To eliminate the crapshoot nature of the playoffs, you could just compare the 2000s to the number of times they've posted the league's best record.

Yes, but then you also have to stop caring about the 1996 and 2000 titles, and the 2001 pennant.

They haven't won the Series in nine years, but to read Pos and to listen to the rest of you, you'd think it was 1959, not 2009.

Oh, I think that Pos and the rest of these Commies would quite readily settle for the Yankees of 1959.

Yes, but then you also have to stop caring about the 1996 and 2000 titles, and the 2001 pennant.

I care very little about any Yankee World Series wins. They irk me in the immediate aftermath, then I try to put them out of mind as quickly as possible.

But I was merely pointing out that measuring the Yankees level of dominance in this decade by a World Series appearance count seems to be intentionally downplaying their actual level of success. What you and he and anyone else wants to do with that information is another matter.

I've long thought that MLB would be much better off now if they had vetoed the move by the Dodgers and Giants and instead gone to the PCL with some sort of consolidation/merger plan.

No doubt about it. Or, screw the PCL, just put expansion franchises in LA and SF.

screw the PCL, just put expansion franchises in LA and SF.

I think the National League (or heck, the American League) had an opportunity to build on the existing fan bases of the Angels and Seals by just folding them into Major League baseball. They would have needed new parks, of course, but any new MLB team would have needed a new park.

Yes, but why? Same city.

Three reasons, I'd say:

1) Yankees have been in NY longer. So they have a longer history and more fans. More fans = more money.
2) The Yankees have been competitive every year for a long time. So they have - you guessed it - more fans.
3) The Yankees are the YANKEES - the marquee franchise of North American sports - and so they are able to market themselves and sell merchandise all across the country and, indeed, the world. You don't see people walking down the street in California wearing Mets caps, unless they're expat NYers and Mets fans.

Basically, the Yankees' wealth and constant success breeds a cycle of more wealth and more success, feeding into their brand and image. The Mets are a rich baseball team like most other rich baseball teams - Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs, et. al. They can make bad decisions that will come back and haunt them. They have a lot a more money than most teams, and this is a problem for baseball on some level, but they don't have SO much money that they never have to concern themselves with it. The Yankees? They made a bunch of poor decisions in the middle part of this decade, but none of it really mattered because they have so much money that, as others have pointed out, they can paper over their mistakes. So they spend loads to ensure their mistakes don't matter, and they keep winning, which just reinforces the cycle. As Poz said, the Yankees are their own argument. They are more than just a big market team. The Mets have a lot of money, but they're just not on that level.

On the matter of a third team in New York: I don't think it would work because there's no obvious hole in the market. Baseball-lovers in New York are Yankees or Mets fans, or they already have an allegiance. Moreover, the reason the Dodgers and Giants were able to thrive previously is because Brooklyn and Manhattan were really treated as and acted like two separate cities connected by a bridge or three. Currently, I think that New Yorkers are a more cohesive group. The city is a heck of a lot more integrated than when the Giants and Dodgers were founded.

And everyone knows that the Mets were created to exploit the lack of NL team in New York. There's no current baseball market inefficiency. If you wanted to create a devoted fanbase that can compete with the Yankees, it'll take a generation and a lot of help financially. Plenty of people in Brooklyn are fighting the Nets' move to the borough, and there's no obvious site besides Atlantic Yards. And considering how the city got bent over on CitiField and New YS, willingness to fund a new baseball stadium is probably at an all-time low.

Yankees' revenue stream really is a problem, but I'm not sure how to compete with it. Where do you separate finding and exploiting an opportunity in your market from having built-in advantages? The Yanks in the late 80's/early 90's weren't drawing a ton, weren't the powerhouse team in the city, weren't especially popular. It was the WC in '95 and then the dynasty in the late 90's that brought the team the kind of revenue that allowed them to create YES Network. They've made the most of their market, and that puts them in a much better position than anyone else. I think first, the league should work on getting each team to get the most out of their market and see where that puts everyone. If the Mets haven't cut into the Yanks enough, then there is going to have to be another evaluation of how to mitigate the Yanks' advantage. But I don't think luxury tax or revenue sharing does anything except disincentivize success, and the Yanks clearly view the soft cap as the cost of doing business. Right now, they're making so much money that the extra cash doled out doesn't mean anything to them.

Or, screw the PCL, just put expansion franchises in LA and SF.

Maybe --- however, the Dosgers and the Giants were brand names that offered instant legitimacy. Major League Baseball on the west coast was accepted across the nation because of the two brand name teams playng. MLB was a smash on the west coast because of those brand names. Both scenarios might not have happened through expansion or PCL adoptions.

>>but any new MLB team would have needed a new park.<<<

Dodger Stadium would not have been built without the Dodgers -- it almost didn't get built with the Dodgers.

Neither the Dodgers nor Giants were ever anything close to broke. Both were performing quite well financially; they left NY not because they were struggling there, but because the virgin California market represented an even better opportunity. There's no plausible scenario that concludes that if the Dodgers and Giants had stayed in NY they wouldn't have continued to do well financially.

I don't know about that.

The Dodgers, who drew 1.8 million in 1946 and 1947, put out a great team for ten years after that and suffered ten years of box office reversals, dropping to 1.03 million by 1957. The Giants, after reaching a peak of 1.6 million in 1947, suffered catastrophic reversals for most of the next ten years, down to 629,000 in 1956 and 654,000 in 1957.

Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, "The Fifties Nobody Talks About: Baseball in Trouble."

O'Malley had the plain example of the earlier Boston Braves move to Milwaukee. The Braves in Boston in 1952 drew 281,000 fans. In Milwaukee they outdrew everybody, even the Yankees, for the rest of the decade. To O'Malley, I'm sure the move was really a no-brainer. And, of course, the Yankees were eager to help them out here. So you had the two most powerful franchises.

My idea has always been to tie the luxury tax pay-in/out to something like (local population) * (median income) as opposed to payroll, with the stipulation that those on the receiving end must re-invest what they receive somehow (whether it be major-league salary, development, or even television network development or stadium improvements). If the idea really is to counter structural differences as opposed to putting a brake on money going to players, that seems like the logical reason to go about it.

I suspect, no matter what you do, the Yankees will find a way around it; even a hard salary cap will just free up money to spend on multiple academies in the DR, a small army of scouts in the far east and a large one domestically, and state of the art facilities and extra staff to make themselves the destination of choice for free agents even if payroll questions are equalized. And I'm not so sure that it shouldn't be that way - if a team's fans make up a disproportionate amount of baseball fans in general, they probably should win a disproportionate amount of championships. The question is how to keep those numbers away from some sort of feedback loop.

The Dodgers, who drew 1.8 million in 1946 and 1947, put out a great team for ten years after that and suffered ten years of box office reversals, dropping to 1.03 million by 1957. The Giants, after reaching a peak of 1.6 million in 1947, suffered catastrophic reversals for most of the next ten years, down to 629,000 in 1956 and 654,000 in 1957.

This ignores the fact that all of MLB (and, for that matter, all of minor league baseball as well) was suffering ten years of box office reversals at the same time. MLB-wide attendance dropped by over 20% between 1948 and 1957. The Dodgers and Giants weren't particularly suffering; there was nothing about the New York market in particular that required a downsizing of MLB's footprint there.

OF COURSE the Dodgers and Giants stood to fare better in the virgin LA and SF markets than in their old ballparks in NY. But to acknowledge that isn't the same thing at all as saying that the Dodgers and Giants were struggling in NY, and were forced to move. They chose to; by no means did they have to. And MLB could have chosen to enter the West Coast market without relocating any franchises there, or without relocating any NY franchises there.

The Dodgers, who drew 1.8 million in 1946 and 1947, put out a great team for ten years after that and suffered ten years of box office reversals, dropping to 1.03 million by 1957.

The Dodgers were second in NL attendance in 1956 -- in 1957, Brooklyn fans were pissed about O'Malley's overtures to Los Angeles. The Giants were a bit of a different story, but they were second in NL attendance in 1954.

Shorten the season and add another round to the playoffs. Adding more randomness is an easier way of providing equal 'opportunity' than sharing revenue.

But there are things I think small market teams can do to improve their situations.

Every team that isn't a major player in the free agent market should do two things. First, they should dramatically increase the sizes of their ballparks. 420 power alleys, 460 to center field. Defense is harder to quantify and more readily available than power, so any market correction in the relative value of power versus defense would be inexact. Plus, it means your team will throw fewer pitches, which means fewer pitches being thrown by your worst pitchers.

Second, they should move to a four man rotation as soon as they are able. If each pitcher has a limited number of bullets, the small market teams should be using as many of those bullets as they can before the pitcher reaches free agency. This also means the pitchers that do get to free agency will be effective for a shorter amount of time than they otherwise would be for the larger market teams.

To eliminate the crapshoot nature of the playoffs, you could just compare the 2000s to the number of times they've posted the league's best record.

You could, but those are no longer equivalent comparisons. Therefore there is no way to eliminate the crapshoot nature of the playoffs. If you don't at least get to the Series, it doesn't count as success for anyone, even the Yankees.

Oh, I think that Pos and the rest of these Commies would quite readily settle for the Yankees of 1959.

Yes, and they got them, in 2008. They could well get them again in 2010, too.

The structural imbalance was in place even when there were two NL teams in NY. Heck, the 50s were the worst time of all in terms of the NYC baseball monolith: 16 out of 20 WS appearances for the Yanks, Giants and Dodgers (yes, '59 is after they moved.)

This ignores the fact that all of MLB (and, for that matter, all of minor league baseball as well) was suffering ten years of box office reversals at the same time. MLB-wide attendance dropped by over 20% between 1948 and 1957.

True enough, and this was reflected across all kinds of other "media" and "entertainment" areas as well. Movie attendance hit an all-time high in '46 and has, on a per-capita basis, tumbled ever since. TV made other sports more interesting to a wide group of viewers. Etc., etc.

As market as huge as NYC metro can be tapped for a third team, but the Lords will have to have the cojones to do it. So, accordingly, we should not be holding our collective breaths for this.

I honestly don't think there's a meaningful way to handicap the Yankees from being able to completely and totally outspend every other club. Nor do I think penalizing the club for developing cash cows works.

I really like the create a MLB fund towards 100% privately owned parks idea. That could be one way to alleviate the 'small market' costs.

I said this in another thread that died: the bigger problem is that Free agents are flocking to the club (whether because of the salary or because it's the marquee franchise). Add much larger costs to signing other club's free agents, that go to the club losing the player. Fewer mid-season crappy trades to try to get something in return for the star that's leaving. Fewer huge name guys awaiting the Yankee payday. More ability for the 'small-market' clubs to rebound from losing that star.

Bottom line though, you can't force 30 clubs to be well-run.

The Dodgers were second in NL attendance in 1956 -- in 1957, Brooklyn fans were pissed about O'Malley's overtures to Los Angeles. The Giants were a bit of a different story, but they were second in NL attendance in 1954.

In 1950 6 NL teams drew over 1 million, the high was 1.2
1951: 3 over 1 million
1952: 2 over 1 million, high was 1.1
1953: 2 drew 1 mil, the high was 1.8mil by MILWAUKEE (that was the first team to move in quite awhile, the Braves went from drawing 500k to 60% more than ANY OTHER TEAM- it is an understatement to say that other team owners noticed.
1954: 4 over 1 mil, Milwaukee had 2.1, next best was 1.2 (NYG)
1955: just 2 over 1 mil, Milwaukee at 2, and Brooklyn at 1

basically attendance in the 1950s was putrid.
The AL was a little better, the Yankees consistently drew 1.5 or so, other teams were at 1-1.2
The A's went from 300k to 1.4 when they moved...

So you had a bunch of teams, with stagnant or declining attendance, playing in old decaying parks (It's before my time, but my older relatives have insisted that both Ebbets and the Polo Grounds were absolute horrid dumps by the 1950s) in old decaying neighborhoods...

And then two teams playing in dumps, in dumpy neighborhoods, drawing 300 to 500,000 fans a year, MOVE to other cites (which even THEN were hardly big market), and yowza, the fans turn out.

I'm surprised more teams didn't move... then again, many of the ones that didn't "move", actually moved, new stadiums were built, in new neighborhoods.

If MLB wanted to put a third team in the area, they could do so. New Jersey's sports authority has tried in the past to lure a team there.

I'm not saying it's likely, but I can imagine the circumstances needed to achieve it.

1) Existing owner decides to relocate from current home, and has the nerve to pick a fight using the anti-trust argument.
2) MLB prefers not to fight the matter in order to maintain the current uncertainty about just how good their 'exemption' is.
3) New Jersey finds the wherewithal to build a stadium.

Today, the situation seems implausible. On 12 June 1987, who seriously thought the Berlin Wall would come down, Nelson Mandela would be released from prison and the Soviet Union would have been dissolved by 1 January 1992?

Bottom line though, you can't force 30 clubs to be well-run.

Well then maybe the parity pouters should take the other tack - let MLB owners pool their resources and purchase the Yankees outright. Then they could effectively create their own salary cap AND as much revenue sharing as they want, without depriving Nr, Steinbrenner and his heirs of the fair market value of their investment.

This ignores the fact that all of MLB (and, for that matter, all of minor league baseball as well) was suffering ten years of box office reversals at the same time.

Ah,yes, the "misery loves company" school of business solutions.

And when that fails, how about the Mel Brooks Prisoner of Love takeover?

Now really. They were losing buiness, there were serious "reversals" (for winning teams), things didn't look like they were going to get better (after ten years), so your solution is they should have giving all that grazing land out west to the "homesteaders" and everything would just somehow work out for them? If that's your solution to Mr. O'Malley's problem, all I can say, in the spirit of th season, is May God Bless You. Please be sure to close the door to the hologram entertainment center behind you on your way out.

They were losing buiness, there were serious "reversals" (for winning teams), things didn't look like they were going to get better (after ten years), so your solution is they should have giving all that grazing land out west to the "homesteaders" and everything would just somehow work out for them?

Look, I don't know where you get the idea that I'm advocating that O'Malley and Stoneham, in the pursuit of their own interests, shouldn't have moved to California. Because I'm not now, and never have.

But one must comprehend the difference between choosing an available positive alternative, and being forced through desperation to try something different. Just as one must comprehend the difference between the interests of O'Malley/Stoneham and the interests of the larger MLB enterprise.

The point is that Larry's characterization that having three franchises in NYC led to "the Yankees and two broke teams" is simply and utterly wrong. Neither the Dodgers nor the Giants were anything close to broke in 1957, and had never been close to broke. And the economic facts we have don't support the notion that had the Dodgers and Giants stayed in NYC, they ever would have gone broke; indeed the vastly more likely scenario is that had they stayed put and muddled through the inner-city economic doldrums of the mid-century, both franchises would be sitting extremely pretty in NYC today, and the Yankee economic dominance that we observe today might very well never have come about.

To say that is not to say that both the Dodgers and Giants haven't done abundantly well in California; indeed their fortunes elsewhere are quite irrelevant to this question.

This is only tangentially related to the topic of the thread, but I've been wondering for a long time: What happened to the Braves in Milwaukee? They were drawing like gangbusters and winning all the time for a few years there, and then within fifteen years they'd pulled up stakes again and relocated to Atlanta. Did attendance collapse? Why? I've never really heard the story.

What happened to the Braves in Milwaukee?

Owner sold the team to a guy who wanted a larger TV market.

The Yankees have always had a payroll advantage due to the New York location, but smart, aggressive management, the advent of free agency, the cable channel and now the new stadium have really allowed them to capitalize on and sustain their competitive advantage. Data from Business of Baseball website and USATODAY show that the Yankees have historically been among the top payrolls in MLB (Rank), but that their payroll has far outstripped the median (Excess Payroll: Difference between NYY Payroll and MLB Median Payroll, as a percent of the median payroll). So, in 1929, the Yankees had the highest payroll in baseball, at a level 60% greater than the median salary.

Year/Rank/Excess Payroll
1929 1 60%
1933 1 65%
1939 1 58%
1943 1 54%
1946 3 33%
1950 1 41%
1977 2 99%
1985 1 45%
1989 4 30%
1992 7 17%
1995 1 72%
1999 1 98%
2004 1 194%
2009 1 151%

The level of the Yankees' excess payroll relative to the median now far exceeds the levels of Steinbrenner pay in the late 1970s.

The Yankees aren't the only problem. This year there were six teams with payrolls exceeding 140% of the median and three at or under 60% of the median payroll. Is a cap or more resdistribution or some other restraint needed on the top teams? Probably. Is a floor needed on the bottom teams? Definitely. Is either going to happen? No. The owners don't trust each other and the players don't trust the owners. The typical MLB owner-and moreso among the owners of the most valuable franchises-believe that the value of his franchise is independent of the health of the other franchises.

The typical MLB owner is right, but only on the margin. The Yankees would be just fine if the Padres and the Pirates folded, and so the Yankees act accordingly. However, this trend will alienate the fans--even Yankee fans--and is not good for the long term health of baseball. How many of the Yankee fans who watched their team ride this revenue and salary disparity to another World Series title did so from their couch (or rarely from a nosebleed seat) because they were priced out of the better seats aimed at corporate buyers?

Since there is an obvious correlation between the value of the franchises and their geographic locations, I had proposed in an earlier thread a geographic realignment as a practical way to address the disparities among the teams. The goal would be to try to consolidate markets of similar economic potential into divisions and leagues. I don't remember the exact divisions, but it was something like:

AL East: NYY, NYM, BOS, PHI, ATL, TOR
AL Central: CHC, DET, HOU, CWS, CLE
AL West: LAA, LAD, SEA, SFG, COL

NL East: BAL, TB, WAS, PIT FLA
NL Central: MIL, STL, CIN, KCR, MIN
NL West: ARI, TEX, OAK, SD

Owners would have more of an incentive to buy into and invest into franchises located in "lesser" markets, because they would not have to compete with the "better" market teams for playoff spots. The players' union would like anything that attracts investment, i.e. salaries. The divisions with the better market teams would remain as competitive and high-spending as they are today.

As Poz said, the Yankees are their own argument. They are more than just a big market team. The Mets have a lot of money, but they're just not on that level.

Works for me. Just fer instance, with the Yankees' budget the Mets could have signed Sabathia, Teixeira, and Burnett this offseason. With CC instead of Perez and Redding, Burnett instead of Livan Hernandez, and Teixeira instead of Daniel Murphy the Mets have a real shot at the playoffs despite coming down with The Plague in 2009.

Except, of course, that if the Mets had signed them, they would all have been out for the season by June. This was too much bad luck to be a Plague; this was a full blown Curse.

They need to perform an exorcism at Citifield before the start of next season.

AL East: NYY, NYM, BOS, PHI, ATL, TOR
AL Central: CHC, DET, HOU, CWS, CLE
AL West: LAA, LAD, SEA, SFG, COL

NL East: BAL, TB, WAS, PIT FLA
NL Central: MIL, STL, CIN, KCR, MIN
NL West: ARI, TEX, OAK, SD

I can see your point in pimping this sort of alignment, but under this plan you'd have three things happening.

First, the NL would retake the home field advantage in the World Series sometime in the 23rd century, if then, since it would only win an All-Star game if the entire AL squad came down with the swine flu. You've put every big time franchise in the American League, and more precisely, in the AL East and AL West, at least as long as the Cubs and the White Sox continue to slough along. I'm only a bit surprised that you didn't swap the Cardinals for the Indians just to make it even more lopsided.

Second, the NL would quickly be looked upon as the equivalent of a AAAA league. We sometimes joke about the NL being a AAAA league now, but under this realignment it would cease to be funny. I can't imagine how you would expect the fans not to notice this, and to act accordingly. Fans DO tend to want at least the pretense of Major League Baseball.

And third, the World Series itself would wind up seeing one short series after another, since all the big market teams would be concentrated in the AL. It would be like the Super Bowl from the mid 80's through the mid 90's.

In return for this, you get what? An improved chance for the weaker teams in the NLC and NLW to make it to the postseason via their affirmative action slots. Some consolation.

All this is is the equivalent of a fig leaf. Not only that, but if you think that the Yankees have an incentive to spend NOW, what do you think their reaction would be if they woke up and found themselves with the Mets and the Phillies added to their division, not to mention the Braves? Jesus, they'd probably get so paranoid about missing the playoffs that they'd buy the entire Dominican Republic, or work out some sort of backdoor deal with Castro's successors. Whatever the details, they sure wouldn't be likely to relax, and meanwhile, the lesser teams would just keep sinking into the quicksand.

Face it, the only way to address the Yankee "problem" is serious revenue sharing combined with a high salary floor and some sort of a salary cap / bigger luxury tax. If you don't do that---and it'll never happen, for many reasons---all you're doing with these other schemes---which we all know are even less likely to happen---is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, while the Captain and his cronies grab a luxury lifeboat and say "SEE YA!" to the suckers left at sea.

What happened to the Braves in Milwaukee?

Owner sold the team to a guy who wanted a larger TV market.

Specifically, Lou Perini, who'd bought the team in Boston in the late 1940s and moved them to Milwaukee, sold the franchise in 1962 to a consortium headed by Bill Bartholomay. Right away, Bartholomay let it be no secret to anyone that his full intention was to move the franchise to Atlanta. Despite, unsurprisingly, howls of protest from the Milwaukee fans and business community, and soon despite a major lawsuit, from 1962 onward the Braves actively and publicly engaged in their negotiations with Atlanta, which included having Fulton County taxpayers foot the bill for the construction of a brand-new stadium.

Also unsurprisingly, Milwaukee attendance nosedived as it became clearer and clearer that the ballclub, despite its sustained competitiveness on the field and remarkable support from the local fanbase, was a lame duck. The final season, 1965, was an especially sour episode in which an 86-76 team drew 550,000 fans. Once the team left, the lawsuit was fully underway. The lawyer who represented the National League was one Bowie Kuhn, who leveraged that experience into becoming Commissioner. The young Milwaukee businessman who championed the effort to bring a franchise back to Milwaukee was one Bud Selig, who became owner of the Seattle Pilots when they relocated to Milwaukee in the spring of 1970.

You could, but those are no longer equivalent comparisons. Therefore there is no way to eliminate the crapshoot nature of the playoffs. If you don't at least get to the Series, it doesn't count as success for anyone, even the Yankees.

You're welcome to define it that way. I wouldn't. Moreover, I'd then take exception to this:

The advantage just seems stronger than ever, but the facts show that the Yankees were more dominant in the old days. From 1920-1969, they appeared in 29 of 50 World Series (58%). From 1970 to the present, they appeared in 11 of 40 World Series (27.5%).

I'd say the facts show the advantage is just as strong as ever, it just seems the Yankees were more dominant in the old days because there was no crapshoot playoff to work through at the end of the season. I'd toss out the 1969-2000 period, because I'd argue that's the Yankees' period where the club's structural advantages were both not as significant and what advantages they had weren't being fully exploited, thus it doesn't really have much relevance to the question of where the Yankees stand now. And my dismissal would include the great 90s teams, as they were not built on capitalizing on any inherent advantages, but because the team developed five Hall of Fame caliber players at roughly the same time (Jeter, Posada, Williams, Pettitte and Rivera).

Since 2000, however, the Yankees have done a much better job exploiting those structural advantages, manifested in a massive payroll disparity on the rest of the sport (yes, they frequently spent at the top end of the salary structure through most of the Steinbrenner era, but not at the ratio close to now, as far as I know). As a result, they've produced the best team in the league five times in the last 10 years, which is the same as they did in the 30s, 40s and 60s. This despite playing in a league nearly twice as large (and often, unlike the one their 60s clubs competed in, a league stronger than the Senior Circuit).

They haven't been able to parlay that best in league status into WS victories as frequently as they did in the 1990s because they haven't been as adept at navigating the crapshoot. And it probably safe to say that baseball's new playoff format does a decent job at neutralizing the Yankees' advantages, and will continue to do so. But in terms of building the best team in the league, which is really all a GM can do, it looks to me the Yankees are not suffering in comparison to most other times in their history.

So, neither the Yankees' stuff nor Billy Beane's stuff works in the crapshoot, er, playoffs.

it probably safe to say that baseball's new playoff format does a decent job at neutralizing the Yankees' advantages, and will continue to do so. But in terms of building the best team in the league, which is really all a GM can do, it looks to me the Yankees are not suffering in comparison to most other times in their history.

That's exactly right. Bringing the differences in era conditions into consideration, the Yankees right now are as formidable an institution as they've ever been.

They haven't been able to parlay that best in league status into WS victories as frequently as they did in the 1990s because they haven't been as adept at navigating the crapshoot. And it probably safe to say that baseball's new playoff format does a decent job at neutralizing the Yankees' advantages, and will continue to do so. But in terms of building the best team in the league, which is really all a GM can do, it looks to me the Yankees are not suffering in comparison to most other times in their history.

Well, you can look at it two ways: They're more dominant today, because of the reasons you cite. And it's certainly more impressive what they've done lately, because the AL doesn't serve them up teams like the Senators, the Browns and the A's on a silver platter 66 times out of 154 games. Even the worst teams today are far better than those bankrupt doormats of the reserve clause era.

But if you think of dominance as reducing the rest of the league to rubble, the two truly dominant stretches they had were 1936-43 and 1956-58, especially the former. Nothing they've done lately in terms of the distance between the Yanks and the second best team in the AL has been able to match that.

But if you think of dominance as reducing the rest of the league to rubble, the two truly dominant stretches they had were 1936-43 and 1956-58, especially the former. Nothing they've done lately in terms of the distance between the Yanks and the second best team in the AL has been able to match that.

Sure, so long as you decide to limit your definition of "dominance" to that. But if you widen it to a more comprehensive consideration that realistically compares distant eras, the Yankees of today stand up to any of their forebears.

I know people have been saying this for ten years, but the Yankees might not even be the best team in the league next year. Jeter and Posada aren't getting any younger; neither are Rivera and especially Pettitte, who isn't even certain to come back. Burnett stayed healthy all year--is that going to continue? Is Chamberlain actually going to become a good starter? It's easy to see the 2010 Yankees as having a very good--rather than great--lineup, and very little pitching.

One possible solution is to change the way draft pick compensation works. Instead of rating players as Type A, B, whatever, you base draft pick compensation on the size of the contract signed, discounted to present value.

So a pick in the 2010 draft might compensate for $50 million in contract, first rounder in 2011 for $47 million in contract, first rounder in 2012 for $43 million, and so on. You assign dollar values to other rounds and that's the package the team losing the player receives in exchange. You can ever take it a step further and work out dollar values for each individual pick.

With the current restrictions on the way the draft works, this would force teams losing the player to effectively spend the compensation on players (draft picks) to make their teams better.

Obviously this idea has all kinds of problems too, but it's one way to use market forces (the size of the contract) to generate compensation that must be used to make teams better (draft picks).

Edit: Actually this is a bad idea since it will artificially depress player salaries. Oh well.

the Yankees might not even be the best team in the league next year. Jeter and Posada aren't getting any younger; neither are Rivera and especially Pettitte, who isn't even certain to come back. Burnett stayed healthy all year--is that going to continue? Is Chamberlain actually going to become a good starter? It's easy to see the 2010 Yankees as having a very good--rather than great--lineup, and very little pitching.

Of course the 2010 Yankees might not be the best team in the league. But the issue is that such a result has become pretty much the worst-case scenario for this franchise ... OMG! if everything falls apart, they might not be the best team in the league. Meanwhile the likelihood that they won't be a playoff contender is laughably remote, and the likelihood that they'll lose 90+ games is off-the-charts impossible.

And the likelihood that the Yankees will be a very strong playoff contender in 2011 and all seasons forward as far as we can see is very, very, very, very, very high.

Well, yeah.

Of course the 2010 Yankees might not be the best team in the league. But the issue is that such a result has become pretty much the worst-case scenario for this franchise ... OMG! if everything falls apart, they might not be the best team in the league. Meanwhile the likelihood that they won't be a playoff contender is laughably remote, and the likelihood that they'll lose 90+ games is off-the-charts impossible.

But didn't everything kinda go right for the Yankees this year? A-Rod only missed a month despite hip surgery, Jeter reached the upper end of his ZiPS projection, all the guys that were injured like year (Posada, Matsui, etc.) were healthy this year, etc. Expecting them to be this healthy for 2010 seems pretty hopeful.

But didn't everything kinda go right for the Yankees this year? A-Rod only missed a month despite hip surgery, Jeter reached the upper end of his ZiPS projection, all the guys that were injured like year (Posada, Matsui, etc.) were healthy this year, etc. Expecting them to be this healthy for 2010 seems pretty hopeful.

Of course.

Shall we repeat: the 2010 Yankees might not be the best team in the league. But the issue is that such a result has become pretty much the worst-case scenario for this franchise ... OMG! if everything falls apart, they might not be the best team in the league. Meanwhile the likelihood that they won't be a playoff contender is laughably remote, and the likelihood that they'll lose 90+ games is off-the-charts impossible.

And the likelihood that the Yankees will be a very strong playoff contender in 2011 and all seasons forward as far as we can see is very, very, very, very, very high.

Thanks for the info on the Braves in Milwaukee, guys. I knew that Selig had been one of the major figures opposing relocation, and I knew he stole baseball from Seattle so he could have it in Milwaukee, but I didn't know the rest of it.

Every team that isn't a major player in the free agent market should do two things. First, they should dramatically increase the sizes of their ballparks. 420 power alleys, 460 to center field. Defense is harder to quantify and more readily available than power, so any market correction in the relative value of power versus defense would be inexact. Plus, it means your team will throw fewer pitches, which means fewer pitches being thrown by your worst pitchers.

Second, they should move to a four man rotation as soon as they are able. If each pitcher has a limited number of bullets, the small market teams should be using as many of those bullets as they can before the pitcher reaches free agency. This also means the pitchers that do get to free agency will be effective for a shorter amount of time than they otherwise would be for the larger market teams.

I'd love it if the A's did this. They'd be fun to watch at home, anyway.

Bringing the differences in era conditions into consideration, the Yankees right now are as formidable an institution as they've ever been.

"Institution"? Perhaps. A force as unstoppable as they were when they were using KC as a farm team in the 50s? No way.

There's no question that there are structural advantages for the Yankees. No one is arguing against that here. But there is a great deal of question as to whether the current advantages amount to something more egregious than what was the case in the past.

...a more comprehensive consideration that realistically compares distant eras...

I think you need to be a good bit more explicit, Steve. Nothing I've read here, from you or anyone else, constitutes such a "comprehensive consideration." The narratives here (made by others, but that you seem to be echoing) that attempt to analogize a link between the Yankees and Goldman Sachs are not particularly convincing.

And it probably safe to say that baseball's new playoff format does a decent job at neutralizing the Yankees' advantages, and will continue to do so. But in terms of building the best team in the league, which is really all a GM can do, it looks to me the Yankees are not suffering in comparison to most other times in their history.

That structural advantage has been in place ever since 1920. "Neutralizing" is the only option given how the cards have been dealt. To change that, you need a new deck of cards.

Yanks crapshoot log: WS Win--96,98,99,00,09; WS Lose--01,03; Playoff loss: 95,97,02,04,05,06,07.

That's 5 wins, 9 losses. Getting to the WS: 7 to 7.

That's seven times they got stopped in the Alps.

Years with the best record in the league: 98, [02], (03), [04], [05], [06], 09. ( ) indicate WS losses, [ ] indicate playoff losses.

That's more than a "decent" job of mitigation...the Yanks have been the best team in the AL seven times, made the series three times, and won twice. In the old days, they would've been in seven, and won five (not much different than how things were in the 50s).

And my dismissal would include the great 90s teams, as they were not built on capitalizing on any inherent advantages, but because the team developed five Hall of Fame caliber players at roughly the same time (Jeter, Posada, Williams, Pettitte and Rivera).

Four of whom were <u>still on the 2009 team</u>, and all of whom will be at least 36 years old next year.

It's easy to see the 2010 Yankees as having a very good--rather than great--lineup, and very little pitching.

Precisely. This version of the Yankees was leveraged into a team that, if things broke exactly right, would have a glorious 2009. It all broke right for them: the hitting carried the team, and a thin starting rotation squeaked though with the help of a patchwork bullpen anchored by Rivera.

Only one defensive position declined in OPS+ in 2009:

Pos, c, 1b, 2b, ss, 3b, lf, cf, rf, dh
08, 78,128, 86,102,150,118, 68,120,102
09,130,146,126,129,143,123, 97,126,128

Keep in mind that the team played eight games over its Pythagorean. Their bullpen went 15-3 in July and August despite having a combined ERA over 4. They were actually good in Sept-Oct (9-3, 2.87), bailing out the faltering starters. They set a major league record with 40 wins from their relievers. They shattered the record for the most reliever wins at home (31), six more than the second-highest total (the Rockies, in 1996 and 2000).

And the likelihood that the Yankees will be a very strong playoff contender in 2011 and all seasons forward as far as we can see is very, very, very, very, very high.

Which has been the case virtually every year since 1920. It's the way it is, regardless of how many teams are located in NYC, or if they've got a farm team in KC, or whether the Yanks are the Goldman Sachs of baseball. They had a lull from 1965-75, and again from 1982-1993, but those were the exceptions to the rule.

What you're referencing is a long-standing complaint. Funny how so much of this was bottled up so long as the Yankees got stopped in the Alps.

Also unsurprisingly, Milwaukee attendance nosedived as it became clearer and clearer that the ballclub, despite its sustained competitiveness on the field and remarkable support from the local fanbase, was a lame duck. The final season, 1965, was an especially sour episode in which an 86-76 team drew 550,000 fans. Once the team left, the lawsuit was fully underway. The lawyer who represented the National League was one Bowie Kuhn, who leveraged that experience into becoming Commissioner. The young Milwaukee businessman who championed the effort to bring a franchise back to Milwaukee was one Bud Selig, who became owner of the Seattle Pilots when they relocated to Milwaukee in the spring of 1970.

remembering the days when Selig was a hero. Hard to imagine that nowadays. I figure with those origins he would be hard pressed to allow the contraction that he was trying to sell.

I think you need to be a good bit more explicit, Steve. Nothing I've read here, from you or anyone else, constitutes such a "comprehensive consideration." The narratives here (made by others, but that you seem to be echoing) that attempt to analogize a link between the Yankees and Goldman Sachs are not particularly convincing.

Perhaps you missed this part of post #223?

The Yankees have always had a payroll advantage due to the New York location, but smart, aggressive management, the advent of free agency, the cable channel and now the new stadium have really allowed them to capitalize on and sustain their competitive advantage. Data from Business of Baseball website and USATODAY show that the Yankees have historically been among the top payrolls in MLB (Rank), but that their payroll has far outstripped the median (Excess Payroll: Difference between NYY Payroll and MLB Median Payroll, as a percent of the median payroll). So, in 1929, the Yankees had the highest payroll in baseball, at a level 60% greater than the median salary.

Year/Rank/Excess Payroll
1929 1 60%
1933 1 65%
1939 1 58%
1943 1 54%
1946 3 33%
1950 1 41%
1977 2 99%
1985 1 45%
1989 4 30%
1992 7 17%
1995 1 72%
1999 1 98%
2004 1 194%
2009 1 151%

The level of the Yankees' excess payroll relative to the median now far exceeds the levels of Steinbrenner pay in the late 1970s.

A "comprehensive consideration" takes more into account than simply WS titles won. As an economic force, the Yankees are at least as dominant as they've ever been, and the linkage between economic clout and on-field competitive clout is at least as strong as it's ever been.

A third team would not make a dent in it

No way of knowing for sure how a third team will split a market, but several studies (starting with Zimbalist) have shown that two teams don't split a market 50-50. It seems to be more like 80-75 (which I know sounds strange -- probably has something to do with better exploitation of the specific area where the second team is based plus the likelyhood that the bandwagon fans will have somebody to support)

Strictly a WAG, but I'd expect a third team in the NY area to cost the Yankees 10-15%.

The Yankees have earned part of that advantage.

Indeed. In 1980 the Yankees didn't have the highest franchise value, the Dodgers did. (1980 is the earliest I have values for all of the franchises that were in operation)

By 1989 they were worth about $25 million more than the Mets and the Dodgers. By 2000 they were worth 181 million more than the Mets. The Dodgers had slipped behind the Braves in franchise value (and were worth about $254 million less than the Yankees). Another decade and they've really pulled away in franchise value.

There was absolutely nothing inevitable about the current situation. Further, the Yankees are $1.4 billion in debt right now according to Forbes which rates to put some constraints on them.

There was absolutely nothing inevitable about the current situation.

True. But that fact doesn't render the current situation as non-problematic for the sport. (That fact also illustrates the degree to which the current situation isn't just a repetition of a constant state.)

patchwork bullpen

Great post, but I will nitpick here. One reason the 2009 Cashman/Girardi Yankees were better than the late-run Torre/TampaMafia Yankees was that Cashman did a nice job of getting some quality young arms in the pen. It was not a great bullpen, but it had its plusses, and showed a solid understanding of team construction.

Further, the Yankees are $1.4 billion in debt right now according to Forbes which rates to put some constraints on them.

I don't think the debt is at all an issue for the Yankees.

The Yankees financed their stadium debt through the city, which sold munis at the height of the boom. So the interest rate on those bonds is, I think, very low- the Fortune article said they have $51m of debt service per year (for ~1b of debt), AND THE DEBT SERVICE IS DEDUCTED FROM THEIR REVENUE SHARING PAYMENTS.

In contrast, the New York Football Giants financed the Meadowlands with variable-rate bonds that were then turned into de facto fixed rate through interest rate swaps with Lehman...
...and of course, after Lehman defaulted, the Giants were out ~$300m.

OK, let's try this. I've recently updated my Pro Sports in TV Markets spreadsheet for 2009; it's available on request. As of 2009, there are 29 MLB teams in 25 US TV markets, which combined represent 47.95% of TV households (TVH) in the country. The average MLB team, then, plays in a market that has 1.92% of TVH, almost exactly the size of the Detroit TV market.

The major outliers:

New York (6.52% of the nation's TVH): 2 teams, "room" for 4 teams.
Los Angeles (4.92%): 2 teams, room for 3.
San Francisco (2.18%): 2 teams, only room for 1.
Kansas City (0.82%), Cincinnati (0.80%), Milwaukee (0.78%): each with 1, all less than half of the 1.92% figure quoted above.

So, assuming we want to stick with 30 teams (and keep the Blue Jays where they are), we can:

*Move the A's from Oakland to LA (Orange County Athletics);
*Move Milwaukee to Brooklyn (Brooklyn Brewers, a historically appropriate name);
*Move either KC or Cincy to Long Island or New Jersey (I'll go with Newark Royals).

You're welcome.

NOTE: The 1.92% figure above should be 1.65%; I divided by 25 markets instead of 29 teams.

AND THE DEBT SERVICE IS DEDUCTED FROM THEIR REVENUE SHARING PAYMENTS.

No, it's not. It's deducted from their revenue, for the purposes of revenue sharing payments. Which makes sense, since it's an investment that pays off in revenue, which they share. If the debt service couldn't be deducted, the incentives would be against investment.

No, it's not. It's deducted from their revenue, for the purposes of revenue sharing payments.

You may be right, but the Fortune article says otherwise.