I'm confused, did the Royals come from Burger King or the other way around. Eh doesn't matter in the McDonalds prefered world that is the pinstripers.
I'm confused, did the Royals come from Burger King or the other way around. Eh doesn't matter in the McDonalds prefered world that is the pinstripers.
In-Com-Plete knows his stuff, though we disagree on the $$ business. Fans of the Mets, Dodgers, Red Sox, Angels, Yankees, etc. know damned good and well that their teams can spend as much as they want. Do you want to pay the luxury tax or not? It's a choice without a salary cap (which I'm all for, by the way.... better put in a salary floor, too). I really don't want to hear a fan of one big market team cry about the finances of another.
Defensive metrics........ flawed in some areas, legit in others (makes me think of an argument with a fellow Yankees fan last season -- Him: "Mientkiewicz sucks defensively because the metrics say so!!" -- Me: "Hey, buddy, your metric charts show that Craig Wilson and Carlos Delgado are better defensively than EVERY 1B IN THE AL!!" . A good part of metrics are based on assumptions-- how many plays should a fielder get to, etc. I follow stats, but not to the point that they remove intangibles and plays that don't make the stat sheet.
A-Rod is (was... maybe we forget he hasn't played there in a while) a better SS than Jeter. Duh. We get it. Knew it years ago. A-Rod is (was) the best SS in the history of the game. Jeter has slipped defensively. Yeah. Guilty as charged. His range has declined. Too many errors last season. Got it. Where's the part I'm to be surprised?
What I don't get: what on earth that has to do with him as a player overall. Does it make him weak offensively? Does it prevent him from being a tremendous leader that plays the game EXACTLY the way it should be played? Can Furcal (fine defender and very good player, but certainly no Jeter) carry his jock? No, no, and no.
Speaking of players in their defensive decline..... Tejada fits that description. Still a fine player, but I don't get his inclusion as a shining defensive example.
Anyways, I'll keep most of my arguments in the "other" Broncos site. I've posted too much in the baseball threads there to walk away.... 2 of them are my "babies" afterall.
Last edited by keithbishop; 04-02-2008 at 11:41 PM.
The argument isn't that Jeter isn't a fine player. He is. He hits for average and sets the table for the rest of that lineup, gets you some home runs, provides excellent leadership. The argument is that you have a better defensive shortstop on the team, why not have Jeter at third and Rodriguez in his natural position. Because Jeter is the leader? Tejada has continued to be a shortstop because his teams (Orioles and now the Astros) have no other option at the position. The argument lies in the circumstances. They have A-Rod. With that said, we're what, four years into this experiment. You don't make the change now.
Couldn't agree more. Need a salary cap, but need a salary floor as well.
KB. You know I was going to head over to BM yesterday and rev up my yearly "The Yankees are bad for baseball" arguement. I just never got around to it. But you know I always get fired up when the figures are released.
30 guys take a vacation in Vegas. They have a contest to see who can win the most at blackjack for the stay. If they all didn't have the same amout of money to use, would that be a fair contest?
That's all I'm gonna say.
Good to see you here though KB. Always enjoy your posts.
I don't know if I'd go so far as to say they should all have the same amount of money, but definately have a maximum and minimum bet limit.
In some ways, I think there should be a cap floor. But IMO, the cap is 80% of the problem and the floor is 20%.
And IMO, it's mainly the top team. The difference in spending between the Yankees (the highest) and the Mets (second highest) is 70 million. 11 teams have a payroll less than 70 million. That's 37% of the league.
The difference between the Mets payroll and the Mariners payroll (9th highest) is 20 million. So what I'm trying to say here is, the Yankees are just so far out of the water with their payroll it's ridiculous. On the other end of the spectrum, the Marlins are the same way. They're dead last at $21 mil. That's half the payroll of the Devil Rays who are next to last. But what should we do about a floor? What's the minimum a team has to spend on their players? $42 mil? Let's just say it's $42 mil. What are the Marlins supposed to do? Try and sign someone like...Derek Jeter? You know his salary this year is $21 mil. Perfect! The only problem is Jeter's not freakin' coming. The Marlins are not contenders and in order to sign a Derek Jeter you have to contend. So there they are, stuck with a Hanley Ramirez and his $439,000 salary.
Your elite players aren't going to you're small market teams like the Marlins. Probably because odds are you're small market teams won't contend. They don't make enough to spend enough to win a WS. So they have to scout and draft like mothers to try and field a team.
Enough about the floor. Let's talk about the Mets for a second. They are #2 on that payroll list. What if they went out and bought up everyone on let's say....the Rockies. Combine their 2 payrolls and you have about $206 mil. $3 mil less than the Yankees. Can you imagine what that lineup would look like:
2B - Reyes
SS - Tulo
CF - Beltran
LF - Holliday
3B - Wright
RF - Hawpe
1B - Delgado/Helton/Atkins
C - Torrealba
And I'm not even talking about the pitching staff. Hell, they could trade Delgado, Helton and some of the leftovers for a damn good catcher. Not to mention lower their payroll quite a bit.
I know this is a pretty crazy "what if" thing I had going there. But is it not crazy that the team with the second highest payroll could merge with the NL Champs and form what would probably be the greatest lineup in the history of the game...and still be under the payroll of the Yankees?
Anyone here play fantasy baseball were you buy the players? Personally, I never have. But if you're in a 12 man league do you each have the same amount of money you can spend? Would it be fun if 1 of the 12 people playing could spend twice as much on players as everyone else? What if 3 or 4 could spend 150% more on players than you? Would you even join that league? Would you even keep up with it? I mean "having more money doesn't guarantee they'd win the league".
Think about that.
Contraction is the only answer. The Marlins have been struggling to make money since they started and the Rays aren't in much better shape. For some reason, Florida just isn't a basbeall state. With all the fans going to Grapefruit League games in the spring, you'd think it would be, but it just isn't.
So, don't move the teams...just disband them. Then you can create a salary floor of $60 mil and be safe. That's the easy part. The hard part is creating a cap. You could put it at around $120 mil and it would force the top end teams to pass on some big names, allowing them to go to smaller market teams and creating more balance...but how in the hell do you get the Yankees roster down to $120 mil without completely blowing up the team?
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