Is Baseball doomed?

Great Debates
21

Damn Marvin Miller and Curt Flood to hell.

Free agency sucks, in all sports.

The game was better back in the day, when a team’s talent and ability was almost entirely based on the strength of its farm system. Make no mistake about it - the Yankees were a dynasty through the first half of the 20th century not because they had a whole lot more money than everyone else. It was because they were better at scouting talent. (Yeah, I agree, their money had something to do with that. But it wasn’t paramount.)

Now you’ve got pro teams like Montreal that are basically another level of farm team for the big-market clubs.

Do you realize the lineup the Expos would have if they had the money to keep their players? Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez as starters; sluggers that include Sammy Sosa and Larry Walker, and I’m forgetting bunches more great players that have bid Montreal adieu.

Baseball will always be around. But as was mentioned, it will be all about corporate sponsorships, ads, luxury boxes and tickets that cost as much as a ringside seat to a heavyweight championship fight. The ‘little people’ can stay home and watch on TV. Maybe. Till baseball needs even more money. Then it’s off to pay-per-view.

(Hmmm … this isn’t too far removed from the situation now!)

Some are dismissing that there is a problem, but baseball sure as hell seems concerned about it.

I hope they don’t go the salary cap route. That has failed miserably in the NBA, in my opinion. It has accelerated the revolving door of players through franchises. You can’t even recognize who plays on your team from year to year.

New Detroit Pistons president of hoops operations Joe Dumars admitted when he was making trades in the off season, that he would simply look at a list of what people made, trying to find “salary slots” that fit the requirements, before he even looked at the player’s names!

I think it stinks that it has to be like that.

22

Why is it that I read this thread with a sense that baseball fans are like Chicken Little?

If free-agency was been so bad for small-market teams, how come clubs like Kansas City, Oakland and Pittsburgh fielded such good sides in the decade immediately following free agency? If baseball’s in trouble, why do owners spend so much money to buy new franchises? And how come, when franchises are sold, they sell for way over their original inflation-adjusted value?

Milossarian, baseball tickets are still the cheapest major-league sports tickets around. As for free-agency starting the “revolving door” policy on players, Allen Barra in That’s Not the Way it Was cites statistics showing that trades actually decreased during the free-agency era. (BTW, Barra’s book is a fantastic read.)

I remember in the 80’s when “baseball was going to die.” I remember in the 90’s when player strikes were going to doom baseball forever. Maybe the old ways of baseball die, but the game evolves. Whether it’s for the better or not is of our own opinion.

And, hey, everyone knows cricket is the new baseball :wink:

23

Milossarian wrote:

Now now, Flood had nothing to do with the instigation of free agency. He lost his supreme court case.

24

And just why does free agency “suck”? Are professional athletes some how exempt from the right to work where they choose to.

Actually Marvin Miller and the Players Association were quite shrewd in limiting the number of free agents. Charlie Finley figured that if there was free agency then everybody should get 1-year contracts and be a free agent every year.

Miller knew this would be bad for the players because that would flood the market. The players decided to only allow a certain percentage of players declare free agency in any one year.

Doing so, also helped to maintain some competitive balance in the sport, which both the players and owners need. Remember, if baseball were run like any other business, George Steinbrenner’s principal goal would be to drive people like the Expos out of business. But he can’t do that, he HAS to have competition. If the Yankees can’t play anybody competitive, nobody shows up at Yankee Stadium, nobody watches on TV, and George does not make money.

There may not be revenue sharing, but something will be done to prop up the worst franchises financially (i.e. Montreal and Minnesota)

25

I gotta disagree with Milossarian about a salary cap.
A look at the MLB illustrates the problems a cap could solve. The Pittsburgh Pirates can not compete with the NY Yankees. A couple of years ago the Yankees were paying some of their players more money than the entire Pirates roster was making. Perhaps some of you remember when Barry Bonds used to play for Pittsburgh? They couldn’t afford to pay him as much as other teams so he left. This is a far cry from Grant Hill leaving the Pistons to join Orlando for less money.

As for Joe Dumars quote, it needs to be understood in context. The team needed to match salaries of the people they were trading with the salaries of the players they were bringing in. If the dollar amounts didn’t match then they could not trade the players. This only occurs when a team has already spent more than they are allowed under the salary cap. If the franchises were under the cap, as they are supposed to be, this would not be necessary.

Also, Joe D’s complaint was a bit hypocritical.
He was primarily interested in the player’s contracts because he intended to trade for guys with only a year left on their deals so he could dump them when the season was over and have the cap room to sign some quality free agents ( hopefully C Webb ).

26

Up front, let us acknowledge that the profitability of a sport is not always a black and white issue. Example: Fox loses a ton of money on the NFL. Football ratings don’t come close to justifying what they pay. On the other hand, spillover ratings have made the Fox Sunday night lineup very profitable. So, what appears to be a loss is actually a net gain.

These days, many (though NOT most) sports franchises belong to huge conglomerates with a host of divisions, sometimes media/entertainment related. Hypothetical questions: Could the Chicago Cubs, for example, lose money but still generate big revenues for the multimedia Tribune Company? Could the Dodgers lose a pile but still generate a lot of revenue for Rupert Murdoch’s media enterprises? Could the Angels lose money while STILL serving as a plus for Anaheim area tourism (leading to big profits for the Disney company)? Sure, which is why “opening the books” wouldn’t necessarily prove a damn thing. We’re FAR removed from the days of Bill Veeck and Calvin Griffith, when baseball was the ONLY enterprise owners were involved in.

Now, having said all that, baseball is in huge trouble, the prices of franchises notwithstanding. Hell, you think everything is hunky-dory at Amazon.com just because their stock prices are high? Every Amazon investor could sell now and make a fortune. That doesn’t change the fact that Amazon is unprofitable and constantly on the verge of collapse.

Up to now, shaky franchises could always threaten to move to greener pastures. Well, where are the greener pastures now? Florida? FLorida has turned out to be a LOUSY market for major league baseball. Carolina? We’ve already seen how eager Carolina voters are to build a stadium for a potential new team. Northern Virginia? Yeah, Peter Angelos will let THAT happen.

Fact is, there are no new markets eager for major league baseball, which means blackmailing municipalities for fancy new stadiums won’t work for much longer. The Twins have noplace to go. And Nobody can bluff about going to St. Petersburg any more.

Indeed, it’s all too clear that several EXISTING clubs have no future. The White Sox had a great season, and didn’t draw flies. The A’s had a very good season in an empty stadium. The notion that all these clubs had to do was WIN to attract crowds was utterly wrong. There’s no demand for the services of the A’s or White Sox, no matter how well they play. Former Twins fans have already discovered that minor league ball is a better entertainment value than major league ball any day, so the St. Paul Saints regularly outdraw the Twins.

So, is BASEBALL doomed? Not at all. MOST teams will do just fine. But about 8 or so teams ARE doomed. It’s well past time to put them out of their misery.

27

BobT - Did players tend to stay with the teams they started with longer pre- or post-free agency?

Fans can’t build relationships with their players anymore. Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla were loved in Pittsburgh. Then it’s off to Big-Money Land.

Do players have rights like every other worker to change jobs? I’m not so sure they should. While it may be better for them personally and the big money teams that gobble up the big stars, I don’t think it’s better for the game as a whole, or the fans.

I’d like it better if players entering pro sports acknowledged the unique dynamics of a professional league and agreed to weakened free agency. Hey, I can dream.

28

So why not eliminate free agency in every industry? We’ll allow businesses to just draft people, and if they don’t like who they end up working for, tough crap.

Sammy Sosa was never an Expo; he came up with the Rangers. And as has been pointed out, there have ALWAYS been awful teams. It’s more competitive now than it was when the Kansas City A’s really WERE the slaves of the perennial champion Yankees.

Montreal is a bigger market than Cleveland. It’s comparable to St. Louis. The problems in Montreal have nothing to do with free agency and everything to do with the way Claude Brochu mismanaged the business.
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29

The tragedy of overpaid athletes has become such a hoary cliche in our culture that it’s worth paraphrasing something Daniel Okrent wrote in his (excellent) book Nine Innings:

In a city the size of, say, Detroit, only about five high school graduates each year go on to get paid to play baseball. Out of those, only a small fraction make much of a career in the minor leagues. Out of those, only a small fraction – about 1 in 20 – ever spend a day in the major leagues. Out of those, only a small fraction hang on to become regular players. And, out of those, only a tiny fraction become major player like (Okrent’s example) Eddie Murray or (current example) Alex Rodriguez.

And, at nearly every step along the way to Rodriguez’ current position, the life is hard and doesn’t pay very well. Big salaries for that tiny sliver of players seem fair.

Also, as a Mariners fan, I’m a bit peeved to see them written out of the Series already …

30

Baseball is doomed if I ever get my hands on it. There’s only one TV in this whole campus with cable, and when the time comes to watch our favorite show, there are the baseball freaks, refusing to yield the TV, even though we outnumber them and were there first. Now, I would yield the TV for a real sport, like football, but baseball? Ye gods!

31

Just one TV with cable? What a weird campus.

32

Yes, baseball is doomed. By the 24th century, it will be nothing more than a historical oddity, played only by space station Captains and their sons on the holodeck.

Of course, there’s also the occaisional pickup game with a team of Vulcans…

Seriously, though, IMHO, there is only one city left that is large enough to support MLB: San Antonio, Texas. It’s the only city of the ten most-populous cities in the country that does not have MLB (or the NFL or the NHL, for that matter). (I don’t know how big San Antonio is as a TV market, though.)

However, if you can have MLB in Canada, why not Mexico?

Astorian said Florida proved to be a lousy MLB market. It ain’t the market, it’s the teams. Tampa Bay plays in a weird little dome that has all the charm of a water tank and they have yet to be competitive. The Marlins had wonderful attendance the year they won the Series, but their despicable owner gutted the team and attendance dropped understandably. (Why support a team if the owner has given up on it?)

A team has to win before it has enough fans to sell enough tickets and have a large enough TV audience to succeed. Arizona succeeded where Tampa Bay failed because Arizona won.

33

Just as a point of reference: a contract of $2mil in 1980 would be a contract of $4.5mil today in inflation adjusted dollars.

34

It might be interesting to see MLB as we know it disband… Maybe they would form up like the english premiere league (soccer). Over there they have five different ‘leagues’ the Premiereship, Division 1,2, and 3, and the conference. They are all really one league, with many subdivisions… The three best from each league are promoted to the next highest league, and the three worst from each are relugated to the next lowest league. That way the teams play against another team who is roughly the same skill level, and if a team is REALLY good they make it to the premiereship and will have to fight of other REALLY good teams to take home the ultimate title.

35

Originally posted by Astorian:
=-=-=-=-=-
Indeed, it’s all too clear that several EXISTING clubs have no future. The White Sox had a great season, and didn’t draw flies. The A’s had a very good season in an empty stadium. The notion that all these clubs had to do was WIN to attract crowds was utterly wrong. There’s no demand for the services of the A’s or White Sox, no matter how well they play.
=-=-=-=-=-

Yeah, but in the case of the White Sox and the A’s the fans were right. They still had no chance and the fans knew it. Sure, they won a division – but baseball lumping the small cities together so that they can fight it out to see who gets pasted in the first round isn’t going to put fannies in the seats.

(And I’m not going to comment on the A’s “winning” their division when they were only a half game ahead of Seattle. Okay, yes I am: They should have played their makeup game against the Devil Rays. The A’s getting the “division” and the Mariners getting the “wild card” when their records were a half-gmae apart and the A’s had a game to make up is the cheesiest thing I have ever seen in sports. A’s Fan should be ashamed.)

When the Yankees and Braves can simply throw money at whatever shortfalls their team has then a gutsy, farm-developed club like the A’s will eventually come up short. No real general managerial skill has been evident in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta or Baltimore for quite some time, because there’s no risk involved. And this is frustrating to fans of other teams.

I don’t pretend to speak for Oaklanders, but I’m guessing the thought process wasn’t too much different for my fellow Blue Jay fans:

“Wow. Team’s doing real well right now. But yeah, the Yanks will eventually buy solutions to their problems so we ultimately don’t have a chance. I’ll stay home.”

I would have liked to see Shawn Green playing for the Jays down the stretch instead of Mondesi (who was injured). Couldn’t happen, though, because of the economics of baseball. Now Green is making $12 million a year for a crap Dodger team and the Blue Jays lost their best outfielder. Yay. I will maintain that in a fair, economic setup Oakland, Toronto and Anaheim would have pulled better ticket sales, even if their teams played exactly the same.

And this is what it’s like for teams that won 80 games. A fan of the Twins or Expos has even LESS incentive to follow the sport. It’s not the fans’ fault that they are not coming to the games. Not at all – there sure as hell were there when the Twins and Pirates were winning championships. It’s the fault of the wealthy owners who absolutely make it impossible for these teams to develop, field and maintain good clubs. Hell, with rookie signing bonuses, it’s getting to the point where the truly arse teams can’t even draft the best players anymore. And I guess I missed the draft where the Yanks made the keen move of taking Orlando Hernandez. In every possible manner, the small-market teams are getting bent over. The fans can’t be blamed for asking “why bother?”

Let’s face it – right now, baseball is absolutely a complete joke. I hadn’t heard the prediction of the “top” 8 or 12 teams forming their own league as mentioned above, but they might as well go ahead and do it. If you give me $100 million and another guy $10 million and tell us both to field baseball teams, is anyone supposed to be impressed if I win three out of the last four “championships”?

It’s really sad because the game, itself, is nigh perfect. It’s simply fun to go to the ballpark and watch a game. That hasn’t changed. But the men running the game are simply incredibly clueless and irresponsible. They have, and will continue to, destroy the game.

To save baseball from its doom:

  1. Hard salary cap, like football. (But unlike football, there needs to be severe penalties in store for teams that cheat the cap. Cheers, Carmen!)

  2. NFL-style playoff system. The team with the best record gets home field advantage throughout the playoffs. However, if there are two teams with the same record after 162 then they play each other for a spot and the site of the game, and nothing else, can be determined by tie breakers. Expand the first round of the playoffs to seven games for the love of Christ. Five games? After 162? C’mon, now.

  3. The DH is either completely eliminated or completely integrated. That this has gone on for, what, 30 years, is a complete joke.

  4. Rookie salary cap. If your team only wins 45 games in a season then you get to pick whoever you want in the draft and they are YOURS. If some crybaby git doesn’t want to play for the Expos or the Devil Rays, tough. If you defect from Cuba you get entered into the draft and the awful teams have a chance to select you. If you have the misfortune to do it after the MLB draft that’s your problem.

  5. Adoption of the “franchise player” tag from football. Yeah, all players hate getting franchised in the NFL. My heart goes out to them. Truly. But what it accomplishes, in most cases, is an opportunity for the team and the player to get back to the negotiating table and work out a long-term deal. Eventually, the fans are happy because their boy is back, the team is happy because their star didn’t bolt and the player is happy with the fat checks he starts receiving.

(I’d also say “raise the mound,” “switch to a 154 game season” and “ban Angelos, Turner, Steinbrenner, Reinsdorf and Murdoch for life” but unfortunately none of those things will ever happen.)
I’ll be a realist about it, though. None of the things I described will ever happen. Baseball’s doomed.

36

jab1 wrote:

Because Mexico is piss-poor.

37

San Antonio, though technically one of the 10 largest cities in the U.S., is a very small market indeed. It has no suburbs to speak of- so the metropolitan area’s population is only slightly bigger than that of the city proper. MANY cities that are much smaller actually have much larger populations, when you include the outlying suburbs. Sacramento and Austin, to name but two, have far more regional TV viewers than San Antonio.

More importantly, San Antonio’s population is not affluent, nor does the city have a large corporate base to buy suites and luxury boxes. Sorry, San Antonio is NOT a promising place for a major league ballclub looking to relocate.

It’s CONCEIVABLE that San ANtononian Red McCombs might move the NFL’s VIkings to San Antonio, but only if the city gave him a sweetheart deal that guaranteed him huge profits. In a free market, without heavy taxpayer subsidies, no big time sports franchise will make it in San Antonio (yes, the Spurs are subsidized!).

38

Holy Avenger said:

****Yeah, but in the case of the White Sox and the A’s the fans were right. They still had no chance and the fans knew it. Sure, they won a division – but baseball lumping the small cities together so that they can fight it out to see who gets pasted in the first round isn’t going to put fannies in the seats. *****

Chicago is NOT a small market. Only the major league teams that call Chicago home have a history of playing like it is.
That just makes this whole argument about small markets not being able to compete so ludicrous. The Cubs have as much money backing them up as any major league franchise. Yet, year after year, they suck. Why haven’t they been able to buy any pennants?

Slight hijack - -

I am sick to death of the complaints about the aleged lack of “fan support” for the White Sox. The White Sox, since the strike, have been abysmal. Many White Sox fans blame Chairman Reindsorf for engineering the strike that destroyed the 94 season, a season where the Sox were riding high and had pennant hopes. That bitterness left many White Sox fans vowing never to go back.

So the season ticket base for the White Sox this year was somewhere around 8,000. I’d bet the Tampa Bay Devil Rays traditionally do better than that. So to average 15 to 20 thousand a ball game, half or more of the crowd is walk-up, or, if you will, “band wagon jumpers.” The total overall percentage increase in attendance for the White Sox this year was second in baseball, second only to the Tigers, who had a brand new stadium to boost attendance. It was also one of the largest increases in one year in White Sox history, and besides the first few years of new Comiskey (1991-93, when the Sox regularly were at full capacity) it was one of the best attendance years in Sox history.

39

jab1: Charlotte is often mentioned as the next viable expansion location. It has the necessary population base and a record of supporting minor-league baseball.

You often hear Portland, Oregon, as well.

I personally think a Mexico City franchise would be great for the game. You’d start instantly with a large and very passionate fan base.

It would never fly with the players’ association, however. Some Latin players would be interested in playing there, but the majority of players would loathe it.

I’m more perplexed as to why the NFL doesn’t have franchises in L.A. and Toronto.

40

From what I read in “Baseball America”, Monterrey Mexico is more coveted as a baseball market than Mexico City is because Monterrey is wealthier and doesn’t have the air pollution problem that Mexico City has.

As for available US markets for baseball besides San Antonio, there are Honolulu, Salt Lake City, Portland OR, New Orleans, Charlotte, Las Vegas, Buffalo and Indianapolis. Washington DC/Northern Virginia would also be one, Angelos’ territorial claim be damned. Heck, they ought to put another team in NY/NJ to break up the Yankees’ cable-TV market.

The most important thing baseball needs to do is to implement real revenue sharing among the teams. Tom Boswell of the Washington Post had a good idea. He proposed that baseball teams ought to share revenues along the same lines that lawyers in a law partnership share their revenues because while the teams compete against each other on the field in reality they really are partners and not competitors.