"We don't have a Bill James apostle. We have Bill James."

--Larry Lucchino, New York Times, February 8, 2004

How quickly the arrogant have turned to whiners.

I think that's a little harsh on Henry. John Henry has been a good sport until now. You have to admit it's a frustrating competitive environment.

The ownership *has* cowboyed up the money--they're (slightly) above the luxury tax threshold. They *have* done a good job at filling out the team and fixing the holes. Sometimes they "moneyball" it--e.g., Pokey/Bellhorn for 2B, Ortiz, Mueller and Millar last year, and sometimes they do it the old fashioned way (Schilling and Foulke.).

However, I just don't see what a cap would do. You would have to have a hard cap, or else you'd run into the ridiculous problems the NBA has, where Portland has twice the payroll of most teams. But I don't see a hard cap working, either. Teams would be pegged to it.

They could set the cap pretty high, such as where luxury tax threshold is set, but then it would be pretty blatantly a Yankee cap.

Henry should be happy about the Wild Card, which is pretty much tailor-made for the predicament the Sox find themselves in.

-Mike, viewer #499040
http://www.sportsretort.com

Larry Lucchino is another story.

Maybe a reasonable minimum cap would be more useful. Especially in terms of "small market" teams flooding the market with Free Agents..all looking for pie in the sky money.

Remember how John Henry got the Sox in the first place? Henry's done a good job investing in the team so far, but I'm sure he still owes Mr. Selig a favor or two.

This statement looks like a warm-and-fuzzy designed to show the Commissioner that his heart is still in the right place. Wanna bet that the subject of this trade comes up in the next round of CBA negotiations?

While John Henry is probably not the best owner to bring it up, does anyone honestly believe baseball does not have a problem?

The YANKEES payroll is more than a whopping 50% higher than any other team (REDSOX) whose payroll is 20% higher than the 28 other teams.

Personally I have no problems with a franchise like the Yankees outspending everyone like they did several years ago (highest payroll but not one that is multiples higher than other larger market clubs). However, their payroll is such a magnitude higher than everyone else it's becoming a huge problem for baseball.

What is their payroll? 4x that of the Orioles? 6x that of the Devil Rays? 2x that of the Braves? Having the highest payroll and one that is 50% above the median is one thing. Having a payroll that that is a multiple of median poses a long term problem for the game.

The Yankees have like 15 players that a team like the Brewers would bill as their franchise player right now. Something's wrong with that picture. It's just not fair to the fans in those cities

I think John Henry owes Buddy Boy more than a few favors-more like an unnatural act or two.

Henry likes to cry poor, but as one who has seen his yacht, I ain't buying it. The last thing the Red Sox need is a rich guy who won't touch the principal. I don't know how long we'll wait until the true story comes out about the Manny/A-Rod negotiations, and how much Prince of Darkness Luchino had to do with the ultimate failure to get the deal done. The Yankees, on the other hand, got the deal done in a heartbeat.

I hate reading these sour grape comments from Henry. George spends the money because 1) he has it and 2) he wants to win. There's nothing wrong with that. He bought the team for millions and has created a billion dollar franchise. That's about as Amercian as it gets.

Of course, it doesn't guarantee that his team wins. It shouldn't. But before Henry opens his mouth, he should think about

1. How he originally got the Sox
2. How he was granted a 72 hour exclusive window to negotiate with A-Rod and couldn't get the deal done
3. How his team is in a major media market with loyal, faithful, happily obsessive, great fans. If he's truly committed to putting a successful team on the field, don't pretend you're a small market team. He had his chance with A-Rod and it didn't work. Theo is a fantastic GM and did his best, but in the end, as far as i've read, the management didn't *cowboy up* the cash.
4. How George & the Yanks put close to $60 million in the hands of the other owners with luxury tax and revenue sharing, but you never hear the other owners complain about that now do you?

If you take Henry's comments and disregard the fact that he owns the Sox, they're spot on. Screw his motives for saying what he says--he's right.

Only One Word To Describe John Henry: Hypocrite

I didn't see him bitch and whine when he owned 1% of the Yankees. And if he's such a great owner, why did he abandoned the Marlins in the first place. Of course, Jeff Loria isn't a saint down here in Florida either...

Steinbrenner has done a good job building up the Yankees but to pretend that the market doesn't have a lot to do with the sucess of the Yankees is foolish. MLB should not have a purely capitalistic system. The ONLY reason Steinbrenner can rake in the huge amounts of revenues is by having other teams do well enough to create an entertaining product. At the current trend, how many more years until we no longer have that? Yankees at 200m to TB at $40m? At the current rate of growth, what about in a couple of years when the Yankeed may have a payroll of 300m compared to TB at $60. At what point does the amount of money that NYY outspend everyone else by equal games where the outcome is predetermined and the games lose their entertainment value?

Excuse me. I take exception. We have a budget. The budget is the limit, not the sky.

We are not the Yankees. WE COULD NOT AFFORD IT!

Again.

WE COULD NOT AFFORD IT!

So don't talk about "cowboying up the money". WE COULD NOT AFFORD IT.

There is a competitive balance problem in baseball, but is Boston really the organization to be lecturing the rest of the sport on this count?

At what point does the Red Sox organization from the top on down stop whining and just get it done. The Marlins got it done last year. The Angels got it done the year before. The Diamondbacks did it in 2001. Stop blaming the Yankees. Stop blaming ludicrous curses. GET IT DONE!! Either spend the money (which was Henry's decision) to get better players or find a strategy to beat them with the money you have.

"At what point does the amount of money that NYY outspend everyone else by equal games where the outcome is predetermined and the games lose their entertainment value?"

I don't know, but given the thought of Josh Beckett strolling up the street sporting his WS ring, we haven't reached that point yet.

"WE COULD NOT AFFFORD IT!"

Dave's point was if they couldn't "AFFORD IT", they shouldn't have whined about it.

Funny, I don't think this is whining at all. Simply fact. Sure, the Red Sox spend the second most money pretty much every year. Does that mean they can't favor a salary cap?

I'd like to see a cap and a floor.

"I don't know, but given the thought of Josh Beckett strolling up the street sporting his WS ring, we haven't reached that point yet. "

In a short series there is still the chance of david knocking off goliath.

However, with the amount of money the Yankees are outspending the rest of baseball by it's pretty much predetermined that they will be in the post season. It would take a collapse of epic proportion for a team with $50-$60 million more talent than the team with the 2nd highest payroll.

Boston is a horrible team to bring up in inequities seeing as they outspend by far each of the other 28 teams.

But how about the rest of the AL East. 19 games each against a team w/more than $100m more in talent.

In business, payroll caps or reductions are adopted for one reason, and one reason only: to fix or reduce the marginal cost of a product so that the marginal return on the product, and thus overall profitability is maximized. The business may claim that increased profitability allows for greater reinvestment in the product and thus higher quality, but in a monopolistic competitive environment like MLB, there's no real incentive for the business to take such steps.

Each MLB team is owned by either a wealthy individual, a wealthy syndicate or a wealthy corporation, each looking to maximize its return from the franchise. Winning it all can certainly increase revenues and profits in the short term, but if you can generate steady long-term positive cash flows by capping costs, putting a somewhat competitive team on the field each year to keep attendence from atrophying, and pocketing the profits, why take a big investment risk in the form of top-drawer free-agent players? This is the Howard Lincoln model for running a franchise, one that I expect will become more and more popular among mid- and small-market teams if a hard salary cap is adopted in the next CBA.

I would argue that it is the absence of cost assurance that helps promote the adoption of sabremetrics and other sophisticated statistical methodologies for identifying and maximizing value. If all costs become fixed for each team, there's no particular need to pursue these lines of research; most teams would have the same basic mix of 1 or 2 superstars, a bunch of middling players, and a few real scrubs, as that would probably be the optimum asset mix for maximum profitability. Hmm . . . sounds like my Giants!

Also, does anyone here seriously think that a guy like Steinbrenner couldn't figure out a way around a hard cap if he wanted to? Jerry Jones and Don Snyder are two prime examples of franchise owners who managed to outspend everyone else in the NFL even after the adoption of a cap.

I don't think we need a salary cap but we do need better revenue sharing. It isn't a free market in baseball. If the Pittsburgh Pirates look at their situation and realize they aren't in a market large enough to generate the TV revenues that say a NY can, they do not have the freedom to move their operation to New York. At the same time a large portion of the revenue the NYY generate would not be possible if not for the other teams. The Yankees have to have an opponent to play to generate those revenues.

If the YES! is broadcasting 160 games a year for the 19 games televised between the Yankees and Tampa, Tampa should be compensated as without the DRays participating, there would be no product for NYY to generate revenue from those 19 dates. We need real revnenue sharing on the media monies and how well you fill your stadium , sponsorhips etc... should be the differentiator on which teams obtain a larger revenue pool.

Boo-yoo indeed.

The Bosox could have afforded A-Rod if they weren't obsessed with packaging Mr. Happy in the deal. (And why were they so desperate to deal away the best Boston hitter since the Splinter, who, you might remember, also wasn't the sunniest personality either?)

Heck, rather than experimenting with Soriano in the OF, Texas could have gotten from Boston some players they actually needed. Instead of trying to get Texas to take Ramirez, they should have packaged $25M worth of players (say Garciaparra, Lowe, and Damon) to Texas. All three of those guys would be off the books by 2005-06, and the Red Sox get cost certainty in A-Rod for the next decade without hitting the luxury tax. Texas team might actually make some noise in '04. Done and done.

I don't understand why Henry thinks it's OK that the Red Sox can spend nearly double what the Blue Jays do, but not OK that the Yankees are willing to double what the Red Sox spend.

Henry is the wrong messenger, but the message is accurate. It wasn't so bad when the yankees had the highest payroll and it was 10-20% higher than a group of teams below them.

It's disasterous when their payroll is now 50% higher than that of the 2nd highest team and their payroll is not measured anymore in percentages but multiples compared to other teams some of which are not considered small markets.

I.e. the yankees payroll is 2x that of the Mariners, 3x-4x greater than every other team in the AL East other than Boston.

Better revenue sharing? Whatever....what needs to happen is MLB should force owners that receive revenue sharing to spend the money and put a better product on the field instead of pocketing the money for their own gain. It is criminal to see the payroll of some of these teams along with how much revenue sharing they have received. A salary cap is never going to happen because the players' union (the most powerful one in sports) is not going to let it happen just like they are not going to let the DH go away. The Boss shouldn't be hammered because he bought a team that CBS had run into the ground and rebuilt it into the most valuable property in sports. All owners should put as much of the profit back into the team as George does.

I agree, some owners are simply pocketing the revenue sharing money and that needs to stop as well. However, that doesn't change the facts about market disparity. And unlike the free market, a team like Kansas City can't move the franchise to New York where surely being a 3rd team in NY would be more revenue beneficial than being the only team in KC. But becuase MLB is not a free market, KC even if they wanted to, could not move to NY.

"All owners should put as much of the profit back into the team as George does."

If every team put 100% of the profits back into the team the Yankees payroll would still be measured in multiples higher than other teams rather than percentages.

So you are advocating communism/socialism to rectify all wrongs? The only people I've seen that won't let this go are Red Sox fans- get over it. What I would like to see happen, even though I'm a Yanks fan, is for George to pull a Charlie Finley and blow the whole team out and put a 20 million dollar payroll team on the field next year and see what kind of response you see from the teams making all the noise now- the same ones that have their hands out every year waiting for a payout. The A-Rod commotion would pale by comparison.

No, not communism, I just think that other teams should be compensated as well. If Yes! televises a game - NYY vs TB there is revenue being generated that would not be generated if not for the Devil Rays participating in the game. They should get a cut.

Media revenues should be split... I don't know if there is anything that would prevent it, but I personally would like to see other teams create their own revenue sharing by preventing Yes! from broadcasting games from their ballparks unless the loot is split.

I am not a Red Sox fan, I root for the Orioles. I was happy to see them spend some money this off season and with a lot of young arms 2-3 years away their future isn't as bleak as it has been. But realistically I know they won't have any chance at winning the AL East at any point as any time a team has the combination of a competent GM and the ability to outspend the competetion by an average of in the neighborhood of 2-3x a team like the Orioles, Blue Jays, Devil Rays have slim to no chance of ever winning a division title no matter how well they are run.

Outspendng the competetion by on average of 2-3x does not guarantee championships as anything can happen in a short series, but as long as they have competent people making personnel decisions that 2-3x multiple of outspending the competetion pretty much guarantees NY a playoff spot before the season even begins.

I agree with John here. When I talk about competitive revenue sharing, this is what I mean. Take the local money, and divide it up among the teams the locals compete against. And divide it up based on tv ratings, gate and radio ratings.

The upshoot, of course, is that everyone will want to play the Yankees. MLB may have to go back to a balanced schedule if this happens.

All I can say is that I'm glad you aren't running my business. At some point you have to stop throwing good money after bad and pull the plug on some of the franchises that are never going to make money. Why should the Yankees have to pay for poor management by other teams? If the Yankees gave away all the money from the YES network deal, some people still wouldn't be happy until the Yankees finish last every year. George played by the rules, live with it. The best managed teams are going to rise to the top no matter how others try to tear them down. Even though the Yankees spend a lot of money, they don't waste a lot of it as compared to the Dodgers and others with high payrolls that can't even make the playoffs. All of the people bitching seem to ignore the fact that the Yanks haven't won the Series in 3 years and have been beaten by teams with less payroll. But I guess when you are trying to make your point, the facts are irrelevant.

Michael, I think you are missing the point. Personally I have no problem with what Steinbrenner has done, my issue is not with him or the Yankees, it's with the system.

You say why should the Yankees have to pay for poor management of other teams. My question is why should the Yankees be able to collect revenues off the efforts of another teams assets without giving that team a significant cut? The product is the result of two teams playing one another yet when it comes to local TV revenues there is no cut that goes to the Yankees opponent. Why shouldn't the team that is responsible for providing half of the product be compensated?

While it's true the Yankees haven't won a World Series in 3 years they still will continue to make the playoffs every year that they have the combination of a competent GM and a payroll that is on average 2-3x that of the competetion. Upsets can happen in a short series, but there is little to no chance for any team other than maybe the Red Sox who are ONLY being outspent by 50%, not like the others in the division who are being out spent by arround 2-3x.