Thank goodness for salary caps

26th.

 

There's a bankrupt team in the World Series. They just beat the capitalist pig team.

 

The sale has gone through and they just signed a massive TV contract. You keep bringing that up, but it is a gross misrepresentation of where the Rangers are as a franchise.

 

What was the highest annual salary in MLB in 1979, the last time the Pirates won a World Series? Seriously, I don't know. I do know that the first $3 million-per-year contract was awarded 10 years later in 1989. The AVERAGE player salary in MLB this year is $3.3 million. The numbers have changed far too much for a comparison to be viable.

 

And yet somehow the Royals had $12 million to pay the eminently average Jose Guillen, who's been a pain in the ass wherever he's been.

 

The difference is mistakes like that are a killer for a team like Kansas City or Pittsburgh, but larger market teams like the Yankees and Phillies can shrug off an error like that.

 

And yet, the Royals are no longer paying Guillen. (unless they took on part of the salary when they traded him to the Giants, which also would hurt oop's case).



Ok, back to the sidelines.

 

Point being that they made the commitment, which shoots a cannonball-sized hole in the idea that the poor Twins, Royals, etc. couldn't afford to pick up V. Guerrero on the cheap.

And, btw, the Giants paid $250,000 of the $3.9 million Guillen had left on his contract when the trade was made. Royals grabbed the rest of the tab.

Crappy organizations have no chance to win because they're stupid, not because of the system.

 

Yea, I see I left my post a little ambiguous.

I was meaning to say that even with the Royals making a mistake on Guillen, they were still able to get away with it by trading him away.

 

Some crappy organizations find a way to lose even when they have the money. See the Orioles, and more recently, the Mets.

Organizations like the Royals face the combined problems of incompetence, cheap ownership and a lack of revenue combined. If you think the money isn't part of their problem, you aren't paying attention.

One problem these organizations have is even when they do decide to spend on a free agent, they often have to overspend to get the guy to go into such a losing situation. Or they decide to make a show of signing somebody for the fans, even if that player won't really get them very far.

 

Except, of course, they still had to pay part of the salary. And that was money that they need elsewhere, something that is not an issue for a team like the Yankees when they make a bad decision (Javy Vazquez and Randy Winn come to mind).

 

How did they get away with it? They paid $11.75 million of a $12 million contract.