The return of baseball's great divide
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
By Buster Olney
There have been nine different teams that have won championships in the past 10 seasons, from the Yankees to the Diamondbacks to the Angels and Marlins, and of course the championship-level sprints by the Athletics and Indians and the Twins and Rockies and Rays. Baseball may never play on a perfectly level financial playing field, but the past decade has seen the game move toward competitive parity.
The events of the past few months, however, have some club executives in the game concerned about a possible shift in the other direction, back toward the world of haves and have-nots that John Helyar described so brilliantly in "Lords of the Realm."
There have been no recent changes to baseball's financial structure, of course. Labor agreement talks won't be reopened for another couple of years, there is still a luxury-tax threshold and a luxury tax, and there is revenue sharing. But the nation's slumping economy may have been the latest factor to tip baseball's competitive balance. Another is that the big-market teams, such as the Red Sox and Yankees, smartly began to drink from the same draft-and-develop trough that the Athletics, Twins, Indians, Rays and others had drawn for years.
In the past calendar year, no fewer than three small- to mid-market teams have dropped into a full-scale rebuilding mode -- the Padres, Indians and Pirates. And the Blue Jays appear to be on the verge of either locking down their payroll or scaling back, which is why Roy Halladay seems prepared to walk away as a free agent after next season. The Rays, the great success story of 2008, will face enormous financial challenges after this year and might soon have to start dealing away the likes of Carl Crawford and Scott Kazmir. And within the next 12 months, Minnesota probably will come face-to-face with its next great challenge: whether to give Joe Mauer a contract that outstrips the Twins' budget or face losing him to another team.
"Every year, we've seen one or maybe two teams tear down their roster the way that the Padres have," one high-ranking team official said. "But now we're looking at four or five in one year. And teams are doing it [breaking down a roster] more quickly than they used to, which hurts their chances for sustained success. I think the days of the small-market teams going to the playoffs four out of five years are over, unless something changes."
Here are the top eight MLB teams in payroll:
Yankees: $206 million
Mets: $139 million
Cubs: $138 million
Tigers: $130 million
Phillies: $128 million
Red Sox: $123 million
Angels: $117 million
Dodgers: $109 million
Of those eight teams, seven would qualify for the postseason if the playoffs were to begin today. (The Cubs lead the NL Central by mere percentage points.) The Mets are the only team on the list that would not qualify.
Here's another way to look at it.
These are the AL East payroll rankings (and the corresponding AL East standings through Monday night's games):
Yankees (1. Yankees)
Red Sox (2. Red Sox)
Blue Jays (3. Rays)
Orioles (4. Blue Jays)
Rays (5. Orioles)
AL Central payroll rankings (AL Central standings):
Tigers (1. Tigers)
White Sox (2. White Sox)
Indians (3. Twins)
Royals (4. Indians)
Twins (5. Royals)
AL West payroll rankings (AL West standings):
Angels (1. Angels)
Mariners (2. Rangers)
Rangers (3. Mariners)
Athletics (4. Athletics)
NL East payroll rankings (NL East standings):
Mets (1. Phillies)
Phillies (2. Marlins)
Braves (3. Braves)
Nationals (4. Mets)
Marlins (5. Nationals)
NL Central payroll rankings (NL Central standings):
Cubs (1. Cubs)
Astros (2. Cardinals)
Cardinals (3. Brewers)
Brewers (4. Astros)
Reds (5. Reds)
Pirates (6. Pirates)
NL West payroll rankings (NL West standings):
Dodgers (1. Dodgers)
Giants (2. Rockies)
Rockies (3. Giants)
Diamondbacks (4. Diamondbacks)
Padres (5. Padres)
Small-market executives have been saying for years that baseball's draft system must be changed, that either salaries for draft picks must be negotiated into place in talks with the union based on slotting recommendations set by the commissioner's office, or teams should have some way of recouping the full value of their picks. For example, we will find out in the next 13 days whether the Nationals will be able to sign No. 1 pick Stephen Strasburg, and if they don't reach an agreement, the Nationals will never be able to realize the full value of having once possessed the rights to Strasburg had they been able to trade the pick. We'll see whether the cash-strapped Padres will be able to sign their first pick, No. 3 selection Donavan Tate.
In recent years, teams such as the Red Sox have paid more than the slotting recommendations to sign top-round talents in the middle rounds such as Ryan Westmoreland. "The small-market teams could always rely on that stream of talent to gain their advantage," one team executive said. "That's down to a trickle now."
These kinds of gradual shift are causing increased consternation within the offices of small- to mid-market teams.
Others are also discussing this issue.
The team that is performing most dramatically above its payroll ranking is the Marlins, who consistently do more with less, writes Dave Sheinin.
The Padres' trade of Jake Peavy is an example of what ails baseball, writes Nick Canepa. From Canepa's column: "There must be hope, a promise, at the very least a hook, something that can be grasped and held on to for more than a few years. There are franchises that have no chance to be good over long periods of time. They get rid of their best players. Why should fans care? Hot dogs, peanuts and Cracker Jacks are readily available at most supermarkets.
"Peavy won the Cy Young Award two seasons ago and thus was compensated for being good, which was proper. But he was making too much for a team with a 50-cent payroll. So he was dealt."
