Reds payroll 20th in MLB

[BRM]

From John Fay:

What $68.9 million buys these days

The Reds payroll is 20th among the 30 teams in baseball. That from the USA Today data base. Don't know if they ran the list in the paper or not. The Reds would probably put the figure at $74 million. USAT lists Ken Griffey Jr. at $8.4 million. The Reds have listed him at $12.5 million for accounting purposes, even the though a lot of the money is deferred. The payroll is up significantly over last year when it was $60.9 million. But it's fifth in the NL Central. Here's how the rest of the division ranks: 8. Cubs $99.6 million; 11. Cardinals $90.3 million; 14. Astros $87.7 million; 19. Brewers $70.9 million; 26. Pirates $38.5 million. Yankees, of course, are No. 1 at $189.6 million, followed by the Red Sox $143 million. Seven teams are over $100 million.

[UGADaddy]

Thanks for posting that.

I hate that MLB can't get a more strict salary cap in place, but I also know that it's not how much you spend, but how you spend it. We're paying too much for Griffey (obviously) and Milton (even more obviously), but other than that, I think we we've been smart lately with our money. I know he's not always populat with everyone on here, but overall, I think WK's done a pretty darn good job in Cincinnati.

Any other opinions?

[BRM]

Here is the link to the USA Today article. There is a link to the salaries database in the article.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseb...salaries_N.htm

[Sea Ray]

Thanks for posting that.

I hate that MLB can't get a more strict salary cap in place, but I also know that it's not how much you spend, but how you spend it. We're paying too much for Griffey (obviously) and Milton (even more obviously), but other than that, I think we we've been smart lately with our money. I know he's not always populat with everyone on here, but overall, I think WK's done a pretty darn good job in Cincinnati.

Any other opinions?

This is still the biggest problem in baseball. Take for instance pitching. What if your team needs pitching and what team doesn't? The Reds go off and pick up rule 5 guys and attempt to find a Bronson Arroyo. If you're the Boston Red Sox you can pick up a 26 yr old stud from Japan. It cost them $50mill just for the meeting and another $50mill for his 5 yr contract. Such a market puts most teams out of the running for his talent. That's not right. All teams should have equal access to FA talent.

Obviously in baseball there's no guarantees. He could blowout his arm but his acquisition clearly helps the Red Sox chances.

[durl]

What's interesting is that in 2005 (I'm waiting to see 2006's data), the Yankees posted the largest LOSS ever for a baseball team. They were $50 million in the hole. It took the YES Network's cash stream to make the organization profitable. So while the organization overall made money, the baseball end is leaking cash.

[HumnHilghtFreel]

All the other teams in the division are paying a whole lot more money to be just as mediocre as us.

I think WK has done a good enough job with what he has, but I also hope to see them pony up some cash in the coming off-seasons.

[Sea Ray]

What's interesting is that in 2005 (I'm waiting to see 2006's data), the Yankees posted the largest LOSS ever for a baseball team. It took the YES Network's cash stream to make the organization profitable. So while the organization overall made money, the baseball end is leaking cash.

This clearly illustrates the problem. The Yankees have a YES network to make them money. No way you can have such a network in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, KC, ...

[Sea Ray]

All the other teams in the division are paying a whole lot more money to be just as mediocre as us.

I'm not picking the Cubs to win the division but let's look at where some of their big money is going. Both Aramis Ramirez and Derek Lee were acquisitions from salary dumping teams. They were only available because of the money disparity in baseball.

Soriano puts up huge offensive numbers every year.

How good would the Cubs be without Lee, Ramirez and Soriano?

[durl]

This clearly illustrates the problem. The Yankees have a YES network to make them money. No way you can have such a network in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, KC, ...

EXACTLY right, my friend. Markets like NY and Boston can pull in tens of millions of dollars with their private TV networks. The Yankees own 38% of YES which raked in over $200 million in revenue in 2005. (I would guess that means YES helped pad baseball operations by over $70 million.)

[top6]

IMO, the Reds need to focus on becoming a regional team again - really work on building a presence in Louisville, Lexington, Columbus, Indianapolis, etc. I wouldn't even mind seeing them play a regular season series in those cities now and again, if possible. The Reds used to be popular all over the midwest, but the Cubs and the Braves (and to a lesser degree the Indians) have sort of taken over.

If I were the Reds, this would be by # 1 business priority. Then you could work on establishing some sort of regional sports network. Maybe it would somehow be possible to join with Ohio State football and Kentucky basketball to form some sort of super-midwest sports television network. I'm thinking 10, 20 years in the future. Obviously, that won't work until they are a major presence in the region.

[coachw513]

1. Revenue sharing should include all revenue streams...thus the YES and NESN $$ also helps all teams...

2. NBA type Salary cap basement must be established...all teams must spend $XXX million in salary ($80 mil???)

3. NBA type cap for the ceiling...no team can spend more than $xxx million in salary ($150 mil???)

Money doesn't buy you championships and pennants, but a lack of money cripples the ability of even well-run organizations to regulary compete...it takes WK total "out of the box" creativity to unearth Hamilton and Burton...it took the Red Sox a checkbook to get Dice-K...

[Chip R]

What's interesting is that in 2005 (I'm waiting to see 2006's data), the Yankees posted the largest LOSS ever for a baseball team. They were $50 million in the hole. It took the YES Network's cash stream to make the organization profitable. So while the organization overall made money, the baseball end is leaking cash.

I wouldn't put a lot of stock into those figures. There are many, many ways to move money around to make it look like the Yankees are losing money and the other entities are making it. An example would be the Yankees charging YES $10M for TV rights. The TV rights are worth 10 times that but YES gets all the revenue for that. The Braves used to do this all the time with TBS. Marge used to charge the Reds for expenses related to her car businesses. StL would funnel all their parking revenue into the company who owned the parking garage which just so happened to be owned by the brewery.

[dfs]

Chip is absolutely right. There are too many ways to cook the books. Till the owners disclose income to each other, (and that aint happening folks) there is no chance of any kind of real salary cap.

The reds COULD spend money on free agents. Remember players ARE investments, not costs. The fact that they don't tells us that they do not consider the cost of free agents to be an effective investment in they way the reds make their cash.

[fearofpopvol1]

I think baseball should institute a salary cap of $100 million. That should leave plenty of room for everyone to compete. It truly would only punish a few teams anyhow. If basketball and football have one, MLB should too. I do think the spend wisely philosophy is important, but why not be able to do that and have a salary cap in place? The 2 don't have to be independent of each other...

[Dunner44]

The problem with instituting a salary cap is exacerbated in baseball by the minor leagues. While there are other leagues in football and baseball, they are not owned/affiliated with a single team. The D-league just started up in the NBA, and my understanding is that certain teams only own players, not teams. The NFL has nothing to do with Arena, the CFL, etc (and players rarely make the cross over).

The only players that the NFL has to worry about paying who aren't on their 53 man roster are the 8 practice squad players who are owned by the team and practice with the team. The NBA teams don't pay many players in the D-league. I don't know as much about this system, but I don't imagine many teams own more than 5 or 6 players in the D-league.

But how do you count minor leaguers into a salary cap in the MLB? Do you only include the 25 man roster or do you include the 40 man into your salary cap? Or is this the whole orginization wide? Interesting question.