Buying an umbrella in New York
Posted: December 25th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball | 68 Comments »
So, I have this New York tradition — every time I come to town I buy a flimsy and wildly overpriced umbrella in some vaguely shady store that sells preposterous New York souvenirs like a miniature Statues of Liberty with Donald Trump’s face on it. I call this a tradition; mostly it’s a necessity because I NEVER remember to pack an umbrella, and then ALWAYS find myself caught in the New York rain about 27 blocks from where I need to be. I have, through the years, purchased enough cheap New York umbrellas to dome Seattle, not that these umbrellas actually WOULD dome Seattle since they are custom made to blow inside out roughly 12 seconds after purchase.
In any case, I walked into this store on Seventh Avenue to purchase TWO of these New York classic umbrellas (since this time I managed to get my whole family stuck in the rain with me). And I walked smack into the middle of one of those beautiful, sarcastic and movie-like New York conversations. You should know up front that I love New York, I love the little things, I love the rhythms, the crustiness, the smoke rising from the vents, the smells of whatever it is the street vendors are REALLY selling, the death defying cab rides, the tabloid wars, the revolving doors, the ludicrous prices, the self reverence, the way so many New Yorkers assume that everyone who lives outside of the city lives on a farm, the pastrami piled high enough to block the sun. And as much as anything, I love New York conversations — if you keep your ears open in the city you will catch Nora Ephron scenes and Bruce Springsteen lyrics and Martin Scorcese sequences.
Anyway, I walked in on this great conversation built around the Yankees and the signing of Mark Teixeira. As you might guess, there’s a slightly different reaction to the signing INSIDE the city than there is out. I would say that outside New York there are a few people who seem — oh, what’s the word? — let’s say, “perturbed†by the Yankees recent spending spree. C.C. Sabathia for $161 million. A.J. Burnett for $82.5 million. Teixeira for $180 million. Yeah, it has inspired black plague panic throughout the land, mass hysteria, calls for inquiries and salary caps and the formation of brute squads. I guess the general hum is best summed up by Roy Firestone, who understatedly called the signing of Teixeira, “a dark day for sports in America.â€*
*Much like I love New York, I also get a huge kick out of the hand-wringing, town crying and generally overwrought reaction to the Yankees and these Brewster’s Millions type of sprees. Sure it’s unfair. Sure it’s annoying and even a bit depressing to see a team like the Yankees (or the Red Sox, or the Mets, or the Angels — hey, lots of teams try to buy happiness) rake in millions and millions more than other teams and then spend that money on securing the best players, not unlike Mr. Potter taking control of the bank during the Depression,**
**Mr. Potter: “You saved the Building and Loan. I saved all the rest.â€
George: “Yes. Well, most people say you stole all the rest.â€
Mr. Potter: “The envious ones say that, George. The suckers.â€
But I love the New York frenzy for two reasons. One, I think baseball is much more fun when the Yankees are a truly despicable team that every non-Yankee fan in America can hate without conscience. There were too many shades of gray in 1998, when the Yankees were a pretty likable bunch, and again in 2001 when the World Series was going on while Ground Zero still burned. It’s more fun when the Yankees do stuff like this and give us a clear cut, pro wrestling type of villain.
Two, more significantly, it always gives me great comfort to see the following facts:
– Over the last 10 years, eight different teams have won the World Series. In all 15 teams made the World Series — that’s half the teams in baseball.
– Over the last 20 years, fourteen different teams have won the World Series. In all 22 teams made the World Series. Now, we’re at more than two-thirds who have reached the Series.
– Over the last 30 years, 20 different teams have won the World Series, and only three four — the Chicago Cubs, the Seattle Mariners. the Texas Rangers and the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals — have failed to reached the Series. That’s extraordinary, if you think about it — almost 90 percent of all teams have reached the World Series the last 30 years. And the four teams that didn’t reach had their good moments too. The Cubs have made the playoffs six times and, well, only their Cubbiness has kept them from reaching the Series. The Mariners won 116 games in 2001, the most for any team ever. The Montreal Expos had some excellent teams and might have won it all in ‘94, year of the strike, when they had the young Pedro, and a lineup that had an in-their-prime Moises Alou, Larry Walker and young Wil Cordero and Cliff Floyd. The Texas Rangers have made the playoffs three times and while there’s some dark cloud simply hovering over that franchise, you never get the feeling that the Rangers are hopeless.
By comparison, pro football teams that have not made the Super Bowl the last 30 years include: The New York Jets, Cleveland Browns, Kansas City Chiefs, New Orleans Saints, Arizona Cardinals, Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, Houston Texans and Minnesota Vikings, That’s 10 — almost one-third of all the teams in Pro Football.
I don’t mean to make this sound like a defense of baseball’s system. The system’s lousy. The Yankees over the last 14 years have spent a half billion dollars in payroll more than the Boston Red Sox or any other team (they have spent 1.2 BILLION more than the Kansas City Royals), and it has paid off, they have made the playoffs 13 of those years, reached the World Series six times and won four. So, money (to some degree) can buy you love.
But it is also amazing how baseball, the game itself, defies the takeover efforts of corporate raiders. The Yankees won their World Series when the team was, to a large degree, homegrown. They famously have not won a World Series since paying big bucks to sign Mike Mussina and then Jason Giambi and then taking on the A-Rod contract. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay last year reached the World Series with the second smallest payroll in baseball — no Rays player made more than $6 million last year. And here’s a beautiful bit of trivia for you, one you can definitely use at parties: According to the indespensible USA Today Salary Database, only one team in baseball history has won a World Series with a $100 million payroll. That team? Yep, the Boston Red Sox (twice — 2004 and 2007).
I’m not saying that the Yankees will not win in 2009 — that’s an awfully good team now, absolutely the best that money can buy. But just remember that key fact — 20 teams have won World Series the last 30 years. And by comparison:
Only 14 teams have won the Super Bowl over the last 30 years.
Only 14 different men have won Wimbledon over the least 30 years.
Only 13 teams have won the Stanley Cup over the last 30 years.
Only NINE teams have won an NBA title over the last 30 years.
Back to the umbrella purchase. The beautiful thing about most Yankees fans I know is that they tend to be largely untroubled by their team’s spending and the national anger that surrounds it and even the basic questions of fairness and unfairness. I am, of course, generalizing here: Not everyone is like that. I know of many Yankees fans who appreciate that their team has an unfair advantage — they might even be a little bit sheepish about it — but, in the end, hey, what can they do? Stop being a fan? No. They’ll live with it. Plus, Teixeira looks good in the three-hole.
I also hear from some Yankees fans, who deny that the Yankees really have an unfair advantage — they point out that, hey, it’s not the Yankees fault that Steinbrenner(s) spends money. The Royals or Pirates or Reds could spend that money too if they weren’t so cheap. These people usually fail to point out that the Yankees (because of the size of New York, the enormity of the YES Network, corporate dollars and a new publicly funded stadium) pull in many, many, many times what the Royals, Pirates or Reds make.
But back to most of the Yankees fans I know — they are just kind of oblivious to it all. They are not defensive or proud ot the Yankees free-spending ways. They are also not unfeeling toward other less fortunate teams. Truth is, they don’t even think about any of that. They accept the Yankees advantages as their birthright, not unlike the way someone born into a rich family must think that everyone has a maid and an 8 a.m. tee-time at the club.
I’ll give you an example: There were numerous stories written after the latest signing that hit upon the theme that Mark Teixeira is a great fit for the Yankees and he will do the team a lot of good. Well, as we used to say when I was a kid: No duh. He’s 28 and bland (in a good baseball way) and he has a good glove, and he switch hits, and he punched up 150 and 151 OPS+ numbers the last two seasons. Good fit? Maybe that’s why he cost 180 million smackeroos. Good fit? Really? What was your first clue Professor Plum? Who the heck are these stories written for?
And then I heard from a friend of mine, a Yankees fan, and I realized EXACTLY who is the target audience for those stories. My friend wrote, “I was a bit skeptical of the Teixeira signing, but the more I read about him, the more I think he will be a perfect fit for the pinstripes. â€That was what he wrote. It was mind-boggling. It did not seem to occur to him that at least 28 other teams would have loved to sign Teixeira (not sure where he would play in St. Louis). It did not seem to occur to him that while Teixeira might be a good fit for the Yankees, he would have been a MUCH BETTER fit for Kansas City or Pittsburgh or Seattle or any number of teams that need a whole lot more help than the Bombers.
It did not seem to occur to him that spending $180 million more to buy one of the best hitters in baseball for one of the best teams in baseball is excessive, overkill, and in the classic words of Andre the Giant: “Not very sportsmanlike.†It is (as I have written before) like playing a computer game on cheat mode. My friend would not argue with these points because he simply DOES NOT SEE these points; he never even considered looking at this the way a non-Yankees fan might. He only wondered if Teixeira was a good enough player for the Bronx.
And that (finally) takes me back to the souvenir shop where I bought my umbrella. There were three guys arguing — I caught the argument in progress so I sort of had to catch up. Best I could tell, the most talkative guy (named Manny) was a huge Yankees fan. He was arguing that next year is already over, the Yankees have won, give them the trophy now. The second guy (call him Darryl — I don’t know his name but he looked a little like Darryl from “The Officeâ€) was clearly either (A) A Mets fan; (B) A Yankees hater or (C) A Yankees fan who liked to argue that the Yankees are doomed for his own reasons.
Then there was was a third guy, a quiet guy, who I suspected is a lot like the Yankees fans I know.
OK, so, Manny was saying — “You add Teixeira in there, man this thing is OVER. They don’t even need to play next season.†Darryl, in response, was saying that the Yankees will be under tremendous to win.
“That (bleep) don’t matter,†Manny was saying quite reasonably. “There’s always pressure on the Yankees to win.â€
“And when was the last time the Yankees DID win?†Darryl asked, another reasonable point.
“Doesn’t matter. Now the Yankees got C.C. and Burnett and all that pitching, and the lineup’s gonna score a lot of runs …â€
“The Mets got Santana and they didn’t win (bleep) …â€
“Yeah, well, the Mets don’t have Mariano in the pen. If the Mets had Mariano they would have won the last two World Series.â€
And so on. It was pretty entertaining stuff in a Mike/Mad Dog sort of way. And then I heard one of my favorite Yankees lines, the line that I think in many ways sums all my feelings about the matter. At some point, the argument had become so heated that Manny pulled out of the tabloids and was running down the possible lineups. He was reciting all the names — Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, Nick Swisher, Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada, Xavier Nady, Robinson Cano and so on — and when you heard all the names together like that, it was ASTONISHING, all that opulence. all that money, all those stars, thirty-two All-Star appearances, home run titles, batting titles, Gold Gloves, everything else. There was a moment of reverent silence after Manny read all the names. And then the quiet Yankees fan behind the cash register, the one who hardly said anything at all, felt the need to speak up.
And here’s what he said: “Wait a minute. Who the (bleep) is Xavier Nady?â€
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“Over the last 30 years, 20 different teams have won the World Series, and only three — the Chicago Cubs, the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers — have failed to reached the Series.”
Four, actually–you forgot about the Expos/Nationals.
And I hate to start off the comments by pointing out a mistake, so I’ll mention that I still love the articles and blog despite the occasional mistake :-p
Hey, just like that great Tiger lineup was going to carry them to the championship last season!
What?
Joe,
Speaking of the Expos/Nationals, you should write a post about the horrible plight of the Nats, especially since the great team they had when the strike hit.
To me their run at Teixeira or Manny sounds like it would have doomed the franchise like A-Rod did for the Rangers. Or Farnsworth for the Royals.
That last line is truly hilarious. (Though, to be fair, perhaps he meant that Nady is little more than a glorified platoon hitter, in line for a regression to the mean.)
My favourite part of these signings is that thanks to Pavano, Giambi, Abreu, Mussina and (maybe) Pettitte coming off the books, and presuming NYY trades Matsui as the rumour mill has said they’re trying to do, the Yankees’ 2009 payroll will actually be smaller than their 2008 payroll.
In an unrelated story, the Blue Jays’ ownership group is one of the richest in baseball and their only signing was Matt Clement. Sob.
Do you know what the Mariners, Orioles, Tigers, Mets, Cardinals, & Giants have in common? They all had payrolls over $90 million and didn’t make the playoffs in BOTH OF THE PAST 2 YEARS. And this year, the O’s, Tigers, Giants, and M’s were all last place teams…that’s 4 of 6 divisions. I could do a better job at GM than those guys. I seriously believe so.
And I forgot to mention, the Yankees didn’t make the playoffs last year with the highest payroll. And even with the recent signings, they’ll still be hard pressed to get past Boston and Tampa…Tampa of the sub-$60 million payroll Tampa. They could be on the verge of having a hugely superior talent pool on the field, and not making the playoffs for 2 years. How embarrassing would that be??
Well, the Tigers also had a terrible pitching staff (91 ERA+) and the offense was merely very good (105 OPS+) instead of great. Also their imports were Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis. Dontrolle Willis, as we know, is now longer a good pitcher, and the acquisition of Miguel Cabrera created one of the worst infield defenses in baseball and forced numerous position changes for several players. I don’t see many parallels between the 2008 Tigers and 2009 Yankees.
“You should know up front that I love New York…”
And I cry myself to sleep. I’ll read the rest in the morning…
What’s fun is listening to a sports radio host like WFAN’s Steve Somers mock the Yankee spending to one caller (“Don’t compare the Yankees to the Mets. Compare them to governments! Compare them to Western Europe! Compare them to Canada! Compare them to Japan!”) and then, merely because there are so many Yankee fans, have to field a serious question from one of the yahoos Joe describe, who’s calling in next. “I think they need Lowe, because I want Joba in there for the eighth inning,” the yahoo will say. And you’ll say (to yourself) “Well that’s lovely; 28 other teams would like to start or at least close Chamberlain, but you want to spend $12MM a year more so he can be a setup guy.”
The trouble with being a Nats fan is that no matter how much money they put out there everyone just assumed they had no chance at Teixeira. It may even be the case that the Nats offer was better than the Yankees. Every headline said that there was no way he would sign with Washington until the Angels and Red Sox dropped out, then they got about two days worth of grudging astonisment (not respect) until the Yankees swept in. Of course, no counter offer was even allowed seemingly. I was somewhat ambivalent about the terms of that deal, but he’s about as sure a free agent deal as there can be. My feeling is, that if the Nats have any luck due them next year, signing Ben Sheets and getting 30 starts out of him, getting 400 plate appearances from Nick Johnson, and general health and improvement from their young core could actually make them contenders. At least there’s not much chance of injuries sustained from the WBC.
“That’s extraordinary, if you think about it — ninety percent of all teams have reached the World Series the last 30 years.”
Not at all. In the last 30 years of two 8-team leagues (1930-1960), all 16 teams made the Series. BEFORE free agency freed the serfs. Of course, it took a war for the Browns to be included.
Question Mark,
The relative richness of team ownerships is completely irrelevant. None of these guys are baseball philanthropists–if the Steinbrothers were trillionaires but nobody came to see Yankees games, they’re not going to be putting $200 million a year of their hard-inherited money into payroll. All that matters is how much they make *on the team* and are willing to put back into it, and that’s where the Yankees have a huge, ludicrously unfair advantage. A salary cap isn’t the solution, but there has to be a solution out there somewhere.
Joe,
I’m not sure we should be all that impressed that in the last ten years, only half the teams have made the playoffs. In each of the last ten years, eight teams, or 27% of the 30, have made the playoffs. So fully half of the teams in the majors have failed to make their way into the top quarter of their league for even one of the last ten seasons. I don’t think you could say that about the NBA or NFL. Not that it’s all the Yankees’ fault. Most of it is incompetence. But I’ve noticed a tendency to overstate the degree of competitive balance lately — there IS an imbalance of sorts, and some of it IS the Yankees’ fault, or it’s the fault of the system that allows the Yankees to play a totally different game from what the other 29 teams are playing (and yeah, the Angels, Mets, etc. spend money too, but it’s on a whole different plane).
I am tired of reading that the Yankees payroll will have a lower payroll in ‘09 than in ‘08 for two reasons. First of all, last year their payroll was about $72 million more than any team. In fact, that $72M difference their payroll and the next highest team’s payroll was greater than the payroll of at least 12 teams — Kansas City, Oakland, Minnesota, Florida, Pittsburgh, Tampa, Washington, Diamondbacks, Reds, Rangers, Rockies and Orioles.
Second, when the full roster is set, the Yanks 2009 payroll will likely match or exceed the 2008 payroll. Everyone cites the contracts coming off — Giambi 21, Pettite 16, Abreu 16, Mussina 13, Pavano 10 and a prorated Pudge, whose annual salary was 13 or so. So, yes, they did let go about $80M. But they have already added close to that $80 million: CC will be making 23, Burnett 16.5, Teixeira $22.5 and Swisher $5.3. Plus A-Rod goes from $27 to $32 and Wang went up $1 million from $4 to $5. Also, Marte made $2 last year and is making $3.75 this year and Cano goes from $3 to $6 million in 09. Finally, Nady’s salary will increase in arbitration.
Joe: If it helps, we New Yorkers get caught without umbrellas all the time–especially my lady friend. The cheap umbrellas are in the bodegas and corner stores. Anyplace with a Donald Trump Statue of Liberty is not going to give you a good price.
See, we’re cheap. The baseball teams do the spending for us.
Glad you’re enjoying your visit!
“What was your first clue, Professor Plum?” cracked me up.
Nothing’s perfect.
Can. Not. Wait. for the season to start…
Bob, there is quite a difference between each team making the series in which each league had eight teams and now when they have 14 or 16 teams. It would be one thing if the series had expanded to four teams.
So with eight team leagues, I think you should probably look at 15 year periods rather than 30 to make a more reasonable comparison.
My grand design for baseball would be to remove the anti-trust exemption and let anyone field a team who wants to compete, and then have football-style relegation and promotion with the minor leagues. Your revenues are whatever you can generate, and you can play wherever you can build a stadium, and so on.
It will never happen, of course. But a man can dream.
Curtis, thanks, good points.
It can be argued, though, that it was tougher to make the Series then– no second chance in the playoffs if you didn’t have the best record for the season in your league. And free agency has changed the team-building process dramatically. Last-to-first type seasons just didn’t happen.
What Yankee fans aren’t really getting is that the smart money says Sabathia and Burnett combined will probably replicate what Mussina and Pettitte gave them last year–400 innings of 3.75 ERA pitching. Obviously, that is incredibly good value, but all it really does is maintain the status quo. What the Yanks really needed to improve was their lineup, and I’m using the past tense because they certainly did that. Teix will also save them 15-20 more runs in the field. That alone makes them the favorites in the AL East.
Joe, I think you’re missing a broad group of Yankee fans. Check out of River Ave Blues or Bronx Banter or any of the other great Yankee blogs and you’ll find lots of fans who have some qualms about the astronomical payroll, who totally recognize that spending wildly in free agency increases your chances for success, but does not guarantee it, and, lastly, who know who Xavier Nady is.
But, in the all the moaning about the Yankees’ unfair economic advantage (not that that’s what you were doing), I have yet to hear a good solution to the problem. I doubt most baseball fans would celebrate over the Steinbrenners pocketing the money, which, in turn, means less money for all the other teams through reduced luxury tax payments–essentially just transferring more money from millionaire players to billionaire owners.
I had a discussion about this with a Yankee fan turned Rays fan. This spending spree is crazy. They are asking for city money to finish the new stadium and they spend like this on payroll? No one who lives around the stadium can afford to go to the games! If they save up, maybe they can go to one. It’s insane. I just wish Yankee fans would realize what they were doing to the sport and wake up.
I’d like second the important baseball point made by Michael, above: The same cheap, flimsy umbrellas are sold by newsstands, bodegas and vendors on the street for less than $5. It’s really a thing of beauty, because you never have to remember to take one when you leave the house. If you get stuck in the rain, you just buy one. They last for months, and you won’t feel bad if you forget it under a bar stool. …Also, if we bought things the way baseball teams acquire players, gallons of milk would cost $20,000.
TB, trust me, there are informed Yankee fans and uninformed Yankee fans, just as with any other team.
When Yankees fans start (during this offseason) to boast about “28″, then they truly will have The Faith.
And if they are that confident, they should be placing Madoff-sized wagers at the sports books.
You hit it just right, Joe. For every true baseball fan who’s a Yankees fan, there are 50 idiots who have no idea who’s on the team besides Jeter and A-rod. These are the moronic fools who don’t know anything about baseball and when you try to actually counter their insane ramblings with actual facts will then turn to you and scream “26!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” in your face.
The problem with the Yankees is that there are far more people who are there for the fashion and the fact that they win than for any other team. I will debate that at you with length. the chances of you sitting down next to someone wearing a yankees hat who knows next to nothing about the team or about baseball is exponentially higher than if you sat next to someone who was wearing a Royals hat.
The Brewer’s GM recently raised the salary cap question again, but no one ever talks about a salary floor. The Marlins are an embarassment with the product they put on the field. A sub 30 mill payroll; come on! Yes, the Yankees spend too much, but they are penalized for it. This year they fork over almost the entire Marlins pay roll, plus hundreds of million in royalty sharing. While the Yankees should be reigned in, other teams shoudl be forced to invest the charity dished out to their coffers. While the Marlins, Pirates, Royals don’t have to sign over-the-hill, over-priced FA’s (Manny) they could easily drop that money in the draft rather than whine about big market teams going over slot in signing bonuses. It’s ridiculous. Spend the money, or suffer contraction.
I would say that the reason for most baseball teams seeing the World Series over the last 30 years is just the nature of the game itself. It is random. A football coach can draw up a play, his team execute it to perfection and they score a TD, or a great defensive coach could stop them with his play and his team executing to perfection. Hockey is somewhat the same, as well as soccer, and all team sports where it is a constant team vs. team battle. Baseball is a team sport that uses indidual competitions to determine outcomes. So while 11 on 11 talent in football will usually win out, 1 on 1 in baseball has a really good chance to upset the better player. Especially when they smash line drives right at fielders. This will always be the nature of the game, even with a salary cap in place. Though, the salary cap would serve to more equally spread the talent around and make a random team even more likely to win the World Series.
Let’s remember something: the Yankees were NOT a great investment when George Steinbrenner bought them. They were a dying franchise, in a dilapidated neighborhood, in a city that was OWNED by the Mets.
The Yankee dynasty was ancient history when Steinbrenner bought them. This was NOT a glamor franchise by any means. The Yankees got minimal media coverage in 1973, and star players absolutely did NOT dream of playing in the Bronx.
But, like him or not, Steinbrenner saw that the Yankees COULD become a glamor franchise again, that the Bronx COULD become a desirable place to play, provided he spent some money. Steinbrenner isn’t just some lucky stiff who started off with unfair advantages. He CREATED his advantages.
And that’s why I don’t feel too sorry for the Kansas City Royals or the Pittsburgh Pirates. George Steinbrenner may have soaked the taxpayers of New York, but at least he’s re-invested the tax moeny re received, and used it to put a quality team on the field. The Royals and Pirates’ owners have taken tax money and pocketed it.
your point on the idea of ‘what are yankees fans supposed to do, not root for their team?’, is a great one. i’m often ridiculed in NY for being a royals fan (but what am i gonna do, root for the yankees?). i have this conversation with my dad all the time. i’m a huge royals fan, but he couldn’t care less anymore (even though we had season tickets into the late 90s). he just doesn’t watch baseball (much like he doesn’t watch nba anymore), as he feels the money’s done too much damage to the game. now, i’m just as disillusioned as he is, but i’ve had a paradigm shift. i now enjoy each game for itself and completely disregard the playoff hunt (an indian friend of mine has compared this to the recent shift from 5-day cricket matches to the now-popular 3-hr matches). i simply watch 162 games every year, instead of watching a season unfold. I can get some of that playoff thrill through vicariously enjoying my sox-yankees friends get a couple more weeks’ enjoyment than i do. i’m not able to totally distance myself from the hatred of the big-spending teams, but i doubt the system will ever change. anyway i still get a great deal of pleasure out of my royals (and out of the several times a year they beat the sox-yankees).
Joe, writing of the Texas Rangers, says “there’s some dark cloud simply hovering over that franchise.” Let me suggest that it is dark cloud Dubya, who once fronted for the franchise, using it and the taxpayers of Dallas-Ft. Worth as stepping-stones to, well, you know what happened. . . .
Bill, responding to Question Mark, argues, “A salary cap isn’t the solution, but there has to be a solution out there somewhere.” Let me propose, as a solution to more than just baseball equity, a federal estate tax with some real teeth to it.
How about a third team in NYC/N. NJ? Isn’t that what Marlins ownership is ultimately hoping to become?
Is this true?
The Yankees over the last 14 years have spent a half million dollars in payroll more than the Boston Red Sox or any other team (they have spent 1.2 BILLION more than the Kansas City Royals).
Really? The Yankees have only spent $500,000 more than the Red Sox over the last 14 years? I don’t buy that. Maybe a half billion ($500,000,000) more, especially if Andy’s $72,000,000 more last season alone is true.
I could care less about the Yankees’ spending habits. My complaint lies with bandwagon fans who live 1,000 of miles from NY, who scream “26″ and have never been to see a game. Yeah, those are “your” Yankees.
When you’ve met a Yankee fan, you’ve met a Yankee fan. When you’ve met a Met fan, you’ve met a New Yorker.
Just wanted to throw that out there. Also, while I agree that the Yankees (and, to a lesser extent, the Mets, Sox, Dodgers, Angels and Cubs) have an unfair advantage due to their home market and the fact that they’re the YANKEES, and while I personally find the Steinbrenners obsession with all things Yankee and their totally shameful bilking of the taxpayers of my fair city quite loathsome (yes, the latter applies to the Wilpons, as well), I just can’t get THAT worked up about it. Because, as others have pointed out, the real villains are the Lorias, the Pohlads, and the McClatchys, who basically use the Yankees as an excuse to extort tax dollars from their cities and revenue sharing from the league, while investing almost nothing back into their teams. If MLB is going to do something about the Yankees’ profligacy – and it should – then it needs to be equally severe to the small-market owners who cry poverty while stuffing their pockets with free money.
The best website I have found for contracts is Cot’s Baseball Contracts — http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/
According to that site, the Yanks have spent approximately
$433 MILLION more than the Sox over just the last 9 years — from 2000-2008. Here is the comparison:
Yankees:
* Opening Day payrolls for 25-man roster
(salaries plus pro-rated signing bonuses):
o 2008: $209,081,577
o 2007: $189,639,045
o 2006: $194,663,079
o 2005: $208,306,817
o 2004: $184,193,950
o 2003: $152,749,814
o 2002: $125,928,583
o 2001: $112,287,143
o 2000: $107,588,459
Red Sox
Opening Day payrolls for 25-man roster
(salaries plus pro-rated signing bonuses):
* 2008: $133,390,035
* 2007: $143,026,214
* 2006: $120,099,824
* 2005: $123,505,125
* 2004: $127,298,500
* 2003: $ 99,946,500
* 2002: $108,366,060
* 2001: $110,035,883
* 2000: $ 81,200,000
I have yet to hear a good solution to the problem.
As has been mentioned, the solution is not in the form of a cap, it is to tap into the huge market that the Yankees monopolize. The New York area could probably support 2 or 3 additional teams.
The effect of the antitrust exemption for baseball is to allow a team like the Yankees to be insulated from competition in their home market.
~
On the issue of Teixeira, I’m not so sure the Yankees made a great investment (of course, part of the advantage of being the Yankees is that they don’t have to make great investments). Take a look at last season:
Giambi: 247/373/502
Teixeira (Atl): 308/410/552
So for a slight upgrade at first base, the Yankees have sunk 8 years and $180M into a first baseman. I can think of a few better ways to top that expenditure.
And then look at the $80M they sunk into Burnett. He was a 105 ERA+ pitcher last year – the first one in a while he pitched without injury. That’s replacing Mike Mussina who pitched just slightly fewer innings, but was a 132 ERA+ pitcher.
To Mike,
However reprehensible (at least in terms of sportsmanship) the Marlins approach may be, they do have two series in the last eleven years to their credit. They have also been able to pull their firesale nonsense and build a competitive team again fairly quickly because they have been able to roll their talent that is due for a big payday in a year or so into prospects that pan out. For all their faults, they at least appear to have a helluva scouting department. And when they did get their hands on a truly unique talent, Hanley Ramirez, they signed him to an extension before offending him. As a Royals fan, I’d gladly put up with the firesales if it meant I’d gotten to enjoy some postseason success in the past 23 years.
As a NYGiant- SFGiant Fan since 1951 living In N Y, I am sick of Yankee fans sence of entitlement
You’d put up with firesales, eh?
Well, I’d spend the night in a fertilizer factory with Fire Marshall Bill.
McKingford,
I totally agree with you on the prudence of the Teixeira signing, but even more so the Burnett signing. I have actually gone off at length about the Burnett signing and the Yankees’ spending spree elsewhere, but they’re basically hoping that a 29-year-old Teixeira will produce enough to make up for the loss of Giambi and the largely aging offense of the Yankees. While he should certainly outproduce Giambi, Damon and Matsui and Jeter and Posada can all realistically be expected to regress, possibly a lot. He can’t give them enough to make up for that.
3rd Period Points,
As opposed to 23 years of never making the playoffs?
Yes.
Any success would be welcome to this alternative.
Baseball used to be the number one sport. Football and basketball were not even close. Now, football is KING!!! Yea, many teams in football have not won, but you know that if your team gets good management they could go from worst to first in a year.
Let’s look at the Rays and Marlins, the two EXAMPLES of small market teams. They were terrible. Made good drafts over a couple of years and were competitive for a short period of time. The Marlins had to blow up two great teams. Is this system going to get baseball back to the top? NO WAY!!!
Every site that I just looked at had the Phillies 2008 payroll at 98.2 million. I believe this is the opening day payroll for the 25 man roster. When you consider that they added Eyre, Blanton, Stairs, and Iguchi for a short time, I would bet that technically they payed out over 100 million dollars in salary last year on their way to winning the World Series.
Who wins the world series is an irrelevant argument about the system. The problem is that the Yankees and Red Sox make the playoffs EVERY YEAR. Yes, NY missed this year, but they’ve made it every year since 1995. The East is pretty much guaranteed to have one of those two teams represent it every year. Tampa had to absolutely STINK for 10 years and have EVERYTHING go right for them to win. Teams like Tampa, Baltimore and Toronto can attempt to sign these big guys like NY does, but when on e of them sucks or gets hurt, they cannthe ot replace them, and that is the advantage NY (and Boston) have. A great example is the Pavano contract, which would have crippled Toronto, Baltimore, or Tampa, yet it barely registers in NY. The fairest way for baseball to respond to this is to eliminate the divisions, and have the four playoff teams come from the entire league instead of the division winners. Then it doesn’t have to be the same three teams competing against the dominant financial powers. Wow, this was long, sorry…… Happy holidays to all.
You can’t really argue that parity exists by looking at 20 or 30 year stretches, particularly given how much the game has changed over past decade or so. Mike M was bang on when he talked about the AL East – 2008 marked the first time in a decade that a team other than the Yankees or Red Sox made the playoffs out of that division and the second time since 1997 that a non-Boston or New York team finished higher than third.
The payroll disparity is even more significant given that Toronto, Tampa and Baltimore have to play almost a third of their schedule against the super-payroll superpowers. You look at the 2007 Yankees – they got half a season of middling ball from Giambi, a 5+ ERA from Mussina, nothing from Pavano, a sub-standard year from Damon, terrible pitching from Igawa and half a season of basically league-average ball from Clemens. That’s about $75 million in payroll that contributed nothing special. That would KILL most teams (hell, a lot of teams don’t approach that in payroll). For the Yanks, it’s no big deal – they’ll just ride their other $120 million worth of players to 94 wins and a playoff berth.
As for some Yankee fans’ assertion that if other teams cared about their fans, they’d spend $200 million in salary, it’s purely bogus. The Yankees can afford to spend that money because they bring in that much and then some. The revenue streams they enjoy are ridiculous. To say that another team’s owner should spend the same on payroll is just wrong-headed – baseball owners aren’t in the business of trying to lose tens of millions of dollars every year.
It’s like saying “well, this famous movie star bought his wife a $2 million diamond ring for Christmas, whereas you just bought your wife some $200 earrings from Sears. If you cared as much about your wife as the wealthy movie star cares about his, you’d have dropped two mil on a ring as well.”
Kudos to Steinbrenner for investing money and making their team a powerhouse, but you can’t ignore the built-in advantages New York enjoys.
As long as the Royals continue to make stupid trades (Jermanine Dye, Carlos Beltran, Johnny Damon), poor draft choices (Colt Griffith, Luke Hocheaver), and overpay for free agents (Jose Guillen) they are going to struggle and a salary cap isn’t going to fix the problem.
Joe,
I always remember to take an umbrella to NYC. But glad you don’t, because this is a great, great story. I didn’t think it could possibly have such a great punch line, but it did. Gotta love listening to New Yorkers, or should that be Noo Yawkers.
MCKingford, I don’t know what expertise you claim in baseball, but last season’s numbers give Texeira 87 more points of OPS. That’s roughly the difference between an average player and an all star, or an all star candidate and an MVP candidate. That doesn’t consider that Yankee Stadium last year, according to http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/2008.shtml was a better hitter’s park than both Atlanta and Anaheim. Texeira played in 157 games with superb range and reliability numbers at first base. Giambi played in 145 games with below average range and reliability numbers. And that was the most games the 37 year old Giambi had played in a season since 2003. So we’re looking at roughly 10% more games, and the games based on last year’s numbers were 10% better offensively before considering park improvements, more than 10% better defensively, and it’s hard not to expect a clear improvement from that signing. The defense also means that it’s not as bad when Texeira slumps as when Giambi slumps; at least you are getting plus defense, instead of a guy who hurts every facet of the game if he’s not hitting. Will Texeira put up an OPS+ of 150 in the Bronx? We’ll find out. If he does, I’d expect him to be worth several more wins than Giambi, especially given that Sabathia is going to be throwing a lot of ground balls if he’s on his game. I hate the Yankees (the Celtics are the only other franchise I actively root against regardless of who they’re playing) but they made a good signing for their team.
The cloud over the Rangers had been there long before anyone knew who W was. If you feel the need to blame someone, Corbett, Chiles and especialy Bob Short are way more to blame.
One interesting point about the big market teams is that the Dodgers are kind of screwed by Rupert Murdoch. Before he sold the team, they signed a long term contract for local television on Fox Sports that was at less than favorable terms for the Dodgers. I’ve read that that contract lasts until 2014, IIRC, at which time we could expect the Dodgers to have a lot more media money to throw at free agents. So the Yankees are alone in their revenue stream, which allows them to pay the luxury taxes from all those signings.
The real key to me is that MLB lacks decent revenue sharing. The NFL does it right, where everybody benefits from the big contracts, every team has a salary floor and a salary cap, and the players are mollified by a guaranteed percentage of revenues. Baseball thinks it’s the nation’s sport, and the big market owners refuse to acknowledge that an effective revenue sharing scheme would benefit the sport as a whole, so there’d be no reason for the Marlins to dump payroll and small market teams who draft well could build a solid team. Admittedly, so much more of baseball’s revenue is from ticket sales and local television, but this is still a solvable problem. You put 80% of all the shared revenue into the pot, and that (split up evenly) becomes the floor. And you eliminate the salary cap. Thus, it would still make sense for the big revenue teams to spend more, since they’re still getting a larger 20%. The small revenue teams must compete, since their profits would come from being at the floor, and thus they’d want a decent product to given them some solid 20% gains locally. Maybe 80% isn’t the right number; maybe it’s 70%, or 83%, I dunno. But you negotiate. And then the Yankees could afford Sabathia and Burnett, but to also get Texeira they’d have to go into the red. As is, the Yankees would find it very hard to go into the red because they keep all of their local television revenues, and they have the biggest contract in baseball if not all of sports.
I’ve said before, the threat to MLB is not the Yankees spending all that money. The threat will be the Yankees spending it all wisely. Sabathia, who was beaten like a rented mule, may show some after effects from all those innings, but he’s still as sound a pitching investment as there is in the game. Texeira too. Burnett, not so clear; I think Lowe’s reliability deserved more consideration. In past years, that has been a recurring problem for the Yankees; they spent money indiscriminately, and that made it harder for them to spend wisely when a better player became available because they already had a zillion bucks invested in somebody else at the same position, unless that somebody else was clearly just average. But you can’t have too much pitching; if you wind up with too much pitching, then you trade it to fill holes midseason. If the Yankees show some restraint now and then, don’t throw $60M at the best player out there unless he’s really good, but live with a cheaper guy one year and throw $100M at a great player at that position the next year, then they become a threat to baseball. I think we’re seeing the start of that.
Ok, raise your hand if you are tired of hearing the haters point of view. Leave the Yankees alone. A lot of this stuff is written by folks who don’t like the Yankees. Had the Red Sox signed Teixeira, we wouldn’t have heard a bleep about the “ridiculous” amount of money that these athletes are making. As evidenced by the fact that most Yankee Hatin’ media kept saying how the Red Sox were the front runners in obtaining the first basemen. They spoke almost with a glee in their voices… Well, I for one am happy to see a team that actually puts their winnings back into the team. The fact that they make more money then other teams is not the fans fault. The fans pay for the tickets and as far as I’m concerned deserve that the team does it’s best to put forth a winner. If it means spending money that the team makes off the fans, then so be it. As for the fans of other teams, tough, thats the way the cookie crumbles. Get over it or select another team to cheer for.
QUOTE: “These people usually fail to point out that the Yankees (because of the size of New York, the enormity of the YES Network, corporate dollars and a new publicly funded stadium) pull in many, many, many times what the Royals, Pirates or Reds make.”
YO Mr. Posnanski!!!!
You need to get your facts straight. The New Yankee Stadium is being paid for completely by the Yankees. They only things the city is paying for are Infrastructure Upgrades. IE. ROADS, POWER, WATER, & RAIL UPGRADES. YOU KNOW THE KINDS OF THINGS THE CITY IS SUPPOSED TO PAY FOR, & MAINTAIN IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!
i overheard this one recently. a guy and, presumably, his girlfriend, in line at the movies.
girl: “i have to run to the bathroom, but don’t get us seats too close to the screen cause it hurts my neck. and not too far off to the side… got it?”
guy: “yeah, got it. i’ll try not to get us sh**ty seats.”
i love ny.
I lived in NYC for five years and never once bought one of those $3 crappy umbrellas… I couldn’t bring myself to do it when I knew I had a perfectly good one at home. I’d just hunch my shoulders and run through the rain, vowing to remember the next time. Guess I’m just stubborn.
You’re right about New Yorkers taking ownership of everything that appears in their city. I remember several years ago a New York friend crowing about “this great new New York doughnut place,” Krispy Kreme. She refused to believe they’d been in operation for many years in other parts of the country.
I moved out after five years, which was about four and a half too long… but I still love to visit, and I learned a lot there and had a lot of experiences I would never have had anywhere else.
@Christopher Tiboni– do some reading on that stadium deal. Bloomburg’s office illegally pressured the tax assessor to raise the assessed value of the land under the ballpark. The original assessment: $27 million. It was raised to $204 million after Bloomburg’s office put the pressure on. That allowed the Yankees to be eligible for $1 Billion in tax-free bonds. Tax-free means they aren’t contributing to the city’s tax burden, instead passing it off to city residents. This kind of thing goes on all the time with stadium deals, and I’m sure that issue is only the tip of the iceberg. Teams reap huge profits which are never passed on to those of us who have contributed to financing.
Here’s a Daily News article, this was widely reported a couple of weeks ago.
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/12/16/2008-12-16_emails_reveal_how_city_went_to_bat_for_y.html
Ok, so the Yankees are to appreciate that they can now spend $1 Bilion because it is tax free?????? Isn’t that still $1 Billion dolloars they are spending??? Also, are not the folks from New York and Bronx capatilizing on the contract rights to the new stadium during these wowful economic times???
Don’t get me wrong MELODY, I know what you’re saying and that’s a shame on the City Officials if it is true. However, unfortunately, that’s another example of how the cookie crumbles. Is it fair that kids with legacy can get into Harvard University even when they clearly don’t meet the requiremens? No, but that seems to have no input in the final admissions decision. So now the idiot can pretty much get any job they want even though they don’t deserve to be in that ,position.
Let’s look at the whole picture before we start pointing the fingers at the things that are easy to point the finger to. It’s the way the cookie crumbles, are we to sit and cry about this…. Corporations do these kinds of things all the time as do other baseball teams who get this: Get those tax breaks and manage to charge their state citizens to pay for their new stadium anyways. How come nobody is talking about the new Mets stadium????
“Is it fair that kids with legacy can get into Harvard University even when they clearly don’t meet the requirements?”
Various aspects of our society are unfair. What does the nepotism (along with other injustices) involved in Ivy League admission have to do with the economic inequity in MLB? The world’s not fair so let’s all just allow corruption to flourish as it always has, shall we? That’s how the cookie crumbles, afterall.
Mr. Melvin Rodriguez, this component of your argument is ridiculous. Not you as an individual–I don’t know you personally. You’re probably a gentleman and a scholar.
“The New Yankee Stadium is being paid for completely by the Yankees. They only things the city is paying for are Infrastructure Upgrades. IE. ROADS, POWER, WATER, & RAIL UPGRADES. YOU KNOW THE KINDS OF THINGS THE CITY IS SUPPOSED TO PAY FOR, & MAINTAIN IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!” — Christopher Tiboni
Christopher –
First of all, the new stadium isn’t really being paid for entirely by the Yankees (see the article linked to by Melody). A significant amount of it is being paid by the taxpayers (such as me).
Second, part of the infrastructure “upgrades” is a brand-new Metro North station at Yankee Stadium. Are you arguing either (a) the City of New York should/would have built that stadium anyway without the new stadium, or (b) the City of New York has no other infrastructure issues that are more pressing than those around the new stadium?
As a resident of NYC for over 30 years, either or both of those contentions are just plain silly (and wrong). To name just one prominent example, straphangers in NYC would be infinitely better served by a 2nd Avenue Subway than by a new commuter rail station for Yankee Stadium (just ask anyone who has to take any of the Lexington Avenue lines in Manhattan).
Just to be clear, I am not picking on the Yankees in this regard; the Mets are just as guilty of this kind of taxpayer-soaking behavior.
And please don’t get me started on the fact that Citigroup is about to spend $20 million/year for 20 years to have the Mets’ new stadium called “Citi Field” after telling us how desparately they need a multi-billion dollar bailout from the American taxpayer.
Add Baltimore to teams that haven’t been to World Series in last 20 years.
Playoffs, yes. Series, no.
Is there really any point to posting lengthy treatises on how to revamp the current salary cap system in MLB (except, possibly, as an academic exercise)?
It seems to me that the current system is in place because it is exactly the system that MLB wants. They want the most powerful teams to be in the largest centers. They want the high-profile players to be in the high-profile markets. They want the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Dodgers and Cubs to be in the playoffs every year. If you listen carefully, you can probably hear them weeping when the World Series is between two small-market teams. Weren’t the television ratings dismal for the Rays-Phillies series? What does it do to your sport’s image if nobody watches its marquee event?
Is it even possible to argue that MLB wants a level playing field? I’m pretty sure that the last thing they want to see is a Kansas City Royals-type lineup in pinstripes or Dodger blue. Biggest markets, best teams; that’s the formula for the best financial return. It would be an absolute disaster for baseball (financially) if the six biggest markets had terrible teams. As for the smaller markets, they’re basically the lettuce on the deli sandwich aren’t they? They’re there to fill out the league (and to take a run at the brass ring once every twenty years or so, when the planets are alligned).
Great article – one big mistake in it is that the new stadium is not funded by the public, it’s mainly Steinbrenner $$$. Yes – NY has stepped up with some dough to fix some of the infrastructure, but the train and roads needed an upgrade in the 70’s so they are only 30 to 40 years off. If the Yankees moved out of the Bronx and took their cookies over to New Jersey, you could have shut off the lights in that part of the world. PS. Buy the umbrellas on the street corner when it starts to rain, they only open once and don’t close! With the extra money you save you can buy some bleacher seats in the new stadium.
A friend of mine from California went to grad school near Philadelphia, and the first time I visited him he told me I wouldn’t be able to understand anything the natives said. We stopped at a convenience store after we left the airport, and the first thing a Philadelphian (one of the store clerks) said to me was “Only in America, huh?” I asked what he was talking and he said the woman who’d just left the store had bought 50 packs of gum. The other clerk said, “So I says to her, ‘What are you, having a chewing contest?’” and then the two of them high-fived each other. I found the whole thing represented Philadelphia well.
@Chris –
Truly amazing how much nonsense you can pack into one paragraph. Some highlights:
“it’s mainly Steinbrenner $$$” — Well, I suppose that’s perhaps partially true if you consider the tax revenues of NY State and City to belong to Boss George. However, they don’t; they belong to the taxpayers. Aside from the hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds being spent to “improve the neighborhood” (i.e., make it as nice as possible for Yankee fans coming from NJ by enabling them to totally bypass the community on their way to YS), the City has engaged in all sorts of fishy deals to alter tax assessments, grant tax-free bonds, etc. Here’s two articles to get you started:
http://tinyurl.com/64zpax
http://tinyurl.com/582kbv
If you don’t like those, here’s a link to all 25,000+ articles found by Google when searching “new Yankee Stadium”+funding:
http://tinyurl.com/8jrhst
“If the Yankees moved out of the Bronx and took their cookies over to New Jersey, you could have shut off the lights in that part of the world.” — I have to say, I am torn between being more upset about your ignorance or your implied racism. Either way, you obviously know nothing about the Bronx or its residents. And, having lived in both places, I would say the world would be much better served by having the lights shut off in NJ than in the Bronx. As Archie Bunker so aptly observed, “Nobody wants to live in New Jersey, but somebody has to.”
“Buy the umbrellas on the street corner when it starts to rain, they only open once and don’t close!” — I will take this as hyperbole, but even the crappiest umbrella I ever bought on the street opened and closed multiple times (perhaps not on multiple days, though).
“With the extra money you save you can buy some bleacher seats in the new stadium.” — If you’re lucky and they aren’t sold out, since all the other seats are ridiculously overpriced ($2,500 for one seat for one game in the “Rudy Giuliani” seats is the most egregious example).
A friend has had box seats a few rows behind the Yankee dugout for a number of years. In 2007, his seats cost $150 per game. In 2008, because it was the last season in the old stadium, they went up to $250. In 2009, if he wants the comparable seats in the new stadium, they will cost $850. Yeah, I guess George has no advantage over his fellow owners.
A couple people have brought this up already, but what would happen to the surplus revenue the Yankees have if the Royals were moved to suburban Connecticut and the Marlins were moved across the parking lot from the Meadowlands and the Pirates were moved to Long Island?
In the short term, I would guess the loyalty to a winner that had been there forever wouldn’t change, but in the long term, when suburban Dad has the choice of a 20 minute stress free round trip to the New Haven Royals for a ML game or a 2 hour stressful round trip into the city for a Yankees game, he is taking the youngsters to see the Local 9.
And in 20 years, the Yankees wouldn’t be Kings of the Greater NY area anymore.
Your line about the rich just assuming that everyone has a maid and a tee time brings to mind this story….I have a friend who was the son of a wealthy DC lawyer, they had a live in couple who were maid/cook and handyman/mechanic. Took care of EVERYTHING…my friend went to college, got his first job, apartment etc and did his first “self purchase” of a car (Honda Civic)….he drove it about 75K miles and it seized up on the highway, was towed in. The mechanic said ” ’scuse me for asking a dumb question but….have you EVER put oil in this car?” My friend said (dead serious)….”you have to do that?” He also got ticketed later for having expired registration/inspection that was over TWO YEARS overdue…his explanation….”don’t they call you and tell you when you need to do that?”
Here is the thing that constantly amazes me about Your Average Baesball Fan: He knows statistics better than the fan of any other major sport, even if not a Sabr-type. He is awash in numbers, he knows them backwards and forwards, and he generally has a pretty good innate feel for what is important, what works.
But he has ZERO understanding that the statistical structure of baseball makes predicting the winner of a couple short series impossible. The Yankees can buy themselves a daunting statistical advantage during the regular season, but all that does is buy them a couple extra ping pong balls in the MLB playoff lottery. This is because a baseball team inherently cannot have much more than a 65% or 70% chance of winning a game against another reasonable team. As opposed to the NBA or NFL, where a team can have a much higher chance of winning.
In short, the use of a playoff system to choose a winner in MLB is asinine. The regular season and the playoffs are two completely separate competitions.