Jon Heyman: Teixeira the rare young player a team can't retain

I have never once said it was only the system. Never.

But I do thnk the system is a part of it and some people around here refuse to even acknowledge that.

The Pirates are a disgrace due to a combination of the financial system in baseball, the most incompetent ownership group in the game and a series of bad baseball people making awful decisions. Even if the playing field was level, which it is not, they would still suck.

The Rays and Royals are at least trying and moving in a positive direction. They will need a hell of a lot of luck to get there, but hey, maybe they can have a run of two or three good years someday.

 

They have fielded winning teams. It still won't matter. The revenues aren't even close and they never will be.

 

(34K is mocking poo, how perfect is that)

 

The only reason it won't matter is because they won't be fielding a winning team this year because they traded Santana.

Trading for prospects is just as much of a risk as signing Santana to a long-term deal.

 

Maybe the Braves aren't a "big-revenue team" anymore, without Ted Turner pulling the strings. But they have had to make those choices about a dozen different players in the last decade -- including last year, when they chose not to pursue a contract extension with their 10-time Gold Glove center fielder.

The fact is, every team makes those financial choices.

Yes, a New York team can afford to eat a contract better than Kansas City. But it's not like there are no consequences for signing a shitty player to a shitty deal (I think we underestimate how great a job the Yankees did last year in rebounding to make the postseason, instead chalking it up to "oh, they just bought their way to the playoffs.")

You keep saying, "They'll need a lot of luck, they'll need a lot of luck" when talking about the Royals' and Rays' chances. I disagree. The A's are perennial contenders, and I don't think that's luck at all. Hell, even the Twins -- despite their ownership -- are perennially a winning team, and I don't think that's luck, either.

The fact is: consistently winning requires the same thing it always has. Good players, stable leadership and smart decisions.

Yes, money helps. That's the way of the world. And the world is fucking unfair. So baseball is, too? Good.

"The hard is what makes it great." -- Jimmy Dugan

 

Not financially it isn't. And even with Johan Santana, even if the Twins were to win a World Series, their revenue would never come close to that of the Yankees.

If you can't get that, I don't know what else to tell you.

But I give you credit for being able to disagree and hold a civil conversation. How sad it must be for some of the people who actually bother to hate other posters on SportsJournalists.com.

 

If the Twins win the World Series they wouldn't have as much revenue as the Yankees - I'll give you that, but they would have enough revenue to spend more money than they do right now.

I believe they have enough money to spend more, even though they aren't necessarily drawing that well.

That's my point.

I hate hearing about small-market teams this and small-market teams that.

Baseball owners have lots of money, or else they wouldn't own a baseball team. Instead of pocketing all of that money, maybe the Royals and Twins and Pirates and other owners should try spending it, rather than sitting around and blaming Steinbrenner for ruining baseball (when all he did was put money back into his team and now look how much it is worth).

 

Given what Andruw Jones did last year, his decline in conditioning and level of play, that was an easy choice.

And to be accurate, I only wrote that they would need a lot of luck once.

Great. You don't mind an uneven playing field. Did you ever play Monopoly as a kid? Did you let the other players start the game with more money than you? Sure you can still win, but me, I'd rather everybody start with the same chance at victory.

I understand that you disagree with this, but to me, it does matter that the playing field be level. To me, that is a part of the integrity of the game.

The bottom line is, and you admitted it above. The Yankees and a few other teams can fuck up and still win. Most of the other teams in baseball cannot.

 

If someone would have shoved Boras into that fresh concrete to keep the David Ortiz shirt company at New Yankee Stadium, I would have fought to prevent the destruction of pouring work already done.

 

Angola, I understand your frustration.

I was every bit as frustrated watching the Pirates' last good team get dismantled because they couldn't afford to keep it together. That's when I went from a Pirates fan to a baseball fan. It just wasn't worth making an emotional investment in that franchise any more.

I understand now that it was a mixture of bad decisions and finances, but that doesn't change the financial aspect of it. What happened to the Pirates of the early '90s would never happen in New York and it has nothing to do with the quality of the people running the franchises.

 

It wouldn't be allowed to happen for the same reason that Stern stepped in with the Knicks -- the New York teams are flagship franchises. Yeah, and for the same reason Fay Vincent stepped in with regard to Steinbrenner, too. Getting him out of the picture for a year or two allowed the franchise to rebuild.

 

It also wouldn't happen because the Yankees wouldn't have to allow so much talent to leave. They would have been able to keep the entire team intact without even having to dip into Steinbrenner's pockets.