Ideas to Restore the Competitive Balance in Baseball

[kramnoj]

I am sure the Marlins would love a salary cap.

 

The Marlins have it perfect right now. As a business, they make far more money now than they ever would if they actually tried to compete. As a baseball team, they build around youth and every now and then they can supplement the youth with veteran talent to go for a championship.

[Thurston Fluff]

The reason the pirate and the royals and even the brewers are/were bad for so long had nothing to do with market size and had eveything to do with bad managment.

 

I think nothing and everything is a bit of a stretch. A bad decision by the Brewers hurts the them more and longer than the same bad decision would the Yanks. The real difference to me is the big revenue teams can win with adequate management where small revenue teams need excellent management to be competitive. I think if Dean Taylor ran the Yankees he would have been more successful than with the Brewers. In fact judging solely by Cahsman's success and failures of the last decade I think he would have done as well as Cashman has. If you took Sal Bando and had him run the Yanks he probably wouldn't be any more successful than he was with the Brewers. The difference is Dean Taylor, while not great, at least had the basic idea of how to run an team where Bando was clearly out of his league (no pun intended). You can win with average if you have the money to do so. You cannot survive with average management and little money.

 

Sabathia would have still gone to a team with better endorsement opportunities

 

I'm no tusre what makes you say that. Can you find one example in football that backs that claim? Conversely I can give you as many examples where this is not true as you wish. The Packers certainly do not offer bigger endorsement opportunities than NY yet Brett Favre never once became a free agent so he could go to a team with bigger endorsement opportunities. Ditto for Reggie White.

 

As far as how to restore competitive balance in baseball I don't really know. It's easy to say salary cap but that won't happen. What to realistically do is harder. I think part of it is wait and see if the Yankee's spending spree actually nets them anything. Like most sports it's a copy cat league. Small revenue teams are far better off than they were in the 90's. Granted some of that is better revenue sharing but some of it is a couple teams like the A's, marlins and Twins found a way to be competitive despite their financial restrictions. Teams like Milwaukee have since followed that blueprint with some amount of success. If the Yankees spending gets them back to where they were in the 90's then i think we have a problem since all the bigger revenue teams are likely to follow. If they don't it might not become a trend. I think it's something that needs to be revisited in a couple years. Which, coincidentally, gets us to the end of the current CBA.

[endaround]

What do people mean by competitive balance? More different teams have won the world series over the past 30 years than have won an NFL title. Is it make the playoffs? Well the easy way to do that is to expand the playoffs so more crappy teams make the playoffs each year like in the NFL. Of course you then start turning the MLB regular season into the NBA regular season where many teams take nights off all the time.

[Thurston Fluff]

Good question end. To me it means the ability for a team to compete on an equal footing for the limited available resources vs whether they are capable of winning with what resources they are allotted by their location.

[AdvantageSchneider]

I think if Dean Taylor ran the Yankees he would have been more successful than with the Brewers. In fact judging solely by Cahsman's success and failures of the last decade I think he would have done as well as Cashman has. If you took Sal Bando and had him run the Yanks he probably wouldn't be any more successful than he was with the Brewers. The difference is Dean Taylor, while not great, at least had the basic idea of how to run an team where Bando was clearly out of his league (no pun intended). You can win with average if you have the money to do so. You cannot survive with average management and little money.

You are talking about the same Dean Taylor that gave Jeffery Hammonds a 3 year $21M contract? He probably would have been slightly more successful since he would have had more money to spend and by sheer luck he would have done something that looked smart. He would not have been successful enough to last more than a year or 2 in NY.

[Thurston Fluff]

You are talking about the same Dean Taylor that gave Jeffery Hammonds a 3 year $21M contract?

 

The Jason Giambi and Carl Pavono deals make Hammond's deal look like a bargain. Which is more or less the point. Cashman has made some horrific signings but they go unnoticed. If you look at Taylor's time here he did everything well except some of his free agent deals. Add in the fact that Taylor was very limited in what he could look for in FA I think it's fair to say he could have done as well if given the same resources as Cashman.

[AJAY]

The players are the product, they don't make the product. Think of them as the raw materials of a product which does make up a given percentage of any product's cost. They are the top small fraction of 1% in the world in what they do. They aren't like assembly line workers or programmers or middle managers who can much more easily be replaced. They are as rare in talent as the CEOs of large corporations who are guaranteed certain things when they join a company.

 

I partially agree with this statement, but I also think the Major League uniforms and the Major League ballparks are what make these players seem special. Let's face it, if Alex Rodriguez played in some independent league in some unknown ballpark with some unknown team, nobody would have ever heard of him and nobody would have even cared. He would be just as anonymous as any of us despite being in the top 1% in the world for what he does.

 

I personally think the "Major League" brand name is still more important than the individual players. But I do realize they both go together to promote each other.

[logan82]

We're just cheering for laundry! - Jerry Seinfeld

 

I definitely fall into this category. I really am not interested in players on other teams and really don't have more than a passing interest in players who used to play for us. I like whoever plays for the Brewers and that's it. Baring using replacement players or players with serious character issues I couldn't care who plays for the Brewers as long as our GM is trying to make a good team.

[kramnoj]

The Jason Giambi and Carl Pavono deals make Hammond's deal look like a bargain.

 

Pavano, yes, Giambi, no way. Hammonds didn't have one good year for the Brewers. Giambi really only had one really bad year and one year where he missed a lot of time and was below average in the games that he played. I would say that Giambi had 4 good-very good years, and last year was so-so for his salary.

 

Cashman has made some horrific signings but they go unnoticed.

 

Unnoticed by whom? Pavano certainly gets more blame for his contract than Cashman does, but there isn't a critic of Cashman that doesn't bring up Pavano. Igawa was certainly a poor decision, but critics of Cashman are aware of that too. You're probably exaggerating, but I just don't think your statement is true.

[NievesNoNO]

I also think teams should split T.V. revenue, but all in all the balance isn't all that bad. If your team doesn't have a chance at the play-offs every few years then your front office is to blame more than the economic conditions. I would argue that baseball actually has the best free agent system with compensation picks going to those who lose their stars.

[Robideaux]

What do people mean by competitive balance?

I'd say that determining competitive balance for me comes down to how correlated payroll size is with winning percentage. Make all the arguments you want about the NFL, but I bet that you would find a much stronger correlation in baseball than football. (I apologize, but I am not going to crunch the numbers, but I'd be shocked if that wasn't true) In baseball it is the exceptions that prove the rule. In MLB we gasp and say "look, it can be done" when a small(er) market team has some postseason success. Obviously having a bigger payroll doesn't guarantee success, but it does give you a huge advantage.

 

Sure, there is a lot of player movement in the NFL, but not "star" movement. If the NFL was MLB, Brett Favre would have been traded away long ago because the Packers wouldn't have been able to afford him.

[danzig6767]

It pretty rare for NFL teams to lose players because they can't compete financially

 

Every single year dozens of players leave their teams because there just wasn't cap room. There is way more financial movement of players in football than baseball, it isn't comperable at all.

Generally it's just the pretty good or pretty mediocre players that leave their team in free agency. For the most part, the better players stay with their teams unless a player just doesn't want to play with that team anymore for whatever reason. Plus, you also have to factor in that football is a much more complex sport while baseball is simple. Both sports change managers/head coaches a lot each offseason. If a baseball team hires a new manager, he may have some minor different philosophies, but if a player can hit and field, he can play anywhere. If say the Packers fire their head coach, they could switch schemes on both offense/defense. Switching from a 4-3 to a 3-4 defense suddenly makes multiple players a poor or lesser fit. Switching a running game from a ZBS to a power scheme can make some lineman and the running back a poor fit. In baseball, it's see pitch hit pitch. See ground ball, field/throw ball. It's a pretty simple game. When Macha got hired, he didn't have to figure out if say Hardy fits a scheme. A quality pitcher can fit anywhere, just get batters out. It's largely an individual sport within a team framework, while football takes all 11 guys on each play to do their job for that play to succeed. Thus any coaching change usually leads to large roster changes.

 

It is a different system with the same basic result. The Yankees have to overpay to get people to play for them because the players know if the yankees want them they'll pay 10-20% more than any other team. The Patriots do it the opposite way, a premium FA will sign with the patriots for 20-30% less than for a team like the Lions. To use two cities as an example, there is more balance between the Tigers and Red Sox than between the Lions and Patriots. It isn't just about the amount of money a team spends, a lot more goes into the equation.

Premium free agents still chase the money in the NFL just like any sport, especially given the violent nature of football. It's just that in the NFL, the premium free agents don't just go mainly to the same handful of teams as we see in baseball. The guys who leave bad teams in the NFL to sign for less with contenders are almost always aging players on the downside of their careers who have already had their big paydays, not the upper level players. Offhand i can't think of a single in their prime free agent who took significantly less money to sign with the Patriots. Two years ago they signed Adalius Thomas from the Ravens, but the Pats gave him a ton of money, that's the only premium free agent i remember them signing the last 3-4 years. It's been aging vets like say Junior Seau that have signed there cheap, as what happened with the Packers in the 90's when aging vets like Seth Joyner came here chasing a ring. We see that in baseball though to, older players who will take less to play for a contender vs chasing every last penny. Same happens in the NBA. Easy to see why that happens, those guys are already rich and now winning is the main reason they keep playing.

[mothershipconnection]

I would say that Giambi had 4 good-very good years, and last year was so-so for his salary.

 

While the entire length of the deal was not a complete disaster, $23,428,571 is not, IMO, at all justified by an .875 OPS for a 1B/DH. However, like you said, in only 3 of the years can you really say the deal looked bad for a team with deep pockets, and we also need to acknowledge is was backloaded and those early years were pretty cheap for a guy coming off 2 consecutive seasons with an OPS above 1.

[bucksbeat]

I can't understand the comparison for player movement in the NFL to MLB.

 

Superstars are nearly always locked up by their teams in the NFL, you cannot say anything even close for MLB. The obvious reason it seems there is more roster movement in the NFL compared to baseball is a 53-man roster versus a 25-man roster.

[Tbadder]

To restore competitive balance I would contract the league to 24 teams. Then any team that can't make a 100 million dollar payroll and turn a profit would be put on probation. If in three years a team couldn't fulfill this mandate then that team would also be contracted. Payroll growth would then be tied into a predictable set amount, say 3 to 5 percent per year. I'd also like to expand rosters to 12 pitchers and 18 everyday players, and cut back the schedule to 124 games, giving players more rest, leading presumedly to less injury, which should also make the league more competitive.

[paul253]

So you'd pay average players much more than they are worth just to reach the salary minimum, then jack up prices for tickets, parking, food, apparrel, and whatever else you need to to turn a profit? I dont see how that would help. The Yankees and Angels would still have more money than everyone else and they would still sign the best players.

 

The Marlins have it perfect right now. As a business, they make far more money now than they ever would if they actually tried to compete.

 

They have more world championships in the past 11 years than the Brewers have had in their entire existence, so I don't see how you can say you don't try to compete. A big reason they don't sign more free agents is because their fan base is abysmal and they have been playing in a football stadium ever since they were created.

 

I think people against a cap are missing the main point. When a team like the Angels, in the second largest market with an owner who spends a ton, cannot compete financially with the Yankees, then something is wrong. The Yankees can, quite literally, get anyone they want to, and if it weren't for the rule about not getting more than three type A free agents, they wouldn't be done. Doesnt anyone else have a problem with one team having the sports 4 highest paid players? When one team is able to blow other offers out of the water, its just not fair. Yeah money doesn't guarentee a championship, but lets face facts....if Mark Attanasio gave us the option to have a $150 million payroll or a $80 million payroll with all else being equal, every single one of us would pick $150 million because the odds of winning are better. The Yankees can buy off their mistakes, and very, very few other teams can do that. Most teams are handcuffed for years because of one bad contract (Hammonds, Suppan, for example). Unless you limit what the Yankees can spend, nothing will ever change.

[kramnoj]

They have more world championships in the past 11 years than the Brewers have had in their entire existence, so I don't see how you can say you don't try to compete.

 

Have you been paying attention to what the Marlins have done so far this offseason? They have traded away useful major leaguers for not a whole lot just so they wouldn't have to pay them in their arbitration years. How does that fit in with your belief that they are trying to compete? Secondly, did you really not read the other sentence of my post, where I say that the Marlins have it perfect because "As a baseball team, they build around youth and every now and then they can supplement the youth with veteran talent to go for a championship."

 

As far as a salary cap, I don't think anyone is missing any point you are making. The sport has never been healthier in terms of revenue or attendance, and there isn't an example of a well run team that can't make the playoffs. The MLBPA won't allow a cap, and baseball would be incredibly stupid to lock out to force one. It is just not likely to happen, so there isn't much benefit to trying to come up with a plan that includes one.

[bucksbeat]

It's a prime example of how the MLBPA is entirely too powerful. While the NFL often has some sort of confrontations with their PA, the NFLPA is far more respectable and kept in check.

 

If you're not going to take on the MLBPA, try a compromise. That's where I think a salary floor and a salary cap is a possibility. Limit the high end a team can spend but make up for that money by forcing the lower rung teams to spend more, balancing it out.

[Ennder]

I think people against a cap are missing the main point. When a team like the Angels, in the second largest market with an owner who spends a ton, cannot compete financially with the Yankees, then something is wrong

 

It isn't really about competing financially though, it is about competing on the field and it isn't just about the Yankees. You don't put a salary cap on the entire league because of one team. The Angels have been one of the best teams in baseball over the last 10 years, they aren't struggling to compete in any way shape or form.

 

A salary cap is the quick and dirty way to make things a little better and give the illusion of equality to the fans. There are much better ways for them to fix the issues including things like revenue sharing. A straight up flat salary cap like football has would destroy baseball in my personal opinion, it wouldn't improve it one bit. A more fluid cap that tries to keep the bottom teams at a certainly floor and the top teams at a cap and leaves the middle teams alone could work though.

[pitchleague]

just brainstorming an idea here (not saying it's any good):

 

what if they have a salary cap but you can go over that cap with a fairly severe penalty hit, such as double the difference over the cap. Example: The salary cap for 2010 is $440 million. The Yankees decide to spend $470 million in 2010, so they went $30 million over the cap. Thus, in 2010, the Yankees have to pay the league double the difference back to the league (they could have to donate it to the RBI program, the old player fund [bAT?], or cancer research, or whatever.) So that's $30 million over the cap, so $60 million paid back to the league.

 

Sure, a team could be persuaded to do this every now and again but if they do it every year it'll hurt the team in the long run.

 

You could further prevent the over-cap by reducing that team's cap by that difference every year. So, in the above example, the Yankee's cap would only be $410 million in 2011. And of course, the penalty would be the same so if they would continuously go over that cap every year, eventually they'd have a cap of $100 million dollars but with their continued over spending, they would be paying upwards of $400 million back to the league every year, crippling the franchise (sort of; it is the Yankees after all.) Think of how that would factor into the welfare of people--all that money donated to cancer research or whatever? Wow.

 

True, most teams would stay under the cap. And the above scenario would completely crush a franchise such as Cleveland or Milwaukee. But I think it would work. However, no owner would go for it (I would think) and the player's association would never go for a cap.

 

FYI, this plan is what our Diamond Mind League actually uses. We have a cap of $440 and if you go over the cap, your cap for the following year is reduced by double the difference. It really keeps the owners on their toes so they don't go over the cap, although it does occasionally occur. We had a team a few years ago that kept going over just by a few bucks a year until his cap fell below the $400 level and he had a roster of a few way over-priced stars and then a bunch of bench-warmers filling in the rest of the lineup. He figured out fast that that season really sucked and hasn't done it since.

[bamberger]

Limit the ability to sign A and B free agents by requiring the offering team to have a first round pick for any A signing and a second round pick for a B signing. Reduce the number of players rated A and B. Some of the players so rated are ridiculous.

 

Have an international draft and a draft of Japanese players.

 

Encourage teams to draft "unsignable" players to avoid them being drafted in the later rounds and signed by the Yankees.

[Ennder]

At the very least I'd like to see an extra compensation pick in cases like this with the yankees losing their 2nd round pick instead of us getting what really amounts to a 3rd round pick (since compensation picks are really '2nd round' to me). If instead of their 2nd round pick we got the first compensation pick we would only be sliding down something like 15 picks instead of 40 or whatever it is.

[mothershipconnection]

I didn't go back and re-read the whole thread to see if this had been mentioned, but relevant to our current anger, perhaps the rules could be amended so that teams spending at or over the luxury tax limit receive no free agent draft compensation. That would help with balance a bit while probably not being a big sticking point with the union, since it's just a couple of non-union kids who'll eventually become union members by the team who signs them anyway. I mean, I think it makes sense that if you can sign any free agent under the sun, you aren't hurt by other teams signing away your players, which is the intent of free agent compensation.

[logan82]

At the very least I'd like to see an extra compensation pick in cases like this with the yankees losing their 2nd round pick instead of us getting what really amounts to a 3rd round pick (since compensation picks are really '2nd round' to me). If instead of their 2nd round pick we got the first compensation pick we would only be sliding down something like 15 picks instead of 40 or whatever it is.

I agree that the worst pick you should get for a type A free agent is a pick just after the first round. We are getting the shaft on the CC compensation, but the Jays are even worse off with their AJ compensation. I also think that teams shouldn't receive draft compensation if they sign Type A free agents. So the Yankees signed 3 Type A free agents they would lose out on compensation for 3 of their free agents. The teams signing Type A free agents still lose their picks, they just wouldn't go to anybody.

[GAME05]

What I've always thought about is with a cap, to resign a player on the team, 20% of his salary won't count against that cap, therefore there still is a slight advantage to New York or LA or teams that do have extra money to spend. It's great for fans when players stick with the same team, and big-money teams would still have an advantage, just a smaller one.

 

It's a little ironic with the draft-pick compensation now that small-market teams are kind of discouraged from signing big-name players, just because they lose that draft pick.

 

and maybe instead of the current draft compensation scheme, each FA would be assigned a draft-pick slot, say CC at #8 and Tex at #6. Then the team that loses the player would be slotted into that number for their extra draft pick. That way no team loses a pick and the better the player you lose, the better pick you get, versus what happened to us with CC.

 

The only thing I would add to any salary-cap plan is that the cap should be discontinued after May, just so then any team can move beyond the cap to make mid-season trades. Otherwise you'd have teams like the Crew just not able to pick up someone like CC just because he'd move the team over the cap, and we shouldn't be hampering those sort of trades.