Owners kicking around idea of bringing back salary cap

[Clem Fandango]

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3833716

 

Interesting development

 

Quote from Kenney on the Yankees spending, which is partly attributed to the reasoning behind the discussion...

 

Not all owners are critical of the Yankees' acquisition of pitchers CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett and infielder Mark Teixeira.

 

"I've been asked about the Yankees' spending," Chicago Cubs chairman Crane Kenney said. "I have no problem with what they've done. They've done it within the rules, within the confines of our agreement.

 

"And if you look at the reality there, they've got a $1.3 billion stadium coming online," Kenney said. "They were probably relying on Wall Street to fill a lot of those seats. And they missed the playoffs for the first time in 13 years. So their reaction is probably similar to what I would do, which is, you've got to put a compelling product on the field when you open the doors of that new ballpark, and that's what they did. Listen, they played within the rules, so I have no issue with it."

[TruffleShuffle]

oh i'm sure a lot of owners would love to see it. the mlbpa is too powerful to let it happen. i'd like to see a salary cap and a salary floor, but i highly doubt that it will happen anytime soon.

 

crane kenney is right, but that doesn't necessarily make it fair or appealing. the yankees or any other organization can spend a trillion dollars putting a team together if they really want to, but i'd like to see the small market organizations not having a payroll that's a third or a quarter as large as some of the big boys.

 

and no, i'm not going to blame the owner of a small market team for not wanting lose tens of millions of dollars on his team every year.

[UMFan83]

I think a salary floor is needed more than a salary cap.

 

I might be talking out of my ass because I don't know the financial numbers, but I gotta think the revenue sharing would allow all teams to spend a certain amount of money on their ball club and still profit.

[JGalt73]

A good article from BP on why a salary cap is unnecessary...

 

Let Freedom Ring:Busting the Myth of the Salary Cap by Shawn Hoffman

[Derwood]

and no, i'm not going to blame the owner of a small market team for not wanting lose tens of millions of dollars on his team every year.

 

maybe, but isn't that exactly how Steinbrenner built up the Yankees? okay sure, they're not a small market team, but he bought a crappy organization for nearly nothing and poured tons of his own resources into it.

[TruffleShuffle]

and no, i'm not going to blame the owner of a small market team for not wanting lose tens of millions of dollars on his team every year.

 

maybe, but isn't that exactly how Steinbrenner built up the Yankees? okay sure, they're not a small market team, but he bought a crappy organization for nearly nothing and poured tons of his own resources into it.

 

they're in by far the largest media market in the country and they had more championships than any other organization in professional sports when he bought them. also he was wildly unpopular during the '80s; yankee fans regarded him as a liar and an an embarrassment to the organization, and they gave a standing ovation at yankee stadium when it came out that he had been banned from baseball "for life."

Edited January 15, 2009 by TruffleShuffle

[TruffleShuffle]

A good article from BP on why a salary cap is unnecessary...

 

Let Freedom Ring:Busting the Myth of the Salary Cap by Shawn Hoffman

 

isn't this more an argument against a salary floor?

[Derwood]

and no, i'm not going to blame the owner of a small market team for not wanting lose tens of millions of dollars on his team every year.

 

maybe, but isn't that exactly how Steinbrenner built up the Yankees? okay sure, they're not a small market team, but he bought a crappy organization for nearly nothing and poured tons of his own resources into it.

 

they're in by far the largest media market in the country and they had more championships than any other organization in professional sports when he bought them. also he was wildly unpopular during the '80s; yankee fans regarded him as a liar and an an embarrassment to the organization, and they gave a standing ovation at yankee stadium when it came out that he had been banned from baseball "for life."

 

which only goes to show how dumb the fans were. just because he wasn't popular doesn't mean he wasn't good. he single-handedly made the Yankees what they are now and built up all of the related media companies, etc. to fund his team. Now all the other owners (who have been either unwilling to invest in the team at a loss for a few years to build their franchise or have lacked the business acumen to do so) are acting all butt hurt about it. I don't feel sorry for them in the least. The reason the Pirates, Royals, etc. have been bad is only partially due to funds; low (self-imposed) payroll is no excuse for the Pirates trading for Matt Morris or giving Kendall and Wilson ludicrous deals.

[erik316wttn]

I doubt we'll see any sort of a hard cap anytime soon. The owners would have to make a TON of concessions in order to get that to happen.

[TruffleShuffle]

which only goes to show how dumb the fans were. .

 

why are the fans dumb, because they don't want their franchise to be a laughingstock? steinbrenner paid off a small-time bookie to dig up dirt on dave winfield; he was behaving like an idiot and if i were a yankee fan i would've wanted him gone too.

[Derwood]

which only goes to show how dumb the fans were. .

 

why are the fans dumb, because they don't want their franchise to be a laughingstock? steinbrenner paid off a small-time bookie to dig up dirt on dave winfield; he was behaving like an idiot and if i were a yankee fan i would've wanted him gone too.

 

he was acting like an ass, sure, but he was also putting the pieces together for what the Yankees became.

[CubinNY]

which only goes to show how dumb the fans were. .

 

why are the fans dumb, because they don't want their franchise to be a laughingstock? steinbrenner paid off a small-time bookie to dig up dirt on dave winfield; he was behaving like an idiot and if i were a yankee fan i would've wanted him gone too.

 

he was acting like an ass, sure, but he was also putting the pieces together for what the Yankees became.

The Yankees didn't become anything because of Steinbrenner. They were already the Yankees. The money his group payed for them was a pretty big sum in 1973.

[jersey cubs fan]

which only goes to show how dumb the fans were. .

 

why are the fans dumb, because they don't want their franchise to be a laughingstock? steinbrenner paid off a small-time bookie to dig up dirt on dave winfield; he was behaving like an idiot and if i were a yankee fan i would've wanted him gone too.

 

he was acting like an ass, sure, but he was also putting the pieces together for what the Yankees became.

The Yankees didn't become anything because of Steinbrenner. They were already the Yankees. The money his group payed for them was a pretty big sum in 1973.

 

Yeah, Steinbrenner wasn't putting pieces together. He lucked out by having the richest fan base in a time when that fan base's net worth was growing exponentially. He hired a bunch of guys who routinely make idiotic decisions, but they've always been able to spend their way out of their mistakes. The Yankees were essentially the Orioles in the mid-90's, then went on an obscene spending spree.

 

Fans weren't dumb for criticizing him in the 80's.

[shnsajax]

I think a salary floor is needed more than a salary cap.

 

I might be talking out of my ass because I don't know the financial numbers, but I gotta think the revenue sharing would allow all teams to spend a certain amount of money on their ball club and still profit.

 

This has been my thought too.

[Jehrico]

Very stupid article.

 

With a $103 million cap, nine teams would have been affected last year, and a total of about $286 million would have had to be skimmed off the top. Since total salaries have to remain at existing levels, the bottom twenty-one teams would have had to take on this burden, which had previously been placed on the Yankees, Red Sox, et al. On the other end, fourteen teams would have been under the payroll floor, by a total of $251 million. Even discounting the Marlins' $22 million payroll, the other thirteen teams would have had to spend an average of $15 million more just to meet the minimum. Some of those teams might be able to afford it; most wouldn't.

 

He's basically running the scenario as if MLB suddenly implemented it full effect with no phased plan. If they did this, they'd either set a date so far into the future to let current contracts unscrew themselves, or they'd have alot of exemptions for current contracts. It'd be a phased deal. That argument above it totally bunk and ignorant.

Now fast forward to 2009. Let's say the Pirates' sales staff runs into major headwinds, with the team struggling and the economy sinking. The team's top line takes a hit, falling $10 million from 2008. The Mets and Yankees, meanwhile, open their new ballparks, and each team increases its local revenue by $50 million. If the twenty-seven other teams are flat, total industry revenues rise by $90 million (not including any appreciation in national media revenue). Forty-five percent of that, of course, goes to the players. So even as the Pirates' purchasing power decreases, the payroll floor actually rises.

 

In other words, without a more egalitarian distribution of income, the system crumbles.

He's making some bold assumptions that just aren't valid about how payroll floors and ceilings and caps would be implemented/calculated. It's also bogus to just throw out make believe situations like this as well. You can "What if the Yanks and Mets each made $20 trillion more with their new stadiums, while all of the other teams lost half of their revenue?" He's also forgetting that there are more small market owners in the vote than large market owners, they'll be protected in the final agreement, I'd guarantee it. They're the majority, they're the ones that are hurt by the unfairness of the current system, they'll take care of themselves.

 

Lastly, this ending piece of garbage is priceless:

So while the capped leagues all struggle to find the right balance between capitalism and socialism, baseball continues to prosper operating within a much more free-market system. Teams in big markets and small markets alike are making money, and everyone has a chance to win it all.

 

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And right now, baseball is anything but broke.

Baseball isn't continuing to prosper. Baseball once upon a time was "America's Pasttime." The NFL and NBA only dreamed of ever passing MLB in popularity. I don't know what planet the author of the article lives on, but the NFL and NBA have been taking big chunks out of baseballs popularity, especially in the urban environments. I've never seen a single stat that says otherwise, so why the author is willing to spew such garbage is beyond me. Maybe he's only referring to the short term...everyone's been making money, so why fix it? Didn't baseball almost have to contract a couple of teams because they weren't making money not too long ago? Hasn't the average income of the small market team been on a slow decline for some time now? Just because they're profiting now doesn't mean there aren't negative trends that need to be addressed that indicate everyone might not be making money if they don't turn the ship around in the future. Lastly, the last line about "everyone has a chance to win it all..." would someone hit him on the head and ask him to see how often a team goes from worst to the playoffs in MLB, then compare that to how often it happens in the NBA or the NFL? Can someone have him check the percentage of playoff slots over the last 10 years for each league for small and big markets? His entire argument is based exclusively on the short term, and he's made no attempt whatsoever to actually, you know, check any numbers to see how MLB really has been doing compared to their competitors (NBA and NFL). And his little "doomsday" scenario also assumes the ownership would be dumb enough to suddenly agree to such a radical change overnight without any logical plan for long-term implementation. No way the Royals would help pick up the tab on part of the Yankee's payroll that is over the cap like he suggests. Just stupid. How in the hell does this guy write for Baseball Prospectus?

[Jehrico]

and no, i'm not going to blame the owner of a small market team for not wanting lose tens of millions of dollars on his team every year.

 

maybe, but isn't that exactly how Steinbrenner built up the Yankees? okay sure, they're not a small market team, but he bought a crappy organization for nearly nothing and poured tons of his own resources into it.

 

they're in by far the largest media market in the country and they had more championships than any other organization in professional sports when he bought them. also he was wildly unpopular during the '80s; yankee fans regarded him as a liar and an an embarrassment to the organization, and they gave a standing ovation at yankee stadium when it came out that he had been banned from baseball "for life."

 

which only goes to show how dumb the fans were. just because he wasn't popular doesn't mean he wasn't good. he single-handedly made the Yankees what they are now and built up all of the related media companies, etc. to fund his team. Now all the other owners (who have been either unwilling to invest in the team at a loss for a few years to build their franchise or have lacked the business acumen to do so) are acting all butt hurt about it. I don't feel sorry for them in the least. The reason the Pirates, Royals, etc. have been bad is only partially due to funds; low (self-imposed) payroll is no excuse for the Pirates trading for Matt Morris or giving Kendall and Wilson ludicrous deals.

Lets be fair here...He made a great decision to buy the yankees at an extremely discounted price when they had some good young pieces and had better days ahead. They went on a run from 76-81 and were pretty good. Then he started running the team into the ground in the 80s, and he started acting like an idiot firing managers every other day and what not. There was a pretty good stretch where he was the main culprit as to why the Yankees were so up and down and out of the playoffs for over a decade. He deserves the criticism there. He also deserves recognition for learning from his mistakes, and realizing that if he puts a winner on the field, he'll make money, regardless of the cost. He wasn't always a good owner, but he learned, and more importantly, he learned what the potential revenue stream is for the NY market if you put a winner out there. With Steinbrenner you have to take the good with the bad. Luckily for the Yankees fans, the bad is mostly in the past.

[Derwood]

the stuff Jehrico quoted was indeed stupid, as a hard salary floor/ceiling like the NBA/NFL would have to include those league's versions of revenue sharing, thus removing the concern over the Mets/Yankees stadiums giving a pair of teams "unfair" new revenues. In the NFL, a new stadium means every team benefits, not just the one who built it.

[Post Count Padder]

Yeah, this is never happening.