Joey Votto's contract

I'll take "Things that destroy OOP's baseball salary cap argument" for $100, Alex. #HereWeGo #NoButSeriously

 

Wake me when the Reds can have multiple contracts that pay that kind of money like the Yankees do. Or when they buy a World Series like the Yankees did.

 

They also have Phillips, Bruce and Cueto locked up long-term. Are you still demanding game-wide changes for an outlier?

 

If Joey Votto was paid for his fantasy baseball performance so far, he'd get about a dime from me.

 

I'm calling for an even playing field. The Yankees aren't the only outlier. You still have teams that can't or won't spend anywhere close to what the big boys do. And you and I both know there is no way in hell there will ever be a much-needed floor without a cap.

Besides, that outlier bought a World Series. That outlier buys its way into having a shot to win every year, something small markets can't do. That outlier would be able to lock up guys like Votto, Phillips, Bruce and Cueto and still go after free agents on other teams. As long as that is true, the level playing field does not exist. Teams find a way to overcome the disadvantages the system deals them. And the NFL remains the far-superior system.

 

(This is fun. Like wearing an old pair of shoes)

That outlier also bought itself into a mammoth hole thanks to the luxury tax. Let's see how well the Yankees do in 2014 when they are (supposedly) unwilling to pay the tax and forced to choose between Granderson and Cano while they are stuck with the rotting corpses of A-Rod, Tex and Sabathia as well as Jeter, who will probably hit .417 with 300 hits in his age-40 season.

MLB HAS the best system--no cap yet mechanisms in place that penalize teams that go apeshit on the free agent market. I agree a floor is necessary, but that wouldn't happen even with a cap b/c then the self-suffering "small market teams" (of which the Reds USED to be one) would lose one of their excuses for their "inability to compete."

 

The lack of the floor in MLB is the biggest reason the NFL's system is superior. The floor, along with legitimate revenue sharing, are major reasons why even NFL teams with horrible ownership still compete at least on occasion.

Interesting that you have to project what you think might happen two years from now to counter my argument about the Yankees while I can simply stick to the facts of what they have done to support mine. That would be 16 playoff appearances in 17 seasons. You don't really want to try to say that is all about player development, do you?

Funny, but you still don't quite no how to war the old shoes. I have never, ever claimed that a small-market team can't compete. I have claimed that they are put at a significant disadvantage. Again, if your point of view was really that strong, you wouldn't have to keep misrepresenting mine.

 

I'm not misrepresenting you JERK. I'm saying the same things I've said forever, just not all in the above message. Please refer to BYH vs. OOP, 9/07-present. I believe Webby has it on a hard drive somewhere.

As I've said, there will ALWAYS be teams that make the playoffs 90-plus percent of the time. A cap isn't stopping the Patriots from winning the AFC East almost every year or the Steelers and Ravens from reaching the playoffs almost every year. Just as a cap isn't helping the Bills and Browns, among others, compete.

A cap won't make the Royals, Pirates, et al better and it won't drop the Yankees, Red Sox, et al to the middle or back of the pack. In fact, baseball has done more to ruin the "small market teams" with the new CBA. Now they won't be able to do what they had done the last few years which was spend overslot on prospects because PLAYER DEVELOPMENT is still the most important part of building a team. It's why the Yankees are very good and the Mets are not despite sharing NY. The Pirates have whiffed on way too many top picks (not a passive-aggressive swipe--this time) to build a contender regardless of $$$.

(dick )

 

Now I'm waiting for all of the defenders of the Pirates' current management to jump all over you. Somehow, I'm thinking that will be a long wait.

You certainly seem to think somebody is claiming that small markets can't compete. That BYH vs. OOP greatest hits certainly has its share of you pointing that accusation at me (with others joining in).

The part you don't seem to get is I have nothing against dynasties and I never cared about competitive balance. I care about a level playing field. Give everybody the same opportunity to win and if some team finds a way to dominate anyway, that's great.

My issue is when teams continue to win by buying it rather than earning their success, which is what the Yankees have done. Sure, they had a run of very smart management in the mid-90s, but a huge part of their success comes from never losing any free agent they want to keep and being able to buy whatever they want on the free agent market. Again, if you can buy a championship in a given sport, something is wrong with that sport. And the Yankees bought their last World Series championship.

And the Yankees-Mets comparison isn't quite fair because the Mets can't and don't spend on the level of the Yankees.

I have never said the Pirates dismal history over the last 20 years is all about financial limitations. It is a combination of limited revenues, cheap ownership and terrible front-office decisions. As I recently argued on another thread, even if the current front office is doing better, it still has financial constraints to deal with that are more limiting than what most of their opponents face. More importantly, they are still held back by bad decisions made before they came in, such as passing on top prospects for financial reasons as they did with Matt Wieters.

 

The Brewers have a payroll over $100 million, which floors me to the nth degree. I don't think their payroll totaled $100 million for the first part of the 2000s.

It's about who your owner is.

 

What revenue sharing is "legitimate"? The A's got a $40 million check last year. In 2010 the Padres made $37 million, most of the profit coming from $30 million in revenue sharing. The Yankees pay close to $150 million, I think.

 

Where are you getting those numbers from? http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7381414/new-york-yankees-boston-red-sox-only-teams-hit-luxury-tax