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No quality free agent will ever sign with the Pirates if he has another option. Even if that other option involves less money, or fewer years, or a less-prominent role.
If the Pirates want those kinds of players, they need to develop them themselves.
Nah - he wants to make it through all 30 teams... Three year deals aren't conducive to that.
Hopefully, the Nats fall out of the race early and he can turn this into another multi-team deal. He knows he needs to pick up the pace a bit. What he really needs is one of those delayed Piazza-to-the-Marlins 3 team deals.
Ever? No. If the Pirates start developing those players themselves and contending for division titles, then Pittsburgh will be able to land FAs.
Maybe if we just give them some more time and more free money.
Good point. I appreciate your fresh take on the subject.
Then he could have signed the one-year contract with the Pirates.
Of course. But until they do, free agents like Jackson are going to be nothing but a pipe dream.
Eat #### and die in a fire.
In general, and without seriously overpaying, that's true.
Did they offer him a one year contract?
At least they didn't give Derek Bell a job in the PR department.
Because, obviously, they offered one.
There is no need to put Yankee Redneck on "ignore", simply because you know it's the same content, over and over again. That axe head must be almost gone, it's been ground so often...
How much would it have taken? It sounds like it needed to be considerably more than $11M for him to sign with the Pirates.
Is it 1912 or 2012?
Of course I would. Look at the team's rotation. Bedard's good for about 70 innings a year before his arm blows up, Kevin Correia's been right at replacement level for the last two seasons, and Charlie Morton might not be ready for the start of spring training. I like Shairon Martis as a potential fill-in, but even so, it's all shaky as hell.
And scouts, too!
Did they land FAs in the late 80s/early 90s when they were winning division titles? I honestly don't recall.
No, they lost them. But it wasn't because players couldn't be enticed to playing in Pittsburgh, but management wasn't footing the bill when they got expensive.
Twenty years of shitty play has made Pittsburgh, justifiably so, pretty low on most FA's wish list, even if Pittsburgh's offer is slightly better than some other team's. If the Pirates show signs of being competitive, there's no reason to think Pittsburgh's money won't be just as good as any other team's.
No. The big-ticket FAs they added around that time were washed-up 35-year-old Kirk Gibson in 1991-1992, Alejandro Pena in 1992-1993 and Walt Terrell in 1989-1990. None of them were exactly prime cuts, y'know?
They did have a certain amount of success in retaining second-tier internal FAs: Zane Smith, Mike LaValliere, Bob Walk, Steve Buechele, Gary Redus, etc.
Touchy touchy. I bet you'd get really angry if I disparaged a team that had only been awful for 10 years.
The fans that should worry would be the Blue Jays. Seems like a few free agents have spurned them despite high offers and the fact the team isn't that bad and has shown they will spend money at times. Is it just the Canada thing?
ISTR the Pirates had the choice of offering a long-term high-dollar contract to either Andy Van Slyke after the 1991 season or Barry Bonds after the 1992 season.
They chose Van Slyke.
"Won't somebody please take our money?!"
$30M/3 seems legitimate enough, but there's definitely a PR game that gets played where teams know how much it will take to sign a player, leak something not quite good enough to get it done, and then get to say that they tried, but that the player didn't want to play in that city or that the player was overpaid.
As an outsider it's hard to say when that's the case, but I'm not interested in gauging willingness to spend based on leaked offers. Get it done or I don't want to hear about how hard you tried.
The latest(still too early) CAIRO projections have the Nats at 86 wins and second in the East with the Pirates at 68 wins and fifth place in the Central. So yes, I think you could definitely argue that the Nats are closer to contention than the Pirates.
Sure, but that's post-Edwin Jackson signing. I'm sure before that the teams were neck-and-neck.
In fairness to the Pirates, Van Slyke's skin color is much lighter.
In fairness to Mr. Van Slyke, he'll sign an autograph for kids of any color.
Eat #### and die in a fire. The system's already massively stacked in your favor, and still you're a broken record about the state of poor Mr. Steinbrenner's wallet. Not to mention that we get maybe one Pirates thread a week here, and you have to come in and #### on the floor and hijack the discussion.
Funny to hear you say that. Bonds signed for me with no problem the time I met him, but when I went to get Van Slyke's at an event at a sporting goods store, he cut off signing a half-hour before the scheduled end, then flipped off the kids who tried to come up and get one while he was leaving.
And people accuse me of lacking material?
How so? Free wins for New York teams? Extra roster spots? Yankee officials allowed to investigate other teams for PED use?
You know whose wallet should be in pretty good shape? Bob Nutting's.
And in the interest of fairness we should demand the same number of threads for all teams.
You're hijacking it as much as I am. If you were honest with yourself you'd read my comment, grumble to yourself while acknowledging that the Pirates have been awful for years and years while pocketing money supposedly earmarked for improving the team, and realize poor ol' YR is just the messenger.
Well there you go. Andy Van Slyke is the real racist.
Eat #### and die in a fire.
A huge financial edge resulting from exclusive media rights in the largest market in the country.
There are two possibilities here: Either you're too ignorant to understand what a terrible take on the Pirates' finances that article is, or you realize that it's terrible but you're dishonestly presenting it as reasonable anyway because it supports a point you want to make.
Either way, eat #### and then die in a fire.
I'm rubber and you're glue. So, you know, checkmate.
So huge they've been forced to send free money to self-enriching ownerships, several of whom simply pocket the unearned cash and let their hapless clubs founder without a second thought. It ain't the Yankees' fault that the Pirates have nearly 20 years of hapless bumbling in their rear-view mirrors.
Yeah yeah yeah everyone is picking on the poor Pirates. Look, you can either write off two decades in the cellar as a bad break or you can make some small effort to point out the failures of ownership who cry poor and shed every marginally established player while generating fabulous profits. The Yankees haven't consigned this moribund team to the second-division, they're only helping to fund the effort.
They offered him a three year contract. The extra years are all in the player's interest. If you turn down my offer of three cakes in favor of one pie, it's not reasonable to conclude that the problem is that I offered too much cake. You probably just prefer pie.
Yes, that was my point. Jackson didn't turn down the Pirate's offer because they offered him two extra years, but because they didn't offer enough money.
Eat #### and die in a fire.
So go complain to those teams' fans, and stop ######## about the Pirates, who don't do that.
Incidentally, I'm sure small-market clubs would be glad to end revenue sharing, if it meant an equal division of all clubs' local revenue sources.
Some previous Pirates ownership groups did not make an honest investment in the product, but you were complaining specifically about Nutting, and Nutting has only been majority partner since shortly before the 2007 season. As such, the majority of those twenty years have ####-all to do with his track record as an owner. Which you'd know, if not for the whole ignorant-or-dishonest thing I mentioned earlier.
For instance, it's interesting that you didn't mention that the Pirates' 2009 profit according to the leaked books was only $5.4M (down from 2008, which in turn was down from 2007), or that in all three seasons that "profit" was a paper profit on the books rather than money taken out of the franchise to personally enrich the owners. The team didn't even disburse money to cover the owners' capital gains taxes. And of course, while the ML payroll has stayed low (chiefly because quality free agents WON'T SIGN HERE and none of the internal players have been worth extending), the team has been spending money hand-over-fist on other areas of operations: the draft, the international talent budget, millions of dollars in renovations to the spring training facility, a whole new Dominican academy, purchasing an A+ affiliate and moving it in order to consolidate operations, etc.
You're complaining about something that's not true, and hasn't been for years.
They aren't the only reason the team has been bad, but I'm pretty sure the Pirates would have at least a slightly better record with an extra $100M a year to spend on the roster.
Just to clarify, the Nuttings had been the biggest single shareholder for some time before, and Bob Nutting had been board chairman since 2003.
They could have been the Mets or the O's.
True, the Nuttings had been working to secure majority control for several years, by buying out smaller partners, but McClatchy was the one responsible for day-to-day operations as Managing General Partner and CEO. Littlefield reported to McClatchy, and McClatchy was the one who represented the team during meetings with MLB. It wasn't until the 2007 palace coup that any of the Nuttings took an active role in the running of the franchise.
There's a subset of Pirates fans that likes to throw around conspiracy theories about the Nuttings, but there's simply no evidence to support them.
The Mets were in the playoffs as recently as 2006. I don't think many Pirates fans would complain if the team had made the postseason back then...
Three of the four MLB teams that ever played in that market ran into extreme financial trouble. It's not as easy as
cashing a revenue sharing checkclipping a coupon.Back in the days before cable TV, when players rode dinosaurs to get to work.
Yes, that was my point. Jackson didn't turn down the Pirate's offer because they offered him two extra years, but because they didn't offer enough money.
Sorry, it wasn't a rhetorical question. I was honestly wondering if it would take 15M or 18M or....
As a note on how much of a license to print money the exclusive rights to the New York market are, the Mets have over the past few years been one of the most poorly run clubs in MLB. The Reds, Brewers, and Rays have been very well run by all accounts in that time. The Mets have averaged over $50M more in yearly revenue than the Reds, Brewers, and Rays.
A National League team might fly, but among NL franchises, pretty much only the Pirates are a conceivable relocation option. I really don't think the Rays would do very well, given the market's fan tendencies.
See, this is the sort of witty repartee that sets BBTF apart from the ESPN forums.
But it's so hard to find a Pirate fan, I can't pass up that sort of opportunity!
Isn't that just revenue sharing by another name?
Actually here was my specific complaint from post #8 in this thread: "Maybe if we just give them some more time and more free money." No mention of Nutting. I then followed it up with #10, "No, no, I think they're almost over the hump. Removing the need to be responsible for profitability from the equation allows teams like the Pirates to focus solely on putting the best team on the field and present their fans with the most entertaining product possible." Still no mention of Nutting, but it did inspire your devastating takedown in post #12. I replied in post #30, "Touchy touchy. I bet you'd get really angry if I disparaged a team that had only been awful for 10 years." Still no mention of Nutting but you offer more of your wit in #38 as means of reply.
In fact, my first mention of Nutting occurs all the way in post #39, my 5th post in the thread. A team that is as bad as the Pirates for as long as the Pirates have been bad require layers upon layers of ineptitude and apathy. Nutting was just a handy target for a throwaway line in my response, hardly the crux of my insightful argument regarding the longstanding bumbling of a once-credible franchise which hasn't managed to crawl out of the cellar since they climbed aboard the free money train. Again, it isn't the Yankees fault that the Pirates have been a laughingstock since Coolio was hip. The league has lavished freight cars full of unearned money on the Pirates ownership, to say nothing of granting their team high picks come amateur draft time as a direct result of their ineptitude.
At some point you really should be directing your ire in the direction of those actually responsible for the pathetic Pirates' parsimonious performance. 20 consecutive years of losing is right around the corner.
When Holman was looking to expand his operation and got really cash tight:
a) Bonds paid him up front for several years supply
b) Came to the middle of nowhere (ie Ottawa -- where Holman is based) for a little free publicity for Holman
Holman took Bonds to his favorite restaurant. The Mayflower. It's anything but a 5 star, in fact I can't imagine anybody thinking that taking a multi-millionaire to a diner (a nice one, but ... I think diner is fair) is a good idea.
Anyhow, I've talked to people who were there. Bonds was cheerful and accommodating. The only one of Holman's clients who helped out.
Jeff Pearlman (obviously no Bonds fan) writes that the speech that Bonds gave after touring Holman's plant, "brought tears to Holman's eyes" and that Bonds, "signed autographs until his hands ached"
On a side note, while I'm remembering it. Most players who use maple have a problem with the bat shattering. Bonds didn't. Holman notes that Bonds' bats were different. Specifically, he used an unusually thick handle. So thick that you couldn't fit the donuts they use in the on-deck circle -- the handle was wider than the hole. Did not know that.
I think it's the knob that was unusually thick. A bat handle that was thicker than the donut hole is pretty damn unlikely (and unwieldy). Though I'm not sure how a thick knob would prevent splintering.
Yes, I forgot how the Mets dominated the National League in the pre-Madoff years. The poor Pirates never had a chance - playing in the same division as the Mets and the Yankees. Oh . . . wait.
I'm not being witty. Eat #### and die in a fire.
Why should I be upset at them? They're all gone, and have been for years. Most of them are no longer involved in professional baseball, and a surprising number of them are dead. There's no continuity between the beginning and the end of the streak. The owner is different. The GM is different. The manager is different. Every last one of the players are different. The team is wearing different uniforms, and playing in a different stadium.
So why are you pretending that the current state of the franchise has anything to do with the way things were being done twenty years ago, that there's some kind of Pirates Way that's been the lodestar this whole time? Which is it: Ignorance, or mendacity? Do you genuinely know nothing about the team's current operations, or do you just not care about anything but the propaganda applications of conventional wisdom? Or is it maybe a little of both?
The question is, what is the value of exclusive rights to the New York City market? This is the value that New York teams should be expected to refund to the small market clubs which have granted them these exclusive rights over decades. The fact that the hapless Mets take in tens of millions of dollars more in revenue than the well-run Rays, Reds, and Brewers provides the evidence that significant amounts of revenue sharing moneys should be transfered from the New York clubs (and, to a lesser extent, the Chicago, LA, Boston, and Philadelphia clubs) to the small markets.
Or insightful, or coherent, or interesting.
Just settle down lil' fella, I won't be mean to your very well-dressed baseball team anymore.
*pats Vlad on head*
I'm just matching your level of discourse.
Eat #### and die in a fire.
For the record, we'd all appreciate you not being obnoxious either.
Of course you are. You're such a clever lad.
*Pats Vlad on head*
Run along now, we need a new Pirates thread after I've sullied this one with uncomfortable truths. Surely Jose Tabata must have done something colorful this off-season worth mentioning.
Exclusive rights to share the market with another team? Well for most of baseball's history that right cost the same as every other team's exclusive rights to their own region. If access to the New York market was such a ripe plum I assume the poor oppressed teams from other markets would have stripped territorial rights from the league some time ago. I don't see the A's asking for such historic changes in their spat with the Giants though. It's almost as if these teams value their own fiefdoms and exclusivity.
Can you present us with the appropriate financial data to back up your claims above? For example, just to start, how much money do each of the above-listed clubs pay or receive in revenue redistribution?
I haven't found a good source on individual team payments and receipts for revenue sharing. I've seen in a few places a total revenue sharing number about $450M, which suggests teams at the bottom of the market heap are getting maybe $50-80M. That seems like a fair amount, broadly speaking
The fact that the Yankees and Mets (and Dodgers and Cubs and Red Sox) haven't previously had to pay for their territorial rights, which have obvious and demonstrable value of many tens of millions of dollars, only suggests that in the interests of fairness, more money should be redistributed to the small market clubs, since they have previously not received their fair share of revenues.
EDIT: To be clear, I'm not in favor of small-market owners pocketing that money, and I support the union's work to force revenue sharing recipients to spend on the team on the field. I don't believe, though, that the fact that some small-market owners are bad owners, means that territorial rights and market size don't have a massive effect on revenues. Revenue sharing, which I would prefer to be tied to market value than to revenues, but tied to revenues is ok enough, seems like the best way to level the playing field.
So guesstimation? Why won't the league release this information? I believe they used to. What are they trying to hide?
But it's their money you tyrant, their due and proper compensation for purchasing a major league ballclub in a designated protected zone as determined by the former owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and as determined by secret calculation beyond your petty comprehension. Who are you to tell these poor oppressed heroes of capitalism what they can do with their own fairly-received money? I wouldn't expect a plebeian like yourself to understand the social pressures suffered by our elites but why should Jeffrey Loria be less deserving of a new yacht each year than John Henry?
We've had this boondoggle in place for 15 years. When did the unions finally notice that the poormouth welfare teams were pocketing the cash?
My problem with his ####### schtick is that he routinely turns any thread about the Pirates, or Marlins or Royals into his entirely predictable revenue sharing diatribe, regardless if the subject has anything to do with revenue sharing. The question of whether FAs such as Edwin Jackson are willing to sign in Pittsburgh exists entirely independently of whether the Bucs are stealing the Steinbrenner's money. That he can't allow any discussion about these clubs to exist without trying (often successfully, such as here) to derail them to a debate over this exhaustively trod subject is a terrible disservice to the site.
I actually agree with YR's rants against bad small-market owners. They are part of a cartel which guarantees their profits, and any posturing as brave capitalists is a bunch of hooey. The funny thing is that YR seems to actually believe that the Steinbrenner fortune and the Yankees' success isn't a function of the cartel. I'm in favor of the cartel producing fair competition between baseball teams, and I'm not under the ludicrous false impression that my club is actually run by virtuous businessmen driving our free market into a glorious future.
Yeah, that's why the Dodgers and Giants left town, it was the disproportional windfall of the New York market. They felt guilty. They should petition baseball for the right of return.
The territorial exclusivity bunkum is just the latest excuse for a shamelessly bald-faced cash grab by Selig and his cronies. I thought the reason for revenue sharing was to make sure all teams could spend on free agents? Or to prevent the Yankees from dominating baseball? Or to ensure that crappy unlikable franchises like the Pittsburgh Pirates wouldn't be consigned to the cellar for a generation. Or, well, whatever they can think of to keep that free money train rolling. I see lots of crying for more free money and no crying to eliminate territorial rights. Why gamble when you can get the sure thing? Why rely on your wits when you can rely on welfare? There's a reason why MLB keeps all this information hidden. It's a debacle of self-enriching greed that would make even a Goldman-Sachs executive softly nod in admiration.
Hell, now they've gone after the poorest amateur players in the game just to make sure the poormouth plutocrats can keep a few more bucks for private jet maintenance. But I guess this hurts the Yankees, so, you know, the ends justify and whatnot. Some third-world ragamuffin wouldn't know what to do with that money anyways.
A lot of the benefits of territorial rights have already been enjoyed by the Yankees, Mets, etc... it's too late to take it back. But I still marvel at the idiocy of reasoning that because revenue sharing is newer than territorial protection, it has had a more drastic effect; i.e. that revenue sharing's novelty is what makes it so harmful to the Yankees instead of the exact opposite.
Edit: I see the A's crying for territorial rights w/ the Giants, but I don't see any teams crying to eliminate revenue sharing. And here on BBTF, the volume of your posts whining about revenue sharing at this point surely surpasses the combined posts of fans of cheap teams complaining about the Yankees payroll.
The fact that the Pirates have been lousy since the Macarena was hip is why nobody wants to play there. For a real competitive business this would be a serious concern, since providing a quality product is what increases revenues and interest. But as I noted in #10, the Pirates' revenue streams are largely decoupled from their actual performance as a baseball team, so why go out on a limb? I do think the current revenue redistribution stream provides a counter-incentive to aggressively trying to improve your team and win ballgames, and the secrecy with which the program is conducted is ripe for underhanded dealings and graft. Ye gads man, this is the same Commissioner who requested and received secret under-the-table loans from one of the owners he was charged with overseeing. Now he's spreading half a billion bucks around every year, a plurality of it from his hated Yankees, and nobody is the least bit concerned about transparency?
Hey listen, I'm no Johnny-come-lately here. I remember when it was the YANKEES who couldn't attract any top free agents. They were spurned by Barry Bonds, Greg Maddux, David Cone, Jose Guzman, Doug Drabek, and plenty of others in the early-90s. The team was a mess, the media was brutal, leadership seemed to be lacking in the organization, and the fanbase was apathetic. It's no secret why players would choose to sign elsewhere. But the Yankees didn't cry about it, they set about to improve their organization, rebuild their farm system, and reverse their years of decline. Success at that task brought increased revenues, not walking around the winter meetings wearing a barrel-and-suspenders and mouthing empty platitudes about "fairness" until you've attracted enough stooges to vote yourself someone else's money.
How badly are these persistent welfare teams trying to win? If winning were the only thing that would increase their revenues, do you think they would try harder?
The Pirates, the Angels, the Rangers, the Braves, the White Sox, the Cardinals, the Mariners, etc.
Come on lads, let's do away with this tool of oppression! Open the gates to freedom and let the chips fall where they may! Small markets of the league unite, you have nothing to lose but your cushy fiefdoms of exclusivity which have negative value because you have to be paid to exercise them!
EDIT: And truly there is no symbol of the capacity of the free market to elevate the most deserving men and women to positions of wealth and power more compelling than Hank Steinbrenner.
And if the Yankees hate being part of the cartel so much, they can just leave and form their own league, with flapjacks and hookers. The cartel benefits all the clubs, the Yankees perhaps more than anyone, and they're never going to leave it.
Oh come on, we know who the real heroes of capitalism are - the plutocrats who managed to convince a gullible public that they needed a constant influx of other people's money to run their business. David Glass had to whip a lot of Chinese feet to get enough money to buy his team, it wouldn't be fair to ask any more of him. Now dump that Greenkey kid, he wants too much dough.
Class warfare? How unseemly. The Pohald Progeny would all look down their noses at you if they could be bothered to acknowledge the existence of the peasant class to begin with.
For the poormouth plutocrat who get those free millions every year it's only imperfect in the sense that they don't get even more and have to pay the players something. I believe Wendy Selig's description of the system was, "Just ginchy, dad!"
Still, it does ensure that they can continue to enjoy all the perks of major league ownership without the uncertainty associated with having to be good at it.
They're worth more to the Yankees because the Yankees made them worth more. The Mets have made them worth less. The Colorado Rockies and Toronto Blue Jays were once the hottest tickets in baseball but no longer. The Pirates rights are probably so worthless the city would consider expelling them in favor of a Steelers-themed playground. Hell, decidedly the Steelers, but they might even settle for a Bruno Sammartino-themed playground.
It's to remove tons of value from some franchises and artificially inflate the value of others, in secrecy? Geez, the machinations some people have to go through just to cope with the loss of the reserve clause.
And if you don't like the local goons shaking you down for protection money you can close your shop and open a new one. Sure, maybe you've had that shop for 70 years but things change, now pony up the dough, the Budfather demands tribute.
Just open all the books and I'll be happy. Open all the books and I'll stop pointing out the obvious self-enriching boondoggle Bolshevik Bud and his cronies have foisted off on the American public as a path to fair play. Open the books and let's get a look behind the curtain. Open the books and stop saying "trust us, we're honest Joes". Open the books.
So you're opting for "mendacious" over "ignorant", then?
You already had access to three years' worth of the Pirates books, and apparently learned nothing from them.
Which is exactly what the Pirates are trying to do now, and have been trying to do since the current ownership/management took over. Your obstinate refusal to acknowledge this point, in favor of tedious diatribes about the state of Mr. Steinbrenner's wallet, is exactly why your presence in these threads is so little appreciated.
Or, if that's too long for you, eat #### and die in a fire.
So, today it's: "the rights are so valuable to NY because the Yankees earned it"
sometimes it's: "the rights aren't worth anything at all"
sometimes it's: "the rights are equally valuable to all teams"
sometimes it's: "they are referred to as territorial rights, so therefore they are an inalienable right"
sometimes it's: "the territorial rights have been around for decades and therefore are better than newer franchise and financial policies"
etc etc
you are flailing at a pinata that isn't there...
MCoA - Didn't they previously pay for their territorial rights in hte purchase price of the franchise? Even as the better baseball towns have occasionally seen their teams run into the ground there was still a premium for buying the Yankees from CBS, the Sox from the Sullivans or currently, the Dodgers from McCourt.
The Yankees' territorial rights weren't "granted" by the small market clubs, the came with the franchise, same as every other club, and were a significant factor in the purchse price. Those that seemingly call for local revenues to be pooled equally would create a system with little incentive for any owner to increase the revenue stream by taking the risk of investing in the product. So we'd have even more teams run like the Pirates. Great.
Once again, for the slow kids in the audience: The Pirates are being run fairly intelligently now. If they aren't spending much on ML payroll, it's because free agents don't want to come to Pittsburgh and most of the veteran players the current regime inherited weren't worth keeping around.
The Yankees lost money during the CBS years, had trouble even selling their radio rights, and the franchise sold for slightly less than CBS paid for it. The Yankees probably also lost money during the the late 1980s to early 1990s period when Steinbrenner was in his out-of-control phase. It took large investments and some skill to maintain the on-field success that produces the current revenue stream.
Not sure why YR is getting the civility lecture. It was Vlad who lowered the level of discourse with his repeated "Eat #### and die in a fire" comments. Perhaps he's just trying to avoid explaining how anything the Yankees do prevents the Pirates from competing in the National League Central?
Because he's an ####### who keeps trolling any threads about low-revenue teams with the same stupid whine about how hard the Yankees have it?
I think most people would rather see someone tell YR to eat #### and die in a fire a hundred times than read his standard poor-li'l-rich-boy spiel the same number of times. Shall we put it to a vote?
If you don't understand why a revenue disparity of 2:1 or 3:1 between the Yankees and small-market teams is a problem, then nothing I say is going to help. Go find your kindergarten teacher, and ask her why she forgot to tell you about that whole "math" thing.
[Because it's obligatory for slow learners, such as the Yankees fans in this thread: Yes, the Pirates made lots of bad baseball decisions in the past, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be able to compete on a level playing field going forward. Do you really think, deep down in your heart of hearts, that you'd be able to consistently beat a team like Tampa Bay if you weren't able to bludgeon them into submission with your wallet? The sport should reward intelligent baseball decisions, not just the guy with the biggest checkbook.]
However, the cartel's restrictions on franchise movement and expansion function as a free-money grant to the big market clubs, who can out-earn the small market clubs (like the Pirates), even when they (the big market clubs) are terribly run. Revenue sharing is an imperfect method of making the big market clubs pay their fair share while retaining the stability of the cartel. The Pirates haven't been prevented from competing any more than the Reds, Brewers, and Rays have been, but even those better-run small market teams can't make as much money as the Mets because of market differences. Those differences should be redressed, even for clubs like the Pirates that were once poorly run.
It's possible, I guess, for a good owner to make an even larger profit on his or her fun-time investment, but "risk" and "cliff" are the wrong terms for this.
Money can be exchanged for goods and services, such as high-quality baseball players. A team that has a larger market within its territory will, given a constant level of management quality, tend to have more money than a team with a smaller market within its territory, and thus be able to afford more high-quality baseball players. Having more high-quality baseball players confers a competitive advantage.
Nothing outright prevents the Pirates from competing, but given the substantial revenue disparity between the two clubs, the Yankees don't need to be nearly as well-run as a small-market team would in order to contend for the postseason. A bad contract like AJ Burnett's would cripple a small-market team like the Pirates (assuming that it was even able to attract a big-ticket free agent like Burnett in the first place), but the Yankees can just shrug their shoulders, buy another high-quality free agent starter like Kuroda, and pay $20M+ to shuffle Burnett onto someone else's roster.
Most right-thinking people value the idea of sportsmanship and fair play, and as such find the Yankees' inherent financial advantage to be offensive.
And, as noted, the thread had nothing to do with the Yankees or revenue stealing until Yankee Redneck, as he does in every thread that involves these types of teams, jumped in to make it about that subject. That's the thing every god damned thinking fan on this site is ####### sick of, and why not a damn one of us called Vlad out for his otherwise asinine behavior.
That might be an argument for why the Pirates wouldn't match up well with the Yankees in the postseason, but the Yankees don't play in the National League Central. The Pirates have only themselves to blame for their competitiveness against the Brewers, Cubs, Cardinals, Reds & Astros.
So what? All of those teams are also at a substantial competitive disadvantage relative to the Yankees, due to market size. Even the Cubs aren't on an even footing with them.
Just because the sport's gross structural imbalance isn't the only thing keeping the Pirates out of the postseason doesn't mean that it's not a significant problem that needs to be addressed.
So what? All of those teams are also at a substantial competitive disadvantage relative to the Yankees, due to market size. Even the Cubs aren't on an even footing with them.
Just because the sport's gross structural imbalance isn't the only thing keeping the Pirates out of the postseason doesn't mean that it's not a significant problem that needs to be addressed.
Or it could be that the Yankees have nothing to do with the Pirates' problems. As for the Cubs, I believe they've been bad (with brief intervals that, thus far, seem to just give false hope) since before the Yankees were good - so I don't think the Yanks are taking the blame for that either.
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