Comments on: The Super Yankees Theory

By: Tom B

Tom B — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:47:22 +0000

1) Adding teams, and thinning the talent(specifically pitching which is already too thin), is a terrible idea.
2) Good luck. heh.
3) Yes, all they have to do is require that you spend your revenue sharing dollars on payroll, and if you don’t you lose it. A floor isn’t necessary if they don’t get to pocket an additional #15-$20 mil each season.
4) Hard slot, screw the players. Getting drafted in baseball is different than every other sport, and twice as irrelevant. Make it, then you get paid.

By: Rob in CT

Rob in CT — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:02:51 +0000

You have to tackle this from multiple directions:

1) Expansion and realignment. 2 new teams in the AL, one of which goes in the NY metro area. Hell, you could argue for 2 new NY teams, one put in the NL and then moving one NL team over to the AL to balance it back out. You go to 4 divisions.

2) More revenue sharing. TV money is key. I don’t know how you get at the money from the YES network, NESN, etc., but the effort must be made.

3) Some sort of spending floor – this should be a “baseball operations” spending floor, not just the player salaries for the big club. Forcing teams in a rebuilding phase to spend a few more million on ML free agents is dumb. If you include all baseball spending, they can spend extra on draft picks, international signings, etc. Less dumb (though still possibly dumb).

4) This is cosmetic, but… drop the stupid slot “recommendations” in the draft. Teams don’t follow them anyway. You could say make them hard slots, but then you’re screwing the players and that’s a fight I don’t think baseball needs (aside from just being wrong, IMO).

That’s my back-of-a-napkin proposal.

By: joser

joser — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:12:27 +0000

The reason WWII is widely considered to be the last “Good War” is because (a) there was no doubt who the enemy was, and (b) there was no doubt of their complete and essential evil. This is the role of the Yankees, and to fullfill that role they have to win periodically; otherwise, their downfall at the hands of the Good Guys is never so satisfying or sweet. Of course that just leaves us facing down the next fortress of evil in the form of the Red (Army) Sox.

By: JK

JK — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:56:34 +0000

Baseball is a business. Businesses need to make money. The Yankees make a ton more money when they are good. Small market teams, not so much. Tie revenue sharing to winning. This should give every team the same financial incentive to win. A system that evens out the win/revenue curves would be ideal.

We use 4.5M/win as short hand in the free agent market. While this may reflect the truth for high revenue teams, it is not economic reality for low revenue teams. In truth the Yankees can “overpay” because the financial rewards of winning encourage them to do so. The Twins are “cheap” because adding those extra wins does not increase their revenue enough to cover the added costs.

By: MarkInDallas

MarkInDallas — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:59:15 +0000

The less revenue you have, the less of a percentage you can spend on payroll. The whole minor league system and scouting departments are not dependent on the percentage of total revenue. Only marketing costs are.

- Marketing costs will be more or less a fixed percent of market size.

- Scouting and minor league costs will be a smaller percent for high revenue teams and larger percent for low revenue teams.

- Conversely team payroll will be a smaller percent for low revenue teams and larger percent for large market teams.

By: MarkInDallas

MarkInDallas — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:36:20 +0000

This is not true. The Pirates’ Frank Coonelly has come out saying the Pirates would support a cap/floor.

By: The Typical Idiot Fan

The Typical Idiot Fan — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:02:00 +0000

Been allowed to do it twice now.

By: The Typical Idiot Fan

The Typical Idiot Fan — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:59:33 +0000

You’re seriously missing the point.

By: The Typical Idiot Fan

The Typical Idiot Fan — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:56:56 +0000

The other part of this is “spend it on what”? There are teams that are, right now, mostly young players who are within the 6 year time frame before free agency. They’re not going to get paid more than minimum wage for those first three years. Even the arbitration eligible players may not get much, especially if they’re not that good. So are teams going to be forced to spend 12 million again on Jarrod Washburn just to fill their needs to meet the minimum cap requirement?

Obviously the next evolution of this process is to either raise the minimum salary significantly and / or eliminate the 6 year requirement to free agency, instead allowing players to negotiate major league deals immediately after draft.

By: Skiz

Skiz — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:02:59 +0000

I think it’s a bit absurd to think that there is no possible way for a Yankee fan to convert and begin to support another team… Believe me, I’ve done it. Being born and raised in Northern NJ, I was an enormous Yankee fan… However, over time that has changed and I now throw my support in another direction, wholeheartedly, to the point where I enthusiastically rooted against the Yankees in the world series. Whether A Northern NJ or Brooklyn team would work, I have no idea, but it’s certainly plausible that if a competing product (in this case baseball team) were available, people would make the switch. I did.