Major League Baseball owners need some balls
by selgy on Dec 24, 2008 8:37 AM EST
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PrintGROW SOME FREAKING BALLS!!!!!!!!!!!!
As much as I would hate to say this cause it will hurt this great young team the Rays have formed, but the MLB owners need a LOCK OUT.
Thats right, close the doors...preemptive move against what will slowly make MLB a joke moreso than the NHL. The silver spooned teams such as the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Red Sox and Angels will continue to increase the financial gaps between the haves and have nots.
Look at the excitement in Atlanta and Miami this year with the Falcons and Dolphins. They were terrible last year, but due to the NFLs plan, they were able to step up and become playoff caliber teams. Sure its a league of parody, but you can still work your @$$ off as the Patriots have and stay a step ahead.
Impliment a salary cap. Set it at $150 million (example). Sure that wont finacially effect teams such as the Rays, Royals, Pirates...but it will cause the Yankees/Red Sox/etc to have to spend their money wiser and leave a bigger oppertunity for smaller market teams to compete for free agents.
Better compensation if a home grown talent is signed away. If a player is home grown and spends 5+ years in your organization and is signed away, get rid of this stupid system of draft picks, cause all that does is say "hey rays, we just signed away your player...now here is a draft pick...teach him everything he needs to know about playing baseball and have him ready so we can sign him in 5 years". Maybe in addition to the draft pick, you can impliment a "free agent player tax- salary cap adjustment" where say if you sign a player for 10 million a year, you have addition 10% of that total subtracted from the salary cap..such as
salary cap $150 million
minus Player X $10 million a year
minus salary cap adjustment (10% of free agent signee $1 million)
So the salary cap hit would be $11 million a year (a million of it is phantom money and just used to adjust the salary cap)
So now they would be down to $139 million in available cap space room. Sure this isnt a large tax for signing away players, but you add that up over the year and maybe it makes it to the point a team such as the Yankees/red sox will have to spend much more wisely.
Third....NO signing bonuses for free agents. If they allow signing bonuses, you can see the Yankees giving giant upfront bonuses and that would negate the changes required for baseball.
Just me ranting...i am sure others can make suggestions
LOCK THEM OUT!!!
This post was written by a member of the DRaysBay community and does not necessarily express the views or opinions of DRaysBay staff.
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Nah
MLB teams are making money right now. Fans leave after lockouts. It took a few years and a few major records to be broken before baseball got back to where it was after the 1993 lockout. This just isn’t a big enough issue to justify taking that kind of desperate measure.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
yeah the owners might be making money,
but this setup isnt whats best for the long term health and sucess of the sport.
You remember when players were only traded right before the end of their contracts or right before they jit free agentcy for the first time? Well now players are being delt when they hit arbitration. It just keeps getting worse and worse for smaller teams
It's parity imbecile, you're a parody.
what you have just said, is the most insanely idiotic thing I have ever heard. At no point, in your rambling incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.
Anyway, as I was lying in the puddle, I think I may have found a way for us to get Bonds and Griffey, and we wouldn't have to give up that much.
~George Costanza~
by Sandy Kazmir on Dec 24, 2008 9:17 AM EST reply actions 1 recs
wow
you really sound like a very unhappy person….do you have a better idea? Lets hear it!
yes we were...
but i am talking about what is best for baseball…A collective balance where many more teams have a chance year after year.
Sure the Rays might hit a stretch of 3-4 years, but that doesnt mean this scenario will always repeat itself. Lets remember we needed to be the worst team in baseball for the last 8 years to get to this point.
Say the Rockies would have Taken Longo with their 2006 pick and we got Gregory Reynolds…would we have won the division? We benefited from being a terrible team for many years.
no
Longo, Upton are really our only high draft picks that were major contributors.
If you look at our team. Most of the players were the result of smart moves
Navarro – Trade
Pena – FA sign
Aki – FA sign
Bartlett – trade
Longo – 1st Rd
Crawford – 2nd Rd
Upton – 1st Rd
Gross – trade
Floyd – FA sign
Kaz – Trade
Shields – draft
Garza – trade
Sonny – draft
Ejax – trade
If you look at our team its amazing how few of our own 1st rd draft picks contributed
Delmon Young
was a high draft pick that contributed to this team as well since he got us another first round pick in Garza and Bartlett.
But that is besides the point. Us sucking for a long time enabled us to build a depth of talent that will keep us over .500 for a few years.
True
I was wondering how to list Garza and Bartlett. While true we probably couldn’t have aquired those two without Young. I think we can all agree with are a .500 team at best with him. I figured I would give Friedman credit. I think that is more “smart move” than just inheriting high draft picks
A common misstatement.
It did not take the Rays 11 years to compete. It took them 3. In fact that is the point. The Rays were awful for the first 8 years not so much because of financial constraints but because of a clueless front office as has been dissected often enough on this site and elsewhere. Once an intelligent group took control, it took them 2 years to clean up the mess and become a legitimate contender, and one that appears on the verge of a long run of contention.
Think about that. In two years, creative management overcame 8 years of futility without having to sign big name free agents to bloated contracts. And watch Seattle and perhaps Pittsburgh in the next few years. I anticipate we will see them return to relevance using a similar approach, although Seattle may supplement it more with its financial clout.
It is also a misstatement for the reasons given below, but it is the conflation of the Naimoli and Sternberg regimes that misleads people when discussing the team.
Seattle might become Boston West.
They’re everything the Dodgers could’ve been with DePodesta. If the Pirates don’t get antsy and allow Huntington and company to complete what they started last July I anticipate them competing within the next three to five seasons.
by R.J. Anderson on Dec 24, 2008 1:05 PM EST up reply actions
But I want draft picks :<
And whats the point of a salary cap if its higher than 29 teams’ payroll?
Brad Ziegler had a scoreless inning streak. Brad Ziegler had not met BJ Upton.
Agree, that $150 million is higher than 29 other teams payrole..
But first i was just throwing out a number for an exaple.
And if it was $150 mil, the yankees would not have been able to sign AJ and Tex…the effect is that it would have spread out the talent
I agree with most of what Selgy is saying. And even though we were able to make it to the World Series last year, doesn't mean we'll ever be able to do it again.
For those of you who think it’s OK for the Yanks and team alike to have $200 million dollar payrolls, I would ask you this. WHY? When I heard that the Yankees got Tex, I wanted to throw up. Manny will be next and then we may as well not even fucking play.
If this keeps up, as much as I love this sport, for the sake of it I will BOYCOTT the game. Look around, look at the recession people. But no, all MLB cares about are revenues and filling seats and ensuring players make $20 million dollar salaries. People are struggling to put food on their plate and keep a roof over their heads. I don’t know what fantasyland some of who live in, but most of us aren’t from old money. It makes me sick to see a pro athlete make this kind of loot these days. It wasn’t so bad when people weren’t struggling so much. I won’t be sad if this gets worse than 1993….we may never recover
by TheUltimateBucFan on Dec 24, 2008 9:52 AM EST reply actions
Yes we should
just because watching that team play defense would make me laugh until my internal organs failed
C – Jorge Posada
1B – Tex (ok, fine, lets take a pass on that one)
2B – Cano
SS – Jeter
3B – ARod (not horrid)
LF – Manny (tehee)
CF – Damon/Swisher
RF – Swisher/Nady
It will just make it sweeter when we keep either the yanks or sox out of the playoffs again
It does suck and doesnt seem fair, but I think its pretty funny that the Red Sox owner is complaining. I mean the Rays, Jays, and Orioles should be complaining. The Red Sox have a top 3-4 team salary in baseball should not be complaining. They do the same thing the yanks do.
On a side note does Cashman have the easiest job in the world.
Cashman: Hmmmm who are the top free agents on the market this year. Lets sign those guys.
Which ones?
Cashman: All of them
I think any of us could do his job
I'm under the impression
That Hank’s putting the pressure on Cashman to sign these guys, and that other than CC, Cashman didn’t really want to sign these people.
I suspect that AJ Burnett will look like a horrible signing a few years from now, but in context, he’ll still only be their 6th or 7th highest paid player, so what does it really hurt them?
Also, while the luxury tax isn’t working like a salary cap, I’ll bet the owners generally like having the luxury tax better.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
I don't disagree
Still an easy job.
Its got to be nice though when you can sign a guy making 15-20mil a year or more and if he doesn’t turn out or ends up getting injured your team isn’t set back a decade.
I think Burnett and Sabathia are injury risks. I know Sabathia arm has taken a pounding the last few years and he hasn’t shown an fatigue, but I still have to wonder if he doesn’t end up with a major arm injury before the contract is up.
watch CCs weight
now that he has a long term deal…and all that yummy NY food
Salary cap will NEVER happen
The Players Union is one of the strongest unions in the world, have fun getting them to agree to a cap.
If you lock them out
and only restart under new terms maybe you can.
At this rate, in 2-3 years a player like Tex will be a $30 million a year player
I still remember when in the 80s sports illustrated put toget a list of players who made more than $1 million in a year. How in 20 years they have increased their salaries by about 15 times is amazing.
Why would they do this though
This would hurt the owners much more than the players.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
This is true.
Based on last year alone, Teixeira was worth 30 million.
Last three years: 20 mil.
by R.J. Anderson on Dec 24, 2008 3:13 PM EST up reply actions
They'll start a new league before they agree to it.
Owners can try to paint the MLB union as the bad guys but outside of our market, nobody is really crazy about their ownership either.
by Jason Collette on Dec 24, 2008 10:54 AM EST up reply actions
Sorry to everyone who already knows this but I believe it can be applied
I agree there is no direct way to legally break them, but the Congress holds MLB’s ability to make money in their hands… not just with taxation and normal routes that they would use on things they disapprove of either (i.e.. Sin Taxes, windfall profit taxes). The man with the SN geographer over at Raysbb.com knows more about this than I do (if im wrong on dates and off on names excuse me) but I think it was the early 20’s a case came before the supreme court called the Baltimore Federal Baseball club vs. the National League and that decision has upheld MLB’s right to be a monopoly on account of baseball not being interstate commerce as defined by our earliest anti-trust laws. Congress holds this decision over MLB’s head whenever they want them to make their (congresses) decision (i.e… last years attempt to only get the extra innings package on DirectTV). And anyone who knows anything about the expansion of the federal government in the last 100+ years and before knows it has mostly been predicated on the interstate commerce clause in our Constitution (Giving Congress the right to govern it basically) and our congresses ever widening view of what is interstate commerce. While this decision has been upheld it has not been challenged effectievely yet. And while I feel a salary cap is not necessary (see the excitement and pride that it gave all of us last post season to see A-Rod with Madonna instead of striking out in october), if MLB teams [yankees] continue this path congress could step in and force a restructring of MLB that would force agreements between the MLB and MLBPA to be revisited, while it would be a risky manuever on Congresses behalf it is definetly within their power to pass the laws that would be required to make it happen in this case the supreme court might not even uphold the 1920’s decision. The only political note I’ll add that could be debated is that this present congress and our president-elect do have views on the distribution of wealth and ideologies that make it more likely that this will become an issue, and athlete salaries (usually compared to teacher salaries) are one of the top complaints in distribution of wealth arguments already.
IF only Harry Carey could be arounde for Kosuke.
by CubFanRaysaddict on Dec 24, 2008 12:46 PM EST up reply actions
More knee jerk response to a non-issue.
Competitive balance in the major leagues is better than it has ever been. In the last 10 years, 24 of the 30 teams have made it to the post-season.The 6 who did not include the Expos/Nats who are a special case and the Orioles for whom the budget was a non-issue since they were big spenders. It also includes Toronto and Cincinnati which, if we extend that 10 years a bit would be included (as would the Orioles). So we are left with Pittsburgh, as much a function of really stupid management as it is of financial concerns & KC who could use finances as an excuse I suppose.
Additionally, the pretty regular appearance of teams such as Oakland and Minnesota in the post-season argues against budgets being any sort of determinant. A factor, yes, but not significantly more so than many other factors that go into maintaining a contender. Meanwhile, high budget teams such as the Dodgers and Baltimore have been only intermittently successful.
The over the top reaction to the Yankee signings is pure panic with no real relationship to the issue of competitiveness. The Yankees have re-upped their payroll to about the same it was last year when they came in third. They have won nothing yet except the bidding war! Naturally their financial strength is an advantage, but every team has advantages. Tampa Bay is in a no state tax state. Should that be accounted for in determining competitive advantage? San Diego’s ownership is in deep financial distress unrelated to baseball operations but now affecting their their decisions. Should that be accounted for?
Again, baseball is perfectly healthy in terms of competitive balance, more healthy than at any time in its history. I will not review as I have often done before the dismal record of some franchises from 1903 to the era of free agency. I will reassert that strong teams in NY and Boston is good for baseball in many ways.
by bobr on Dec 24, 2008 11:26 AM EST reply actions 2 recs
You're too good bob
Thanks for taking the time to write what most of us are thinking.
by Erik Hahmann on Dec 24, 2008 11:43 AM EST up reply actions
Are you surous? Lock out?
Why should the MLB have a salary cap? When in recent in years small market teams have proven that they can make it to the playoffs and or world series on a low payroll. Also, there is a already a revenue sharing program in place that is setup for teams who are wealthy to especically share that wealth.
I find the signings of the Yankees as a sign of desperation. The Yankees are the rich kids that lost a drag race, so the next time the Yankees will show up, their car is going to be pimped out to the max.
The only problem I have with the Yankees is the fact that they overpaid or CC. The fact that the Yankees are over paying will drive up salaries. I mean you have a pitcher like Garza, if he puts up CC type numbers adn becomes a free agent, he might want CC type money.
Good luck to the Yankees, they will need it.
In the name of Shinji Mori, we shall win!
by thebaddancingraysfan on Dec 24, 2008 11:48 AM EST reply actions
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