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Keeping in mind that any talk about a salary cap in baseball is hypothetical at this time, the issue of whether to have a cap is not whether the owners pocket more money or offer more to the players, but how you give the teams in smaller markets (by major league standards) the chance to compete. You've got a problem if the same relatively few teams keep winning most of the championships, with the occasional surprise team being from a mid-sized city, while teams in smaller markets never have any hope of contending.
The size of the city clearly seems to matter. LanceT, you said that the Yankees have more money than other clubs because of the amount they make from ticket sales and the like. Radio and cable television contracts are another source of income where there's a big difference between clubs in the amount of money they make off of it. The problem here is that you seem to imply that the Yankees make more than other clubs from these sources simply because they have very enthusiastic fans. You overlook the reality that New York is the largest city in the country. The Yankees sell more tickets, merchandise, television and radio time, etc., largely because they have more fans, which in turn results from the fact that they have the largest population to draw their fans from.
The same idea applies throughout MLB. The rich clubs are all in larger metro areas. I've encountered the opinion that the small-market clubs could compete if their owners were willing to spend money to do so instead of pocketing it all as profit, but this idea does not hold up if you look at which teams keep winning. It was around the mid '90's that I first heard talk about small-market clubs being priced out of contention. Since that time there appears to have been some truth to this. In the 16 seasons, 1995-2010, 14 World Series have been won by teams in the ten largest metro areas in the U.S. The two exceptions were the D'backs and the Cards. The D'backs are located just slightly outside the top ten American metro areas. Phoenix currently ranks 13th. St. Louis has the 18th largest metro area, which still means that they are larger than over one third of metro areas with major league clubs. And, what a surprise, the Pirates, Royals, Brewers, and the like, who always seem to be perpetually bad, or at best manage to put together a decent team for a season or two and then lose all their good players to free agency, as the Brewers did a few years ago, all seem to be in that bottom third.
When people say that the large-market clubs win championships because the owners of clubs in smaller cities refuse to put money into building contenders, it reminds me of a quote by Tim McCarver. This quote comes from back in his playing days, when he was a catcher for the Cardinals, and a teammate of Bob Gibson's. The observation by McCarver went something like, "Bob Gibson is the luckiest pitcher I know. He always seems to pitch on the days when the other team doesn't score any runs!" In the same way, I'd say that fans of teams in the biggest cities are the luckiest fans in baseball, because it's always the owners of clubs in the biggest cities who are willing to spend the money to field contending teams.
Where there's smoke there's fire. The fact that nearly every WS for a decade and a half has been won by teams in the ten largest metro areas is not coincidence. Neither is the fact that most clubs which have struggled perpetually over that time are located in the smallest major league metros. The big-market clubs have a distinct advantage because they make more money than clubs in the smaller markets, due to the large populations from which they draw their fans, and all the money those large numbers of fans spend on their teams.
It's really not good for baseball to have this imbalance. Being that the players aren't about to approve any plan that would reduce their salaries, I don't know what the asnwer is, but the situation at present is a problem, because a look at which teams do most of the winning shows that many clubs really cannot compete, simply because of the size of their home population bases.
Keeping in mind that any talk about a salary cap in baseball is hypothetical at this time, the issue of whether to have a cap is not whether the owners pocket more money or offer more to the players, but how you give the teams in smaller markets (by major league standards) the chance to compete. You've got a problem if the same relatively few teams keep winning most of the championships, with the occasional surprise team being from a mid-sized city, while teams in smaller markets never have any hope of contending.
The size of the city clearly seems to matter. LanceT, you said that the Yankees have more money than other clubs because of the amount they make from ticket sales and the like. Radio and cable television contracts are another source of income where there's a big difference between clubs in the amount of money they make off of it. The problem here is that you seem to imply that the Yankees make more than other clubs from these sources simply because they have very enthusiastic fans. You overlook the reality that New York is the largest city in the country. The Yankees sell more tickets, merchandise, television and radio time, etc., largely because they have more fans, which in turn results from the fact that they have the largest population to draw their fans from.
The same idea applies throughout MLB. The rich clubs are all in larger metro areas. I've encountered the opinion that the small-market clubs could compete if their owners were willing to spend money to do so instead of pocketing it all as profit, but this idea does not hold up if you look at which teams keep winning. It was around the mid '90's that I first heard talk about small-market clubs being priced out of contention. Since that time there appears to have been some truth to this. In the 16 seasons, 1995-2010, 14 World Series have been won by teams in the ten largest metro areas in the U.S. The two exceptions were the D'backs and the Cards. The D'backs are located just slightly outside the top ten American metro areas. Phoenix currently ranks 13th. St. Louis has the 18th largest metro area, which still means that they are larger than over one third of metro areas with major league clubs. And, what a surprise, the Pirates, Royals, Brewers, and the like, who always seem to be perpetually bad, or at best manage to put together a decent team for a season or two and then lose all their good players to free agency, as the Brewers did a few years ago, all seem to be in that bottom third.
When people say that the large-market clubs win championships because the owners of clubs in smaller cities refuse to put money into building contenders, it reminds me of a quote by Tim McCarver. This quote comes from back in his playing days, when he was a catcher for the Cardinals, and a teammate of Bob Gibson's. The observation by McCarver went something like, "Bob Gibson is the luckiest pitcher I know. He always seems to pitch on the days when the other team doesn't score any runs!" In the same way, I'd say that fans of teams in the biggest cities are the luckiest fans in baseball, because it's always the owners of clubs in the biggest cities who are willing to spend the money to field contending teams.
Where there's smoke there's fire. The fact that nearly every WS for a decade and a half has been won by teams in the ten largest metro areas is not coincidence. Neither is the fact that most clubs which have struggled perpetually over that time are located in the smallest major league metros. The big-market clubs have a distinct advantage because they make more money than clubs in the smaller markets, due to the large populations from which they draw their fans, and all the money those large numbers of fans spend on their teams.
It's really not good for baseball to have this imbalance. Being that the players aren't about to approve any plan that would reduce their salaries, I don't know what the asnwer is, but the situation at present is a problem, because a look at which teams do most of the winning shows that many clubs really cannot compete, simply because of the size of their home population bases.
You got to watch your wording. I never said that ALL small market clubs. I am also a Pittsburgh Steeler fan and they barely ever spend heavy on many players.
You got to watch your wording. I never said that ALL small market clubs. I am also a Pittsburgh Steeler fan and they barely ever spend heavy on many players.
Wasn't trying to single you out. Sorry if it seemed that way. It was more that I was citing your quote as an example, to lead into a discussion of the fact that I've heard a number of people generalize with the idea that it's only because club owners are unwilling to spend the necessary money that they don't field contending teams, trying to claim that small-market clubs are not at a competitive disadvantage.
I'd say that the fact that for a time going back as far as the mid '90's, with only a couple of exceptions, it's always, always, always been clubs in the larger metro areas who win the WS raises serious doubts about the claim that it's only an unwillingness to spend money that makes the difference. Kind of hard to believe that for all those years it's just happened to be the clubs in the biggest metros whose owners were the ones willing to spend the money needed to contend. Anyway, wasn't trying to single you out. Sorry if it seemed that way. Just using your quote as one example.
As for the Steelers, different sport, different league, different situation. Football had a salary cap for years. The lack of a cap is still too new a situation to expect that it would have had any effect yet. Ten or fifteen years from now if there has been no cap in the NFL all that time, and if NFL players' salaries have gone through the roof like baseball salaries, and if the Steelers are still operating on a thrifty budget, and if they are still frequently fielding contending teams, then you might have a point.
For now, the Steelers actually appear to provide evidence in favor of my position. There's a sport with a cap where a club in one of the smaller metro areas with major league sports has been able to frequently have good teams, even win a couple of championships in recent years. The Steelers are evidence that a salary cap does give small-market clubs a fighting chance.
Wasn't trying to single you out. Sorry if it seemed that way. It was more that I was citing your quote as an example, to lead into a discussion of the fact that I've heard a number of people generalize with the idea that it's only because club owners are unwilling to spend the necessary money that they don't field contending teams, trying to claim that small-market clubs are not at a competitive disadvantage.
I'd say that the fact that for a time going back as far as the mid '90's, with only a couple of exceptions, it's always, always, always been clubs in the larger metro areas who win the WS raises serious doubts about the claim that it's only an unwillingness to spend money that makes the difference. Kind of hard to believe that for all those years it's just happened to be the clubs in the biggest metros whose owners were the ones willing to spend the money needed to contend. Anyway, wasn't trying to single you out. Sorry if it seemed that way. Just using your quote as one example.
As for the Steelers, different sport, different league, different situation. Football had a salary cap for years. The lack of a cap is still too new a situation to expect that it would have had any effect yet. Ten or fifteen years from now if there has been no cap in the NFL all that time, and if NFL players' salaries have gone through the roof like baseball salaries, and if the Steelers are still operating on a thrifty budget, and if they are still frequently fielding contending teams, then you might have a point.
For now, the Steelers actually appear to provide evidence in favor of my position. There's a sport with a cap where a club in one of the smaller metro areas with major league sports has been able to frequently have good teams, even win a couple of championships in recent years. The Steelers are evidence that a salary cap does give small-market clubs a fighting chance.
I do think there are some major culprits in taking advantage of the system while teams like Minnesota stick to their game plan and are quite successful. Even though everyone would like to see their team win it every year, i'd rather have a cap and have it more competitive. The Yankee teams that won in the 90's had a better feel to me and most Yankee fans that I speak to, than the ones in the AROD era. Sometimes the hired guns just feel like outsiders. I still feel that way about AROD even though he has been around a while now.
Crawford is a better power hitting Ellsbury and have you noticed one major thing about this lineup...alot of injury prone guys. I figured Crawford for about 18 per year for about 4-5 years. Can't blame Crawford for taking the deal though because Boston always stands a chance whether for the division or the wild card. If Boston were smart they would be working out a deal for Garza or Greinke while everyone else is concentrating on Cliff Lee.
Crawford is better than Ichiro and Ichiro got 5/90($18mil/year) without even going to free free agency.
Crawford is better than Ichiro and Ichiro got 5/90($18mil/year) without even going to free free agency.
Crawford has just come into his own. Ichiro consistently has been a 200 hit guy almost ever year and like Jeter, he has earned his money by playing many years for the Mariners. He has been one of the faces for the franchise and has brought in a ton of the asian market including for television rights.
Crawford has just come into his own. Ichiro consistently has been a 200 hit guy almost ever year and like Jeter, he has earned his money by playing many years for the Mariners. He has been one of the faces for the franchise and has brought in a ton of the asian market including for television rights.
Crawford has been just as consistent as Ichiro and has more power as well. Playing many years for the mariners isn't really relevant to his value. Crawford has played many years for the devil rays as well!
Crawford has been just as consistent as Ichiro and has more power as well. Playing many years for the mariners isn't really relevant to his value. Crawford has played many years for the devil rays as well!
Ichiro has acquired 4.15 WAR per 600 plate appearances in his career
Crawford as acquired 3.84 WAR per 600 plate appearances in his career. If you remove Crawford's first two seasons (when he was much younger and less established than Ichiro) then Crawford has averaged 4.31 WAR per 600 plate appearances.
The standard deviation of Crawford's WAR/600 is 1.57 for his career and 1.15 for his career minus his first two seasons.
The standard deviation of Ichiro's WAR/600 is .89 for his career.
Ichiro has been more consistent.
BUT,
Crawford looks to be getting better, which is better than being consistent. Prior to 2009 Crawford's highest WAR/600 was 4.28. In 2009 it was 5.1 and in 2010 it was 6.2.
EDIT
Using wOBA which measures a players' total offensive contribution
http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs/1101_1201_OF_cseason_full_8_20101003.png (broken link)
and WRC+ which compares that to the league average
The standard deviation of Ichiro's wOBA's is .016 and the standard deviation of Ichiro's WRC+ is 8.98
The standard deviation of Crawford's wOBA's is .019 and the standard deviation of Crawford's WRC+ is 14.03 (removing Crawford's 1st 2 seasons).
But again, Ichiro entered the league in his prime and had (impressively) been able to maintain a very consistent level of production through what would be expected to be his decline seasons. Crawford looks to be improving and just entering his prime.
Ichiro has acquired 4.15 WAR per 600 plate appearances in his career
Crawford as acquired 3.84 WAR per 600 plate appearances in his career. If you remove Crawford's first two seasons (when he was much younger and less established than Ichiro) then Crawford has averaged 4.31 WAR per 600 plate appearances.
The standard deviation of Crawford's WAR/600 is 1.57 for his career and 1.15 for his career minus his first two seasons.
The standard deviation of Ichiro's WAR/600 is .89 for his career.
Ichiro has been more consistent.
BUT,
Crawford looks to be getting better, which is better than being consistent. Prior to 2009 Crawford's highest WAR/600 was 4.28. In 2009 it was 5.1 and in 2010 it was 6.2.
EDIT
Using wOBA which measures a players' total offensive contribution
and WRC+ which compares that to the league average
The standard deviation of Ichiro's wOBA's is .016 and the standard deviation of Ichiro's WRC+ is 8.98
The standard deviation of Crawford's wOBA's is .019 and the standard deviation of Crawford's WRC+ is 14.03 (removing Crawford's 1st 2 seasons).
But again, Ichiro entered the league in his prime and had (impressively) been able to maintain a very consistent level of production through what would be expected to be his decline seasons. Crawford looks to be improving and just entering his prime.
Agreed, but the proper comparison is where crawford was when he signed his contract and where Ichiro when he signed his. I think that comparison is in favor of crawford.
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