Do we have competitive balance right now?

[Invader3K]

Yeah, but your Cashman quote shows the typical New York Yankee arrogance. No wonder I hate them so much.

[joepepsi]

B. The Yankees have been accused of buying championships since they bought Babe Ruth from the Red Sox.

 

Reality: The Red Sox sold Ruth so their owner could invest in a Broadway play. Up until the baseball draft started in 1966, teams like the Yankees and other wealthy teams had the advantage of outbidding for amatuer talent. But the hated "Reserve Clause" allowed teams to keep players they developed and thus there was at least a semblence of parity. From 1966 when the draft started until 1973 (the end of the Reserve clause), true parity existed and the Yankees were terrible in those years.

I agree with everything in your post except the "B" comments. The greatest period of parity in the major leagues was from the dawn of free agency through 1995. Then the unbalanced TV revenues took over and small to mid market teams began to be outbid for free agents by the few large market teams. Here are the teams who played in the World Series from1979 through 1995: Pirates, Orioles, Twins, Dodgers, Reds, Blue Jays, Royals, Brewers, Mets, Red Sox,. A's, Giants, Cardinals', Padres, Braves, Phillies, Tigers, Indians, Reds, Yankees. That's 20 different teams over 16 World Series. Every organization had a legitimate chance to build a Championship organization.

 

It's true the Yankees have a history of using other major league clubs as their personal farm club. The Kansas City Athletics are the most obvious example. As I recall, the A's owner actually had an ownership claim in the Yankee Stadium too, so he purposely fed his best players to the Bronx Bombers. These pre-1995 instances are examples of greedy, incompetent smaller market owners selling players to the Yankees for their own profits. What's going on now is far different.

 

There's a little more to the Ruth story than the oft-repeated legend. Here's Wikipedia:

On December 26, 1919,^{[28][/sup][29][/sup] Frazee sold Ruth to the New York Yankees. Popular legend has it that Frazee sold Ruth and several other of his best players to finance a Broadway play, No, No, Nanette (which actually didn't debut until 1925). The truth is somewhat more nuanced.}

After the 1919 season, Ruth demanded a raise to $20,000 ($212,733 in current dollar terms)-double his previous salary.^{[30][/sup] However, Frazee refused, and Ruth responded by letting it be known he wouldn't play until he got his raise, suggesting that he may retire to undertake other profitable ventures.[31][/sup] He'd actually jumped the team[citation needed][/sup] several times, including the last game of the 1919 season.}

Frazee finally lost patience with Ruth, and decided to trade him. However, he was effectively limited to two trading partners-the Chicago White Sox and the then-moribund Yankees. The other five clubs rejected his deals out of hand under pressure from American League president Ban Johnson, who never liked Frazee and was actively trying to remove him from ownership of the Red Sox.^{[32][/sup] The White Sox offered Shoeless Joe Jackson and $60,000 ($638,200 in current dollar terms), but Yankees owners Jacob Ruppert and Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston offered an all-cash deal-$100,000 ($1,063,667 in current dollar terms).}

Frazee, Ruppert and Huston quickly agreed to a deal. In exchange for Ruth, the Red Sox would get $125,000 in cash and three $25,000 notes payable every year at 6 percent interest. Ruppert and Huston also loaned Frazee $300,000, with the mortgage on Fenway Park as collateral. The deal was contingent on Ruth signing a new contract, which was quickly agreed to, and Ruth officially became property of the Yankees on December 26. The deal was announced ten days later.^{[33].......[/sup]It also turns out that there was a solid basis for the No, No, Nanette story. As Leigh Montville discovered during research for his book, The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth (Random House, 2006, p. 161-164), No, No, Nanette had originated as a non-musical stage play called My Lady Friends, which opened on Broadway in December 1919. His research indicated that that play had, indeed, been financed as a direct result of the Ruth sale to the Yankees.}

[The Truth]

What would you suggest giving the Sox for Buccholz? He has the potential to be a star pitcher in this league. Everyone has seen that. Teams don't give up talent like that very often... if ever - especially when they're still under team control for cheap.

Gamel and Hardy

[Tbadder]

I think we have to get over the idea that baseball is in fact sports. Baseball is merely entertainment. Sports connotes a level playing field, but nothing could be further from the truth. Baseball is a system that is rigged to favor certain teams, certain outcomes, etc. I agree that the Yankees have done everything according to the rules, but only a naive person believes that rules are objective and represent what's best for everyone. No, rules are a set of agenda meant to skew in favor of certain behaviors or norms or beliefs. Baseball is metaphorically most like Nascar; they both just run around in circles to the same 'ol tune--and quite frankly it's getting boring.

[bklynbrewcrew]

Count me in on the yankee hate fest. I am sick and tired of having to compete against teams with huge payroll advantages. MLB needs a salary cap like the NFL so fans all around the country feel like they have a chance to win the World Series. As much as I love the Brewers I dont feel like we will ever have a good chance of winning a championship unless the system changes.

 

On a side note just be happy that none of you actually have to live in New York and be subjected to yankee fans.

[sheethead]

Baseball is metaphorically most like Nascar; they both just run around in circles to the same 'ol tune--and quite frankly it's getting boring.

 

Nice. But keep in mind, even Nascar has rules in place to even the playing field. Its not like Jimmy Johnson gets to put a faster engine with a higher engineered body on his car to gain him an advantage of winning every race. Bleh, the also ran teams that the Yankees and Red Sox look down on should find a way to secede from MLB and form their own league. Let the Yankees play the Red Sox 60 times a year. See how proud of themselves they would be winning a championship in a league of 8 teams.

[Teatoe993]

Here are the teams who played in the World Series from1979 through 1995: Pirates, Orioles, Twins, Dodgers, Reds, Blue Jays, Royals, Brewers, Mets, Red Sox,. A's, Giants, Cardinals', Padres, Braves, Phillies, Tigers, Indians, Reds, Yankees. That's 20 different teams over 16 World Series. Every organization had a legitimate chance to build a Championship organization.

 

Here's a list of teams that have made it since then: Yankees, Braves, Marlins, Indians, Padres, Mets, Diamondbacks, Angels, Giants, Red Sox, Cardinals, White Sox, Astros, Tigers, Rockies, Phillies, Rays. That's 17 teams in the last 14 years. I don't see how things are so different now. Add in that we now have 6 divisions and a wild card, the chances have been increased that any organization can get into the playoffs and go on a hot streak and win it all. The Yankees happened to get hot at the right time this year. Would everyone be so venomous if the Yankees lost out in the ALDS and the Twins kept up their hot streak to get to the World Series?

[mletto157]

mletto157 wrote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What would you suggest giving the Sox for Buccholz? He has the potential to be a star pitcher in this league. Everyone has seen that. Teams don't give up talent like that very often... if ever - especially when they're still under team control for cheap.

 

Gamel and Hardy

 

I think it would be a terrible move to trade Gamel at this point - so for me, that's not on the table.

 

The Yankees happened to get hot at the right time this year.

 

The Yankees were pretty much hot for the majority of the year, or at least the entire 2nd half. And even when they were cold, they still won the majority of the time.

[owbc]

I think some people are missing/mitigating a few concerning points here.

 

1) Lots of teams have made the World Series in the past 15 years. There was at least some competitive balance then. Most of my concerns are about the present and future of competitive balance--teams like the Brewers are at their maximum possible payroll, which is 1/3 of the Yankees payroll. The Yankees are so popular that they could probably go even higher with their payroll, especially since TV revenue sharing quietly decreased significantly in the last CBA.

 

2) Every team "buys" its championships--the Brewers' players are not volunteers, they get multi-million dollar paychecks just like everyone else. However, the smaller market teams will always be stuck with less money and be forced to build through the draft. Occasionally, some of these younger teams go deep in the Postseason, but they usually fall back to earth the next year because in order to get there, about 5 players needed to have a career year and half the young pitchers on the team ended up throwing way too many innings.

 

3) There are some unwanted side effects to every form of revenue sharing. A hard salary cap would likely mean more mediocrity--but that certainly isn't the case in the 2009 NFL. There are plenty of other solutions to the problem--but all of them will essentially be aimed at reducing the market power of the larger teams. There are also a number of side effects to the current system, which I argue are detrimental to the overall health of the game. Bud Selig's plan to boost small-market revenue with new stadiums worked well, but now that the Yankees and Mets have new stadiums as well, that advantage is also lost.

 

4) Nobody was going to beat the Yankees in the Postseason this year. They were far superior to any other team.

[sheethead]

Would everyone be so venomous if the Yankees lost out in the ALDS and the Twins kept up their hot streak to get to the World Series?

 

I think the point is that the odds of the Twins getting hot enough to beat the Yankees were not good. I believe the Yankees were -800 to win the first game. That is about as lopsided as it comes, especially for the playoffs. The Yankees did not simply get hot to win the Championship this year. They has mega talented superstars (as they do every year). Its just that this year they had it where it counts most in the playoffs... pitching. Its crazy that $200+ million only gets you two stud starting pitchers these days. But hey, what can you do. Hope to get lucky I guess (and lucky involves Yankees getting hurt, unfortunately).

[Invader3K]

How many times have the Yankees missed the playoffs in the past 15 years? Once? Seems kind of lopsided to me. It's not all about winning the World Series...it's so much easier for the Yankees and other big market teams to just make the playoffs than even middle market teams.

[PrinceFielderx1]

Fine, but just admit they have a much higher possibility of making the World Series every year than most other teams.

I look at it as they have the highest probability of making the playoffs, then any other team in the Majors. I also believe that when you get to the playoffs anything can happen.

[PrinceFielderx1]

What would you suggest giving the Sox for Buccholz?

It will take a lot. I'm not even sold that the Red Sox even want to trade him... I'd hope that the Brewers could entice the Redsox with a deal centered around Gamel and Hardy and some pitcher. I don't know if that's possible though.

[Invader3K]

 

Some good points made in this article which was linked to in another thread. The idea of an earlier trading deadline is one that hadn't occurred to me before, and I think makes some sense based on the logic the author puts forth.

 

One of the commenters also raises the idea of a European/Japanese style of free agency compensation, where in addition to a compensation draft pick, the team that signs the FA would give his former team cash as compensation. I bet something like that would level the playing field a lot, especially if it was a significant amount, like 10-20% of the total contract they sign the FA to.

[endaround]

An earlier trading deadline would actually hurt balance. No one wants to give up before the All Star break so only the rich teams could buy the meager offerings in June. And now you have a bunch of expiring contracts that teams can't move eating into payroll and getting nothing for them. Rich teams also are much more able to afford depth and so one injury won't kill them as lower revenue teams would and so they need to replace injuries less.

[logan82]

I bet something like that would level the playing field a lot, especially if it was a significant amount, like 10-20% of the total contract they sign the FA to.

 

I would think it would make the smaller teams even less likely to sign free agents if you make them pay money on top of the contract for the player. It may give smaller teams more money for their own players. On the other hand, if a team has a high profile free agent, they may let the player go for the money and keep only second tier guys.

[Invader3K]

An excellent article by Maury Brown, expounding on the reason Scott Boras flap regarding teams hoarding their revenue sharing money:

 

As far as the other ideas, their are pros and cons to all of them. I just hope MLB takes a serious look at doing something when the next CBA comes up, instead of just going through a friendly renew around the same basic terms like last time.

[sheethead]

If history has taught us one thing, its that we do not like to deal with things until crisis strikes. Status quo is very popular, so until teams start debunking the quo, there will be no material changes to the protocol.

[TooLiveBrew]

I know this is specifically about the NFL, but does/could it have any impact on MLB? Obviously the article mentions that MLB has an antitrust exemption.

 

Supreme Court denies NFL increased antitrust protection

The Supreme Court unanimously shot down the NFL's longtime quest for protection from antitrust laws Monday in a decision that was cheered by its players' association and held lessons for other professional sports leagues.

 

The court said that the NFL should be considered as 32 individual, independent teams when it came to selling licensed items such as jerseys and caps. The court rejected the league's argument that it should be exempted from antitrust laws because it acts as a single entity.

 

"Although NFL teams have common interests such as promoting the NFL brand, they are still separate, profit-maximizing entities, and their interests in licensing team trademarks are not necessarily aligned," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the court.