Indians Trade Cliff Lee, Ben Francisco to Phillies for Prospects

[macbdog]

Cliff Lee is just another example of NL hitting being a joke.

Cliff has two complete games in his last 3 starts with the Tribe. I don't think his performance is indicative of weaker NL hitting (the benefit is in facing the pitcher every 9 batters) than it is of Cliff continuing the groove he was in.

 

[kidduck]

A look from the outside:

<i>Crying poverty, some MLB owners are laughing all the way to the bank

Bill Madden/ New York Daily News

With the September stretch looming, five of the seven teams with $100 million or more payrolls - the Yankees ($201M), Dodgers ($100M), Phillies ($113M), Angels ($114M) and Tigers ($115M) - are leading their divisions and looking more like odds-on favorites to make the postseason. One other, the Red Sox ($122M), cannot be discounted for a wild-card berth despite their recent struggles.

Of the two $100 million-plus teams looking like October "outs," the $149M Mets can attribute their demise to injuries and a bad farm system while the $134M Cubs can blame injuries and bad judgment on player signings.

Meanwhile, on the flip side of the equation, we have witnessed the middle-market Cleveland Indians and Pittsburgh Pirates trading away their best players and, in effect, rendering themselves non-competitive for the foreseeable future, all in the name of financial duress.

This is exactly what former commissioner Bowie Kuhn warned would happen back in December of 1975, when baseball arbitrator Peter Seitz ruled that the reserve clause did not bind players to their teams for life, thus opening the floodgates of free agency. The rich teams will buy up all the good players, Kuhn complained, and the middle- and small-market teams will be hard-pressed to compete.

As it turned out, Kuhn's fears proved unfounded as free agency actually reaped more competitive balance than ever through the '80s and into the '90s, despite the absence of revenue sharing. That's why it's so disingenuous to hear all this poor-mouthing from some owners today amid renewed calls for a salary cap.

Cleveland president Paul Dolan, in attempting to justify the jettisoning of '08 AL Cy Young winner Cliff Lee and the Tribe's top slugger, Victor Martinez, maintained that the team will lose $16 million this year because the projected 2.2 million attendance will fall far short of that, to about 1.7.

"After we traded Cliff, we made a commitment toward a new direction for the franchise," Dolan doublespoke. "We needed to make moves that put us in the best position to compete as soon as possible."

How dumb does he think Cleveland fans are? How are the Indians putting themselves in the best position to compete as soon as possible by trading two of their best players - who both were signed for next year for a total of less than $15 million? I guess it all depends on which set of books Dolan is looking at. Here are the facts:

Last year, Major League Baseball transferred approximately $400 million in revenue sharing and luxury tax - a little more than 25% of that coming from the Yankees alone. The Indians received slightly more than $20 million and the Pirates - despite their beautiful, eight-year-old, taxpaper-funded stadium - received over $40 million. This is how MLB rewards incompetent ownership.

In addition to that, all major league teams received stipends of $35 million from the MLB central fund, which includes revenue from licensing, properties, national TV and advanced media. So going in, the Indians had approximately $55 million in the bank offset by their $81 million payroll - a deficit of about $25 million before they sold one ticket.

The Pirates had about $75 million in the bank, offset by their $48 million payroll, which means they had a profit of $35 million before they sold one ticket. And this doesn't even include what these teams additionally reap from their local TV and radio rights packages and in-house concessions, advertising, signage, parking, etc.

Even in this recession, baseball remains awash in money, and teams that are winning are all drawing as well as or better than their preseason projections. If you win, they will come. It's that simple.

Unfortunately for Pirates fans and now Indians fans, ownership is not willing to spend what it takes to be competitive. Instead, they pocket all that revenue-sharing and central fund dough and claim they're losing money, meaning they must trade away their best players to "secure the future." What future?

Hard as this might be to believe, baseball has managed to turn back the clock 60 years, resurrecting the spirit of the St. Louis Browns and Philadelphia A's, teams that routinely sold off their best players to the Yankees and Red Sox to stay in business. The only difference is that those teams really were broke. The disgraceful Dolans in Cleveland and Bob Nutting and Frank Coonelly in Pittsburgh are crying poverty and cheating their fans all the way to the bank.

</i> Link: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/2009/08/15/2009-08-15_crying_poverty_some_mlb_owners.html

 

[Chris]

That's scary. Wouldn't be surprised if we're being had by Dolan.

 

[macbdog]

I'd love to know his sources for what are undisclosed financial #s. He seems to know alot about the Tribe's financial situation from one perceived #, too. Also find it interesting that the Tribe recieved money from revenue sharing when they had a middle of the pack payroll. He also fails to understand that even if the stadium is new, the Pirates: 1. don't draw like the Yankees and 2. don't charge anywhere near what the Yankees do for tickets. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how Cleveland has struggled in recent years. I guess it takes an out of town writer to not see the numerous empty loges (the original cash cow of the Tribe) and faltering local economy.

 

[KB]

The guy that wrote that article is Bill Madden, he was on the MLB Hall of Fame Overiew Committe in 05, 07, and 08. He also has been a sports writer since the late 60's early 70's and has focused on baseball for 30+ years, I'll take his word on these things since he's been writing about the sport longer than I've been alive.


This article, in the link below, has some great information on revenue sharing. From being able to scan it breifly before I had to do some work it looks like it tracks data from 95-07

http://www.thesportjournal.org/arti...-major-league-baseball-historical-perspective

Here is an exerpt from the above report/article

The system of revenue sharing, however, has instilled much controversy within the league. “The big clubs say some teams simply shouldn’t get the money” (Fatsis, 2006, p. 1). Their argument is that certain teams have not shown that they are actually using the proceeds from revenue sharing to improve performance. Rather, they claim some owners hoard the profits while their teams’ struggles amplify. The Kansas City Royals are the epitome of this argument. Since 2000, Royals’ ticket sales have declined 18%, while the team valuation has increased from $96 million to $282 million (Vardi, 2007). The Royals’ revenue sharing proceeds have doubled since 2002, while their payroll has increased only 6% annually. Similarly, the Tampa Bay Rays (formerly, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays) decreased their payroll from $35 million in 2006 to $24 million in 2007, even though they received $30 million in revenue sharing. The team’s performance in the 2008 season appears to refute the argument, as the Rays won the American League Pennant and reached the World Series. The real question, however, is whether the Rays’ successful season is the exception, a Cinderella story attributable to the team’s chemistry and camaraderie, or whether it is a result of the incentives and opportunities provided by the current revenue sharing system.

The problem with the incentives the current system of revenue sharing provides is that transfers are based on local revenues. If teams that receive money from revenue sharing actually used it to increase their clubs’ competitiveness, more fans would show up to games. The increase in attendance would lead to an increase in local revenue. Thus, teams with lower local revenues may consciously choose not to invest into their payroll, as doing so would decrease the amount of revenue sharing proceeds they would receive

 

[macbdog]

I know Madden's resume- long time baseball writer and pusher of every single Yankee to ever be competent for the HOF- it doesn't mean he has any access to the Tribe's financial numbers.

I also know that he is a NY reporter whose best contacts are in the NY market, so for him to voice an opinion that sounds exactly like the kind of complaint that Steinbrenner has made about revenue sharing doesn't surprise me. I highly doubt that Madden based his take on a complicated revue of the revenue sharing system and more likely after being told what to print after talking to a Yankee honcho. Of course he is going to protect home turf and spout the company line.

His remarks are ill-informed, so regardless of how long he has been reporting, I have to use my better judgement. He claims the Pirates are selling off payroll- Mr. Madden, have you even looked at the standings? The Pirates are bad. They should be shelling out contract extensions to the core of a bad team? Neal Huntington inherited a bad franchise. He has made the moves he has made to try and both rebuild the system from top to bottom and sell off the players of a team that wasn't improving but getting more expensive. Is Huntington getting a good return in his trade? That is definitely debatable, but nowhere do I see his primary impetus being simply to slash payroll. Paying the 'going rate' for guys like Freddie Sanchez, John Grabow, and Adam LaRoche doesn't make sense when your club is mediocre at best.

Here is also another excerpt from that article that you linked:

The expectations at the beginning of the study were that the revenue sharing system had decreased incentives for revenue-maximizing teams to pursue better performance, as teams could maximize their profitability by spending less on team improvement and waiting to receive their share from the system. This had been the prevailing opinion in the press, and a source of much debate and criticism.

Interestingly, however, the statistical analysis on historical trends did not find enough evidence to support this view. While many fans argue that the standings have not changed much, this research found statistical evidence that revenue sharing has had a small effect on team behavior, and in many aspects, team performance and investment in payroll have improved for teams with limited financial resources.

Pretty much shoots the whole premise of Madden's article, that these other teams are just hording their revenue sharing dollars and laughing all the way to the bank. The Indians began under Dolan paying into the system anyway. You would think when mentioning revenue he would also mention how the Tribe and Pirates are 27th and 28th in attendance this year, a mark they were headed for before they went on a trading spree. Regardless of the other dollars coming in for a team, attendance at the ballpark still drives teams' revenue. This article just sounds like Madden repeating the Steinbrenners' beef with revenue sharing that they are funding the smaller market clubs' summer vacations, while maybe throwing in a little sourgrapes since the BoSox were the recipient of two key players from the respectively picked on clubs- Victor Martinez and Adam LaRoche.

 

[KB]

I said that about Madden due to the fact they are is credentials and can't be ignored. Just to discount him because he covered sports in NY seems a bit ridiculous even though I do understand what you are saying with perpetuating the status qou from larger market team(s). I also wouldn't expect him to expose his sources as that isn't what good reporters do if they want more information in the future.

I do say you do have to look at teams like the Pirates who have been doing the same thing for about 13 years when it comes to trading their best players for table scraps it seems like, then you have the Royals, O's ect.. The lower market teams that have done well include the Marlins, Rockies, Diamondbacks and Ray's where they have put the money into the scouting & player development, while only keeping and paying the players they feel are core players, not to mention locking them long before they are even eligible for arbitration, which has become a newer tactic for lower market teams to keep their higher ceiling players.

There is some truth to what he is saying and in relation to the other article, you have to take into account the rise in player salaries, even mediocre players are getting huge paydays which can account for the smaller market teams payroll going up as mentioned in the article I linked. This issue with rising player salaries wasn't covered or even mentioned in the study so that study in itself can be considered flawed for that reason.

The reason I linked that article is because it disputed Madden, even though the way the arguments/study are presented are flawed for both sides I feel it's beneficial to have input from both sides of the debate to find the actual answers through mountain of crap that’s dropped any subject.