Debunking myth of baseball's demise

chaddurbin · #1 09-21-2010, 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by M's_Fan

In fact, documents leaked to the Associated Press suggest that the woeful Pittsburgh Pirates might have pursued a strategy of losing in order to maximize the team's profitability in the last three seasons.

As I was saying, you may want to make the same argument, but you won't get much sympathy from me for the current group of dirtbags running the Pirates.

same case with those damn carpet-bagging mccourts here in la. they've racked up about 650mil in debt running the team (avg mlb about 150-250mil) while taking out $50mil cash to buy multiple properties. they create organizations to pay their children millions a year, charities that have outrageous overhead and operational costs, charges the dodgers millions every year to rent dodgers stadium (yes they own both), etc etc.

bud selig knew all this going in and he still let these bastards buy the team with no capital and no money while bypassing other more qualified groups. if anything bud selig is ruining baseball.

M's_Fan · #2 09-21-2010, 12:47 PM

No doubt the McCourts are vey high on the dirt-bag owner list. I still can't believe Selig and MLB let those two own the Dodgers. They bought the team with borrowed money and have been looting the team ever since. A great article on this in bloomberg/businessweek:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...2054590968.htm

chaddurbin · #3 09-21-2010, 01:09 PM

IF you can get in (big if), there's no easier business in sports than being a small-market mlb owner. every year you're getting a big chunk of money from revenue sharing and luxury tax w/o even doing anything. as bill james, billy beane, theo epstein have shown, if you can get a sabermetric-friendly GM and a competent staff that's familiar with the modern measurables like WARs/VORPs/FIP/dERA/UZR etc you're already ahead of the curve. if you draft well and have a good minor league system you can keep churning out quality players at a controlled cost, even taking away some of their FA years with a pre-arb long-term discount contract. no need to overspend on FA busts you see bigger market teams make every year. once they hit their FA years you can always play the small-market team card and trade away for prospects and start over.

i'm oversimplifying it...but the model is there. plenty of teams out there don't even bother with the on-field product and they're still banking.

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