Say Anything Blog

Well, does the new argreement make good organizations (but not as wealthy) like the Twins and Oakland A’s more competitive. 

It hasn’t done much for the Kansas City Royals.

Are the baseball teams competitors or partners?

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What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

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Liberals must not watch baseball.

Sen. Gaylord Conrad’s gal pal, Lucy Calautti does! She rakes in big bucks for doing so.

Whistler, from what I can tell most of the “small market” teams that get the money don’t actually spend it on player development.  The owners pocket most of it.

It’s just plain socialism, and that never works.

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When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

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I thought the CBA required them to spend a certain portion of their revenues.  I could be wrong of course.

Is it better to spend the money and put some butts in the seats or to pocket that cash and draw next to nothing?

I don’t exactly buy the socialism because to some degree the baseball teams are partners.  It’s not good for baseball (or even the Yankee’s) to win all the time.

Now making the Yankee’s share with the NHL, that’d be socialism.

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What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

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Minimum payrolls are non-existant in baseball.  That’s how come the Royals can have a payroll of $16 Million and the owner can pocket $10 Million. 

Don’t bust on the NHL.  It’s a beter game than basketball is any day of the week.

Don’t bust on the NHL.  It’s a beter game than basketball is any day of the week.

I agree with you there.  I’ve to the NHL package and everything.

However you have to admit that they have some revenue issues compared to baseball.

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What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

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I agree with the revenue issues compared to baseball, but baseball has an economic problem worse than the NHL.

In the NHL, at least salaries are tied to revenues.  Yes, that is socialist according to some people, but the NHL would be down to 5 teams if some sort of salary cap wasn’t implemented.  To me, baseball needs to institute some sort of socailism on their salaries.  If the Yankees are paying $200 Million on their payroll, I think it would be safe to assume that Kansas City, Tampa Bay, Florida, and another 10 teams have no chance of getting the same players because of salaries.  You also need a minimum salary cap like the NHL does as well.  That would prevent owners from pocketing revenue sharing.

Liberals must not watch baseball.

No I don’t watch baseball. Talk about boring. Motor-racing though, that’s where the action’s at.

Liberals must not watch baseball.

Simply watching doesn’t give them the ability to correctly evaluate what they see.  That takes good judgment and the ability to think.

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Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

Baseball isn’t a perfect metaphor for real life, but the point here is clear: Taking from the rich (read: taxing the hell out of them) and giving to the poor (read:entitlements) doesn’t accomplish what it sets out to accomplish.  Which is equality.

Competition is the better choice by far.  Don’t prop bad behavior up with handouts.

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When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Take From The Rich And Give To The Poor Doesn’t Work

If it worked, Robin Hood would have been the King of England, instead of an outlaw.

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Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

Rob: A problem with your argument is that Socialism has worked perfectly in the NFL (in terms of creating equality).

Sports are different from other businesses in numerous ways. For example, expansion teams and the amateur draft. Things like this make no sense in other businesses, because sports needs competition to thrive. If one team could guarantee that it would always win (and 5 other teams were guaranteed to always lose), interest in the product goes down.

I would also like to point out that baseball’s luxury tax kicks in only for teams with a payroll of over like $140,000,000..... a number so high that, in fact, in its entire existence only the Yankees have ever had to pay the tax. (It is commonly called the “Screw the Yankees” act by baseball insiders.) That’s certainly corrupt and it’s wrong to penalize the Yankees for it, but it’s hardly socialism.

But, in general, I don’t think we can apply the same rules to baseball as we do to other businesses. It’s a bad thing if one team is guaranteed to win all the time, and it makes the entire product--baseball--suffer. You can’t have that example anywhere else.

yeah, monopolies can be bad

I don’t buy that a sports teams is a monopoly. 

I look at it as part of the whole sports/entertainment industry. 

If Baseball get’s too expensive you can switch to college sports, another pro team or even get your entertainment outside of sports.

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What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

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Rob: A problem with your argument is that Socialism has worked perfectly in the NFL (in terms of creating equality).

I don’t think that’s a conclusion you can jump to.  Much like baseball, I’d say that it is the NFL’s expanded post season which has brought more parity to the league.  More competition in the post season has bred more a more diverse selection of champions.

I would also like to point out that baseball’s luxury tax kicks in only for teams with a payroll of over like $140,000,000..... a number so high that, in fact, in its entire existence only the Yankees have ever had to pay the tax. (It is commonly called the “Screw the Yankees” act by baseball insiders.)

You must not be much of a “baseball insider” given that the Yankees aren’t the only team to have paid the tax.  Both the Dodgers and Rangers have paid the tax as well, though in 2006 it was the Yankees who were the sole payees.

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When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

I want my money back from “Baseball Between the Numbers”!

In baseball, there is not a strong correlation between team payroll and team wins. The correlation is even less if you look at team market size (eg, New York is larger than Tampa Bay) and wins. The luxury tax fixes a problem that doesn’t exist.

If we wanted to extend your metaphor even further, we have certain teams (the Pittsburgh Pirates are a big one) who do not even try to field a good team. They just keep trotting out 90-loss teams in the hope that baseball will change its bargaining agreement and, essentially, just give them more money. As we all saw with the Detroit Tigers this year, every team has the ability to spend a lot of money to field a winning team (they’d gone through like 10 straight losing seasons before they started signing all their big free agents). Teams that are consistently bad (like the Pirates and the Royals) just aren’t spending the money necessary to compete.

I would also like to point out that baseball’s luxury tax kicks in only for teams with a payroll of over like $140,000,000..... a number so high that, in fact, in its entire existence only the Yankees have ever had to pay the tax. (It is commonly called the “Screw the Yankees” act by baseball insiders.)

This is a fallacious argument.  The very existence of the tax results in changes in the financial behavior of all the teams in baseball, if only to avoid having to pay the tax.  In the same way, the existence of the Capital Gains tax alters investment choices, as well as the decision to invest at all.

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Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

Robert’s right.

The first year of the luxury tax three teams paid it (Yankees, Dodgers, Rangers).  After the first year only two teams (Yankees and Rangers, I believe).  Now only the Yankees pay it.

The other teams cut down on their payroll to avoid paying it.  Obviously, I don’t think that’s good for baseball.  Just as it isn’t good in real life.

I’ve never understood the desire to limit what I sometimes hear called the “obscene” salaries of professional athletes.  Who cares how much they make?  They’re entertainers, and pro baseball is a business predicated upon the guys on the field.  If baseball can be run at a profit by paying those guys hundreds of millions of dollars who are we to say they can’t do it?

Just like who are we to say that Exxon can’t make record profits every quarter?

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When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

I believe there is something more basic at work here.  The true purpose of baseball’s “luxury tax” isn’t to provide financial support to smaller market teams, although that’s what the Pooh-Bahs and press releases tell us.  The true purpose is to act as a disincentive for large market teams, such as the Yankees, to continue spending beyond a pre-set limit on team payrolls.  In other words, the point isn’t just to lift up the lesser teams, but to hold the big guys in check.

But only one major market team owner, George Steinbrenner, cares so much more about winning, that he continues to flagrantly overlook the financial penalty involved and pays whatever he has to in order to field a championship team.  From the top down, the Yankees want to win, and anything less simply isn’t acceptable.

Of course Steiny has also failed to overlook that all his spending has resulted in a team without any chemistry and no championships since 2000.

Rob writes:

Yet more competition among the teams has increased equality and parity. (...)More competition in the post season has bred more a more diverse selection of champions.

If this is a “positive,” Major League Baseball should let every team get to the playoffs; that would drastically increase the odds that a bad team with a low payroll would win the World Series. The Cardinals were not the best team in baseball this year, but, since a best-of-5 series is largely a coin-flip, they’re going to win the World Series. This is a sign that the postseason is flawed. It’s the opposite of competition. The difference between a good baseball team and a bad baseball team is extremly small, which is why baseball’s regular season has been so long, historically. When you condense that into a best of 5 (or even best of 7) series, you’re making that competitive advantage disappear and turning baseball into a game of chance.

Another big problem is that the difference between the richest and poorest team has actually grown larger since the luxury tax was instituted. Team payrolls show a greater level of inequality now then they did in 2002. When the rich teams get richer and the poor teams get poorer, it’s a pretty big stretch to call this “socialism.”

When the rich teams get richer and the poor teams get poorer, it’s a pretty big stretch to call this “socialism.”

Dave,

I beg to differ with you.  Both the intent, and the mechanism imposed were pure socialism.  The fact that the result was just the opposite of what was intended merely reaffirms the fact that market forces will ultimately triumph over attempts to enforce equality of results. 

Socialism doesn’t work.  Free markets do.  It really IS that simple.

Incidentally, there is another factor in this baseball analogy that has not yet been touched on:  There is clearly a limited number of Major League capable players… especially pitchers.  The continued expansion by MLB to more (and smaller) markets dilutes the pool of available talent every bit as much as the escalating salaries paid to those who are, demonstrably, Major League caliber players.

If this is a “positive,” Major League Baseball should let every team get to the playoffs; that would drastically increase the odds that a bad team with a low payroll would win the World Series.

Well, that’s a bit absurd.  Unless you want them to be playing baseball year ‘round, the number of teams in the post season has to be limited.

There is no doubt that the playoffs would be more competitive if we had several dozen rounds with all the teams included, but that’s just not feasible.

The Cardinals were not the best team in baseball this year, but, since a best-of-5 series is largely a coin-flip, they’re going to win the World Series. This is a sign that the postseason is flawed. It’s the opposite of competition. The difference between a good baseball team and a bad baseball team is extremly small, which is why baseball’s regular season has been so long, historically. When you condense that into a best of 5 (or even best of 7) series, you’re making that competitive advantage disappear and turning baseball into a game of chance.

All that is true, but what point are you trying to make?  The point of this post is that competition is good for baseball.  You just proved that by pointing out that the regular season (more competition) is a more accurate way of determining the best team than the playoffs (less competition).

Another big problem is that the difference between the richest and poorest team has actually grown larger since the luxury tax was instituted. Team payrolls show a greater level of inequality now then they did in 2002. When the rich teams get richer and the poor teams get poorer, it’s a pretty big stretch to call this “socialism.”

This isn’t a stretch at all.  Socialism is intended to breed equality, but in reality it breeds inequality.  Look at every socialist regime that has ever existed.

The point we’re trying to make (and I think you’d agree if you were ever honest enough to admit that you’re wrong about something) is that competition is better.  Punishing successful teams and rewarding unsuccessful teams is not as good.

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When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

When the rich teams get richer and the poor teams get poorer, it’s a pretty big stretch to call this “socialism.”

Actually, that is a pretty good description of the real outcome of socialism.  For an example, look at our public education system, where the money flows to the administration, and the wage gap between administrators and teachers(who actually do the work) is widening. Socialism promises what it is unable to deliver.

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Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

Unless you want them to be playing baseball year ‘round, the number of teams in the post season has to be limited.

You could have every series be a best-of-1. That would all but guarantee a team other than the Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals or Dodgers would win the World Series, and thus arbitrarily “increasing” competition in the league, as, hey, everyone has a chance!

The point we’re trying to make (and I think you’d agree if you were ever honest enough to admit that you’re wrong about something) is that competition is better.

I agree 100%. I think if we remain on our present course that games between the Yankees and the Royals will no longer be “competitive” in any meaningful sense of the word.

Punishing successful teams and rewarding unsuccessful teams is not as good.

Unlike any other area, sports needs its competitors to be close in skill level. When you eat at McDonalds, you don’t care if their food is 100 times better than Burger King’s. But when you go to a Yankees game, you DO care if the Yankees are 100 times better than the Royals, because the outcome of the game will not be in doubt. If you know the outcome of the game you will be less likely to show up. Baseball is different from other businesses; all sports are.

Football is the most popular sport in America, and it has the most socialist economic structure (strict salary caps, great parity, few consistently good or bad teams, etc.). It may be worth your time to figure out why this is.

Personally, I’d rather see the best team win every year so I’m in favor of more competition, not more socialism.

You’re in favor of arbitrary parity, so you support socialism (in sports).  I think that’s pretty dumb, but to each their own.

But you know I’m right.  More competition means the better teams go to the top.  Less competition creates arbitrary diversity.  Maybe you think that’s good for sports.  I don’t, just as I don’t think it’s good for society.  We’re lowering the competitive level in sports to the lowest common denominator.

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When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Personally, I’d rather see the best team win every year

If so, then you should oppose the current playoff system, which has allowed each league’s best team to face each other in the playoffs only once.

Also, I’d like to add that you would not want to see the best team go 162-0 every year.

You’re in favor of arbitrary parity, so you support socialism (in sports).  I think that’s pretty dumb, but to each their own.

It’s what the NFL does, and the NFL is our most popular league. Pittsburgh Steelers fans know their team has a chance to compete, regardless of the size of their market. Pittsburgh Pirates fans do not.

More competition means the better teams go to the top.  Less competition creates arbitrary diversity.

Agreed. How, though, does a salary cap create less competition? It creates more competition! Again, look at the NFL. When every team believes it has a chance to be competitive--when the completely arbitrary factor of market size has been discounted--there is more competition. The games are closer, because one team can’t simply sign every available free agent and trot out all-stars.

Games between the Yankees and the Royals are not as competitive as they’d be if the Yankees had a salary cap (or the Royals a salary floor). Games between evenly-matched teams are, almost by definition, more competitive than games betweenly unevenly matched teams.

A little crossover here; in the spirit of “social justice”, only the “poor and oppressed” teams should get into the playoffs.  You see, they have been victimized by the richer teams in big markets, and so we should strive for egalitarianism by letting them have a chance to enjoy the thrill of victory.  Only the losing team would advance, and the World Series would be between the two biggest losers.  That would be socialism in action!  Good idea, right?

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Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

How, though, does a salary cap create less competition? It creates more competition!

In trying to compare sports leagues to the business world, I think the two sides are using different definitions of “competition”.

In professional sports leagues, competition is bred through the sort of “sports socialism” being described here.  The teams in the league are normalized through things like salary caps and luxury taxes. But realize that the NFL/MLB/NHL are closed systems.  Not just anybody can throw a team together and schedule games against the Flyers or Braves or Bears.  Pro sports leagues are made up of teams that compete against each other on the field but strive to prosper together through the various revenue sharing schemes off it.  Obviously, these schemes vary from league to league based on the relative success of one side or the other in the perpetual owners vs. player’s union struggle.

Salary cap vs. no salary cap is not the same dichotomy as free market vs. socialism.

With enough money, anybody (or more accurately, any group of bodies) could start a new league to compete with the NFL.  The XFL was just such a league.  It folded after a season due to many factors, one of which was the drastically lower quality of play.  THAT was an example of free market forces at work.

Getting rid of a luxury tax wouldn’t improve competition in a sports sense.  Huge disparity in payroll cannot help but lead to a huge disparity on the field.

But implementing a luxury tax doesn’t improve competition in a business sense.  Think about it.  If the NFL implemented true revenue sharing (i.e., 100% sharing of all profits) it would remove the incentive for teams to generate new revenue streams.  Why bother if you have to split you efforts across all the other teams in the league.  Better to conserve you funds and do the bare minimum to put people in the seats.  Then wait for your cut of the pie from the other teams.

If so, then you should oppose the current playoff system, which has allowed each league’s best team to face each other in the playoffs only once.

No, I like the current playoff format because it breeds more competition.  I don’t like the luxury tax and salary caps because they breed less competition.

Also, I’d like to add that you would not want to see the best team go 162-0 every year.

That would never happen.  Let’s not be absurd.  And even if it did happen, all the more reason for the other teams to step it up a notch.

It’s what the NFL does, and the NFL is our most popular league. Pittsburgh Steelers fans know their team has a chance to compete, regardless of the size of their market. Pittsburgh Pirates fans do not.

Well, right.  I guess some people enjoy that sort of thing.  PErsonally, I’m not a big fan of faux diversity.

Agreed. How, though, does a salary cap create less competition? It creates more competition! Again, look at the NFL. When every team believes it has a chance to be competitive--when the completely arbitrary factor of market size has been discounted--there is more competition. The games are closer, because one team can’t simply sign every available free agent and trot out all-stars.

Weren’t you the one who said, in this very thread, that winning isn’t necessarily tied to money?

As a Yankees fan I can tell you that “buying up all the free agents” isn’t a strategy that has worked well for them.  Their dynasty in the mid-1990’s was predicated not upon buying stars but on developing talent.  Jeter, Rivera, Posada, Williams and others were all out of the Yankees farm clubs.  The Yankees mixed those guys with some good veterans (David Cone, Paul O’Neil, Tino Martinez, Joe Girardi) who were hardly super-stars and created a dynamo of a team.

Then the Yankees got away from that.  Steinbrenner decided that we needed the latest and greatest again, so we picked up guys like Randy Johnson, Raul Mondesi, Gary Sheffield, etc. and we haven’t been to the Series since.

There can be parity in baseball without regulation of the payrolls.  Oakland soundly beat the Yankees in the playoffs with payroll that’s, what, a half of the Yankees payroll?

Something like that.

It can happen.  I don’t see where salary caps and such are needed, just like that sort of stuff isn’t needed in the real world.

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When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Then the Yankees got away from that.  Steinbrenner decided that we needed the latest and greatest again, so we picked up guys like Randy Johnson, Raul Mondesi, Gary Sheffield, etc. and we haven’t been to the Series since.

The Yankees have had the best record in the American League in 4 othe past 5 years. The reason they haven’t been to the Series since has nothing to do with an over-reliance on free agents and everything to do with simple bad luck. If your contention were true, the Yankees would be getting worse each year. They’re not.

PErsonally, I’m not a big fan of faux diversity.

Major League Baseball requires each team to have a 25-man roster. Do you oppose this regulation? Why should Steinbrenner have to limit his roster to 25 when he could very easily find 30 players competent enough to play in the Major Leagues?

Forcing every single team to have 25 players--when some could easily have more--creates just as much “faux diversity” as having a salary cap (or floor) that eliminates the market size advantage.

Would we see this in any other business? Could Burger King complain that too many people are working at McDonalds, that they’ve gone over the 10-employee rule? No. And why? Becuase baseball is substantially different from other businesses...and the reason it is different is because competitive imbalance hurts the league (product).

With a salary cap and floor (and things like the luxury tax) there would still be great teams and there would still be lousy teams. In football, look at those awful Bengals teams of the 1990s. The huge difference is that these extremes would be caused by actual front office decisions and, a lot of the time, just luck. It wouldn’t be the uncontrollable and unchangeable fact that you simply cannot spend as much money as other teams due to your geographic location.

In 1984 the Portland Trail Blazers chose Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan. Because of this one bad decision, the Bulls became one of the greatest teams in NBA history. That’s how sports have always worked, and fans accept that. It’s why people went to Cubs games even though they always sucked--they sucked because of the bad luck that has always been a part of baseball.

If baseball doesn’t fix their problems, that will be a thing of the past. Why bother going to see the Royals play? External factors beyond their control have doomed them to mediocrity. This is not conducive to the long-term success of a league that requires competitive balance to be successful.

The Yankees have had the best record in the American League in 4 othe past 5 years. The reason they haven’t been to the Series since has nothing to do with an over-reliance on free agents and everything to do with simple bad luck. If your contention were true, the Yankees would be getting worse each year. They’re not.

Sigh…

I’m not even going to bother to explain this to you again.

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When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

rob, you have very little to compain about. Aren’t the Twins one of the teams subsidized,

Anon, I’m originally from Alaska and picked the Yankees as my team when I was in the third grade.  I picked ‘em after seeing Pride of the Yankees (the Lou Gherig story) on television.

I like the Twins though, but my Yankees are who I root for.

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When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs: