While looking toward the future with our comprehensive slate of current content, we'd also like to recognize our rich past by drawing upon our extensive (and mostly free) online archive of work dating back to 1997. In an effort to highlight the best of what's gone before, we'll be bringing you a weekly blast from BP's past, introducing or re-introducing you to some of the most informative and entertaining authors who have passed through our virtual halls. If you have fond recollections of a BP piece that you'd like to nominate for re-exposure to a wider audience, send us your suggestion.

Earlier this week, Maury Brown examined the future of baseball's national TV contracts. For a look at its past, revisit the piece reproduced below, which was originally published as a "The Imbalance Sheet" column on September 28, 2000.
 

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For me, this marks the end of one of the more unusual journeys into the world of baseball analysis. For BP, I hope this marks but the first of many graduations into full-time positions in the baseball world.

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ESPN.com reported yesterday that 11 major-league teams showed an operating profit in 2001. They were led by the Yankees, who are so profitable not even Enron's ex-CFO could screw them up, with a claimed operating profit of $41 million. Why "claimed?" add it up:

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What we got was even more disgraceful than the worst scenarios any of us had conceived. Baseball made the ultimate coward's threat. As expected, they announced that the owners had agreed to eliminate two teams for the 2002 season--a practical impossibility, but well in line with the previous announcements of the Impotent King, Bud I. But Bud took it two steps further.

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The A's do, indeed, score plenty of runs on the long ball--but that's only part of the story. The A's offense is structured more around the base on balls than anything else, because of an organizational belief that having men on base is the most effective way to score runs. It's not revolutionary or even unusual; the Mariners and Padres also followed the Tao of Ted and racked up the runs by drawing walks--even, in the Padres' case, without much power to speak of.

So when the A's don't homer, they still fare well by putting men on base. And when the A's do homer, they fare well because they tend to have men on base already. Don't believe me? Look at the numbers:

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For those who missed it, McMorris proposed that last weekend's series between the Rockies and Expos be moved to Colorado, with the Rockies donating the games' receipts to a September 11th charity. The reason would have been obvious enough, but McMorris decided to rub vinegar in the wound by pointing out that playing the games in Denver would draw significantly more fans and raise much more money for the charity than playing the games in Montreal could. McMorris had the facts on his side, but the Rockies' PR department would probably like to slap him with a leash and a muzzle after his ill-considered foray into verbal gamesmanship. One can easily imagine a scenario where the Expos would have negotiated a deal to move the series had the negotiation been conducted in private.

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However, several readers responded to argue that single-season contention is an anomaly, or that it's a matter of random chance that there will be "Cinderella" teams. The facts don't support this claim:

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The proposals on the table all involve either capping the amount a team can spend in total across all draft picks (dumb) or capping the maximum payment allowed to a single player, perhaps tied to the round in which the player was drafted (better). The recent brouhahas (brouhahae?) over J.D. Drew, Mark Prior, and Matt Harrington, as well as the high likelihood that between five and ten first-rounders won't sign this year, have given a significant boost to these proposals. The owners have a greatly increased incentive to cap these players, and one can make a good argument that the young players don't benefit from the lost year of development time.

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