IN MLB MONEY STILL TALKS

We are at the halfway point in the Major League Baseball season and there are lots of teams from different size markets that are very much in contention for a division championship or a wild card spot.

That would include the Pirates, who are three games over .500 and a game and a half out of first place.

The Pirates are the best story in baseball right now and every fan who has suffered through the last 18 years should enjoy what’s happening.

But keep in mind that it’s the first week of July and take a look at the schedule at the end of this month. If they’re still in contentions at the trade deadline, that will not only be impressive, it will be a good measure of how the Nutting family looks at their franchise.

If they think that the Pirates can compete for a division championship and that renting a soon-to-be free agent will increase their chances of winning it, there shouldn’t be a prospect in their system that should be untouchable.

People have heard about prospects for way too long. If they truly believe that there is a guy out there who can help them take a serious run at winning the NL Central, they have to make a deal.

Meanwhile, let’s take a look at the standings at the halfway point.

In the AL East, the Yankees, who have the highest payroll in the division are in first, followed by the team with the second highest payroll, the Red Sox.

In the AL West, the Rangers and the Angels are tied for first. The Angels have the highest payroll in the division and the Rangers have the second highest.

In the AL Central, the Indians, who are slowly coming back to the pack, are in first place but the Tigers and the White Sox, the third and highest payrolls in the division are in close pursuit.

In the NL East, the Phillies, who have the highest payroll in the National league are in first place, followed by the Braves who have the third highest payroll in the division.

In the NL West, the Giants, who have the highest payroll in the division, are in first place.

In the NL Central, the Cardinals, with the second highest payroll, are in 1st and the Brewers, with the third highest payroll are in second.

But, if you were to give Baghdad Bud a call, he would tell you that parody is here.

Date: July 5, 2011

Categories: Sports

Tags: Boston Red Sox, BUD SELIG, HIGH PAYROLLS LEAD DIVISIONS, MLB AT HALFWAY POINT, PITTSBURGH PIRATES, SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS

Comments RSS TrackBack 19 comments

Reply

Kenman

in July 5th, 2011 @ 18:09

John – If you could dictate to the owners and players the necessry changes to baseball, what would they be? You cannot go back to the era of no free agency that you fondly remember, because it would be against the law I believe. I assume you would like more revenue sharing, so what revenues would you dictate to be shared?

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John Steigerwald

in July 5th, 2011 @ 18:29

The large market teams would split their TV money with small market teams. All TV money is shared 50-50. If the Pirartes are playing the Mets, each team splits 1/162nd of the combined TV revenue for that game. That would be a good start. Revenue sharing isn’t as much of an issue as a salary cap. You can’t have a competitive league with free agency and no cap.

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Just Another Bloke

in July 5th, 2011 @ 18:26

I’m a little obtuse at times – well, a lot of times. Was “parody” meant as a joke?

Regardless, the point is made and it’s the reason I can’t get excited over baseball, no matter the state of the Pirates. As things stand they will always have to be more clever (or is it cleverer) and more astute than the big money teams. They’ll always have to outsmart the other guys, but the other guys can then buy off the best resources with enough money. Money eventually trumps everything else.

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John Steigerwald

in July 5th, 2011 @ 18:30

It’s very simple for me. I have no interest in a “league” that puts a large number of teams at a distinct disadvantage.

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Ho-Chi

in July 5th, 2011 @ 18:35

then you have no interest in capitalism….since some people start off with a distinct advantage due to inherited wealth.

do you realize you don’t even make sense about anything? you claim one needs equal footing for one thing (sports) but then say the exact opposite about the other (life, society in general)

congratulations…..you’re now the biggest hypocrite on the internet.

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John Steigerwald

in July 5th, 2011 @ 18:43

I don’t know how to break this to you. You might want to lie down. Sports isn’t life. Thirty or thirty-two franchise owners getting together to form a business plan is capitalism. With major pro sports, money just happens to be the major factor that determines whether a team can be competitive. You don’t have a true league if some teams start out at a disadvantage–no matter what creates that disadvantage. You don’t have a legitimate youth baseball league if four out of the six teams are allowed to use 14 year olds and two aren’t allowed to use any players older than 12. Try to brush up on the concept of a league and then you’ll understand that believing in capitalism and believing in teams VOLUNTARILY sharing revenues is not hypocritical. It’s sports. Not life.

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Just Another Bloke

in July 5th, 2011 @ 21:07

If you look at it from the point of view that baseball is a product, then it should make sense to level the playing field if it pleases enough of your potential customers, unless you are happy with the market you have. I would think, however, that you would want to get as much of a market as you could by pleasing as many of your prospects as you can.

The owners are operating their business the way they see fit and we are buying their product or not as we see fit. If I choose to not watch (buy) because the team I’m interested is at a fundamental disadvantage (or for whatever reason as a consumer), that’s the free market, isn’t it? Nothing un-capitalistic about that.

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Sully

in July 5th, 2011 @ 19:20

Zzzzzzzzzzz.

The Rays win the Division two of the last three years and have a real shot this year.

Cleveland is in first place with a payroll less than $50 million.
The Diamondbacks are contending with a $50 million payroll.
The $125 million payroll is really helping the Cubs.
The $118 million payroll has shot the Mets into elite status.
The Twins anted up to $112 million and irrelevancy
Even the Dodgers have $104 million on the books. Nice team.

Of the bottom 6 payrolls in baseball, 4 have a legit shot at the playoffs.

And oh yeah… in the last 10 seasons there have been 9 different World Series winners.

It’s about good management.
The payroll whining is boring.

If the Pirates hadn’t wet the bed with draft picks and making grotesquely bad trades over the last 18 years, they would have found contention a lot faster.

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John Steigerwald

in July 5th, 2011 @ 19:37

Let’s see where they finish in their divisions and how they match up with their payrolls. We’ll see where your contenders are. Big bucks doesn’t guarantee you anything. Small markets need miracles to succeed on a consistent basis. How many World Series have there been in the last 12 years that did not include a team from a top six TV market?

998
San Diego Padres New York Yankees
1999
Atlanta Braves New York Yankees
2000
New York Mets New York Yankees
2001
Arizona Diamondbacks New York Yankees
2002
San Francisco Giants Anaheim Angels
2003
Florida Marlins New York Yankees
2004
St. Louis Cardinals Boston Red Sox
2005
Houston Astros Chicago White Sox
2006
St. Louis Cardinals Detroit Tigers
2007
Colorado Rockies Boston Red Sox
2008 Philadelphia Phillies Tampa Bay Rays
2009 Philadelphia Phillies New York Yankees
2010 San Francisco Giants Texas Rangers
= winner
Reply

Bobzilla

in July 5th, 2011 @ 19:56

The truth of the matter is, there are a lot of bad baseball teams competing in MLB. The only actual, legit Big-League teams are the Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies. The rest of the teams are mediocre, at best.
The 2011 Pirates, who committed three errors on Monday in a win against the putrid Astros, are probably not much better than they’ve been in past seasons. The Bucs’ record is better than usual only because the other teams have come down to the lowly level of the Pirates.
Bad baseball has caused parity in MLB.

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John Steigerwald

in July 6th, 2011 @ 08:37

Very good point. The really stupid teams are the Cubs, Dodgers and Mets. They are playing in the three biggest markets and somehow, with a huge advanatage over all but a couple of other teams, they have managed to stink. Having tons of moneyt doesn’t guarantee you’ll win but not having tons of money almost guarantees that you won’t. If MLB were being founded today and the current financial system were going to be used, Pittsburgh wouldn’t have a team because it would be obvious to everybody that they would need a miracle to compete and no rich guy with a brain would want any part of it.

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Judas68

in July 6th, 2011 @ 11:03

Yeah John’s right. The Pirates need a miracle, it’s their market size that cost them to pass on Nomar for Farris, Berkman for JJ Davis, Wieters for Moskos, and BJ Upton for Bryan Bullington.

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Mike from Monroeville

in July 5th, 2011 @ 21:14

Pinko Commie
Reply

JC

in July 6th, 2011 @ 08:29

How can anyone… ANYONE in this town argue AGAINST the idea of a salary cap in baseball?
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Dr. Phibes

in July 6th, 2011 @ 08:40

Short-term a small market team can succeed in MLB even with the economic disparities John talks about, provided they have a very good front office. Long-term is where those disparities catch up with the small market-teams. No way could a small-market teams compete over a long period of time. The Steelers have made the playoffs 13 times in the past 19 years. Never happen in MLB.

I think that the biggest advantage a large-market team has is not that they spend more for the best players, but that they can more easily absorb paying tons of money for someone who is a dud. Paying Jason Kendall $60M over 6 years crippled the team for the next several years, most notably leading to the Aramis Ramirez salary dump in 2003, who could have been the power hitter we have lacked all these years.

For the Yankees, Angels, Red Sox, etc, the Kendall contract would have been a 1 year problem.

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John Steigerwald

in July 6th, 2011 @ 08:44

Watch what happens at the trading deadline. The big market contenders will sign expensive rent-a-players and the smaller markets won’t be able to compete with that. It may not mean that the big market teams will win but the very fact that some teams are more capable of improving for the stretch drive than others simply because of geography should be an insult to the intelligence of anyone who knows what a league is supposed to be.

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Suits and Sneakers

in July 6th, 2011 @ 13:34

A baseball point first – I can’t wait until you say the Pirates don’t care about winning because they don’t move Starling Marte at the deadline for someone like Ryan Ludwick. It would be stupid at this point to make such a decision when there aren’t any game changers available. The fact that you talk about “untouchable” prospects shows how little you know about the market.

Second, why do you care so much about baseball instituting a salary cap? Your blog is called “Just Watch the Game,” not “Just Gripe About the Structure of the League in Which the Game Exists.” It’s great watching you backtrack now, dropping little comments such as “the Pirates are the best story in baseball right now,” while trying to stay loyal to your anti-MLB position.

The bottom line, as I’ve pointed out to you a few times, is that you’d rather use this site as a forum to quote Walter Williams and post neo-conservative blogs than discuss baseball at this point in your life. Which is fine, but it’s so patently obvious that anyone who actually likes baseball wouldn’t deprive themselves of the sport in its higest form because there is no salary cap that I will once again call your fanship of the game into question.

John, trust me, no one who actually likes following the Pirates and baseball in general is going to feel duped because the Pirates don’t have as many winning seasons as the Red Sox or the Yankees over the previous or next 20 years. We follow the game because it is a great one, and because the Pirates are the team we choose. Our intelligence is not insulted by doing so. Refusing to enjoy baseabll or the Pirates because there isn’t a salary cap–your intelligence isn’t insulted either, it’s simply missing.

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John Steigerwald

in July 6th, 2011 @ 17:05

First of all. Walter Williams is anything but a neo-con.

I’m not backstroking at all. The Pirates are the best story in baseball right now and they are because THEY’VE HAD 18 FRIGGIN’ LOSING SEASON IN A ROW. They’ve had 18 losing seasons in a row mainly because of the lack of a salary cap. You don’t know anyone who was a bigger fan of baseball than I was –as I think I’ve told you several times. I resent and despise MLB now because it ruined something that I used to love. The economic disparity is a joke and it turned the Pirates into a MLB team in name only. You have patience for a league whose lack of competitive balance forces a large percentage of teams to overcome obstacles. I don’t. I said on my talk show today that if –and I konw it’s a huge if — the Pirates have the chance to pick up a player who they think could be the difference in winning a division, there should not be an untouchable prospect (meaning minor league prospect_ because the fans who have suffered through the last 18 years deserve to find out what it’s like to root for a team that’s in a pennant race. The normal rules about protecting prospects should go out the window when you have your first chance in 18 years to actually win something.

Reply

Ryan

in July 6th, 2011 @ 22:08

Bingo John!

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