salary cap isn't going to work.

 

This does suck though getting a 2nd round pick for losing Sabathia. Now I bet Sheets signs with the Rangers (protected 1st rounder) and we get their 2nd round pick too.

[aracko]

Clearly there needs to be a fix put in place for situations like this. I have 2 off the top of my head.

 

1. Each team is allowed only to sign one type A FA,

2. If the compensation a 2nd rounder it should be two years worth of 2nd rounders. If it drops to a 3rd then 3 years worth of 3rds.

[chrisisoutrunning]

I believe the labor contract was very recently extended and won't expire any time in the near future

Current collective bargaining agreement runs through 2011

 

I think it would actually be a tough sell for owners of both the big and small market teams. The big market teams can still make money spending whatever they feel like spending, but the small market teams would be forced to spend money on older talent that would either stand in the way of their young talent or just be expensive benchwarmers. If you were to create a salary floor you would probably have to rework the salary structure for the first three years and the arbitration process because that holds down the salaries of younger players who could be making more. Also, how low is the floor going to be? I think of a team like Pittsburgh, how are they going to come up with the revenue streams to be able to afford to pay something like $70 million (just throwing a number out there for a floor) if they are 67-95 the year before this goes into place. Pittsburgh drew just under 1.61 million people this year, the Yankees just short of 4.3 million.

 

I may be in the minority in this part of my opinion, but it would probably take 5-10 years to get things anywhere close to the "even" playing field that is present in the NFL. In addition do we start having non-guaranteed contracts similar to the NFL? Or keep the guaranteed contracts like the NBA? I think that it's hard to compare what a salary cap would look like in baseball to the one the NFL has because of the huge difference in number of home games and the way TV revenue is distributed amongst the teams.

That being said, I'm sure someone will bring up a point that I missed here and prove me wrong or give a good counterpoint.

[monty57]

The only three entities that must like this are 1) the Yankees, their media, & fan base; 2) the players' union; and 3) ESPN.

 

Actually, all the ESPN announcers I saw were calling the Yankees the "evil empire" and they didn't seem overly happy for them.

 

So, is there any way the rest of the teams in baseball can just refuse to play the Yankees? I know that won't happen, but even the Angels, Red Sox, etc have to be pretty upset with the way things are going this offseason. As others have said, if there was ever a time to fight for a different salary structure, this is it.

 

That said, I think the best idea would be to fight for shared television revenue. The player's union shouldn't be a part of that discussion, so really you'd only have a few teams fighting against the rest of the owners. Of course, Steinbrenner owns YES, so he'd probably just pay the Yankees nothing and make all of the money on the station side.

[areacodes]

I think the Yankees' revenue sharing / luxury tax payment is going to be higher than some teams payrolls for the next few seasons.

Doesn't their new stadium affect this though? I thought I read somewhere on BF.net that they would be paying less towards revenue sharing because of the debt of the new stadium or something along those lines.

[Ennder]

Three years from now when Sabathia and Burnett have blown out their arms people will be wondering how the Yankees can have such a huge payroll and not be winning the world series every year. The point is big name free agents almost never earn what they are payed and I doubt in the long run these deals turn out anywhere near as good as the money involved.

 

I guess I just can't get all upset about it other than it sucking that we get a 2nd round pick.

[PrimeTime955]

I am literally sick to my stomach over this.

[danzig6767]

I believe the labor contract was very recently extended and won't expire any time in the near future

 

I may be in the minority in this part of my opinion, but it would probably take 5-10 years to get things anywhere close to the "even" playing field that is present in the NFL. In addition do we start having non-guaranteed contracts similar to the NFL? Or keep the guaranteed contracts like the NBA? I think that it's hard to compare what a salary cap would look like in baseball to the one the NFL has because of the huge difference in number of home games and the way TV revenue is distributed amongst the teams.

Things will never be like the NFL in baseball because the NFL plays only 16 games. This allows for nearly NFL game to be sold out, even for the bad teams and all games are broadcast under one large TV contract that spreads broadcasting revenue evenly among all the teams.

 

What separates revenue levels for the MLB teams is largely broadcasting rights and with a 162 game schedule, each team will always control the broadcasting of their games. Very few people out there would tune into say an Oakland/Texas Rangers game in July beyond fans of those two teams, but you can put almost any two NFL teams on national TV and it will draw vastly vastly better ratings. Hell, even Monday Night Football regular season games consistently draw higher ratings than MLB playoff games. Mix in that some teams in baseball will draw way higher attendance numbers, large revenue gaps in baseball are here to stay, it's inevitable. The two sports are just different in so many ways.

[Thurston Fluff]

I'm with Danzig that I'm more interested in what happens in the NL. I'd much rather all the top FA go to the Yankees than have one of them sign with the Cubs, Astros or Cardinals.

 

Not sure about anyone else but I never understood the fun of following a team that has so many built in advantages that it is nearly impossible to lose. They don't have to make astute moves or be a better run organization. There is no pride to be derived from being a bully. The joy of winning turns into relief since even taking second place would mean complete failure. Why not just watch TV dramas if the outcome is rigged? There isn't anything to be proud of in the team winning is there? To me it's like playing Madden football with the all madden team vs the worst team. You may win and win big but so what? It was nearly impossible not to.

[Crazyk1294]

Are you kidding??? Clearly the Yankees are mortgaging their future on this one off-season (again). I have a feeling this won't work out for the Yankees but it's still sick...

[kramnoj]

There are two main things here. For the Brewers and having the compensation for CC drop from a 1st round to a 2nd round isn't fair. What baseball should do is give the Brewers two sandwich picks instead and just have the Yankees forfeit the 2nd rounder. This way the Yankees still give up a pick, and the Brewers don't get hosed quite as bad. Having two 30 something picks for CC isn't as great as having one of those and a late 20 pick, but it's close, and it's a lot better than getting a pick at the end of the 2nd round. The same would apply for the Jays with Burnett. They should get 2 sandwich picks and the Yankees would still need to forfeit their 3rd rounder.

 

As for the Yankees and their spending, nothing has changed. The Yankees at this point still have a lower payroll than they did in 2008. We'll see what happens in the rest of the offseason. I think they are trying to bring back Pettitte at $10M, and even then I think they come under last year. One difference would be if they still wanted Cameron. I don't think they do, and even if they did, that would probably mean they would be trading away Swisher or Nady (not neccessarily in the same deal), so they still wouldn't be adding a full $10M.

[AJAY]

The Yankees might as well sign Manny Ramirez too. If they are so focused on making this sport a complete farce, they might as well go all out.

Seriously, I am sick of the players union and a small number of big-market teams holding the rest of the country hostage. I really think Congress needs to get involved now just like they did for the steroids issue. I know they have more pressing matters to deal with right now, but I will definitely be writing to my legislators to complain about the absurdity going on.

And I also need to say it one more time . . . except for Al Qaida, the KKK, and other terrorist organizations, the Major League Players Association is the most disgraceful worthless garbage organization ever created. Don Fehr and Marvin Miller are absolute dirtbags and are lower than pond scum. I can not get over how much damage those two scumbags have done to the game. I hate them with such a passion.

[RU Rah Rah]

I guess I just can't get all upset about it other than it sucking that we get a 2nd round pick.

Same here. This is what the Yankees do.

[Pudster13]

A second round pick is much, much worse than a 1st round pick because of the size of the 1st round supplemental round (sandwhich round).

So yeah, THIS BLOWS like wisconsin snow!

[rm121978]

Deals like this make the Braun deal seem like the steal of the century.

[Thurston Fluff]

the Major League Players Association is the most disgraceful worthless garbage organization ever created. Don Fehr and Marvin Miller are absolute dirtbags and are lower than pond scum.

 

The owners should shoulder some of the blame. They were the ones who thought making millions while giving their players thousands in the 70's was ok. If baseball makes billions I have no problem with players making millions. The problem is some owners want it all. They want to win and make a profit so they have no interest in competitive balance at all. I don't fault players union when the union was a natural response to owners greed.

[silversurferr]

Once again, I agree with Ennder: The NFL setup has problems. Salary cap creates too much parity, resulting in too many vanilla flavored teams. Combined with the silly scheduling, and you end up giving crappily run teams an advantage over well run teams. Still, the MLB system needs some fine tuning. The Brewers got punished for being competitive. That ain't good; particularly with the Angels getting the first. Kinda smells like the Wall Street scandal; like the rich rigged the system.......

[TheCrew07]

My problem with how the system works is this.

 

Basically the Yankees just traded their first 3 picks for All-Star players, though Burnette is at least likely to get injured again. The point is, who wouldn't trade 3 draft picks for 3 sure things and 3 of the best players in the game? Where's the cost to the Yankees here? They essentially gave up the top of one draft to drastically improve their overall talent level. 1 draft for 3 players is nothing, that's as many MLB players as most teams hope for out of a single draft.

 

Maybe the Rays will look to move Shields now as this is their window to compete, that's only good thing that can come of this that I can think of. Getting a 2nd round pick for Sabathia and probably Sheets is disheartening.

[Yeti73]

I'm not all that upset by this. While it is unfair for one team to buy all the talent in the world, we all know that baseball is not the type of game where the team with the most superstars wins every game. Having the evil empire makes for great tv and the rest of the country all gets together against the Yankees. I bet you they win one or two world series in the next six year. Brewers will take the rest.

 

I'm furious about the draft pick, but what can you do?

[Yeti73]

Deals like this make the Braun deal seem like the steal of the century.

I agree completely. After two years Tex will have made what Ryan makes over the life of his 6-year deal. Unbelievable.

[bjkrautk]

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27656

 

I keep thinking about this story, even if it was written 6 years too early.

[BrewCrewForever]

Sick. Oh well, I will laugh real hard when they miss the playoffs again this season. I still think the Red Sox or Rays could take that division.