The current Busine$$ of Baseball...how long can it last?

by KYCards on Nov 6, 2009 5:35 AM EST Comment 36 comments

Right off the bat I want to say I thank the heavens that I am a Cardinals fan and the success this franchise has had over the past 13 years! We have been really lucky and in the current system we should be able to compete...BUT...

If your a fan of an American League team that's not the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels and you haven't given up on baseball you are a true die hard fan. I say that as a joke but it's not really a laughing matter anymore. And this isn't to put down the Yankees and their 27th Championship because believe it or not deep down I really respect their history and a lot of their true die-hard fans. This isn't about the Yankees...this is about the current system that baseball has that a team like the Yankees can thrive on. Yeah some can say that is a good thing but the fact is almost half of the teams in baseball don't have a year to year glimmer of hope to win it all like the Orioles, Blue Jays, Royals, A's, ect. because of the way the business of baseball has become over the past 12-14 years. Like it or not the sport has become somewhat of a sport of the haves and the have nots. The large market teams are thriving right now and are playoff bound almost every season in the current system...for better or worse. But it's not a suprise because baseball like everything else in entertainment has become about ratings, big coorporations, big dollar sponsorships and high dollar TV contracts. And in this era of big time money the small market teams just can't compete with the big boys when it comes to paying these free agent contracts. This is where the problem is. Is it a problem? Probably depends on what part of the country you live in but for some....yeah it's a problem.

Right now MLB is in a big money making boom (the sport as a whole). But it will change at some point. It may take another 10-15 years or so but this current system will crash on MLB and things will have to change. It could be that some teams will have to fold because fans in the small markets will just finally give up on the sport (and this is starting to happen to many of the small market teams now) or maybe a new system will have to be established but the boom won't last forever and if baseball is to survive.. changes will have to be made. If not then at some point Major League Baseball is going to become just a large market sport when every team will be located in just the large markets and markets where baseball is king (St. Louis) and the league could be shaved to where there will only be about 20-22 teams in baseball. I know that sounds drastic but the small markets are slowly being killed off from the sport and if the fans give up and don't show up anymore and buy tickets and they start to lose local sponsorships then several of these teams (Pirates, Reds, Royals, Marlins, Rays, A's ect.) will go bankrupt....maybe not the owners of the teams per say but the franchise in that city will go bankrupt. I know that sounds crazy but when you really look at the current structure of MLB is it really? And maybe that might not be a bad thing...maybe MLB needs to contract 4-6 teams in the future.

In most of these small markets in recent years they have got by the problems by building fancy new stadiums (some by using the tax payer's money) to try and lure in the fans and it has worked to some degree but that is starting to wear off. So here soon if they don't have a team they can get behind and want to spend money on, these teams can't sell just a new stadium forever and they are going to be in big trouble and getting the luxury tax checks from MLB won't be enough to survive. If things don't change in the next 10 years or so there might not be any turning back. There are no easy answers and yeah there are some teams where the owners are greedy and won't put money back in the teams for a real chance to contend. That is a huge problem that is eating away some of these small markets as well. But the deal is.... at some point MLB has to forget about the media pointing at steroids as baseball's biggest problem and ignore the calls for big ratings from the networks for a little while and find a way to work with the owners and player's union to somehow fix the problems that has become the ugly business of baseball.....for the good of the game...as a whole..

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You know what all of those “small market” teams have in common. They have been horribly managed. (You can make a case that the Rays aren’t, but that’s a newfound situation, Marlins is debatable).

Baseball has a revenue system in place to protect a lot of the small market teams from going “bankrupt” (cite the Cubs if you want, but they’re a special case).

It’s in the major market team’s interest if the smaller market teams are competitive, but it’s on the smaller market’s shoulders to do something too. You can’t complain as a Royals fan about the major markets when you’ve had a ton of high draft picks, and you still suck shit.

Baseball has it’s issues (charge for everything, fighting “stats” as a right, time consumption in a A.D.D. world, roids, umpire accountability, blackout issues). I just can’t agree with your conclusion.

Through this decade there have been plenty of major market teams that have sucked shit too at one time or another, did they spend or manage their way out of it. By your conclusion you say spend, I think manage.

One Century down, next on its way. Cardinals '09 : Preserving the Cubs tradition.
In Albert I Trust, In Colby I Believe.

by AdjustedExpectations on Nov 6, 2009 9:09 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

plus some of those horribly managed teams

are some of the most profitable teams in all of baseball. I think more people should bitch about team owners that take the money and stick it in their pockets insteas of putting it back into the team. I don’t have a problem with successful teams making a small profit, but I think if you are going to be an owner, it shouldn’t be about lining your wallet. Give me the Yankees any day over teams like the Royals and Marlins.

Lighten up, Francis - Sergeant Hulka

* sarcasm might be involved in this comment

by mattyfrommo on Nov 6, 2009 9:36 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I don't know how you come up with this conclusion...

But it will change at some point. It may take another 10-15 years or so but this current system will crash on MLB and things will have to change.

Do have any significant proof of this? Any evidence to support this point? Or is this just what you think will happen?

I don’t agree with this post at all, there’s no relevant evidence to prove it. The only sport that has had to rearrange itself is the NHL, and the problem there was horrible management of TV contracts, revenue sharing, and ownership. None of those things are problems in the MLB that I can see.

This is a very “populist” argument, it’s easy to make (“It’s an unfair system!! The big money teams are dominating and are ruining the game!!”), but it’s harder than hell to actually back up. There are teams who get great attendance and are located in a big market that have sucked royally for most of the last 10 years because of shrewd ownership and poor general management (Baltimore being the prime example: Great stadium, great fans, big revenues, stupid ownership and management).

Second, look at all the other leagues and tell me how having a “dynasty” type team or teams has hurt them. Have the Patriots making 4 Super Bowls in a decade hurt the NFL? Did the 49ers of the 80’s, the Cowboys and Bills of the early 90’s, or the Steelers and Cowboys of the 70’s hurt the NFL? Hell no, they helped build that league into what it is today. Look at the teams in the NFL who are well managed and are at or near the cap every year: Cowboys, Giants, Eagles, Patriots. I think you’ll find that those teams have won the most division titles. Then look at teams like the Lions, Rams, Raiders, and Bills over the last decade — they’ve been horrible managed, made bad decisions on coaches, and/or have shitty ownership, hence, they’ve sunk the bottom of the league and will continue to stay there until something changes.

Same with the NBA, were the Lakers, Celtics and Pistons teams in the 80’s bad for the league? What about the Bulls of the 90’s? Or the Lakers and Spurs in the last 12 years? The NBA seems to be doing just fine, and the teams that don’t compete are the teams that are poorly managed (Grizzlies, Bobcats, Warriors, Knicks), and Knicks have some of the highest ticket prices in the league and play in the league’s biggest market for media and fans — and they’ve sucked ASS for nearly 10 years now.

Look at English Premier League soccer. It’s basically been dominated by about 4 teams for the last 30 years and yet has the highest Q rating of any sports league in the world among it’s fans.

Now, look at the one decade in baseball that had only one repeat champion. The 1980’s are the only decade where that happened, and it also coincided with some of the worst attendance and lowest interest among fans that the sport has ever had. Obviously there are some other factors at play here as well, but the truth of the matter is that teams that are consistently good are good for the game, and that the small market teams have a chance to compete in this business model if they are properly managed. Last I checked, the Marlins have 2 World Series titles in the last 15 years and have only been a team since 1993.

Go ahead, try and contract any team from baseball and watch the fanbases of those teams rise up and fight it tooth and nail. There’s no way that the cities of Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are going to let you take away their baseball teams or move them somewhere else.

"I just wish that the late Harry Caray were still around so I could hear him mispronounce 'Kosuke Fukudome' every fukun' night" -- Dennis Miller

by fourstick on Nov 6, 2009 9:50 AM EST reply actions 1 recs

apples and oranges

The game of baseball itself ensures that unfair advantages wash out in the field. They average out, in the number of games played. In other words, there is only one Albert Pujols. Only. One. Everyone else playing the game is not dramatically better or worse than anyone else. The baseball really will find you.

All your examples are team sports, in the sense that the teams need working programs to succeed on the field. On the baseball field, all you need is one or two guys who are … Albert Pujols. Because you can’t have more than one person on a base. You’re ignoring the context of the sport itself. Trust your eyeballs — no matter how hard Tony tries, he can’t un-manage the success of his players. The robust nature of baseball is the nature of baseball, and what you’re throwing around are correlations, not causation from the economy.

Which means if the economic forces are driving those difference-makers to only the top-tier teams, that equalizing effect is going to be eroded. It is eroding. We’re sitting here wondering if we can keep Holliday, just the same as the Brewers were wringing their hands about Sabathia, just the same as the Pirates and Reds with their players.

Meanwhile the Yankees have their core players from 1996. It’s not normal to be switching out franchise players every 2-3 years because we can’t pay their salaries. Every frickin season. Yet that’s what we do every Hot Stove to even have a prayer of competing in the National League Central, the easiest league to get a title out of if only because the AL Central has a bunch of teams that don’t want a title.

(And guess what, if you can’t keep a core of players, you alienate the casual fanbase even more because as soon as they fall in love with a contributor, they’re gone.)

"It was like two ankles." AVENGE BOOG
"But listen, and understand: more Molinas are out there. They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear." - THT

by Yadi2Second on Nov 6, 2009 10:07 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

So in the other leagues the players don't win the games?

The Lakers and Celtics would have titles replacing Kobe, Shaq, Magic, Kareem, Russell, Cousy, Jones, Bird, and McHale with average players? I don’t think so. We have better stats for measuring individual player performance in baseball, but that doesn’t mean that the great players in the NBA and NFL don’t have an even more measurable impact on their teams. Take Peyton Manning away from the Colts and they’re a .500 team. Take Kobe off the Lakers and they’re barely a borderline playoff team. Take LeBron off the Cavs? HELLLOOOOO LOTTERY PICK!!!

The game of baseball itself ensures that unfair advantages wash out in the field. They average out, in the number of games played. In other words, there is only one Albert Pujols. Only. One. Everyone else playing the game is not dramatically better or worse than anyone else. The baseball really will find you.

I have no freaking idea what this is supposed to mean. That players are more closely correlated in talent to each other in baseball than they are in other sports? That the great baseball players have a larger gap between them and the average baseball player than the great NBA players and the average NBA players do? That baseball is more of a “team” sport than basketball or football? It’s a whole slew on contradictions disguised as a paragraph, wrapped up in language that makes it seem like you know what you’re talking about but doesn’t explain itself very well.

On the baseball field, all you need is one or two guys who are … Albert Pujols.

First of all, you need more than two good players to have a good baseball team. Second, how is that any different than any other sport? Great players beget great teams. Period. Third, you can be a pretty good baseball team if you have a bunch of above average players and no stars. That’s really tough to do in the NBA. You can win baseball games without having a great coach, that’s really hard to do in the NFL.

It’s not normal to be switching out franchise players every 2-3 years because we can’t pay their salaries.

This is complete hyperbole. Is it normal to pay a college junior $60M to suck the life out of your owner and fanbase? JaMarcus Russell sure has. Is it normal to pay a 19 year old kid $40M in guaranteed money just because everyone thinks he’s really good and you drafted him in the top 10 spots in the lottery at the draft? Marvin Williams sure thought that was great, but I think the Atlanta Hawks would disagree.

Baseball is the only sport where you have complete control of costs over your top players for 6 full seasons. SIX SEASONS!!! Franchise players aren’t leaving every 2-3 years. If they’re franchise players you have control over them for the first 6 years of their career, and they can’t do anything about it.

And guess what, if you can’t keep a core of players, you alienate the casual fanbase even more because as soon as they fall in love with a contributor, they’re gone.

Again, can you prove this? Can you prove that Royals fans are less interested now than they were when Carlos Beltran was patrolling CF for 5 years at the beginning of his career? Are Oakland fans less interested in the A’s because Giambi, Mulder, Hudson, Tejada, and Zito are gone, or is it because their team doesn’t win games consistently like they used to and they play in a football stadium?

Furthermore, the top teams only have 25 roster spots. They can’t have ALL of the good players and they can’t be players in signing ALL of the good players every year. It’s not like the pre-free agency era, where the Yankees would just keep All-Star caliber players in the minors for YEARS and stockpile talent. This system is much, much better than that one.

Which means if the economic forces are driving those difference-makers to only the top-tier teams, that equalizing effect is going to be eroded. It is eroding.

It is? Last I checked, the Twins and A’s have been pretty fucking competitive this decade and they aren’t the top-tier salary teams. The Marlins have two titles in the last 13 seasons and they aren’t either. The Rays made the World Series last year. None of those teams were or are in the top half of the league in payroll. Is it eroding, or are we emoting on the fact that the Yankees went out and spent $400M last season when nobody else wanted to spend big money?

Regardless of what you do, the big market teams are always going to have an inherent advantage. They have larger numbers of fans, a bigger TV market, and players are more marketable playing in New York or Los Angeles than they can be playing in Cleveland or Milwaukee.

"I just wish that the late Harry Caray were still around so I could hear him mispronounce 'Kosuke Fukudome' every fukun' night" -- Dennis Miller

by fourstick on Nov 6, 2009 10:48 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

actually...

being in the Bay Area, I’ll tell you with an absolute guarantee the reason nobody really cares about the A’s anymore is EXACTLY because they got rid of every single top named star they’ve had over the last 10 years systematically and their returns have been mediocre or ALSO TRADED. They were competitive 2 years ago for the first 2 months of the season (and in first place too for a wee bit) but they were STILL averaging 14k/game because the team was a hodgepodge of rookies, non-tenders and washed up veterans rather than any of the guys who went to the playoffs earlier in the decade.

When you trade Dan Haren for absolutely no reason at all (he’s STILL not making a ton of money!) you’re going to alienate fans. It’s one thing to get rid of your overpriced veterans when you’ve got a potential crop of studs on the farm that are hungry to prove themselves. It’s another thing to trade your ace pitcher AND your closer for hopes and wishes. And that’s just the last few years. They’ll do it again with whoever shines the brightest this year as if it’s some awesome game that only the ownership understands.

And the fans just have given up. You can get into almost any A’s game for $5 and a can of pepsi. Most of those seats go un-sold. Most of the lower deck is empty.

And I don’t want to hear any nonsense about Oakland being a “small market” when it’s freakin Silicon Valley. If St. Louis can field a $100m payroll and keep corporate sponsors engaged, there’s no reason Oakland can’t do it just because they’re the Oakland A’s instead of the Silicon Valley or San Jose A’s. They just don’t because baseball doesn’t provide any incentive whatsoever to do more than the bare minimum to make a profit, which Oakland does every year, despite being near the bottom in attendance.

The fans are not fooled.

by MasterDave on Nov 12, 2009 3:38 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The A's have a marketing problem

and a team across the bay that has a much better history and fanbase. San Francisco/Oakland is not a very big market to begin with, and they have to support two teams. That’s very difficult to do, regardless of how much you spend.

I’m glad that the Cardinals don’t have a fanbase as fickle as the A’s seems to be. If what you’re saying is true, then a bunch of A’s fans should have turned out last season after they traded for Matt Holliday. He’s a superstar player and they acquired him. When they made the playoffs a few years back, they didn’t have a bunch of superstar players, and they sold lots of tickets for that season, if attendance figures are to be believed, and their payroll was about the same as it is right now.

If I was an A’s fan, I’d be excited about all the young talent coming up from the minors that they acquired by trading those other guys. Flags fly forever, and I’m not going to attach my team allegiance to the players that play for that team and then stop buying tickets when they sign expensive deals with other teams.

Oakland is a football/basketball town, and the ownership of those two teams if far more inept than the A’s is. When was the last time the Warriors were in the conference semifinals? Has it even happened in the last 20 years? The Raiders are a complete mess and will be in salary cap hell for 4 more years if the cap isn’t removed next year.

"I just wish that the late Harry Caray were still around so I could hear him mispronounce 'Kosuke Fukudome' every fukun' night" -- Dennis Miller

by fourstick on Nov 13, 2009 9:46 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

FWIW, Money /= Market Size

That’s just a stupid argument to make. A bunch of fans who make $250,000 a year don’t go to a game and buy 40 seats, they buy one seat, just like everyone else who goes to a game. They get plenty of corporate sponsors, but there just aren’t a ton of people there to start with, and you have many more Giants fans in the Bay Area than you do A’s fans.

If it’s strictly money in the market that makes a difference, Seattle should be a big spender and a major market team and so should Detroit. There’s a lot of high $$$ making execs in both of those places, yet not many casual fans.

"I just wish that the late Harry Caray were still around so I could hear him mispronounce 'Kosuke Fukudome' every fukun' night" -- Dennis Miller

by fourstick on Nov 13, 2009 9:50 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Not all seats cost equal amounts of money

The answer to that is to build a luxury box-ridden stadium, charge the execs through the nose for a “premium” stadium experience and for corporate parties, and then have a bunch of $5-$10 seats. I actually think it’s weird that this hasn’t become the stadium model—lots of luxury boxes, and lots of cheap seats. The latter to keep the fans engaged, and to build a fan base, and the former to make money from playing the actual games.

I don’t get the logic of making the stadia smaller these days, other then perhaps there being some marketing value to saying that x percentage of games are ‘sellouts’

They say that it's never too late, but you don't get any younger...

by Valatan on Nov 14, 2009 2:28 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Limited supply = increased demand

Now with extra feisty!

by spants on Nov 15, 2009 10:47 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Less overhead.

"In 2035, 25 young men will be able to call themselves world champions. Some of those guys haven’t even been born yet. And some of them are Asian." -Mike Shannon

by Alxfritz on Nov 17, 2009 10:28 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

baseball as a sport is not going to grow until they put the broadcasting channels under their heel

and not the other way around.

They’re marketing it like it’s sci-fi, and not everyone is going to like it or understand it. Well, duh, it’s going to remain a niche market for enthusiasts only. There’s no potential for growth there.

The schedule alone, good fuck.

by Yadi2Second on Nov 6, 2009 9:51 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

baseball does need to embrace progress

this is one of the reasons it is no longer the National Pastime. Every other sports league has figured this out. But Bud and the owners have to insist on being stubborn and insist that it isn’t broke, so don’t fix it ( and my argument about all this has NOTHING to do with the economics of the sport).

Lighten up, Francis - Sergeant Hulka

* sarcasm might be involved in this comment

by mattyfrommo on Nov 6, 2009 10:04 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

tl;dr. it's no longer the national pastime because lifestyles have changed

and ticket prices have gone up. because of the economic pressure to compete. they have to build new stadiums with luxury boxes to compete? baseball has thrived in the past because you could put more people in the seats for more games. it is a sport which does not translate well to television.

(new stadiums, including ours, are building with fewer seats from their predecessors. )

so yeah, the deck is stacked against baseball because handegg looks better on everyone’s big screen. but to say that the economics aren’t affecting how teams can make money and stay viable — it’s like saying, hey, you’ve only got one hand tied, let me sit on the other and see how you do. basically it’s the market forces of baseball often driving ticket prices, instead of the local market of the ticketbuyers.

What struck me was reading about the Rays. One of the first things they did was offer free parking. It was a hit — because it made it easier to go to the ballpark. Anything that makes it harder to go to the ballpark, be it a television schedule that starts games an hour before kids’ bedtimes, or high ticket prices, or star players who just won’t be there next year — that puts appreciable dents into team’s wallets.

I wouldn’t have believed it if we hadn’t just gone on a trading spree on the strength of a extra few hundred thousand tickets sold. But that’s fingernail scraping close. That’s will-Carp-be-healthy too close.

You’re right — the owners need to adapt to the changing lifestyles of their audience. But they’re probably going to ignore the obvious fixes and try to market baseball like handegg, because they’re hamstrung by an economy that suborns growth.

by Yadi2Second on Nov 6, 2009 10:27 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Ticket prices haven't really gone up all that much when adjusted for inflation

They’ve just been tiered in such a manner that the average fan can’t get the really good seats anymore. Attendance has continued to set new records this decade despite higher ticket prices.

You can still go see a Cardinals game for $10-$20 if you go on the right day. You can still take your family for around $150 with tickets, food, a pennant, and scorecard. Tickets in the 70’s were around $5 on average, with the differenced between the expensive and cheap tickets being around $40 or so. Now the difference is around $150.

"I just wish that the late Harry Caray were still around so I could hear him mispronounce 'Kosuke Fukudome' every fukun' night" -- Dennis Miller

by fourstick on Nov 6, 2009 10:56 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Under the banner of progress, here’s some off the cuff things I’d do if I were baseball.

Remove artificial barriers:

Give streaming back to Sports Talk stations. Behind all of the bitching and moaning on those radio shows is a fan base that clearly gives a shit. If the station wants to stream it across the web, let them. Request a couple of ad spots (which, will probably give you more income anyways). You can still offer the “all in one” experience with gameday.

Develop a true “fair use” policy, then enforce that. It was absurd that the girl who threw back the ball clips were removed from everywhere but MLB’s actual site. If I want to spend a day pulling clips of Boog’s best plays of the year by browsing the archives, I shouldn’t have to worry about a take down notice coming from it. Yes, Copyright and DMCA protects me, but it doesn’t remove the hassle.

In short, if there’s something that’s creating interest, get the hell out of the way.

Allow non-traditional media in. Now I’m not saying every blog, but allow them to form a group, then give them the same press credentials that you give traditional media. Allow them the same rights. The community will direct them. What questions to ask, etc. They can have one core person in each market, then that group could host answers, video, audio for bloggers to take and make content with. This includes a photographer if they so incline. There should be no reason why any blogger has a concern if Associated Content is coming after them. Again, invite vs barrier.

CBA is up in two years, get back to double headers – I’m not talking 20 of them, but some. Secondly, get the schedule more balanced. Third, lesson the amount of 2 game series.

(Or what I’d like to see is the schedule go “netflix competition” and have it open for submissions and then one picked by a core set of merits. The “insiders” edge on scheduling is going to keep the same situations coming up over and over since it’s the same group doing it.)

Go back to standard licencing on video games instead of exclusive. Exclusivity breeds mediocrity, be different from the other sports.

Next TV deals work on “fall build up” that brings more games in primetime during the fall before the postseason. Currently going from practically no games on to “post season” doesn’t exactly keep the faith. Secondly, fix blackout rules.

Provide API’s. MLB should be the sport to say “whatever you want on our sport, it’s here” Pitch f/x has shown that by given data some neat shit happens. Just imagine if you could get stats real time to put in whatever application you want

I’m sure there’s more, I don’t mind MLB making money, I love the sport. I just wish it would just “open” up and let us consume it how we want to, instead of the mlb.com way.

In my eyes, the problem with MLB is that it’s pulled more and more inward. It’s no longer a true water cooler conversation, unless you subscribe to extra innings or sit on game day all evening, it doesn’t get out.

One Century down, next on its way. Cardinals '09 : Preserving the Cubs tradition.
In Albert I Trust, In Colby I Believe.

by AdjustedExpectations on Nov 6, 2009 11:22 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Show the entire game on the big video board at the stadium. You know, like the NFL does.

Show replays of close calls. Who cares if the umps don’t like it (see below)

Fix the fucking unpiring already.

Use instant replay. It won’t kill the sport.

Lighten up, Francis - Sergeant Hulka

* sarcasm might be involved in this comment

by mattyfrommo on Nov 6, 2009 11:33 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

lol, I could go on and on about what stadiums themselves should do/have.

disagree on the replay though. I think there should be more, I think they should alternate into the high minors with other ump teams, and I think there should be accountability.

I’d compromise on a “one challenge” rule concept.

One Century down, next on its way. Cardinals '09 : Preserving the Cubs tradition.
In Albert I Trust, In Colby I Believe.

by AdjustedExpectations on Nov 6, 2009 11:45 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I definitely agree about replays at the stadium

when I went to Yankee stadium last year (don’t know if it was broken or something) I couldn’t believe that they didn’t show HR shots or indeed ANYTHING from the game on their big screen (which is a full-colour, seeming state-of-the-art one) at any point.

Felonius Monk - bitching to contact since 2008

by Felonius_Monk on Nov 16, 2009 9:50 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Oh, and find me the baseball version of Cris Collinsworth. I know pigskin talk isn’t overly well taken this year, but after being stuck with Madden for all of those years (who’s game dissection is using x’s and o’s) and going to Cris is fucking amazing.

If the NFL can find the time to dissect plays and provide detail, MLB sure in the hell can.

Pitching coach going out to the mound? Great – quit going to the commercial, show me the pitcher’s release points. Not in a video clip after another after another, but overlay them so I can see them back to back to back, show me the result of those pitches same thing, interlace them in. Why on earth do they show you how someone was pitched two in independent clips is beyond me. Let me see how that slider looked on top that curve in the same frame.

Show me the outfield shifts, as they’re being called, break down the “newfound” stats. If you can do OBP during the Sox series a couple of years back, you can do it across the season. Give me insights, past video, etc.

In short, Burger King’s hotzone just isn’t fuckin’ cutting it.

One Century down, next on its way. Cardinals '09 : Preserving the Cubs tradition.
In Albert I Trust, In Colby I Believe.

by AdjustedExpectations on Nov 6, 2009 11:43 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

-this year +here

One Century down, next on its way. Cardinals '09 : Preserving the Cubs tradition.
In Albert I Trust, In Colby I Believe.

by AdjustedExpectations on Nov 6, 2009 11:46 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Interesting

Allow non-traditional media in.

I totally agree with this. Anyone who runs a blog site like this one should be eligible to get a press pass from the team. This is as knowledgeable as any other baseball talk out there, so our mods should have the opportunity to get better access if they want it.

Next TV deals work on "fall build up" that brings more games in primetime during the fall before the postseason. Currently going from practically no games on to "post season" doesn’t exactly keep the faith. Secondly, fix blackout rules.

I would reverse this — blackout rules are fucking stupid. Just STUPID. Do people go to Indians games because they can’t watch them on TV? I seriously doubt it. I think this only helps the big market teams while killing the smaller market teams. I don’t think prime time games towards the end of the season are going to make a lot of difference. You have college football on 5 nights a week and the NFL on the other 2 after the first week of September. I do think that some flex scheduling with division title races might be interesting though, although I don’t think that the networks are going to support it.

CBA is up in two years, get back to double headers – I’m not talking 20 of them, but some. Secondly, get the schedule more balanced. Third, lesson the amount of 2 game series.

No way the player’s union allows them to schedule doubleheaders other than for make up games. I just isn’t going to happen, unless they also decrease the length of the season by 10 days are start the season later or the playoffs earlier. Even then, I don’t think that the players go for it. Agree on schedule balancing, and either get rid of interleague play or expand it a bit so that teams can play their “rivals” once and then play all the teams from a particular division in a series, and then change the divisions around every year. We shouldn’t have two game series, but that’s created by schedule balancing and the stupidity of having more teams in one league.

"I just wish that the late Harry Caray were still around so I could hear him mispronounce 'Kosuke Fukudome' every fukun' night" -- Dennis Miller

by fourstick on Nov 6, 2009 1:19 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I couldn’t say it would be a good idea to give any blog, even in a standard of this one a press pass just based on the pure logistics of it. But if there was an org representing (and thus getting the information) blogs, sportzines etc then it would allow direct content production as opposed to secondary as it typically is now.

Agreed on blackouts, and as far as ramp up was considered I was looking more into enforcing direct tv to “open the gates” as the season ended on the extra innings package. Those who are going to pay have already paid, network tv generally covers most of the post season. They’re not losing anything, and MLB can gain some exposure.

Back in college I did a paper in Combinatorics on baseball scheduling. Now, this has been years ago and the advancements have been insane but without external factors (U2 concerts etc) that if you applied (6 if I recall) doubleheaders and removed as many 2 game series you could you’d save quite a bit of travel time and provide more days off. We didn’t look into shortening the season, externals, or overly into the logistics (flight avail that day etc) but it was weighted with proportionate time zone/travel penalties.

So that’s where that comment came from, and how the ‘netflix competition’ concept relates.

One Century down, next on its way. Cardinals '09 : Preserving the Cubs tradition.
In Albert I Trust, In Colby I Believe.

by AdjustedExpectations on Nov 6, 2009 2:10 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The season should be shortened

I realise it’s sacriligious, and perhaps not economically viable, but the games/series should MEAN more. When you’re visiting Pittsburgh for the 3rd time in the season in early August, it begins to get a bit meaningless.

Felonius Monk - bitching to contact since 2008

by Felonius_Monk on Nov 16, 2009 9:53 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

that will be a big series

first-place on the line.

"Some days I feel like the hypotenuse in a love triangle; others as if my lucky number is pi."

by cardball on Nov 16, 2009 2:45 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The unbalanced schedule has been an unmitigated disaster for most teams

I hate, hate hate it. And it has the added detriment of making the wildcard stupid.

They say that it's never too late, but you don't get any younger...

by Valatan on Nov 17, 2009 3:36 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Not to mention that

adopting a balanced schedule would eliminate some of the complaining of the non-NY,BOS teams in the AL East—they could either compete against the league for the wildcard, or against their divisional foes for the divisional title, rather than having to fight a stacked division to win a wild card.

They say that it's never too late, but you don't get any younger...

by Valatan on Nov 17, 2009 3:39 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I'd like to see more day games if that's possible.

You aren’t really appealing to a younger crowd if there are games that last until 1 A.M. on Friday night on the East Coast. I hate it when the Cards go play the Dodgers or something because you have to choose between going out or watching the game. And in general it sucks not going anywhere before 11 on Friday nights. I think baseball is content in appealing to 60 year old men and not thinking about 15-30 year olds.

(Insert Your Own Joke)

by AWolfAtTheDoor on Nov 9, 2009 1:53 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

A lot of 15-30 year olds have school or work too

I would much rather have the choice whether to go out on Friday or watch the game, rather than have it start at 1:00pm and not even have that opportunity.

Free Milton

by all4tookie on Nov 9, 2009 7:12 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The problem isn't that the Yankees are too much of a large-market team for other teams to compete.

The problem is that the market doesn’t have adequate competition because of tight controls on teams. The market isn’t too big, there just aren’t enough teams in it. For many years, New York had three very good baseball teams (out of as few as 16 total teams, meaning 18.7% of the total teams in MLB were in New York). With 30 teams, the NYC market could support four separate teams- instead it has two and they constantly rank near or at the top of the league in payroll. The simplest solution would be to start up another Brooklyn team or a team in NJ, but there’s no way the governments and people there would pony up the $500M necessary for that startup. $500M is also probably too much to expect from a private group no matter how dumb they are.

Also, you make a few points that are just not true:

It may take another 10-15 years or so but this current system will crash on MLB and things will have to change. It could be that some teams will have to fold because fans in the small markets will just finally give up on the sport (and this is starting to happen to many of the small market teams now)

If the markets really are too small to support professional teams, then the teams will fail. This just is not the case in the current system, however, and it’s mismanagement that most often drives and keeps fans away from a team. Your point about how this is already starting to happen is just not true. Most small market teams are actually spending a lower percentage of their revenue on payroll than the Yankees.

In most of these small markets in recent years they have got by the problems by building fancy new stadiums (some by using the tax payer’s money) to try and lure in the fans and it has worked to some degree but that is starting to wear off.

You don’t give examples, but I assume you’re talking about the Marlins here. If that’s true, you’re using a bad example in which the team is essentially taking advantage of an idiotic local government to make tons of money for its ownership. This is not the same as a small market team being unable to compete: The Marlins could more than double their payroll and still not spend the same percentage of their revenue as most teams do. Public financing in general is a load of horseshit that is almost never warranted and is just a gigantic capitulation of local governments to whining sports teams.

I know that sounds drastic but the small markets are slowly being killed off from the sport and if the fans give up and don’t show up anymore and buy tickets and they start to lose local sponsorships then several of these teams

How many teams are going bankrupt right now? Even the awful Pirates, a team that has had one of the worst and longest runs of bad management and bad performance in the history of baseball continues to make money. If it hasn’t happened in just under two decades, how long will it take before it does?

In all, your idea of contraction would be fine if it was motivated by market forces (currently unlikely), but what else are you proposing? I assume it’s not a salary cap or floor, because you didn’t mention that at all (thankfully we don’t need to argue it; it would only make problems worse). Wouldn’t a third NY team to help divide the monstrous east-coast market be more helpful?

"Of course Kolby Rasmus was going deep! That’s what Kolby Rasmus does! You don’t give Kolby Rasmus second chances!" -Kolby Rasmus

by hazel on Nov 6, 2009 10:40 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Third NY team?

ESPN just got a hard-on.

Sorry, I had to.

One Century down, next on its way. Cardinals '09 : Preserving the Cubs tradition.
In Albert I Trust, In Colby I Believe.

by AdjustedExpectations on Nov 6, 2009 10:42 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Good counterpoints everyone

I agree… no teams are bankrupt right now are in real close danger to folding….but I’m just looking into the future of what could happen. I posted this to get some thoughts going on what people think of the current economic structure of baseball is right now and how long it can go on before some kind of collapse could happen. Which I think could happen at some point. Although a lot depends on the state of the economy in the years ahead.

I do think the system is working to a point right now…but I’m not so sure in the years to come. I didn’t bring up a salary cap for a couple of reasons….1. That would turn this post into fights and endless rants that we have gone over to death. No need to rehash. 2. I have actually come to the conclusion that a cap really isn’t the answer because that still won’t get some of these small market teams to spend money to compete anymore than they do now.

Thanks to everyone for their input and thoughts.

Boy a frosty cold Budweiser would be great about now"…long pause…then an "aahhh". --Mike Shannon

by KYCards on Nov 6, 2009 5:44 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

April 09 Forbes article

from my one and only FanPost, here is a link to an article about in Forbes on the Business of Baseball. The article has links ranking teams by various financial data. This link is to a table ranking the teams by 2008 operating income. Marlins come out on top. All but the Tigers had positive operating income.

by ubeddie on Nov 6, 2009 11:46 PM EST reply actions 0 recs