I understand the point of the baseball players union, I really do. It was formed when conditions for players was bad. Low pay, crappy team conditions, everyone was unionizing. Unfortunately the players union has kind of gone a little far in the past 20-30 years and they currently have literally all of the power in the Management (owners) vs Union (Players) relationship. Baseball is nothing without it's stars and they know it and teams would lose a very gigantic amount of money if the players went on strike again, so the owners capitulate. Plus the players union has the backing of the Federal Government (which should realistically have zero say in this manner but thats a different topic entirely)
The '94-'95 strike was THE chance for baseball as an organization to clean up what was about to happen. Since the Players Association basically won the strike, small town teams have been part of a boom/bust cycle (some teams mostly bust) which I'll describe here:
starting from a bad team:
1) Team is bad for a few years and has high draft slots while the team stinks. During this period attendance is low because the team is bad and it generally happens in a small market.
2) 3 or 4 players on that team (generally speaking high draft picks) all come to the majors within a couple of years of each other under team friendly contracts and start to perform well. Excitement builds for the team in the local fanbase and additional revenue comes to the team.
3) The team makes their "run" at the playoffs. the increased revenue means they can bring in a few key free agents (usually pitchers) and the team goes into a "win now" mentality trading away whatever other minor league prospects they have to try to reach the postseason.
4) Team starts to underperform because they cannot sign big name free agent targets (mostly pitchers) and cannot generate enough revenue to sign more than maybe 1 or 2 homegrown players to long contracts.
5) As the team starts struggling, attendance drops and the team faces a harsh reality. Mediocrity for the foreseeable future with middling draft picks and a bad farm system (caused by trades for "win now") or trade the stars they signed for prospects and tank a few seasons starting the whole cycle over.
Some teams never complete this cycle out of ineptitude. The Pirates have been especially bad for a long period of time now (20 years!), but this blame can entirely rest on a pretty bad scouting network on the team. They hit on McCutchen, one of my favorite players, but have so far missed on nearly everyone else (Neil Walker is their only other 1st round player thats hit the majors thats any good whatsoever and he's not good.....that tells you something right there)
Some teams are at the tail end of this cycle. The Brewers, Twins are two very good examples of this happening. Bloated contracts for players the team cannot afford to keep during what is likely to be a rebuilding process.
Teams on the rise of the process: Royals, Diamondbacks, Indians, Nationals. They have strong farm systems and/or a good core of young players to build a championship run around.
Tampa Bay is the only real team in the middle of the process, though the Orioles are kind of in the middle (though their pitching is suspect at best)
Why is the process bad for baseball?
This entire process revolves around teams hitting on prospects within the first round or 2 in order for it to lead to something in the future. Specifically it HAS to hit on at least one absolute star on the team to work out (i.e. hitting on Corey Hart is nice, but not as nice as Braun AND Fielder at the same time). The Nationals have Strasberg. The Diamondbacks have Upton (and Skaags/Bauer in the minors who im convinced are aces on almost any staff in the majors someday). The Royals have Hosmer (current struggles aside) and Moustakas. The indians are kind of a mystery to me as it's really Carlos Santana, but they are offensively an all around good club.
You also have to hit on homegrown pitchers. This is how the Brewers have done it (Gallardo), Tampa (too many to name!), Nationals (Strasberg/Zimmerman). This has to be at the same time.
And here is the problem with the process and why it's so maddening as a baseball fan, and Brewers fan in particular. This is what small market teams have to do in order to compete. This is why the owners voted a staggering 25-3 for a salary cap during the 1994-1995 strike (presumably the teams with the most income are the only ones to vote against). It's hard to do hit on players this often.
Lets take a look at the first round players drafted for the years 2000-2005 and see which ones are currently considered anything close to "stars":
2000: Adrian Gonzalez (Marlins), Chase Utley (Phillies), Adam Wainwright (Braves)
2001: Joe Mauer (Twins), Mark Teixeira (Rangers), David Wright (Mets, compensation pick)
2002: Zack Greinke (Royals), Prince Fielder (Brewers), Nick Swisher (A's), Cole Hamels (Phillies), Matt Cain (Giants)
2003: Rickie Weeks* (Brewers), Carlos Quinton (Diamondbacks), Adam Jones (Mariners, compensation pick)
2004: Justin Verlander (Tigers), Jared Weaver (Angels)
2005: Justin Upton (Diamondbacks), Ryan Zimmerman (Nationals), Ryan Braun (Brewers), Rickey Ramero (Blue Jays), Troy Tulowitzki (Rockies), Andrew McCutchen (Pirates), Jay Bruce (Reds), Jacoby Ellsbury (Red Sox)
* My Rickie Weeks hatred is well known but I'll include him on the list
Thats 24 picks in 6 years (average 4/year with average picks per year of about 32 with compensation round or somewhere around a 12.5% chance.
Teams have about a 12.5% chance of hitting on a draft choice in the first round. The numbers go down drastically after the first round. If you are one on the struggling small market teams these picks mean pretty much everything to your chances for success in the future. Even inside the top 10 picks the success rate is an abysmal 20%. And this is what small market teams have to do to compete!
Long Term health of baseball
Many "baseball people" point to TV ratings for a Red Sox/Yankees matchup in the playoffs vs a Brewers/Diamondbacks (as an example) and say that the Red Sox/Yankees matchup is what MLB wants. and it's true......in the short term. But it's not good for the long term health of baseball. What is good for the long term, and MLB attendance/popularity overall is to have a reasonable expectation of being able to compete across the board. Every franchise should have these swings in their team, and only those who draft and scout well should be immune to this.
People need to be honest about this topic and realistic. Does it make sense to anyone that a sport can be so heavily based off money? (note, this is NOT in any way paralleled to the "free market" because baseball has an agreement of monopoly privilege with congress). Baseball is the only sport not truly covered under anti-trust laws, therefore has no actual competition aside from other sports.
Over the course of the last decade, which teams have been the most competative nearly every single year?
Yankees
Red Sox
Angels
Phillies (last 5-7 years)
2 of those teams: regularly top 3 (Yankees always the top), Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies currently are the top 3 and the Angels almost always top 10
This is what money buys, consistently being able to compete over a long period of time.
number of first round picks these 3 teams have truely hit on? 2 (Ellsbury/Weaver)
number of first round hits that are currently on these teams? 7 (out of the 24 or almost 30%)
This is not good. Baseball is for all intents and purposes, putting most of the best players onto a few specific teams and leaving maybe one star, who happened to sign a long term early deal with the club that drafted them (in my eyes, a mistake on their part with the current system)
Well what about this year!? is something people will mention. Right now The Red Sox are in last, Yankees in third (of 5), Phillies in last (Angels in second to last). A lot of this can be attributed to a few things:
Angels: Pujols has not been playing very well, neither has Dan Haren. Thats $45 million or so in payroll not playing like that amount of money. if they play better, the team is at worst in second place in the division.
Phillies: Injuries and players getting old. Howard is out, utley is out, Rollins is getting older. Plus they play in the most competative division in baseball right now and are only 4 games from first. Eventually their hitting will catch up to their pitching and they will be in first
Yankees: Injury/pitching concerns (Pineda out for year), Orioles playing out of their minds. They will right the ship, they always do. They will make a trade at the deadline and make the playoffs as either the division winner or a wild card
Red Sox: Injuries. Youkilis (back with team), Crawford, Ellsbury, Bailey, Lackey, Dice-K, Cody Ross. They are playing Adrian Gonzalez in right FFS!
How the union screwed up baseball
Lack of a salary cap. When players went back to playing in 1995 and the new contract didnt have a salary cap system in place, they basically damned the smaller market teams to the boom bust cycle. And this exact thing has been happening for nearly 20 years now. This is of course in the players favor, salaries have gone waaaaaaaay up since the strike. $1.07 million in 1995, $3.44 million in 2012. or 321% increase.
What does this do? It drives away players to teams that are ready, willing, and able to pay the lofty amounts for free agents. Small teams cannot take the possibility of a pitcher who could make $20 million+ per year either underperforming or getting hurt. It basically screws their team. They cannot pay possibly more than 1 player that kind of money at all because of the same reason. Plus, if the big teams find that they really want a player, they can always just outbid the other teams, or offer longer contracts for the same amount because if there is an injury, they can soak up the difference and get someone else in free agency.
How I would fix it
The owners should have never signed the new CBA. It does nothing for about half or more of the teams. The new "harsher" luxury tax hits mean almost nothing to teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Phillies. These are teams estimated to be worth upwards of over $2 billion and have a HUGE fanbase. Meanwhile smaller teams get a little bit of cash meant to help them compete that ultimately means nothing. if the Rays for instance get $25 million in luxury money, they could conceiveably sign say, Albert Pujols, but then have almost noone else on their team but homegrown talent and thus, nothing is accomplished because they don't have a revenue stream to compete long term and sign other players.
What the luxury tax really does is mean small teams sign middling talent, because they have to in order to even attempt to compete. And they end up either mediocre or bad (and thus find themselves somewhere in the small market baseball team cycle).
The owners of the small market teams really need to just grow some balls. It's in their best interest LONG TERM to say no to the players union and to implement a salary cap. If it takes the players striking again, let them. And let this be the sole issue that the strike is about.
If the players had a strike over a salary cap, the fans of nearly every team in baseball will be on the owners side. In the last strike it was that way anyways and it took years for fans to return (but they did return, and in a huge way). But what the owners need to know, is that the fans in every baseball city would welcome balanced teams with balanced salaries (except Yankees/Red Sox/Phillies/Angels fans). You want to see baseball revived? Let the idea of a Pirates vs Royals World Series be something that people actually want to watch because the teams aren't just lucky but actually good.
Responses to common questions/complaints
1) Baseball has competitive balance. How many times have the these big market teams even won the World Series lately?
9 times out of the last 17 years (over 50% have been 4 of the largest spenders. but 13 times they have made the World Series. The number of times the highest spenders have made the playoffs however is very high. how many times have the Yankees missed the playoffs since the spending spree started?
2) You're a communist. Apparently you don't believe in the free market.
Actually I believe in the Austrian School of economics, which is the only truely free market system devoid of government control. Baseball falls outside of "free market" for 2 reasons.
a) It has laws through congress which makes it a virtual Monopoly. It has no competition in the realm of baseball in the US, because they are the only ones officially recognized as professional baseball. Summer ball, Winter ball, Arizona leagues etc all fall under the purview of MLB. Baseball also has many stadiums funded by local governments.
b) Baseball is allowed to make its own rules concerning it's own independent league. free market means no government interference, and actually if it was free market the baseball strike in 1994 would have probably ended with the players losing and a salary cap (and thus more revenue for every team as they would be more balanced in the long run). The current setup happened precisely because baseball is NOT a free market, and the labor union cried to congress.
3) You just hate the Yankees, if your favorite team could spend like the Yankees, you wouldn't complain.
Yes I would. I don't know how people can enjoy winning a game where the deck is stacked in their favor. I've never understood cheaters in things that are meant to be played for fun, and I don't understand wanting to have such a strong grip on competition in what is meant to be a fan enjoyed past time. If what you enjoy is watching your favorite team beat inferior competition based almost entirely on the size of the city it is in (or how old the team is) then you must really love the first week of the college football season (which i personally hate)
4) Look at the Rays, they are a model franchise. Or the Brewers!
They are an outlier and are going to crash in the near future. Once the Rays cannot sign more than one of their stars to long term contracts, their run is done. They are in the middle of their cycle, and trust me when they fall it's going to be noticeable.
The Brewers are right at the cusp of the end of the competitive part of their cycle and need to be smart with how they proceed. By all means keep Braun, but they can pretty much dump the rest of their roster (maybe keep Gallardo) to attempt to shorten their cycle by revamping their minors.
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