I quickly want to summarize the baseball happenings of the last 24 hours, and I'm going to do so without linking you to various stories because that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is to tie in to a discussion we had on here a little over a month ago.
To recap:
The Phillies are getting Roy Halladay (once the trade goes through)
The Mariners are getting Cliff Lee.
The Blue Jays get a lot of prospects.
The Red Sox signed John Lackey.
The Red Sox signed Mike Cameron.
The Angels signed Hideki Matsui.
The Yankees are entering the talks for Jason Bay.
The Mets and Angels remain frontrunners for Jason Bay.
Now....what's missing from this list?
How about reports about the Pirates, Rays, Reds, Padres, Royals, and Twins. Let's look at some of the signings for smaller market teams in the last couple of days:
The Brewers re-signed Craig Counsell.
The Astros re-signed Jason Michaels.
The Blue Jays signed Ramon Castro.
The Nationals signed Scott Olsen.
The Indians signed Adam Miller.
For some reason, they just don't seem to stack up.
Again, I don't know that this is necessarily a major problem as we discussed last month, since baseball is more than happy to have their big market teams in the playoffs. But when all the big name free agents are going to the same teams over and over again, and more than half the teams don't even have a chance at signing guys like John Lackey and Hideki Matsui, that's an issue.
Because of this, I feel that baseball is rapidly losing fans in middle America, and I don't think losing fans in places like Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and other similar cities is good for the long-term future of the game.
Showing posts with label Large market vs. Small market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Large market vs. Small market. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The Yankees Win
As you all know by now, the New York Yankees are the 2009 World Series Champions. The Yankees brought home their 27th title in franchise history last night, behind the six-RBI performance from series MVP Hideki Matsui.
The Yankees winning again has reignited all the talk about Major League Baseball having serious problems in terms of competitive balance. In fact, that's been the focus of the morning sports talk shows (in particular, Mike and Mike in the Morning).
I wanted to share a few of my thoughts on it, and then I'd love to have you leave your comments below.
*First and foremost, don't blame the Yankees. It's easy for everyone to say "I hate the Yankees" because they are the symbol of all that is wrong with baseball's disparity between the high payroll teams and the low payroll teams. However, they aren't doing anything wrong. They are operating under a different budget than everyone else because of the market they are in and their owner's willingness to pay for big time free agents. What do you want the Yankees to do? Stop trying to win? That's absurd.
*Also, if you are going to "hate" the Yankees for being at the top end of this, then you should also hate the Pirates and Royals for being at the low end. Again, it's not the teams, it's the system. So if you hate the team at the top of the system, then shouldn't you also hate the teams on the other end?
*Now that being said, something needs to be done. I don't think it's the worst thing in the world that those that spend the most, win the most. That's the American way usually. The problem comes in when those that don't or can't spend that kind of money, don't have a chance to compete.
*Look at this way: Since the playoffs expanded in 1995, the Yankees and Red Sox have combined to make the playoffs 23 times. Obviously, those are the two teams with the highest payrolls and both come from major media markets. Since 1995, the Blue Jays, Royals, Pirates, Expos/Nationals, Rays, Tigers, Brewers, Reds, Marlins, and Orioles have combined to make the playoffs eight times. With the exception of the Tigers, these are all smaller market teams with small payrolls.
*Those are probably all numbers that you've heard before. Let me give you two final pieces of information that I think better illustrates the problem.
-Major League Baseball loves to tell everyone that 23 of the 30 teams have made the postseason this decade. One of those teams is the Brewers, who traded four prospects to get CC Sabathia for the second half of the season. The Brewers made the playoffs, losing in the first round. The two biggest pieces of the puzzle that got them there (Sabathia and Ben Sheets) left in the offseason (Sabathia to the Yankees where he won a ring, Sheets is an injured free agent). Milwaukee missed the playoffs by 11 games this year, finishing under .500. Most expect it will be a while before they have any chance of the postseason again.
-Two days ago, the Pirates traded for Akinori Iwamura, and will pay him 4.85 million dollars in 2010, making him the highest paid Pirates player. If Iwamura went to the Yankees, he'd be the 13th highest paid player. That just doesn't seem right to me.
Listen, I don't have the answers. I don't even know if I have the questions right. I just know that the numbers can be staggering at times. It just seems as if 10 teams know they are going to compete every year, 10 teams hope to catch lightning in a bottle and make that one or two year run, and 10 teams don't have a prayer.
Your thoughts? Is there an issue here? Is there something that can be done to fix it? Or is this just the way it works?
The Yankees winning again has reignited all the talk about Major League Baseball having serious problems in terms of competitive balance. In fact, that's been the focus of the morning sports talk shows (in particular, Mike and Mike in the Morning).
I wanted to share a few of my thoughts on it, and then I'd love to have you leave your comments below.
*First and foremost, don't blame the Yankees. It's easy for everyone to say "I hate the Yankees" because they are the symbol of all that is wrong with baseball's disparity between the high payroll teams and the low payroll teams. However, they aren't doing anything wrong. They are operating under a different budget than everyone else because of the market they are in and their owner's willingness to pay for big time free agents. What do you want the Yankees to do? Stop trying to win? That's absurd.
*Also, if you are going to "hate" the Yankees for being at the top end of this, then you should also hate the Pirates and Royals for being at the low end. Again, it's not the teams, it's the system. So if you hate the team at the top of the system, then shouldn't you also hate the teams on the other end?
*Now that being said, something needs to be done. I don't think it's the worst thing in the world that those that spend the most, win the most. That's the American way usually. The problem comes in when those that don't or can't spend that kind of money, don't have a chance to compete.
*Look at this way: Since the playoffs expanded in 1995, the Yankees and Red Sox have combined to make the playoffs 23 times. Obviously, those are the two teams with the highest payrolls and both come from major media markets. Since 1995, the Blue Jays, Royals, Pirates, Expos/Nationals, Rays, Tigers, Brewers, Reds, Marlins, and Orioles have combined to make the playoffs eight times. With the exception of the Tigers, these are all smaller market teams with small payrolls.
*Those are probably all numbers that you've heard before. Let me give you two final pieces of information that I think better illustrates the problem.
-Major League Baseball loves to tell everyone that 23 of the 30 teams have made the postseason this decade. One of those teams is the Brewers, who traded four prospects to get CC Sabathia for the second half of the season. The Brewers made the playoffs, losing in the first round. The two biggest pieces of the puzzle that got them there (Sabathia and Ben Sheets) left in the offseason (Sabathia to the Yankees where he won a ring, Sheets is an injured free agent). Milwaukee missed the playoffs by 11 games this year, finishing under .500. Most expect it will be a while before they have any chance of the postseason again.
-Two days ago, the Pirates traded for Akinori Iwamura, and will pay him 4.85 million dollars in 2010, making him the highest paid Pirates player. If Iwamura went to the Yankees, he'd be the 13th highest paid player. That just doesn't seem right to me.
Listen, I don't have the answers. I don't even know if I have the questions right. I just know that the numbers can be staggering at times. It just seems as if 10 teams know they are going to compete every year, 10 teams hope to catch lightning in a bottle and make that one or two year run, and 10 teams don't have a prayer.
Your thoughts? Is there an issue here? Is there something that can be done to fix it? Or is this just the way it works?
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