OK, maybe it's a bit much to be talking about real parity when one player makes more money than the cheapest team in the game.
But if you look at the payrolls for this season, a lot of teams appear to be somewhat closing the gap on the AL East Powerhouses. Plus, there's the small matter that only one team made the playoffs in both the last two years, and PECOTA picks the Rays to win 88 games.
Last year, you had the Yankees at something like $205m and the Sox at $160m. The Mets were third with something like $130, I think.
The gap between second and eighth is just over 20m dollars. That's, like, one star FA positional player, or one pretty good starter. Even the Yankees are likely to get cheaper in the next couple years, with no obvious big-ticket stars heading to FA, and the Giambi contract coming off the books.
Something that always puzzles me is, why aren't the Phillies in this group? They have the largest unshared market in the US, and yet they're never anywhere near the top in payroll.
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Interesting. I didn't realize that many teams were up around $120. It certainly appears as if the gap is closing. As you said, the Yankees have a lot of big contracts coming off the books after 2008. Giambi, Mussina, Abreu, Pettitte, Farnsworth, Pavano are all eliminated, which is an astounding $80 million off of their payroll, knocking them down to around $130 million. Obviously they'll replace those players, but I predict that the Yankees aren't much higher than $180 million heading into 2009.
BritSox wrote: The gap between second and eighth is just over 20m dollars. That's, like, one star FA positional player, or one pretty good starter. Even the Yankees are likely to get cheaper in the next couple years, with no obvious big-ticket stars heading to FA, and the Giambi contract coming off the books.
Something that always puzzles me is, why aren't the Phillies in this group? They have the largest unshared market in the US, and yet they're never anywhere near the top in payroll.
Only 20m huh? Baseball will be a joke with these payroll issues and HGH use until they get their act together.
They need to establish a min. amount teams have to spend. What is happening with the Marlins is an embarrasment to baseball and its fans. I cant even believe Marlin fans are going to these games and supporting that organization.
RocketsDWM wrote:They need to establish a min. amount teams have to spend. What is happening with the Marlins is an embarrasment to baseball and its fans. I cant even believe Marlin fans are going to these games and supporting that organization.
According to the announcers, there's about 15,000 at the park tonight, and not a Marlins jersey in sight. Loaded up with Mets fans.
RocketsDWM wrote:They need to establish a min. amount teams have to spend. What is happening with the Marlins is an embarrasment to baseball and its fans. I cant even believe Marlin fans are going to these games and supporting that organization.
Not that it's an entirely fair reference point but the Mets are playing Florida right now and I can't find anyone there wearing Marlins gear. It could be different for smaller market teams though because the Mets, Cubs, and other major franchises are always a big draw on the road anyway.
A salary floor would be nice but the possible consequences of it could be pretty awful. For example, the Marlins could want to field an extremely cheap roster that barely gets above the minimum so they trade for the biggest expiring contract, Jason Giambi for example, to reach the minimum without giving up much value. It's pretty far fetched but how many guys on that team besides Hanley are definitely worth long term contracts? They could just bite the bullet on grossly overpriced guys on a year by year basis until they have enough guys worth paying.
BritSox wrote: The gap between second and eighth is just over 20m dollars. That's, like, one star FA positional player, or one pretty good starter. Even the Yankees are likely to get cheaper in the next couple years, with no obvious big-ticket stars heading to FA, and the Giambi contract coming off the books.
Something that always puzzles me is, why aren't the Phillies in this group? They have the largest unshared market in the US, and yet they're never anywhere near the top in payroll.
Only 20m huh? Baseball will be a joke with these payroll issues and HGH use until they get their act together.
Don't mean to be insulting but your attitude in this post really rubbed me wrong, you have to be a complete fool to think that NBA or NFL is in much better of a situation than baseball right now. NFL parity is almost completely driven by the short schedule and the stacked schedule that favors last years lower tiered teams. Even with the salary cap all the advantages go to popular/large market teams and the same teams make the playoffs the majority of the time. The NBA probably has the biggest gaps between the has and the has nots of any major american sport.
Baseball certainly could do more to fix their issues, the Yankees need to be toned down and the 3 or 4 lowest payroll teams needs more help but the parity situation really isn't all that much different between MLB and NFL. The largest difference is the that 2 games divide a crappy team and a playoff team in the NFL.
As for steriods, they are rampant in the NFL because the sport completely ignores it, that is somehow better? I dont' know how the NBA treats it but it is a joke that people insult MLB over the issue as they are ahead of the game, not behind it.
Basketball is pretty good for parity, I mean the top team in the past decade has been either the Lakers (big market team) and the Spurs (small market team), while the Knicks (maybe the biggest market team) is still sucking it up.
BritSox wrote:OK, maybe it's a bit much to be talking about real parity when one player makes more money than the cheapest team in the game.
But if you look at the payrolls for this season, a lot of teams appear to be somewhat closing the gap on the AL East Powerhouses. Plus, there's the small matter that only one team made the playoffs in both the last two years, and PECOTA picks the Rays to win 88 games.
Last year, you had the Yankees at something like $205m and the Sox at $160m. The Mets were third with something like $130, I think.
The gap between second and eighth is just over 20m dollars. That's, like, one star FA positional player, or one pretty good starter. Even the Yankees are likely to get cheaper in the next couple years, with no obvious big-ticket stars heading to FA, and the Giambi contract coming off the books.
Something that always puzzles me is, why aren't the Phillies in this group? They have the largest unshared market in the US, and yet they're never anywhere near the top in payroll.
It's funny that some of them are spending so much money, and yet their teams are still very flawed.
The White Sox are the 5th highest and they aren't even going to get a sniff of the play-offs.
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AussieDodger wrote:It's funny that some of them are spending so much money, and yet their teams are still very flawed.
The White Sox are the 5th highest and they aren't even going to get a sniff of the play-offs.
I'm sure they don't really care. They got their title in 2005. Lots of teams tend to overspend on guys that won them their title (see: Paul Konerko) to try to hold onto the mystique.
0-3 to 4-3. Worst choke in the history of baseball. Enough said.
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by BritSox » Tue Apr 01, 2008 6:06 pm 
