Odds and Ends: Andruw, Marquis, Coonelly

Tim-

I've noticed that the three teams that have publicly voices their support for a salary cap are all in the NL Central.

I think the reason they support a cap is they are in a division with the Cubs who will always be able to out spend them.

The Cardinals are the team in that division that has not called for a salary cap. They are the most successful team in the division over a long period of time and the Pirates, Brewers and Astros could be just as successful if the emulate the Cardinals.

"The Cardinals are the team in that division that has not called for a salary cap. They are the most successful team in the division over a long period of time and the Pirates, Brewers and Astros could be just as successful if the emulate the Cardinals."

The Cardinals are cheap. They try and hide under the umbrella of a small to mid market team, when in fact they are a mid to high market team. Ownership pockets a ton and the fans deserve a better product after filling that stadium over and over.

1. Cahill and Anderson won't be up in July. I'd think September at the earliest. Don't rush prospects. Outman should be up opening day unless there's a SP signed; he's more ready than Gio Gonzalez is. Another reason to sign Ben Sheets. I'm going to toot that horn repeatedly.

2. Re: Gallagher and weight. Look at his 1st half/2nd half splits. He did have an injury late in the season, and it was rumored that he was pitching through that injury. Pair that up with the A's conditioning staff's sketch reputation. Gallagher's first half was solid. Slightly above league average. Second half was a disaster.

3.I LOVE the title of the Sox Machine article. Love it.

"I think the reason they support a cap is they are in a division with the Cubs who will always be able to out spend them.

The Cardinals are the team in that division that has not called for a salary cap. They are the most successful team in the division over a long period of time and the Pirates, Brewers and Astros could be just as successful if the emulate the Cardinals."

The Cardinals are the only other team in that division that can come even close to the Cubs in terms of payroll, and their ownership doesn't even seem terribly willing to dole out cash either.

The Astros and Cardinals will spend a pretty penny once in a while, but the Reds, Brewers and Pirates really don't stand a chance.

The big issue with the Pirates, Astros and Reds, is that all three teams have been ran pretty poorly in the last couple of years.

I hate the idea of a salary cap.

Of course the owners want a salary cap, if one is put into place then they get to keep more of their own money.

A salary cap just gives owners the opportunity to spend less on the team/roster and more on themselves.

Let me guess, an agent is going to come out and say he doesn't want a salary cap????

Right now, the A's payroll is at 44MM, (they only added ~10MM in overall salary w/ Holliday b/c they cleared Street's salary) If opening day payroll is projected at 50-65MM, the A's can easily afford the pitcher they need.

I agree scribble...with that rotation and Holliday, I actually think they might give the Angels a scare.

I don't see why the Pirates payroll has been so low to begin with anyways. Pittsburgh is obviously a great sports town and fans would flock to the stadium if the team was a little better. There's still a lot of die-hard fans for a team who hasn't won in 16 years, just give us a real team to root for in September and October!

I do NOT see Andruw going to the Yankees. He seems to want to get out from under the performance pressure, and the Bronx is not the place for that.

Of course, I don't know of anywhere that wouldn't boo him after last year's performance.

forget about the salary cap,
what we really need is a salary floor, cause the marlins and rays payroll suck.
raise the limit to 35mil a

Posted by: marlinsman1120 | January 05, 2009 at 11:04 AM

That is just amazingly well said.

And yea, when I first read that thing about the cap room, I noticed all three teams mentioned were in the national league central. But what I dont get is that the Cubs in the past have not really been a big spending team. The Tribune company was accused for that for years until about 2004 when they saw that they had a chance to win and started pumping money into the team. I mean, isnt that the thing that ballclub management SHOULD be doing? I mean yea, if you know that you are in a rebuilding mode and are not named the Yankees, then you are not required to put a team out on the field that has a budget that competes with the best of them. Although some teams have been able to compete with low payrolls, ie. the marlins and rays in recent history, for the most part, you must spend money to win ball clubs. Look at the Pirate for example. In recent history, they have had half way decent players on that team that might have been able to be pieces to a winning ballclub: Kendall in his prime, Giles in his prime, Jason Bay, Xavier Nady, Oliver Perez. I by no means want to sound like I'm ripping on the Pirates, but I'm just showing the trades such as the one involving Jason Bay make no sense if you are a team that is trying to rebuild to compete.

I think the payroll floor should be closer to $50M.

If one team is closing in on a $200M payroll, then I think at the very least all teams should come within being 25% of that payroll.

If the Yankees go up to $240M, then the minimum would be $60M.

Alas, I think we should really just leave the payrolls alone.

Fixing things like the draft and draft compensation are bigger issues.

Just a hastily prepared thought ... If you are to institute a payroll floor, it shouldn't be a dollar amount per team. There should be a minimum amount paid to each player per year of service. So, if a team wants to field all rookies, they can do so and it will be inexpensive. But, if they want to be competitive (and, thus, draw fans), they will have to spend some dough.
A major caveat here is that the team fielding rookies to save money cannot complain about the lack of parity.
This will also get rid of some veterans who don't qualify for salary minimums and will make more roster spots available for younger, higher energy players.

Couple points, the David Chase article is really interesting.

Second, I really like Jeff Passan, but he states that Gorkys Hernandez or Brendon Hayword will be in the Atlanta CF position soon, and he's wrong on both accounts.

Hernandez was almost traded for Peavy, which to me says he won't be around that long, and Hayword is a corner outfielder, not a CF'er.

Other than that, it was a good look at the Braves, especially looking at the rotation where nobody has recognized what Campillo did for the team last year.

Chase's grammar needs work.

Also, it sort of seems like Passan's just spouting the first things that come to his mind. He knows a lot, but doesn't seem to do much fact-checking, or research.

I think a payroll floor is the most effective way to go. The one addition I would like to see is player development cost counted towards this floor. If a team wants to throttle back it’s 25 man pay roll but increase is minor leagues operations they should not be penalized.

In fact the “Reduce over head” cadre of owners should encourage it because if a teams are successful they will potentially produce more replacement level ( or better) players then they need. This could make it easier to avoid signing older more expensive veterans to round out the roster.

I think you guys need to look at an actually salary cap/floor to understand that realities of it. It would not decrease players salaries for the most part. In fact i am also most sure it would increase them. In the NFL they have a hard cap, meaning no team can exceed the cap number. As such that is set at 60% of the year before revenues. Not profits, but revenues. And the floor is set to 85-90% (depending on year) of the cap. If these figures held true for baseball, with its 6 billion dollar revenues last year, teams would have a cap limit of 137.5 million (4 billion divided by 30 teams) and floor would have been about 120 million.

Who really thinks that would happen?

And that could be wrong, say the follow the NBA format with a soft cap, and that would allow teams to spend over the cap for players they developed. So there is no way to say it would limit the Yankees payroll, but it sure would increase the Rays/Marlins/Brewers/Padres, hell just about everyones payroll.

While we are at it, allow teams to trade draft picks!

But Aduncaroo, thats an idea, but it would very very complex, and the players would never go for it.

But the big difference in the salary capped NFL is the revenue sharing, and TV contracts. Revenue sharing would have be massively increased for New York and Boston and other large market clubs, that way the numbers equal. But which owner that has a profitable club is going to want to give money to other clubs so they can compete with theirs?

I understand what you are saying...and maybe you are right...but I bet you that MLB has the biggest discrepency between lowest and highest revenue of the bottom team and the top (Yankees). Salary Cap only works with a salary floor though...thats for sure. Problem for the sport is, the Yankees would no longer be the Yankees...it would change the sport in its entirety. For the good or bad is argueable...

Derek Lowe will end up with the braves for 4yr/56 million dollar deal with option for 5th yr.

I have been an Angels fan since 1989 and I'm going to give you guys a list of players the Angels have brought up and/or acquired as prospects and brought up in the past 20 years...

Jim Abbott
Paul Sorrento
Dante Bichette
J.T. Snow
Gary DiSarcina
Lee Stevens
Tim Salmon
Jim Edmonds
Garrett Anderson
Orlando Palmeiro
Troy Percival
Darin Erstad
Jarrod Washburn
Troy Glaus
Scott Schoeneweis
Ramon Ortiz
Adam Kennedy
Scot Shields
John Lackey
Frankie Rodriguez
Chone Figgins
Ervin Santana
Jered Weaver
Howie Kendrick
Erick Aybar
Joe Saunders
Mike Napoli
Jeff Mathis
Jose Arredondo

There are actually more, but I'm drawing a blank lol.

Now tell me this...

How the hell does being a big market ballclub have anything to do with winning when you can bring up this many quailty players, many of which are/were All-Stars?

The Angels have a $120 million payroll because Arte Moreno is trying dethrone the Dodgers, and then he is going to try and dethrone the Yankees.

There is one problem, however. The Angels are not the Yankees, and never will be. We have our own identity and I am sick of all the whining about getting big bats when we already have them in our organization. They just need to mature a little bit.

The Yankees' 26 Championships were mainly the product of building from within. This monopoly (for lack of a better term) that NY has, as far as I know, has really only existed in the past 10 years.

Those spectacular seasons of 1996 and 1998 were won by players who were not stars at all (Bernie Williams, Jimmey Key, Paul O'Niell).

Now everyone on the Yankees is a star, yet they haven't won anything since 2000.

Define irony. LOL

The Pirates have no excuse.

The Rays did it right.

A's management just doesn't care.

Although I do believe a $35 million payroll is ridiculous.

Which brings me to salary caps...

Many of the teams already have an imaginary salary cap (Oakland, Pitts., etc.) because their owners are so greedy they are afraid of losing money and taking that risk, so they pocket everything and let the players and fans suffer.

Just like Charlie Comiskey in 1919!

Thank God for the Players' Union!

But then again...

That's Capitalism! LOL

"The Cardinals are cheap. They try and hide under the umbrella of a small to mid market team, when in fact they are a mid to high market team. Ownership pockets a ton and the fans deserve a better product after filling that stadium over and over."

That's what the Angels did all through the 1990s when Jackie Autry took over baseball operations for Gene. Then Disney took over and nothing changed.

That list of players I posted earlier provided a buffer for our corporate management and an excuse to stand pat and pass on acquiring Mark McGwire in 1997.

What sucked about being owned by Disney was that they would go through a bureaucracy of 10 people before making the decision to sign or acquire a star player. And that is not the business of baseball.

The Angels won the 2002 World Series because they had that LOOOOONG list of quality players they brought up from within, and Disney didn't have to spend any money.

Building from within benefits everyone (players, coaches, fans, upper-management, and owners alike) in the long run.

The Rays did it the right way? By finishing in last place every year and stocking draft pics each year?
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melonis wrote:

Thanks to that system, the Yankees managed to land Brackman, a top 5 talent, and drafted Gerrit Cole, a top 10 talent, despite picking in the bottom five. Other teams like the Pirates, Brewers, etc. couldn't afford to pay these guys (even though they can, and I don't believe there is any excuse to not spend on amateur talent) and so regardless of their talent level they end up falling to big money teams like New York and Boston.
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That's not really accurate or at least not w/ the examples of Brackman and Cole. Brackman slipped down to 30th overall because he was injured and required TJ and the Yanks took a chance and Cole fell because people new he was committed to college. The Yanks threw a lot of money at Cole and he passed.

Now I have heard Boras tell teams not to draft a player because they didn't want to be their but those players seldom went to any of the major market teams. That happens all 4 of the big sports.

Mia colpa..I meant scribbles.