Do we have competitive balance right now?

[RightFieldCoder]

Smart teams should focus on better scouting domestically and internationally.

Or they can do what DM did. He realized that the uneven playing field would prevent him from ever signing a player from Japan, so he closed the scouting in the Pacific. When one team has to cut savings like this and has no chance of signing A+ FA, there might be a difference in balance in the system.

[logan82]

Any team has a chance to sign CC, if they structure their budget properly. It's certainly a bigger risk for many teams, but there's no reason to act like they couldn't spend the money that way if they chose to. To look at it another way, I would guess that many teams spend the money that CC makes and get's less return than he has usually provided.

 

Of course every team has a realistic chance to sign any player. However most teams that sign a top FA wouldn't be able to field a competitive team if they did without having a very good MiLB system. The top salary teams can sign more of these players, have a poor minor system and continue to win games. If we had signed CC this year, for example, we probably wouldn't be as good. We have several players that wouldn't be on our team right now because we couldn't afford them.

[kramnoj]

I don't think teams are given any money, actually. But since we are talking hypothetical

 

I don't know what to make of this. Are you really unaware of revenue sharing? Or is this some kind of joke?

 

If one team has the option of throwing 20 darts and the other team has the option to throw 3, which team is going to win more often?

 

This analogy really doesn't work. First off, no team in baseball is forced to go into a season with only 3 darts. Secondly, more darts doesn't equal winning. The Mets have plenty of darts and don't get into the playoffs.

 

Or they can do what DM did.

 

I'm not familiar with the specifics of this, but if a team had something in place and it wasn't producing, it makes sense to pull it. The Brewers are in a position right now where they can spend their resources on major league talent and signing draft picks. I would argue that the financial success of the Brewers means that DM is managing his resources well.

 

However most teams that sign a top FA wouldn't be able to field a competitive team if they did without having a very good MiLB system.

 

Value is value. If CC is worth it, it's the same as spending that money on 2 or 3 players. It's riskier, which is certainly a consideration. If we are talking about this year, the Brewers have been better off with Looper and Hoffman, but I don't know that will be true going forward.

[sheethead]

I don't know what to make of this. Are you really unaware of revenue sharing? Or is this some kind of joke?

 

You said teams are given a huge chunk of money. Do you really think the Yankees and Red Sox "luxury tax" really amounts to a huge chunk of money for the other 28 teams? Revenue sharing in MLB is a joke, not the notion of the receiving clubs not actually being able to do anything with it.

 

If CC is worth it, it's the same as spending that money on 2 or 3 players. It's riskier, which is certainly a consideration. If we are talking about this year, the Brewers have been better off with Looper and Hoffman, but I don't know that will be true going forward.

 

Okay, with Looper and Hoff you are 1/2 way to getting to CC's figure. Throw in Counsell, Kendall, and Cameron and you are closer to CC's paycheck. Now field a 25-man roster without those 5 players, and without spending any more money.

[Baldkin]

This analogy really doesn't work. First off, no team in baseball is forced to go into a season with only 3 darts. Secondly, more darts doesn't equal winning. The Mets have plenty of darts and don't get into the playoffs.

It does work. I was referring more to free agency. Sorry for not explaining myself better.

 

The Brewers were able to sign 3 guys for 12 million this off season. The Yankees signed 3 guys for 60 million. The Royals, and their 45 million dollar payroll couldn't even afford ONE of those guys. The Yankees, Red Sox, Angels (Gary Matthews, anyone?) can afford to shrug off contracts and still sign free agents, where as the Brewers, having "missed" with contracts to Hall, Riske and Suppan basically crippling them from signing anyone else.

[logan82]

kramnoj wrote:

Value is value. If CC is worth it, it's the same as spending that money on 2 or 3 players. It's riskier, which is certainly a consideration. If we are talking about this year, the Brewers have been better off with Looper and Hoffman, but I don't know that will be true going forward.

They probably would have had to trade Cameron or another player as well. Signing a player like CC would have severely limited our flexibility to fill holes on a yearly basis. Yes it is a much bigger risk and why small market teams can't realistically sign a top FA is they want to be competitive. I don't doubt we could shell out a high contract on a year to year basis, but once the length required to sign those top guys is figured in, you severely hurt your franchise for the duration of the contract.

 

Of course value is value, but when you sign free agents you don't get good value. Like ennder said, the Yankees pay more for win than almost any other team in baseball. They don't have to find good value. Teams outside of the top salary teams simply cannot sign top FA if they want to be competitive.

[kramnoj]

You said teams are given a huge chunk of money.

 

It's true. The Marlins got $25M last year.

 

Do you really think the Yankees and Red Sox "luxury tax" really amounts to a huge chunk of money for the other 28 teams?

 

No, I don't think that, because that's not the way it works. If you want to call something a joke, you should take the time to understand it first.

 

Now field a 25-man roster.

 

The Brewers have found the money to acquire Lopez and Weathers this year. They weren't tapped out. We don't know for sure what their upper limit was, but if they really thought CC was needed, they could have gone for it.

[Ennder]

Poor management is easily reflected in the NFL, as all teams are basically given even standing ground from a financial aspect.

 

This is the crux of the disagreement on the NFL, this statement simply is not remotely close to true.

 

If the Patriots and Lions both offer a guy $5M a year the Patriots will always get the player. Let's look at it from the players standpoint. NE is a bigger market and a more popular team so he can make a lot more money on the side from endorsements. It is also generally thought of as a better place to live. It is also a team that is generally in the playoff hunt every year compared to a perennial loser.

 

The reality is if the Patriots offer a guy $4M a year, some mediocre team offers him $5M a year and the Lions offer him $6M a year he still isn't picking the lions most of the time. A bad team in the NFL pays at least 10% more for a free agent if not higher. Endorsements alone make up half of the difference for a player. This bleeds into their home grown players as well as more of them walk to other teams even if the Lions make competitive offers. The Lions aren't any better off in the NFL than the Pirates in MLB.

 

Take college sports as an example, the players do not get money but they always flock to the best location/reputation/winning history schools. Even if you even out the monetary side of things you do not get competitive balance, there are way too many external factors getting in the way.

[Invader3K]

You full well know that giving CC a contract like the Yankees gave him would have been financial suicide for the club long term. I would have loved to see it happen at the time, but knowing full well the team would have suffered, more than likely, down the line.

[sheethead]

Key points from good read (pertaining to this topic) at http://www.bnet.com/2403-13502_23-210897.html

 

I admit I was wrong about implying I know anything about the revenue sharing structure in MLB. "...in effect through 2011, all teams pay in 31 percent of their local revenues and that pot is split evenly among all 30 teams." What counts as local revues is still a mystery to me, but I am reluctant to believe revenue generated from YES is included.

 

I have been educated, but maybe part of my baseball mind is still living in the 90's, where the following took place.

 

"Revenues: Because of faster growth rates on already larger revenues, by 1999 the top seven teams averaged more than double the revenues of the bottom 14 teams.

 

Payrolls: The ratio of payroll spending by the top seven revenue teams versus the bottom seven went from less than 2-to-1 in the 1980s to 3.5-to-1 in the 1990s.

 

Competitive Balance: During those five seasons in the late 1990s, none of the 14 teams in the bottom half of payroll spending won even one of the 158 postseason games played. Every World Series was won by a team with one of the top seven payrolls."

[logan82]

The Lions aren't any better off in the NFL than the Pirates in MLB.

 

I might even go so far as to say that the Pirates have a better chance in MLB than the Lions in the NFL. They have control over their internal players and cost control for those players for a much longer time. Drafted players in the NFL get a lot of money up front and reach FA much faster than MLB players.

[sheethead]

If the Patriots and Lions both offer a guy $5M a year the Patriots will always get the player.

 

This could be seen as the result of good management and consistent winning. The same thing happens in every other sport, it is up to the perception of the athlete to determine where they want to go. Reggie White wanted to build a winner, and chose little old Green Bay as his free agent destination. The Packers did not overpay for Reggie White. This point you bring up is a constant in every sport, and is not an argument for or against competitive balance in MLB or the NFL.

 

The reality is if the Patriots offer a guy $4M a year, some mediocre team offers him $5M a year and the Lions offer him $6M a year he still isn't picking the lions most of the time.

 

I don't think that is reality, that player's agent doesn't think that is reality, and that player's union definitely doesn't think that is reality. Reality is that player taking the $6 million. Hope is that player taking the discount to play for hometown/winner/big market.

 

A bad team in the NFL pays at least 10% more for a free agent if not higher.

 

Prove this, then I will buy it.

 

The Lions aren't any better off in the NFL than the Pirates in MLB.

 

This is not the NFL system's doing. It is the doing of the Ford family and Matt Millen. Management...

 

Discussing revenue driving college athletics is not relevant because it is not apples to apples here.

[bklynbrewcrew]

The Yankees would just release a guy like Suppan or Hall while we have to keep them because we have spent so much money on them. When the Yankees mess up with a Pavano or Irabu they just move on and sign Sabathia while we move on to Mike Burns. Our GM is far more skilled than a guy like Cashman but one has 80 or so million to spend while the other has 250 million. That my friends is not competitive balance in any way.

[mletto157]

The Lions aren't any better off in the NFL than the Pirates in MLB.

 

This is not the NFL system's doing. It is the doing of the Ford family and Matt Millen. Management...

"After finishing the 2000-2001 season at 9-7, and missing the playoffs by a field goal in the season's last game, Lions owner William Clay Ford, Sr. hired Matt Millen, a former player and broadcaster, as president and CEO."

"Over seven seasons under Millen's leadership as team president, the Detroit Lions owned the NFL's worst winning percentage (31-81, .277), never had a winning season, never finished higher than third place in the NFC North, and did not play in any post-season games."

 

The Lions haven't always been the joke they were last year. Not even since the salary cap have the Lions always been a joke. The Lions became a joke when Matt Millen started running the show. He is a terrible GM and ultimately ran that franchise into the ground. This could have happened with any team in the NFL.

 

The Pirates have been bad for far worse, probably also a lot to do with bad management. However that will never happen with the Yankees (worst offenders) because they can afford a lot of bad management and still overpay to field a winning team.

 

In my eyes the thing the NFL has that the MLB does not is the ability for a small market team in the gutter to turn it around quickly. The last place teams in the league regularly become playoff contenders the next season, regardless of market size. You don't often see that in the MLB. In the MLB the only chance a small market team has of really turning things around is hoping bad contracts come off the books, and/or building through the draft (which generally means 5-ish years of more bad before these draft picks start making an impact). That's the largest difference in my eyes. In the NFL a large market team can either be good or bad depending on the season and the GM. Bad management can not be made up for by buying wins. In the MLB a large market team can buy wins, even with poor management and will generally field a winning team.

[nate82]

Teams in the NFL can build around the draft just like teams in MLB. The difference here is that it takes a lot longer for a MLB team to build through a draft than it does an NFL team. With an NFL team if you can get a superstar QB in the draft like the Falcons did your team can go from joke of the league to serious playoff contenders. In MLB that is rarely what happens since you have to fill more than one spot up with superstar and above average talent.

 

MLB teams can also build through trading which NFL teams can not because of the salary cap penalties. That means no Sabathia for the Brewers last year the Brewers would have had to sit on their hands and do nothing and take the team they had if MLB had the same salary cap as the NFL has. There is just no way for a salary cap like the NFL has will work in MLB. The one in the NBA or NHL may work with MLB bust I highly doubt those would work also.

 

I still truly believe that MLB only needs to get a draft like the NBA and work out the compensation picks for teams when losing a high valued free agent.

[kramnoj]

The Yankees would just release a guy like Suppan or Hall while we have to keep them because we have spent so much money on them.

 

This isn't true. The Brewers are keeping Suppan because when he's healthy he's one of the top 5 SP in the system.

 

one has 80 or so million to spend while the other has 250 million. That my friends is not competitive balance in any way.

 

Both of those figures are wrong. I've certainly never said that there is absolute balance, but it's better than it has been, and teams that are smart can make the playoffs. There is certainly room for improvement and I hope the next CBA sees some improvement.

[mletto157]

I agree that a salary cap like the NFL has will not work for the MLB. It's just not feasible. That doesn't take away from my point though. I think the MLB is working towards a system that will work for them, but it is definitely still a work in progress.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

When, realistically, only a third of the leagues teams have a shot at signing the top tier players, I don't see how anyone can claim we have true competitive balance. The NFL, now that is true competitive balance.

When was the last time the Packers signed a highly touted free agent?

 

 

When was the last time the Lions signed a highly touted free agent?

 

 

When was the last time the Bengals signed a highly touted free agent?

 

 

When was the last time the Browns signed a highly touted free agent?

Packers - Charles Woodson, and saying he was thought to be "done" is nonsense. Besides, this is a poor example because Green Bay doesn't pursue big FAs. Ryan Pickett was the best DL on the market when they signed him as well. The Brewers could never sign guys of that caliber.

 

Lions dug their own grave by drafting horrible and tying up money with bust players. Detroit isn't really a small market anyway.

 

Bengals - Antwan Odom last offseason. Not a world-beater but still well above the caliber FA the Brewers sign.

 

Browns - Jamal Lewis and Eric Steinbach,both of whom were among the top players (Steinbach was the best) at their position on the market when they signed. And both helped the Browns make the playoffs as soon as they got there. Donte Stallworth as well was coming off a big season, though most people knew what he really was. Probably the poorest example you used as Cleveland is always very active in FA.

 

In any case, I know baseball diehards are always pointing out the NFL's flaws, but the NFL has BY FAR the best balance of the three leagues and any team has a shot to turn it around in any given year. And at least in the NFL, teams like Green Bay, Detroit, Cleveland and Cincinnati have a chance to RETAIN their drafted players. Guys like Chad Johnson, Carson Palmer and Greg Jennings would be in Giant blue already if this were baseball.

[logan82]

In many cases once a player reaches FA in MLB, they are going to be into their declining years by the end of their first FA contract. Outside of a few special players, you don't really want to retain them for to long.

[nate82]

Packers - Charles Woodson, and saying he was thought to be "done" is nonsense. Besides, this is a poor example because Green Bay doesn't pursue big FAs. Ryan Pickett was the best DL on the market when they signed him as well. The Brewers could never sign guys of that caliber.

 

Lions dug their own grave by drafting horrible and tying up money with bust players. Detroit isn't really a small market anyway.

 

Bengals - Antwan Odom last offseason. Not a world-beater but still well above the caliber FA the Brewers sign.

 

Browns - Jamal Lewis and Eric Steinbach,both of whom were among the top players (Steinbach was the best) at their position on the market when they signed. And both helped the Browns make the playoffs as soon as they got there. Donte Stallworth as well was coming off a big season, though most people knew what he really was. Probably the poorest example you used as Cleveland is always very active in FA.

 

In any case, I know baseball diehards are always pointing out the NFL's flaws, but the NFL has BY FAR the best balance of the three leagues and any team has a shot to turn it around in any given year. And at least in the NFL, teams like Green Bay, Detroit, Cleveland and Cincinnati have a chance to RETAIN their drafted players. Guys like Chad Johnson, Carson Palmer and Greg Jennings would be in Giant blue already if this were baseball.

Ryan Pickett to me = Mike Cameron. Charles Woodson was a gamble by the Packers and most thought he was done as a player. It would be like the Brewers picking up a young player who just came off an injury and his career was in doubt.

 

Jamal Lewis is comparable to a veteran pitcher like a Suppan. Old running backs never really work out and once a RB hits free agency their career is usually about over. Corey Dillon and Edgerin James come to mind as free agent running backs.

 

Another example of a team spending money on washed up players is the Kansas City Royals. Look at the Guillen signing and you will see what I mean. Small market teams in MLB can sign free agents but it is usually not a good idea. Young talent is better to have than the aging veterans who cost way to much for a small market team compared to their production.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

We are flirting with a circular argument but saying Jamal Lewis is comparable to Jeff Suppan is ludicrous.

 

Lewis had over 1,500 all-purpose yards and 11 TDs in his first season with Cleveland, that is the third or fourth best year of his career, and Jeff Suppan has NEVER, comparatively, played that well once in his career. Lewis ran for 2,000 yards once and has topped 1,000 yards seven times in eight seasons, the only other season running for 906.

 

In eight seasons he's surpassed 10,000 yards, with a 4.2 YPC and 62 total TDs. He turns 30 this month. He was 27 when Cleveland signed him. If he stays healthy and can muster 2-3 solid seasons he will at least be on a HOF ballot.

 

He is not an NFL Jeff Suppan, not by any measure.

[sheethead]

What highly touted NFL free agents are signed by other teams in general? The NFL system is set up to allow drafting teams to retain their top talent until that said team decides to let them go.

[sheethead]

http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/images/v4i8g1.jpg

 

 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Which is how it should be. If the player wants to stay in that city, he shouldn't have to look elsewhere to get his best contract. That team should have the ability to compete with offers from larger markets. At the same time, there is no gun to the head; the NFL players can leave if they want to. If the NFL were set up like MLB Brett Favre never would have played in Green Bay for 16 years.

 

The fact that our rotation a year ago had Ben Sheets and CC Sabathia in it, and now we are without both and Matt LaPorta, and trotting out Yovani Gallardo and four bums is the problem with this system. The turnover the smaller teams have to endure is ridiculous.

 

Now I didn't expect the Brewers to be a playoff team this year, I just hope I'm not the only one who thinks it's possible that once every 26 years may not be a drought, it very well could be the norm.

[sheethead]

I just noticed that 4 of the 6 division leaders have the highest payroll in their given division. The exceptions are the Cubs and Mets, and injuries have played a huge role there. Additionally, 4 of the 6 last place teams have the lowest payroll in their respective divisions. The competitive balance is money. If you have it and you spend it you are competitive.