Braves sign B.J. Upton

[TheCrew07]

So that's the endless cycle? Draft a good prospect. Keep him in the minors for 2 or 3 years. Hopefully get 3 to 5 productive MLB years out of him then trade him to a bigger market/payroll team just before he becomes "unaffordable". Basically the small/mid market teams become farm teams for the select few large market teams.

 

I get your point about the screwed up economic system in baseball and of course the counter arguments will be made about parity being better than it's ever been in baseball. I also worry about the growing disparity in TV revenue between the haves and have nots, our bump in local TV revenue is nothing like what the large market teams are getting. Yes we'll have roughly $35 mil/per year more when the new agreemets kick in but that will not equate to greater buying power, in fact I think the opposite will be true. The Brewers won't be able to get to near the player for $10 mil in 2015 as they could have in 2010.

 

I think the cyclic nature of having to continually draft and develop players is central to the success of just about every franchise in every sport, but especially for the Brewers. Personally I'm looking to control players we develop for 8-9 years in the majors if they are "impact" type "core" players. I'll happily pay them into their late 20s or very early 30s and then I'm ready to let them walk and move on to the next guy. If they aren't a core player I'm fine going year to year with arbitration and moving on when a guy hits FA.

 

If we have a surplus of talent at one position like say starting pitching, I'm not in favor of holding any young player back in the minors for the sake of depth. If all things are equal from a talent standpoint I'd rather trade the established MLB player and cycle back fresh talent into the farm system. I think the organization needs to be continually rejunivated to stay relevant, winning and contending every year matters to me, I don't care much about making national headlines by trading for short term solutions. That's not being relevant from my perspective, it's playing into the hands of the system which I'm raging against.

 

The best way for small market teams to compete both on the field and financially with the big clubs is two fold. 1, buying wins below the going market rate is a priority, as such locking up players early buying out FA years with maybe some option years on the back end is a must. Yes the team assumes all of the risk but the team also gain tremendous value on the dollar. 2, you need to be rich in talent in the correct places, Pitching is king in baseball so the more inexpensive impact pitching talent you have, the more powerful your organization is. Not only would you have multiple options for the rotation and bullpen, you also have the most valuable assets from a trading perspective which is impact pitching and such should allow you to fill positions of need elsewhere.

[Ennder]

Any time you discuss the financials of baseball it is very important to keep in mind that large market teams have to overspend for talent in baseball so the disparity is never as big as it appears to be. They also are almost always veteran heavy and veterans are almost never a good investment from a pure wins per dollar standpoint. Finally the long schedule and relatively small playoff field compared to other sports makes it look like there is less parity than their actually is.

 

The big key right now is to get the TV revenue evened out more. The other financials aren't in a terrible spot for baseball right now after revenue sharing.

[danzig6767]

Any time you discuss the financials of baseball it is very important to keep in mind that large market teams have to overspend for talent in baseball so the disparity is never as big as it appears to be. They also are almost always veteran heavy and veterans are almost never a good investment from a pure wins per dollar standpoint. Finally the long schedule and relatively small playoff field compared to other sports makes it look like there is less parity than their actually is.

 

The big key right now is to get the TV revenue evened out more. The other financials aren't in a terrible spot for baseball right now after revenue sharing.

 

Yea, and those really big markets often tend to have one to multiple big long term big contracts on their payroll which become ugly on the back end of the deals as the veteran/veterans who got deals say 5 years or longer, they start aging poorly in terms of production.

 

I think we'll see more and more of this as upper tier free agents keep getting these crazy long contracts, 5-6 years for starting pitchers and 7-10 years for position players. It's one thing to lock up a guy like Braun or others to long deals while they are still young, that's dangerous in itself. Giving really long deals though to players as they near the age of 30 or are past the age of 30 is incredibly risky, yet i think we'll see rich teams keep having aging guy making big money on their payrolls.