The “eternal option” is ended. I’d expected that the Sox would go “one more year” and be willing to cut Wakefield, but this one makes sense in every respect.
Know that rule in fantasy where it’s always better to trade two or three good players for one great one? Sounds like that’s what the Rangerswould like to do.
There’s no chance Alex Anthopolous is going to get “fleeced” as Richard Griffin suggests. It’s not like he wasn’t there for all the previous discussions of trading Roy Halladay. AGM’s talk to GM’s, so this is hardly a “new guy” thing.
Brian Cuban can’t be happy about this. He spends most of his time on his show kvetching about the Pirates ownership.
Jim Hendry talks to a lot of people. A Bradley deal is going to be a hard one, but eating some of the deal might be good PR for the Ricketts’.
I once heard Omar Minaya say the first thing he looked for in a hitter was RBIs. It was a few years back, so nice to see he’s moved to slugging. (Wait, I thought Newsday was going pay only?)
I don't understand how the Red Sox '09 payroll could possibly have been under $122M. I'm thinking that figure might not include any of the non-guaranteed money that was earned by Smoltz, Penny, Saito, etc., nor the additions made during the season?
The Yankees chart's a neat kind of concept, but there's more to income than revenue and more to team expenses than payroll, so I don't completely buy the accuracy of the numbers. A few million this way or that and I would guess the order of the teams change a lot.
The author also fails to point out that the difference between Yankees revenue and payroll, which I guess would be considered profit, is slightly under $175 million, a number that even with the 4th highest investment rate is a bigger profit than any other team. Though as Richard stated, there are so many more factors that go into calculating a team's expenses that we can only take these numbers with a grain of salt.
The chart merely tries to hide the Yankees' enormous financial advantage by turning dollars into percentages. Players aren't paid in percentages of revenues, they're paid in dollars.
The fact that, with the exception of the Mets, Cubs, Angels, Dodgers, Phillies, and Red Sox, every team in baseball could spend ALL its revenues on payroll and STILL not match the Yankees tells you everything you need to know.
Agreed. In particular, I'm guessing that a lot of the overhead for teams (stadium upkeep, staff salaries, etc.) are considerably more even than payroll. Let's say all those other costs are $30M for most teams (just for argument's sake). That would move Oakland from 39% to 58%, but would only move the Yankees from 54% to 62%. Though I'm sure given the quality of the new Yankees Stadium and various other factors, their other costs are higher than Oakland's.
I don't think that Griffin is suggesting that AA will get fleeced - just that other GMs will try to fleece him, being a noob and all. Griffin is pretty sure that AA has done his homework and will act, if not wisely, then in a well-considered manner.
But he's not new. He's been an AGM, was involved in the Halladay negotiations at the deadline. The premise he throws up there is false from the beginning. At worst, Anthopolous is going to get offers that are reasonable, as opposed to what Ricciardi was doing.
I know and Griffin knows. Griffin likes to embellish a bit, but he really isn't suggesting that AA is fleece-able. Merely hinting that other GM's might be thinking that he is and take their shots at "stealing" his big chip.
I dont think GM's do that. I think trade offers in baseball tend to be much like those in any fantasy league, but the games people think they play are overrated. The "noob" is not a new player or unrelated. If you have no information about someone and their preferences, then yes, you might lowball to try and gain info.
Think of it like a poker game. You know the guys you play with, but with a new guy, you have to start fresh. You can bluff him bc he doesn't know you, but you're equal. The thing is, Antonopolous is NOT NEW. He's a known quantity.
Teams have scouting reports on front office personnel. I know one team that keeps track of conversations, looking for biases, tendencies and such. Griffin is saying that Antonopolous is new and therefore different. He's not.
It's also not a great idea to fleece a trading partner for one deal at the risk of losing future deals. Also from what I understand, GMs chat about rumors so cutting off a source of info can be a problem.
Yes, other GMs won't do that... at least no more than usual.
AA has been involved in the trade discussions the entire time. Nothing has really changed. Every GM knows AA. He's not some noob they think they can/should try to scam out of Halladay.
According to the chart cited, the Yankees have revenues $106 million more than the #2 team, the Red Sox. That is 39% more.
The Yankees are shown to have revenues $201 million more than the Orioles, which is 116% more.
While the Yankees may be good managers who are able to maximize their revenues, the bulk of the difference is the market.
So long as the revenues give this much of a competitive advantage, the Yankees will win a disproportionate number of championships, and have a disproportionate number of playoff appearances.
Baseball should take additional steps to reduce the tilt of the playing field. I am not holding my breath.
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Let's do that. Level the playing field, bring parity and equality to all, redistribute wealth among the masses and join either the Communist or Socialist party.
Oh, and while we're at it, let's initiate national health care too.
Seriously, I have nothing against communism or socialism, but the redundance of these arguments is worse than spending a Siberian winter in the gulag. We just went through 200+ comments on this and I'm not sure I want to endure further torture.
My main issue with the Yankees is that their inherent revenue advantage is unfair. I don't object to them using it. But I just don't think it makes for an interesting sport.
I wouldn't play in a fantasy baseball auction league where one owner gets twice the budget that the other owners get, especially if I was the owner who got more. What's the achievement of beating the other owners if I had twice as much to spend? It's liking playing basketball against ten-year olds. I certainly wouldn't brag to everyone about my greatness afterwards.
So the Yankees won with a payroll that is twice that of most teams. Whatever. I just don't find that interesting or compelling. I don't hate them. I don't blame them for using their money. I just don't care--didn't watch any of the World Series.
The flip-side to this argument is that most (if not sufficiently enough) of the time, one of the ten-year-olds manages to defeat the adult, giving that much more weight to the gloating of the children.
Or something like that
Disclosure - I am a Jays fan.
Really? How about if your buy-in was proportionate to your fantasy team dollar budget? For a buck, you get a half-budget, for $10 you get a normal budget and for $100, you get a double-budget of fantasy dollars.
If that structure intrigues you, I suggest you start shopping now for an MLB franchise.
I'd only play in such a league if the person with the $100 stake is a moron. In the fantasy leagues I play in, they are competitive enough, if you spot the average owner a double budget, they will be very hard to beat, barring epic bad luck.
Interesting chart on percent of prior year revenues spent on this year's salaries. And, indeed, if you run the numbers there is a positive correlation of percent revenues spent with winning percentage of .26.
However, the correlation between actual salary dollars (as reported) and winning percent is considerably higher, at .47, and correlation between prior year's revenue (as reported) and this year's winning percent is .51. So I'm not sure what the percent of revenues measure really adds.
And, that's using the numbers reported, taking into account that they could be highly inaccurate themselves (except winning percentage :-).
And don't get me started on revenue sharing/salary cap...
Just more in the effort by Yankees fans to subdue any talk of them having a tremendous advantage on the other 29 teams. They do, but their fans don't want to believe it.
After they sign Lackey and Holliday this winter, they might think twice.
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I don't understand how the Red Sox '09 payroll could possibly have been under $122M. I'm thinking that figure might not include any of the non-guaranteed money that was earned by Smoltz, Penny, Saito, etc., nor the additions made during the season?