December 6, 2006

BALL OWNERS, SELIG, ARE BACK TAKING THEIR STUPID PILLS

      Haven’t we seen this before--Major League Baseball executives are scrambling over each other, checkbooks in hand, trying to seduce a free agent ballplayer to sign with their team?  Actually, this scene has played itself out on numerous occasions and usually results in ownership blaming the players for their inevitable financial woes.  Next stop—acrimonious negotiations leading up to the end of the current collective bargaining agreement.  When will they ever learn?

       This new version of the same sad story begins with Ol’ Bud Selig beating his chest like King Kong and braying like a donkey about the financial heights the game has reached under his tutorship.  By doing so he lifts any financial constraint, and excuse, the individual clubs can utilize during negotiations with free agents, and ups the ante for even the most marginal of players.  Suddenly the market place resembles a teenage rock concert as executives try to push and shove their way in an effort to rush the stage.  In the end good players sign contracts supposedly reserved for the superstars of the game, mediocre players sign good deals, and the bottom feeders suddenly find themselves being paid more than the average major league wage.  It’s the best year, by far, to be a free agent. 

       Look at the numbers being thrown around this off season:  Alfonso Soriano, a good but not great player, makes more than Carlos Beltran, a great player, whose multi-year multi-million dollar contract—signed just two years, now looks obsolete.  Or Carlos Lee, a decent power hitter, who signs for $100 million over six years and can now boast that he makes Beltran-type money. Vincente Padilla gets $34 million for three years simply because Texas is desperate for anybody who can pitch.  The Angels fork over $50 million to Gary Matthews Jr, who, on his resume, has had only one decent year.  J.D. Drew, a nice player, when healthy, gets $14 million per season over five years from Boston, and Julio Lugo, also merely a decent player, signs for $9 million over four years with those same Red Sox.  Does Boston feel it has to pay stupid money to compete with the Yankees?  And how about Toronto which now is forced to offer A.J. Burnett type money in the hopes of keeping Ted Lilly? 

       How about Baltimore dishing out $41 million for three middle relievers, or San Diego shelling out $10 million for an aging Greg Maddux?  Frank Catalanotto, a platoon player, received $13 million over three years and David Dellucci, also a platoon outfielder, signed for $11.5 over three years. 

       Each major league club that hopes to contend can now count on a salary level upwards of $90 million.  The clubs that can’t afford to pay these kind of salaries will forever be relegated to baseball’s second division, each hoping for a Minnesota Twin or Oakland Athletic kind of year where young players, early on the path, are motivated to produce so they can also one day earn such gaudy numbers. 

       The question becomes—will this be a one season feeding frenzy resulting in more controlled spending in following years, or is this merely the beginning of an unprecedented escalation in player salaries that could burst the baseball bubble?  After the 2000 season Alex Rodriguez was signed to the 10 year $250 million contract that established a ceiling for player salaries.  Soon afterward Derek Jeter signed his long term deal with the Yankees for about $19 million per year, Carlos Delgado inked a four year contract earning him upwards of $17 million per year and Manny Ramirez agreed to an eight year term with the Red Sox for an average stipend of $20 million.  That season was marked by baseball as an off-season of incredulity and excess.  The commissioner and the remainder of baseball’s executives insisted that contracts of such size would contribute to the dissolution of the market place and eliminate any hope for lower income clubs to be competitive.  This off-season is much, much worse. 

      Whereas 2001 saw gargantuan contracts—those deals were offered to a small class considered to be among the upper echelon of baseball superstars in the prime of probable hall of fame careers—this year has seen monstrous contracts handed out to anybody that possesses decent numbers.  There isn’t a Soriano or Lee among those signings.  And now, with the reported signing of a solid if not spectacular Jason Schmidt by the L.A. Dodgers to a three year $47 million deal it appears as if all common sense has evaporated in the mad rush to contend. 

     So what about the future?  I could care less how much baseball players earn—anything more than one million dollars seems excessive to me, but then the players should rightly earn large percentages of the income otherwise pocketed by ownership.  However, after a few years of relative calm, are we perched on the precipice of another long running war between the two factions?  When the year 2010 approaches will ownership be moaning about the grossness of player contracts, indicating that the weight of such salaries is obstructing any hope for their clubs to make a profit? 

       Remember, 1994 wasn’t such a long time ago.

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