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| Friday, November 16 More November 2001 Archives By Rob Neyer ESPN.com |
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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30
The negative bottom line for so many teams adversely affects the fans in the form of ticket prices, concessions and parking prices. The owners are not in a great system right now and in order to compete and make money, it seems like some franchises will start careening towards the $29 hot dog. First of all, if a baseball team charged $29 for a hot dog, would anyone buy hot dogs? No, of course they wouldn't. But more to the point, the price of tickets and concessions and parking have almost nothing to do with the teams' expenses. Never have, never will. That might not make sense to you, because you hear so much contradictory talk from the teams themselves. But let me ask you one question ... If teams thought they could charge $29 for a hot dog, don't you think they'd do it? If teams thought they could charge $10,000 for a box seat, don't you think they'd do it? If you answered "Yes" to those questions, then you've passed Realism 101, and you might be ready to advance to a far tougher class, the wonderfully wacky world of Baseball Owner Malarkey. Some of my math in Wednesday's column didn't pass muster, as a few readers have pointed out. For example, "operating income" is not the same as "profit." However, where my errors are ones of ignorance, Commissoner's Bud's errors are rooted in deceit. He and the other owners -- let there be no mistake, Selig is an owner -- believe that appearing to lose money is good for business, so they don't mention that:
I won't even get into the paper losses that baseball teams report, because I wouldn't know where to start. Look, don't take my word for it. Backing me up is virtually every baseball writer in existence -- here at ESPN.com alone, Jim Caple and Jayson Stark have expressed disgust and disbelief at the statements made by Commissioner Bud lately, regarding both contraction and the general economic state of the game. Backing me up is virtually every economist who has studied baseball's finances. There's Andrew Zimbalist and Allan Sanderson and Rodney Fort ... well, I have yet to hear from an economist who thinks that Bud Selig is a straight shooter. Backing me up is virtually every professional baseball player, though I suppose that goes without saying. Now, let me ask you, what do baseball writers and sports economists have to gain from ripping the owners? Not much. Baseball writers, for the most part, simply want to see the games continue, so that we have a place to go on summer evenings. Sports economists are usually tenured professors, and so they don't give a damn what anybody thinks. Let me leave you with a few more questions ... If baseball franchises are such lousy investments, then why is Larry Lucchino trying to get back into baseball, as part-owner of the Boston Red Sox? If baseball franchises are such lousy investments, then why is Marlins owner John Henry looking to sell his franchise ... and get involved with another franchise? If baseball franchises are such lousy investments, then why is Expos owner Jeffrey Loria hoping to fold his franchise ... and buy another franchise? If baseball franchises are such lousy investments, then why does every franchise for sale attract multiple suitors anxious to invest many millions of dollars? The short answer is that baseball teams aren't normal businesses. Wealthy men don't buy baseball teams as investments, they buy them because they want people to know who they are. There are many thousands of millionaires in this country. The millionaire class took off in the 1980s and the trend really hasn't slowed down much since. You have a million bucks? Big deal. A hundred million bucks? Sorry pal, never heard of you. But the moment somebody like John Henry or Kevin McClatchy or David Glass buys a baseball team ... why, all of a sudden he's somebody. He can sit in the box seats, and little boys will ask him to autograph their scorecards. Once or twice a year, he can attend a meeting with the other owners, where everyone can whine about how those good-for-nothing ballplayers and their slick agents have somehow managed to bamboozle ownership once again (it's now 30 years and running). Oh, and best of all, his name is in the newspaper! And not the boring old business section that nobody reads, but the sports section. Now everybody knows who Kevin McClatchy is. And life is good. But then, after a few years, reality sets in. No, the club isn't really losing money, not really. What it's doing, though, is losing a lot of games. And while the owner's name is still in the newspapers, now he's written about as a loser. A loser. So successful in the business world, so wealthy, yet now he's being held hostage (in his mind, at least) by Kevin Brown and Scott Boras and Donald Fehr. And it makes him mad. But of course it can't be his fault -- he's a Master of the Universe, after all -- so whose fault is it? Obviously, it's not Bud Selig's fault; he's one of their own. Obviously, it's not the other owners' fault; the Masters of the Universe are in this thing together. No, it's the players' fault, for being greedy enough to accept the money the owners continue to throw at them. It's also sometimes the fans' fault, for occasionally refusing to spend their tax dollars on new ballparks. It all sounds pretty awful, doesn't it? It's not. The owners are operating out of naked self-interest. Just as the players do, just as you and I do most of the time. The problem isn't that the owners are avaricious and dishonest. The problem is that they're incompetent, and have been for many years. The owners' greediness is never going to change, but as long as they continue to lie to the players and the public, they're not going to make any real progress, because there are too many powerful people who know the owners are lying, and that number grows every time Bud Selig opens his mouth. Major League Baseball will only make great headway in solving its economic problems when everyone knows what those problems are. And we won't really know what the problems are until Commissioner Bud and his Band of Merry Henchmen start telling all of us at least half the truth about the money.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28 Selig will have the financial reports? Well, that's pretty interesting, because MLB has never opened up the books before. And if MLB were to open the books, it would take many days to analyze the numbers with any degree of precision. So when Selig says, "I will have our financial reports," what he really means is, "I will have a few rudimentary numbers that you can believe if you're even more gullible than the average baseball writer." As for the owners losing $500 million this year, and 25 of the 30 clubs losing money ... well, it all depends on what you mean by "losing," doesn't it? Last spring, Forbes published a list of franchise values, from the New York Yankees ($635 million) all the way down to the Montreal Expos ($92 million). Along with this list, Forbes also listed "operating income" for each club, which as I understand it is figured by subtracting expenses from revenues. That is to say, it's profit. And according to Forbes' estimations, in 2000 the 30 major-league franchises profited to the tune of $130 million. Granted, 10 clubs lost money ... but 20 clubs made money. Those 20 profit-making franchises included the Royals, the Marlins ... and the Twins. Now, it's possible that Forbes missed the mark a bit. A bit? Let's assume that they somehow missed the mark by $230 million. (No, that doesn't seem too likely, but bear with me for a moment.) That would mean that MLB's owners, rather than making $130 million in 2000, actually lost $100 million. Now, does it seem likely, or even possible, that the owners added $400 million of deficits in just one year? What could possibly account for that? Certainly, salaries rose, but they didn't rise by 400 percent. And that doesn't even consider the obvious facts that revenues were significantly higher, due to increases in ticket prices (and increased attendance) and greater broadcast revenues. So what could possibly account for this difference? Well, the obvious explanation is bald dishonesty. Baseball franchises, like most other enterprises, won't be honest unless they're compelled to be honest. There's an old joke. The CEO of a corporation is looking to hire a chief accountant. He's got three candidates, and he lets all three candidates look at the corporation's books. Then the CEO asks Candidate No. 1, "What was our profit last year?" Answer: "Six million dollars." The CEO asks Candidate No. 2, "What was our profit last year?" Answer: "Three million dollars." The CEO asks Candidate No. 3, "What was our profit last year?" "What do you want it to be?" Candidate No. 3 got the job. There are all sorts of shenanigans that baseball teams pull. Paying the owner a hefty salary is one of them. One of the reasons that owners won't really open the books is that they don't want you to know how much money some of them are taking. There's also a massive tax loophole related to depreciation of player contracts, which is used by teams that have changed ownership in the previous five years. This is just the tip of the iceberg. But even if owners are losing money -- and if they are, it's not nearly as much as Commissioner Bud claims -- whom do they have to blame but themselves? There's nothing inherent to the baseball business that demands non-profitability. Franchises receive huge revenues from TV networks and gigantic taxpayer subsidies for their new mallparks, and yet still they cry poor? If I owned a baseball team, I would be ashamed of myself.
A reader was kind enough to send me the ballots (top three listed) for all 28 voters, and I have to report that I was off ... but not by much. Here's how the Seattle-Tacoma writers voted:
1st 2nd 3rd
Bob Sherwin Boone Ichiro Giambi
Larry LaRue Boone Ichiro Giambi
Believe it or not, Sherwin (Seattle Times) and LaRue (Tacoma News-Tribune) were the only voters who had Boone-Ichiro-Giambi in that order. Now, there are a lot of possible reasons for this, so many reasons that I won't even get into them, but doesn't it seem just a mite strange to you? Of course, both the Oakland voters had Giambi No. 1 ... and both the Cleveland writers had Alomar No. 1, too. As I said Monday, the hometown biases tend to cancel each other out, but the problem for Giambi was that the Seattle writers' biases meant that two players got listed ahead of Giambi on those ballots, rather than just one. Not that those two ballots were the difference; even if Sherwin and LaRue had switched Giambi and Ichiro, Ichiro still would have won the award, 287 points to 283. Oh, and in case anyone's curious, the two writers who didn't rate Giambi as one of the three most valuable players in the American League were Patrick Reusse (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) and Carter Gaddis (Tampa Tribune). The other oddities include Reusse listing Mariano Rivera third, and Dick Kaegel (Kansas City Star) listing Alex Rodriguez second. This might, by the way, be the first time I've ever agreed with Kaegel about anything.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26
I enjoyed reading your piece on ESPN.com on the greatest offensive seasons of all time. However, there is a huge gap between Mantle's 1957 season and Bonds' 1993 season: 36 years! Are there not deserving seasons during that time period? How about Jim Rice in 1978? Rod Carew in 1977? Yastrzemski in 1967? With the exception of Bonds, you appear to vote for the players that formed America's love for the game, but not necessarily for the greatest individual years. Regardless, I enjoy your column and look forward to future installments.
Best Regards, Yeah, I know. That bothered me a lot, too. And I'd have been happy to make some sort of "era adjustment," but the problem was that nobody else was really close ... well, actually Will Clark in 1989 does well on my list (about No. 20), but 1989 isn't far from 1993. I suppose the other best offensive seasons in that range of years were Yaz in '67, Torre in '71, Reggie in '69, Frank Robinson in '66, Dick Allen in '72 ... but they're way behind the other guys, statistically (after making the various adjustments for league and ballpark. Maybe it's a flaw in the method. On the other hand, if you assume that only the very greatest hitters will have those kinds of seasons, then those seasons won't be spread around evenly because, by definition, there are very few very greatest hitters. And the list of very greatest hitters does not include Yastrzemski or Torre or Jackson or Robinson or Allen. It does, on the other hand, contain Ruth and Mantle and Bonds, which might go some ways toward explaining that 36-year gap.
It's things like these that make me feel as if I could run a baseball team. "The Devil Rays are extremely fortunate to have someone with Cam's baseball background and expertise joining our organization."
Kevin Chuck LaMar hiring Cam Bonifay ... if there's a positive here, it's that the other 29 franchises are safe for now. On a darker note, there's now almost no limit to how awful the Devil Rays might become. But will anyone care? A few weeks ago, I made a silly comment about having never met an Angels fan, but I was exaggerating for effect. I've actually heard from a number of Angels fans over the years, and all e-mailed to remind me of this fact. But while I know that there must be Devil Rays fans, and I suspect that at least one of them has e-mailed me in the four years the franchise has existed, I can honestly say that I have no memory of a Devil Rays fan. So if LaMar and Bonifay are going to team up, at least they're teaming up where they'll likely do the least possible emotional damage. Next, a friend writes,
"Sosa, who hit .328 last season with 64 homers and a major league-leading 160 RBI, got the first-place votes of Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune and Mike Kiley of the Chicago Sun-Times." Is it just me, or is there something inherently wrong with that? Of course there's something inherently wrong with it. And did you notice that two AL MVP voters listed Jason Giambi fourth on their ballots? And does anyone else suspect that one or both of those voters hail from Seattle? But that's the way these things work. And frankly, it's quite possible that Greenstein and Kiley honestly believe that Sammy Sosa was the best player in the league. Sure, it's also possible that they're just trying to curry favor with Sosa and the Cubs, but I think we're better off giving them the benefit of the doubt. What they'd argue, I suspect, is something like, "Unless you see Sammy play every day like we do, you just can't appreciate how valuable he is." The problem with that argument, of course, is that anyone can use it for any player. You think that Doug Mientkiewicz deserved the Gold Glove this year? Well, that's because you didn't see John Olerud every day. You think that Ichiro Suzuki has the best arm in the American League? Well, that's because you didn't see Jermaine Dye every day. Fun, isn't it? The "see him every day" argument is good for all occasions and can't be logically refuted ... because, of course, it doesn't involve logic at all. It's pure opinion, and everybody's got an opinion. As for what can be done, the answer is "nothing." If Chris Assenheimer, who just happens to cover the Cleveland Indians, wants to put C.C. Sabathia ahead of Ichiro Suzuki on his Rookie of the Year ballot ... well, nobody's going to stop him. You just have to hope that the hometown biases cancel each other out. Speaking of awards,
I don't really have the stomach to find commissoner Bud's quotes on this weighty subject. But it does sound like something he'd say, doesn't it? What I do remember is that the first Hank Aaron Awards were based purely on statistical criteria, and the following awards were supposed to be subject to a vote by local radio and TV broadcasters. What's happened since? In 1999, Sammy Sosa and Manny Ramirez won the awards, based on the statistical criteria. In 2000, with the voters taking over, the winners were Todd Helton and Carlos Delgado. And this year, Barry Bonds won going away in the National League, while Alex Rodriguez beat out Jason Giambi by a healthy margin in the AL; Rodriguez got 19 first-place votes, Giambi only eight. This latter is strange, don't you think? I would argue that Rodriguez was, indeed, virtually as valuable as Giambi ... but a better hitter? I submit that any group of voters that collectively makes such a judgment certainly should not be taken seriously ... And indeed, this group has not been taken seriously. All of it has been met with complete indifference by the media and the fans. See, you can't just create an award and expect people to pay attention. In MLB's press release announcing the 2001 winners, the Hank Aaron Award was described as "the first major award to be introduced in more than 30 years." But with all due respect, it's not for Major League Baseball to say whether or not an award is "major." It's "major" if anybody cares, and it's minor if nobody cares. And again with all due respect, it's apparent that people don't care about the Hank Aaron Award any more than they care about the Sid Mercer Memorial Award. Frankly, the Hank Aaron Award was nothing more than a transparently cynical PR ploy by Commissioner Beelzebud, and it laid a big fat egg.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21
Roberto Alomar remains an outstanding defensive second baseman, or at least a better defensive second baseman than Bret Boone. The first of those assumptions knocks out Boone, because Alomar was just as good with the stick. The second of those assumptions knocks out Jim Thome and Juan Gonzalez, because neither of them was as valuable to the Indians as Alomar. And the third of those assumptions allows Alex Rodriguez into the discussion With all that in mind -- and if you don't agree with my three assumptions, you're free to take up your objections with our Complaint Department -- these are the four viable MVP candidates worth arguing about:
Roberto Alomar
Nobody talks about Alomar, but he's a Gold Glove second baseman who stole 30 bases and was arguably among the five most productive offensive players in the American League. In case anyone's interested, Alex Rodriguez just played the best season by a shortstop in American League history, at least if you only consider hitting. Over in the National League, Honus Wagner had some bigger seasons, and Arky Vaughan was better in 1935. But no American League shortstop has ever done what Rodriguez did this year, which is a pretty fine argument for his MVP candidacy, regardless of what any other American Leaguer did this year. The marks against Rodriguez? The Ballpark in Arlington is a friendly place to hitters, and the Texas Rangers were something less than good. Putting everything together, I believe that he was as valuable as anybody in the American League, but the most valuable? I'm not quite convinced.
Ichiro Suzuki's 838 OPS ranked just 26th in the American League. I didn't just fall off a turnip truck yesterday, so I do know that OPS isn't everything. Ichiro played in 157 games, and played virtually every game until late in the season, when the AL West had long been decided. There is value in that. Ichiro stole 56 bases, was caught only 14 times, and his speed helped him on the bases in other ways, too. There is value in that. Ichiro garnered a Gold Glove in right field, and probably deserved it. There is value in that. With runners in scoring position, Ichiro batted .449. There is value in that. And it should be remembered that Safeco Field is a pitcher's park, which may not hurt Ichiro as much as some, but certainly didn't help him, either. But all of it isn't quite enough to make up the 300-point difference between Ichiro's OPS and that posted by Athletics first baseman Jason Giambi, who easily led the league in on-base percentage (.477, compared to .423 for Edgar Martinez) and slugging percentage (.660, compared to .624 for Jim Thome), which is an impressive feat. So in Giambi, you've got a player ...
If that's not an MVP, what is? Here's what my ballot would look like, if I had one:
1. Jason Giambi No, I didn’t select Boone or Ichiro among my top three, which I suppose will anger at least a few anger-prone Mariners fans. After all, they did win 116 games! But every great team does not, by definition, feature the greatest player in the league. In this case, the Mariners simply had five great players -- in addition to the three listed above, Edgar Martinez and John Olerud also played outstanding baseball -- but no single one of them was the greatest. And you certainly can't argue with the results. Who will win the MVP Award? Alomar doesn't have a chance, not with Juan Gonzalez and Jim Thome also garnering some of the Cleveland vote. Rodriguez doesn't have a chance, either. MVP candidates who play for lousy teams don't win the award unless there aren't any other obviously outstanding candidates. And of course there's no shortage of outstanding candidates this year. That leaves Giambi and Suzuki, and I think Giambi will win again, if only because Bret Boone is going to draw some support from those writers inclined to support a Mariner. But the truth is that this year's MVP vote is essentially dummy-proof. When the voters screw up, it's almost always when they pick some one-dimensional slugger with a bunch of RBI, but there aren't any of those guys among the top candidates this year. Whoever wins the award will be one of the very best players in the American League.
Postscript But it's not as strange as it might seem. True, Ichiro's on-base and slugging percentages were nothing special; his OPS (on-base plus slugging) ranked just 26th in the American League, and 300-some points behind Jason Giambi, who led the league in both categories. Aside from OPS, however, Ichiro's got a big lead over Giambi in everything (except perhaps the amorphous "clubhouse leadership"). Ichiro's a great baserunner and stole 56 bases; Giambi's a plodder, and stole two. Ichiro grounded into three double plays; Giambi grounded into 17 double plays. Ichiro's a fantastic defensive right fielder; Giambi's merely adequate at first base. Ichiro plays in a park that's friendly to pitchers; Giambi also plays in a ballpark that's friendly to pitchers, but not to quite the same degree. Ichiro batted .449 with runners in scoring position; Giambi batted .354 with runners in scoring position. All of which is to say that while I would have voted for Giambi, one certainly can make a solid case for Ichiro Suzuki as the American League's Most Valuable Player. He is a worthy choice.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19
10. Rogers Hornsby, 1922 Hornsby also topped the National League with 46 doubles, 42 home runs (nobody else hit more than 26 homers). Oh, and he batted .401, the first of three times that he'd clear the magical .400 mark. So why was Hornsby's 1922 season his greatest? Because, like Ruth in 1920, Hornsby was the first player in his league to show what could be done.
9. Ted Williams, 1946 Ted Williams, 1946? What about Ted Williams in 1941, when he batted .406? What about Ted Williams in 1949, when he scored 150 runs and drove in 159? Williams was great in both seasons, but he was just a smidgeon better in 1946. In '41, he played only 143 of his team's 155 games. And that was a pretty good year for hitters around the American League. In '49 ... well, there's really nothing negative you can say about Ted's '49 season; it just wasn't quite as good as his '46 season. In 1946, run production was quite low in the American League, perhaps due to sub-standard baseballs still in use because of wartime material shortages. Williams' OPS (on-base + slugging) was 1164, well ahead of second-place Hank Greenberg's 977. And Williams did win his first MVP Award, as the Red Sox captured their first pennant since 1918.
8. Mickey Mantle, 1957 It's perhaps a surprise to see Mantle's '57 season list here, given that he didn't lead the American League in on-base or slugging percentage, finishing behind the great Williams in both categories. And five American Leaguers drove in more runs than Mantle did. So what made his season so great? Again, you have to look at the context. It was a down year for hitters in the American League and Yankee Stadium was probably the best pitcher's park in the American League.
7. Barry Bonds, 1993 While it's true that Bonds never came close to hitting 73 home runs before 2001, it's also true that he showed big-time power eight years ago, leading the National League with 46 home runs and 25 road homers. Bonds had previously won two MVP Awards, but it wasn't until 1993 that he became the most feared hitter in the game, as he drew 43 intentional walks, the second-highest figure to that time. That was Bonds' first season in San Francisco, and though the Giants did not reach the postseason, they did win 103 games.
6. Mickey Mantle, 1956 Mantle had a lot of great seasons -- he was essentially the best hitter on the planet from 1952 through 1964 -- but 1956 was arguably his greatest. In addition to the stats listed above, Mantle led the majors with 52 home runs, stole 10 bases (and was caught only once), and grounded into only four double plays (which was typical of his early career). Mickey Mantle is, of course, a legendary figure. But strangely enough, few seem to realize just how devastating Mantle was with a bat in his hands.
5. Babe Ruth, 1921 A great Ruth season as he broke his own record with 59 homers, leading John B. Foster to write, "There is no one with whom he can be compared, including all ballplayers of all time." Those words still are true, by the way.
4. Babe Ruth, 1923 When people talk about Ruth's great seasons, they tend to focus on 1920 or 1921 or 1927 (when he hit 60 homers), while forgetting about 1923. But by 1923 the pitchers knew exactly how dangerous Ruth could be, and so he walked 170 times ... and that was the all-time record until 2001.
3. Babe Ruth, 1920 Really, you could take Ruth's three best seasons and order them in any fashion you like. I favor his 1920 season over the others because it was the first; nobody ever knew that you could hit 30 home runs in a season before Ruth hit 29 in 1919 ... and in 1920, he hit 54. That .847 slugging percentage was the all-time record until 2001.
2. Honus Wagner, 1908 Wagner's stats don't look so hot when you compare them those posted by Bonds and Babe Ruth in their best seasons ... but then, neither Bonds nor Ruth played in 1908, the height of the Dead Ball Era and the lowest-scoring season in National League history. A typical game in 1908 included 6.6 runs scored by both teams, combined. In that context, Wagner's season looks mighty impressive because it was. And consider how dominant Wagner was when compared to the other top hitters: His .542 slugging was 90 points better than Mike Donlin's .452 (only five players even slugged .400 or better!). He led in OBP, one of only three players above .365. He led in total bases (308 to 268). He led in batting average (.354 to .334 and one of just five players to hit .300). He led in RBI by just three (109 to 106), but only five players knocked in as many as 68. He also led in hits, doubles, triples and stolen bases and was second in home runs.
1. Barry Bonds, 2001 Set major-league records for home runs, walks and slugging percentage. In a pitcher's park.
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