THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I am not sure what it is you agree with Tango, because I am not sure what it is that Chass is saying is right or wrong.  He is pretty much just spelling out the facts.

But, this is an absolute no brainer.  Teams are abiding by the rules and those rules were collectively bargained for.  If players don’t like it, they of course are free to try and change it.

But, most importantly, it is absolutely ridiculous to say or to think that a team owes its players and fans a responsibility to win games and titles at the expense of spending or making money.  That would be an absolutely absurd thing to say or think.  Using the same logic, a team would be derelict and outside the bounds of the integrity of the game if they didn’t sign every free agent available or pay their players any amount of money when they reach free agency.  A team exists for one reason and one reason only - and that is to make money - like any other business in America.

Now, owners are free, of course, to sacrifice some profit if they want to increase their chances of winning, and some owners probably do that all the time to some extent. But, they are of course under no obligation to do so.  A major league team is not a charity organization or is now owned by the public or the fans.  To say that a team has some kind of “obligation” to bring up their best minor league players at the beginning of the season is beyond ridiculous.

There should be no discussion here other than to educate people as to why most of these players don’t get called up until June or so.  Teams don’t “advertise” the reason, for obvious reasons, because it is not good PR to ever say that you are doing something for financial reasons, even though EVERYTHING you do is for financial reasons (doing something to help you win IS for financial reasons).

Finally, it is probably a flaw in the rules which they didn’t realize when they made them, and it will probably someday be changed. It shouldn’t be too hard to do that.

These facts are not repeated very often.

I know it’s not good PR to say that you are trying to save a few bucks, but to out-and-out lie as to the reason that these guys are held back is simply wrong.  “No comment” are the two words that are respected by all journalists.  But to say that Wieters and Longoria and Braun needed more conditioning?  And, oh, just by coincidence, their conditioning ended at the most opportune financial moment?

It’s not their motivation that bothers me, but their non-believable presentation of the non-facts.

I disagree somewhat, MGL. To the extent that a team receives public financing for a stadium based upon the premise of making the team more competative, they are obligated to take at least some of the profits derived from the new stadium and invest it into the on-field product. Teams are obligated to their communities by the extent to which they recieve public subsidy.

This is somewhat off-topic, but how about this snarky comment?

“Doug Melvin, the Brewers’ general manager, was said to be tied up with the draft Tuesday and didn’t return a telephone call seeking his thoughts two years later on his decision to leave Braun in the minors.”

REALLY?  You call a GM on the DAY OF THE DRAFT to ask him about something that happened TWO YEARS AGO, don’t get a call back, and feel the need to make a sarcastic comment like he was _said_ to be tied up?

Seriously, sometimes I wonder if Murray Chass is just trying to make people hate him.

Thank you MGL. 

“Using the same logic, a team would be derelict and outside the bounds of the integrity of the game if they didn’t sign every free agent available or pay their players any amount of money when they reach free agency.”

This is exactly the point I have tried to make many times, but you put it a lot better than I did.

This is no different than teams not signing a draftee due to his bonus demands, not signing a free agent, not making a mid-season trade which would improve your team because of unwillingness to take on salary, etc.

All teams, even the Yankees, are ALWAYS sacrificing the competitiveness of their team for financial reasons.  And they should.

They can be criticized for making a poor financial/baseball decision if they DON’T bring the player up early (the Braun case is a good point - perhaps the cost of the additional service time would be well worth it if Brewers made the playoffs).  And they should be criticized for making a poor financial/baseball decision if the DO bring the player up early.  If I was an O’s fan and Wieters started the season with the team, I would be furious.

Colin, that is ridiculous (that teams have an obligation to sacrifice money for wins because sometimes the public helps to finance their stadiums).  How in the world do you propose to implement that “obligation?” Uh let’s see, “The public helped finance my stadium so I need to throw away 2.8 million dollars this year and give them 1.3 more wins.” If the public wants to subsidize a team, that’s their decision/problem.  As long as their is no quid pro quo for that, the team is under NO obligation to throw money out the window, and if they did (throw money out the window), they need to answer to their investors.  As I said, the owners can do anything they want. If they want to be charitable to field a winning team, that is their prerogative - and I am pretty sure many of them are/do.  But “obligation?” You’ve got to be kidding me.

Jon, one of the funny things is that even though the fans don’t care about how much money a team spends - all they want is a winning team - they don’t realize that even if a team buckled to the fans’ desires, and let’s say, brought Braun or Wieters up at the beginning of the season, if they lost a few million later on because of that, that would be a few mil less that they could pay for talent later on anyway.  So the fans would not be gaining anything in the long run.

Tango, I agree with you about lying.  I have always been critical when teams blatantly lie about things.  On the other hand, a team cannot just come right out and say, “Yeah, we are not bringing so-and-so up because we don’t want the service time clock to start running.” That is not good PR.  Also, who are we to say when a player is ready?  In some cases, a team may truly feel that a player needs some more seasoning and because they can benefit financially from those extra two months, why not wait 2 months.  They are killing two birds with one stone.  It’s not like ALL teams at all times don’t bring up players at the beginning of the season.  That is simply not true.  So when a player comes up in June, we really don’t know how much of that decision is financially motivated and how much is a genuine desire to give him more experience in the minors.  The teams probably don’t know themselves - there is certainly not a bright line between when a player is “ready” or not.  I can easily see a team discussing player A and saying, “Well, I think he genuinely needs a little more time in the minors, and since we’ll also save some money in the long run if we keep him there until June, let’s do that.” I mean, I’m sure they also sometimes say (within the organization), “We think he’s ready and we really need him at the major league level, but let’s wait until June to save some money.” But, we really can’t know, as outsiders, when they say one thing or the other.

"It’s not like ALL teams at all times don’t bring up players at the beginning of the season.  That is simply not true. “

No one is saying that ALL teams do it.  But, a disproportionate number of MLB-ready players are brought up close to the line that would push back their free agency by one year, or prevent Super 2 status.  It is certainly not random.  It’s not like the number of MLB-ready players brought up are randomly distributed between May 1 and July 1.  There is a definite clustering of players, right at two points:
a. when there is 165-171 days left in the season
b. when there is roughly 120-130 days left in the season

Again, not all.  But, the bias is there.

The Rays, for example, have at least FOUR such players: Shields, Upton, Longoria, and somebody else, I forget who (I don’t think I was thinking about Price… it was somebody else I think).  In no way can this be a coincidence.

The point is that there is a bias.

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“On the other hand, a team cannot just come right out and say...”

All I’m saying is that they can say two things:
1. the truth
2. speak the words “No comment”

The third option, the lying, is not on the table.

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Jon’s way of framing it is fantastic.  Imagine the GM saying: “Listen.  We’d love to have Longoria up.  But, we’d love to have him for 6 years, not 7, at below free agency prices.  If that means we have to get by for 2 weeks without him, so that we can guarantee another year from him at fan-friendly prices, then this is a great tradeoff.”

mgl wrote:
‘A team exists for one reason and one reason only - and that is to make money - like any other business in America.’

This isn’t a falsehood, but it is misleading. I guess it might be a reductio ad absurdam. This concept was institutionalized under Ueberroth, the man who brought us Collusion, and it’s taken on a life of its own. Really, take a moment to think about this.

Properly speaking, a team exists because someone wants it to exist. A sports team can be formed by a bunch of guys who want to play a game on Sundays. Then, they start attracting a following. Then they realize these people might pay money to see the best players. Etc.

The point is, sports, as the name suggests, are hobbies. The ownership of a sports team is a hobby. The day of the owner who makes a living from a sports team is long past. It’s like that quote about the guy who owned the Kansas City Chiefs, who lost a million dollars in one season - he could do it for another 99 years.

You can choose to run a hobby along business lines, but unless you’re Calvin Griffith, chances are you are already rich, and you don’t have to. You can afford to lose n million dollars over x years. It may irritate you to do so, and you may impose strict business policies to avoid it, but that’s your choice.

Instead of helping the owners to make their case, and thereby having moats around prime seats, the fans should be reminding those self-deluding business folk of the true value of those teams, their hobbies. It’s what you can afford to do in your spare time.

fra paolo, it is a simple matter of until and unless the rules of ownership are changed, it is the team owners’ prerogative to run their team 100% as a business, 100% as a hobby, or anywhere in between.  And to say that owning a team is a hobby is a falsehood.  Do you think that the Tribune Company or any other corporate owner buys a team as a hobby?  The days of an owner who makes a living is long past?  Are you kidding me?  There is no argument that ANYONE who owns a team doesn’t need to make a living, but it doesn’t follow that therefore they are not supposed to run a team as they would any other for-profit business.  For one thing, like most large companies, the principal or controlling owner often has other investors to answer to.  Bill Gates can’t run MS like a charity because he has millions of other owners who count on him to make them money.  Even if he were the sole owner, I doubt he would run the business as a charity either.  I have said this for years and I will continue to say it:  Various owners run their teams as if it were solely a money-making proposition and others run it as a hobby, with their principal concern winning pennants and WS, at the expense of profit to gratify their egos and competitive natures I guess.  And everything in between.  But IT IS THEIR PREROGATIVE!  If I pay a few hundred million for a business, I’ll be damned if ANYONE is going to tell me to be charitable because it is “sports” and it is designed to entertain the public.  You think the movie business is any different?  They should be charitable too?  You know lots of public money is spent subsidizing ALL businesses.  The owners of those businesses don’t turn around and start giving money away because of that.

Tango, we are not in disagreement. The only reason that GM’s and other FO personnel don’t say what Jon suggests, which is brilliant, is that they are as stupid when it comes to speaking to the public as they are when it comes to running their team. Or I should say they are human beings and baseball teams are NOT run as a regular large business is run, for whatever reasons.  By and large it is just a bunch of good ole boy yahoos who run baseball teams.  CEO’s of other large corporations are very careful about everything they say and do.  Not so with baseball teams.  They are multi-million or billion dollar companies that are run and operated like your corner dime store, for SOME things (not all things).  That is just the nature of the beast.

mgl wrote:And to say that owning a team is a hobby is a falsehood.”
Well, that shows how much you’ve been imbibing the owner’s Kool-Aid.

The key point is something you stated yourself: “it doesn’t follow that therefore they are not supposed to run a team as they would any other for-profit business.” Exactly, but it doesn’t follow that they have to run it as a for-profit business either. As again you ‘shouted’ it succinctly: “IT IS THEIR PREROGATIVE!”

Unable to express yourself in any but your usual intemperate way, you have lost sight of the point here. I am not arguing that they owe anyone else anything. But what really is the difference between owning a sports team and owning a racing stable or a racing yacht? It’s a hobby. You want to win. How much your choose to spend on it is discretionary. If you want to lose money on it, you’re free to do so. If you can’t afford it, you have to give it up.

Pretending sports ownership is purely a business is a fraud sold to us by the people who brought us Collusion. We should treat it with the hilarity it deserves, not kow-tow to it as the Tycoon.

By the way, here’s a couple of quotes from the MLB constitution:
The job of the Executive Council is to ‘surround the game with such safeguards as may warrant absolute public confidence in its integrity, operations and methods’. And ‘to protect the interests of the players and to ensure to them advancement in their profession’.

Looks to me like Mr Chass has a stronger case to argue than we all thought.

The NHL constitution has a similar clause that makes teams play the best players they can.

As well, as we’re learning from the Glavine deal, teams can only release based on performance-related reasons, not financial reasons.

So, there is a limit to how much you can treat pro sports as purely a business.  There is a “worry today, not next year” kind of clause that prevents the long-term planning that all other businesses proceed on.

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In any case, I’m at least in agreement with mgl that their conduct in expressing their reasoning to the public is flawed.

Fra Paulo, I misspoke when I said that baseball is “purely a business.” It is potentially that.  To call it unequivocably a hobby is just as incorrect though.  Some owners treat it as such but certainly not all, right?  Teams that are corporate owned are strictly a business, I assume.  Is that not correct?

Tango, there are two aspects to what you are saying.  The thing about not being able to release players for financial reasons has nothing to do with the fact that it is not a “pure business.” That is simply something that was collectively bargained for.  I assume that any business that has union employees has similar safeguards for the employees.  Now, things that are in the constitution (I did not know that sports leagues had constitutions) is another story.  It is true that sports leagues were set up in somewhat of a public interest manner and as such have somewhat of an obligation to the public and to the fans outside the bounds of a typical or regular business.

So I temper my previous comments.

I think MGL has a good take on this. The CBA governs the manner in which player salaries are set, and was bargained for by the players themselves, who explicitly opted for a system whereby the veterans profit at the young players’ expense.  Essentially a seniority pay system.  Now that the ‘power’ in MLB may be shifting from older players to younger players, perhaps the next CBA will be different.

Tango, I know all you’re after from teams is honesty, but I think you’re being a touch unrealistic on that point.  We live in the world we live in: it is in teams’ interests to behave under the CBA in the most advantageous manner, and that currently means locking up young stars for as long as possible at as low a price as possible (with the player and his agent’s consent, I might add), and under certain circumstances to delay the start of a player’s career to increase total service time before arbitration and free agency.  It’s also in teams’ best interests not to explicitly state these reasons to the public via the media, as it will only exacerbate the ‘owner greed’ meme.

You may not like it, but that’s neither here nor there: no one is doing anything wrong.  I encourage you to become the next Marvin Miller and steer the sport toward the utopia you clearly seek