DuPuy: MLB competitive balance working

[savafan]

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?...=.jsp&c_id=mlb

By Tom Singer / MLB.com

11/09/09 12:53 PM EST

Bob DuPuy, Major League Baseball's president and chief operating officer, spoke about the sport's "enormous competitive balance" on an ESPN radio appearance Monday morning.

As a guest on "Mike & Mike in the Morning," DuPuy responded to fan criticism that the newly crowned World Series-champion Yankees "bought" a title with their $200 million payroll.

"I don't think that's a fair statement. Competitive balance has been a hallmark of the entire tenure of Commissioner [Bud] Selig," DuPuy said. "The numbers tell an awfully compelling story.

"Twenty of the 30 clubs have made the playoffs the last 10 years, when we've had eight different World Series champions."

The show's hosts, Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg, referred to having been "overwhelmed by the reactions coming in from people bemoaning the fact the Yankees have been able to buy a championship."

Listeners apparently have alluded to New York's signings last winter of the three top free agents, pitchers CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett and first baseman Mark Teixeira, all of whom played major roles as the Yankees won their first World Series since 2000.

Adding that trio yielded a payroll approximately equal to the combined payrolls of the five teams on the bottom of the list.

"There is too much disparity," DuPuy said. "We'd like to see that gap close. That's why we've been pushing revenue sharing. But if you look beyond the Yankees, that ratio is more compressed than people realize.

"Every team wants to have faith and hope it can make the playoffs."

DuPuy touched on a couple of ways in which baseball and its teams can continue to seek a more level playing field.

"Mid-market teams are signing their young stars to long-term contracts and we'll see those young stars with those franchises for years, and they'll build around them," said DuPuy, referring to such players as Troy Tulowitzki of the Rockies and Ryan Braun of the Brewers.

"Second," DuPuy added, "all clubs agree that we need to reform the Draft. The idea is for the best players to go to the teams with the worst records, and that has not been the case."

DuPuy was referring to the increasingly consequential global talent supply, which is not subject to the First-Year Player Draft. International players are free to sign with any team.

"We need a world-wide Draft," DuPuy said, "to assure that the best go to the weaker teams."

DuPuy said the negotiation in 2011 of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with players will afford baseball another opportunity to "look at our revenue-sharing formulas," while defending the way those disbursements are currently being used by receiving clubs.

"We've had over $400 million transferred, and the rule is you have to use that money to improve your club. And the Commissioner tracks that every year," DuPuy said.

On another subject, DuPuy dismissed a need to expand the use of instant replay, a subject that became a focus in the wake of a seemingly high number of incorrect calls by umpires in the postseason.

"Our job is to get the very best umpires on the field and for them to get the calls right," said DuPuy, who added that some of the calls in the postseason were "frankly inexplicable."

[bucksfan2]

I listened to half the interview then had to turn it off. Its unfortunate that people like DuPuy continue to look at the game as if there were no wrong and ignore all the problems.

[REDREAD]

"We've had over $400 million transferred, and the rule is you have to use that money to improve your club. And the Commissioner tracks that every year," DuPuy said.

Well, Bud might be tracking it, but he's not doing a darn thing about it.
He sat back and let Allen use the Reds revenue sharing money to pay for the stadium.

[Sea Ray]

It's unfortunate that the powers that be in baseball continue to stick their head in the sand on this. I'll even go so far as to say that there has been progress on this but it's still a huge, huge problem. They can't stand behind this bit about 20 teams making the playoffs. I'd throw the example of the Cleveland Indians out there and see if he can defend what happened to them. They had a bunch of players in the playoffs this year and they're left with a 90 loss team.

Clueless folks in the Commissioner's Office

[flyer85]

The issue is that they have no way to fix it, so they deny it's a problem.

[Unassisted]

The issue is that they have no way to fix it, so they deny it's a problem.

The owners are beholden to the MLBPA. The MLBPA doesn't want to fix it, for fear that salary caps will reduce the number of salary dollars in the game.

It's easy for the commissioner's office to ignore those holes in the bottom of the small market boats when they're so merrily focused on the increasing amount of water in the lake that resulted from the recent highly-rated WS.

[savafan]

Extended Musings on Whether MLB Needs a Salary Cap

http://bizofbaseball.com/index.php?o...ive&Itemid=176

In 1995 the New York Yankees payroll was $58 million…..

Maury Brown’s piece “Reasons for Not Having a Salary Cap in MLB are Numerous” delved into the complicated issue of the mighty salary cap. Which, after a Yankee 27th World Series, has somehow become an all-knowing, all-powerful and omnipotent force. I can’t help but agree with Brown’s assertion that the problem is well diagnosed, but solutions have been virtually non-existent. Brown’s solution is to implement a cap floor and a dollar-for-dollar revenue-sharing. Both viable suggestions, but neither is without flaw.

The cap floor, in theory, would force franchises like the Florida Marlins or Pittsburgh Pirates to spend luxury tax dollars on players rather than on, well, yachts. But, as Pete Toms outlined in his piece “Does the NFL Salary Cap Still Work?” there are ways around salary cap floors. Toms cites a Wall Street Journal article by Reed Albergotti, which uses the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as an example. According to Albergotti, the team signed two free agents for a total of $25 million in order to meet the cap floor. Good, right? Well, you would think spending $25 million would undoubtedly improve the team, but, since each player needed to block six punts in order to actually make that money, and neither player has made it into a game so far this season, we must stand in question of our savior, the salary cap floor.

Maybe I’m in the group of diagnosers, but, wouldn’t forcing teams to put more money into payroll cause the Yankees and Red Sox to spend more money? Suppose the Toronto Blue Jays, who are around the middle in salary, needed to up their payroll by $10 million to reach the cap floor. They decide to over pay for a free agent, let’s just say Adam LaRoche, but the Yankees want the left-handed bat, so they offer LaRoche $12 million. Now, Adam LaRoche isn’t worth $12 million, but he gets $12 million because the Yankees had to spend more to get their man. So, now that Toronto lost LaRoche, they either have to far overpay one free agent to meet the floor or they have to spread the payroll amongst two or three lower tier free agents.

Trust me, I’d love to see the Pittsburgh Pirates spend a few dollars and make it to the playoffs, but it appears even if they reached $80 million they still couldn’t compete, especially if there were no salary cap. If all the lower payroll teams were reaching around $80 million, the Yankees could just spend $250 or $300 million and Major League Baseball would be in the same position it is now.

Enter: the dollar-for-dollar revenue-sharing. I’m all for searching for a way to limit how high Yankee payroll can go, but I see two glaring issues with the dollar-for-dollar revenue-sharing. One, it seems unfair to the Yankees. Yes, blasphemy. But, the Yankees signed C.C. Sabathia and Mark Teixeira to long-term contracts under the assumption they’d only be paying 50 cents on the dollar. The Yankees would be paying a penalty for something they never could have foreseen when the long-term deals were struck. The league would either have to allow the Yankees the option to void contracts, which would make things really messy, or allow the contracts to be grandfathered in. In that case, the Yankees would still have stars Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and C.C. Sabathia .

The other problem is that the “weak” revenue-sharing already has had zero affect on the Yankees spending. Dollar-for-dollar would end up just like it does with real expenses in government - on the taxpayer…or in this case, on the fan. Likely Yankee solution to the revenue-sharing: raise A-Rod jersey prices.

What is most likely, in my opinion, is that those lost in the frustration of upper-echelon payroll teams’ dominance will have to look to the capitalism Gods and hope that pressure from fans will push teams like the Pirates to spend and win. Look at it this way: the bottom five teams in payroll, the Oakland A’s, Washington Nationals, Pittsburgh Pirates, San Diego Padres and Florida Marlins ranked 30th, 24th, 28th, 21st and 29th respectively in attendance. Spend money to make money…Someday they’ll get it.

[flyer85]

The owners are beholden to the MLBPA. The MLBPA doesn't want to fix it

the big market owners are the ones who don't want to fix it (and why would they). They have no incentive to share any of their local monies.

This is not a salary cap issue, this is an issue between big/small market owners.

[Brutus]

What DuPuy doesn't mention in his "20 of 30 teams have made the playoffs" statement is the fact that it's 10 of the 12 smallest markets in baseball that have not made the playoffs in that time. That's where the issue lies - the small markets.

As far as Maury's options he laid out for various cap ideas, I tend to favor the dollar-for-dollar revenue sharing plan, with a floor built-in. You can grandfather it in for teams to allow them to play out their existing contracts. As far as the floor, the problem with the NFL contracts would not apply to Major League Baseball (I'm talking about the incentive, performance bonus deals), because of the way MLB calculates "Annual Average Salary."

Since the average value of a Major League contract only takes into account guaranteed money and mutual/player options (with at least a 25% buyout), a team could not give incentive-laden deals to meet the floor cap. It would have to be guaranteed money. Therefore, that would not be an issue.

Ideally I'd like to have a total salary cap (and floor) in baseball. But the dollar-for-dollar revenue sharing is a good substitute if that's the most realistic plausibility.

[Unassisted]

the big market owners are the ones who don't want to fix it (and why would they). They have no incentive to share any of their local monies.

This is not a salary cap issue, this is an issue between big/small market owners.

I don't buy that. There are more small-market owners than big-market owners. The have-nots could easily cobble together a majority and outvote the haves if they had the will to do so. Clearly the have-nots are content with the revenue stream that's generated by the national media contracts and MLB's own digital inititiatives.

[Chip R]

I don't buy that. There are more small-market owners than big-market owners. The have-nots could easily cobble together a majority and outvote the haves if they had the will to do so. Clearly the have-nots are content with the revenue stream that's generated by the national media contracts and MLB's own digital inititiatives.

I think one of the problems is that the have-nots aspire to be the haves and don't want to vote some rule in that would screw them when they start making more money.

[flyer85]

I don't buy that. There are more small-market owners than big-market owners.

IIRC, it is not a majority vote and therein lies the problem. There are not enough small/medium market owners to force their will on the big market owners.

[bucksfan2]

I think one of the problems is that the have-nots aspire to be the haves and don't want to vote some rule in that would screw them when they start making more money.

I don't think we will experience a great population shift pulling hundreds of thousands of people away from the major market. It really is a geographical issue that I don't see changing.

[Chip R]

I don't think we will experience a great population shift pulling hundreds of thousands of people away from the major market. It really is a geographical issue that I don't see changing.

No. But it could happen. If the Cardinals draw half of what they do, they are in the same boat as the Reds and Pirates. Since they do draw around 3M a year, they are a have because they take in a lot of revenue from attendence. Look at the Braves back in the 70s and mid to late 80s. They were one of the dregs of baseball. Couldn't draw flies. All of a sudden, they win, draw well and are a powerhouse for all of the 90s and most of the 00s. Cleveland's another example. None of those teams are going to approach the Yankees in revenue but they probably believe they can bring back the golden days. And if they do, they don't want to share their money.

[WMR]