Russell Martin is doused by champagne in Atlanta for the Pirates clinching a playoff berth. — GETTY IMAGES
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
Russell Martin will leave the Pirates someday soon, in all likelihood. My belief is that the Pirates will be true to their word and put forth their legitimately best effort, although, like everyone else, I’ll want solid proof. I’ll want the numbers. I’ll want them independently confirmed by Martin and/or his agent.
Still and all, he’ll be gone.
Bob Nutting will be blamed. Martin will be blamed. His agent will be blamed. Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington will be blamed. Nutting will be blamed some more.
And barely a soul will dare discuss the real reason Martin is leaving.
____________________
“Asking for a baseball salary cap is like asking for world peace.”
That sentence was spoken in 2012 by Buster Olney, ESPN’s renowned baseball writer. And it couldn’t possibly have better summarized why a salary cap in Major League Baseball will never be pursued, much less constructed.
Because Bud Selig and now Rob Manfred would never have it?
Because the owners would never have the guts to make it happen?
Because the union is too tough?
No, no and no. Rather, it’s because a movement of that scope almost always starts with an outside spark from the media, from those with the loudest voices for change.
And those voices are utterly, strikingly unanimous that a cap isn’t needed.
Say what you will about the influence of media in general. My view is that it’s overblown. But in this case, many of the same bylines over the past two, three decades have been the instigators for meaningful change in baseball, including the latest hot cause of speeding up games. If there’s a sport-wide issue, love them or hate them, they’re the ones documenting it for the masses.
These gentlemen will almost never mention a salary cap, unless it’s to mock it.
Tom Verducci in 2012: “Complain all you want about baseball’s economic system. It has its flaws, including the gap in payroll disparity. But when it comes to getting teams through to the championship round, it is no different than the hallowed system in the NFL.”
Jayson Stark in 2009: “The crying game is on. It isn’t fair. We need a salary cap. The system’s broken. Well, the system may be broken, all right. But don’t just look at the top.Why not just put a tax on teams that pocket the money they get from revenue sharing?”
Ken Rosenthal in 2011: “A third team in New York and/or second team in New England actually would be the best pure economic solution.”
Rosenthal also wrote just this past May that the Yankees signing Japanese mega-free-agent Masahiro Tanaka represented “the natural order of things” and added, “This is not a team that should be getting outbid by the Pirates for catcher Russell Martin, as it was last offseason.”
I cite these, but the available examples are endless. And that goes for talking heads and radio jockeys, too. Even the blogging community, which disagrees with mainstream media as its raison d’être, stands in solidarity.
A cynic would suggest all of the above are based in bigger markets and have a rooting interest. I don’t believe that for a second. But I do believe people are a product of their environs, and if what they experience suggests that all is well with baseball as far as the eye can see, that’s going to influence as much as being a lifelong Pittsburgher will with mine. It’s only human.
But that doesn’t make the position right. In fact, it’s as wrong as wrong gets.
The NFL, NHL and NBA all have salary caps. They all engaged in bloody battles to get those caps. That wasn’t by accident, and it wasn’t solely so they could count up how many different teams reach the postseason year after year. I don’t even think that was the primary motivation in any case. They did so, one, to make the business more sound and, two, because of a goal of inherent fairness.
Well, baseball doesn’t need help with business. Not as a whole, anyway, with $9 billion in annual revenues and no decline in sight. Whether the money has come from New York or Milwaukee doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that it’s come in unprecedented waves.
Some will stop here with the justification for not having a cap, as if they’re somehow linked. This is so ridiculous it doesn’t merit a response.
And the inherent fairness thing … wow, that just never comes up.
That’s only what all of this is about.
The main reason that some NFL, NHL and NBA teams enjoy repeated success is because they first make good decisions, then operate in a system that doesn’t punish them for making those good decisions. If the Packers get Aaron Rodgers in a city the size of Erie, they can keep him. Same for the Steelers and all their superstar talents over the decades. Same for Penguins and Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and others. Fans of our other two teams can embrace without fear. Tough decisions are involved, but the toughest of all — here is one player we really, really want to keep but can’t — very rarely is among them.
So goodbye to Martin, the one player the Pirates really, really want to keep in the context that Andrew McCutchen is already signed to a terrific rate through 2018.
Goodbye even though Martin would stay if all else were even close to equal. I’ll take his word.
Goodbye even though Martin had a chance to position himself as the greatest catcher in the franchise’s 128-year history.
Goodbye even though Martin could contend here, at least theoretically.
Goodbye even though this could only have happened here …
And this, too …
Goodbye even though ownership, again presumably, will offer a contract unlike any in its past, unlike anything most would imagine that any team would pay for a catcher who will be 32 years old next summer.
That, my friends, is a systemic flaw. It’s rotten at the roots.
Baseball might end up with decent parity in the playoffs — I happen to feel that has far more to do with the fickle nature of starting pitching — but it’s built on a grossly inequitable floor that forces teams in one city to compete while counting every penny, teams in another to conveniently patch up mistakes by simply opening the checkbook.
Here’s another element that seldom gets raised in this equation: Fans get attached to players. And as with any relationship, they value the faith that it can last more than just a short time. Call that quaint, but it remains reality. If they believe there’s at least a chance that player can stay, they’ll invest emotionally and financially.
When they don’t believe … well, they spend an entire summer doing what Pittsburgh just did in pining for Martin, when simultaneously exalting and agonizing with his every great game, before he was even gone.
That doesn’t build baseball. It deteriorates it. For every run by the Royals that temporarily rekindles that connection, there’s an immediate and devastating boomerang effect when the truth sets in.
Ask the Brewers. Mark Attanasio, their owner, was one of the precious few to step up and speak up when, in 2008, his unreal-for-Milwaukee bid to keep CC Sabathia was beaten by a snap of the Yankees’ finger. He was bitter. He wondered aloud if it wasn’t time for a cap.
The national writers, of course, scoffed.
Funny, but neither Attanasio nor the cap topic have been heard since. Nor have the Brewers.
____________________
None of us can say with certainty that a cap would keep Martin in Pittsburgh. We also can’t say that, if he were to stay, the Pirates would stay at this competitive plateau. Far too many variables.
But what can be said definitively is that they’d have the same chance as everyone else.
And in that context, they’d benefit from having made the shrewd move in ponying up $17 million for two years of a catcher fresh off a .211 season — you might recall I was one of the dummies who ripped them at the time — as well as from having set up the rest of their roster smartly enough that Martin would be affordable.
These are acts that the NFL, NHL and NBA reward. It’s one that baseball rewards, too, if you count some nebulous compensatory draft pick.
Nothing will change. Any owner will be shouted down, declared a whiny welfare recipient for not being more grateful for the Yankees’ tablescraps. It won’t change if Nutting and/or Coonelly speak up, though I continue to feel strongly they should do far more. It won’t change until it starts with a seismic shift in the national media’s myopic, echo-chamber mentality on this topic.
Worse, this problem is about to grow exponentially. You’ve heard and read about some of the insane local TV deals, but you’ll still hear and read more about recklessly irresponsible and dishonest owners like the Marlins’ Jeff Loria than you will about the mounting disparity. That’s because it’s easier to extend that broader narrative by targeting Loria than to justify a system where, before long, the Dodgers will be able to shop the open market like Bill Gates at a flea market.
True, but the NHL was in a situation where most of it's teams were losing money and the league was in danger of folding if nothing was done. Baseball is awash in money. Not one team is losing a dime. The TV money that the NHL gets is a pittance compared to the other major leagues
DK is the Pirates TV deal the worst in the majors? Whoever negotiated it, really put them in a bad spot compared to everyone else. 100 million a year for the Phillies! Is Philly 5 times the size of Pitt.?
Ever been to an auction? I was at one where someone bid 230 dollars for a used freezer that was 195 dollars new at home depot. Buyers remorse. Maybe. But they had the thrill of the w
Smart or not, free agency is how owners and the front office compete. Over bid...oh well...winner
Thats why the Pirates have no shot at Martin. They simply dont have that kind of clout.
But there wont be any buyers remorse either. They will simply get the best bargin they can. And in this system, while foul tasting, theres nothing wrong with that.
I remember two things 1) when John Rigas wanted to buy the Pirates with the understanding that he would use his Adelphia cable system to make a new TBS type superstation promoting our beloved Battling Bucs. The new revenue streams, etc. would enhance the Pirates' coffers,
and thus make them more financially competitive. But MLB said "No" ; and 2) back when Kevin MccLatchey was a relatively fresh owner, he and some other small market team owners had some leverage as a pack and could fight the big market teams at a critical juncture [new collective agreement?].
For some reason he agreed to dine with George Steinbrenner one on one. Shockingly, his little guys' fighting stance dissipated after this meeting, and he aligned with the Yankees owner. He must have been persuaded the status quo was very profitable, if not likely to bring a championship.
Russ's value is at catcher, he is in tremendous shape, as Root pointed out several times, but at the end of a 4 or 5 year contract, the numbers do not add up.. Its not the PBC being cheap, its common sense. Now, the FO having no real answer in the minors is another subject
I think the point is that they don't add up for the Pirates, but they'll add up fine for the Dodgers or Cubs. They'll get those 2-3 years of great play that the Pirates really could have used from Martin, and then they can handle the year or two paying a useless salary.
The system is not broken. It's not fair & it's not perfect, but it's not broken. Everybody's drowning in black ink. Players & owners alike. Sure the Pirates aren't going to sign Russell Martin. But it won't be the system stopping them.
Years ago TBS and WGN were playing the same games as the new super stations, the smaller clubs shut that down by saying, well, if you won't share, you can't broadcast our home games. I guess that has changed?
Good luck to Martin with his next team. I enjoyed having him in Pittsburgh. As a side note, is there a Ray Searage for catchers, as in someone that can take last year's scrap catcher and make them an all-star? That'd be nice.
I love Ray Searage but how much of Ray's success can be attributed to Martin's prowess behind the plate. Ray will still do a great job but I fear that the wonders will be minimized with Martín gone.
Great column. Gotta fight for a cap.
Every year has cute team like Royals, but year-in year-out contenders are from West Coast, Eastern seaboard, and St. Louis (very well run org., but also 3+mil attend. every year and one of top 3 local baseball markets for 15 straight yrs.).
Great article DK, it's ironic people say baseball is dead at 9 BILLION in revenue. And yes, it's unlikely that they'll fall behind the NHL in popularity anytime soon.
BUT...there is something inherently unfair with the other 3 major sports having a cap yet baseball does not.
Can the game continue to push the cost of tickets into the stratosphere? Exaccerbated, I believe by the the insane/ rotten structure DK writes about. I see families at the gan
Mes and wonder what is sacrificed? Loyalty is getting too hard. Boston traded Babe & Charlie traded
snoopy, but it was by choice and not by forced necessity. The game is screwed up and DK has the answer. Pray he can make his message escape the asylum.
Normally that would be true, but Cutch signed a sweetheart of a deal for the Pirates. When Jayson Werth and Carl Crawford are making more than $20 million/year, how much do you think Cutch is really worth? (remember, he made 7.2 last year and 4.5 the year before that)
In the last 11 years, exactly zero teams with a low payroll has won the WS. Exactly zero low payroll teams won the WS from 1992-2002. A number of teams have a gross revenue LESS than other teams payroll. This league is garbage.
"Why not just put a tax on teams that pocket the money they get from revenue sharing?” Great idea, Jayson Stark! While we're at it, why not place a tax on ESPN writers who make claims without an adequate amount of facts???
An international draft, having comp picks directly after the top 10 instead of after the top 30 and something similar to a franchise tag can all help a great amount without having a hard cap. Maybe having much tougher luxury tax penalties too.
There is an interesting discussion in George Halas' autobiography on the early years of TV and the NFL. Recognizing that big city teams were getting rich at the expense of small teams, tgey assigned all TV rights to the NFL and divided the money to each team.
That's true. But, they also had the luxury of games being played only once per wk. So, all public interest was focused on that day & they could easily keep the rights to those games under league control. Football, unlike any other sport, is perfectly set up for sharing revenue.
When NFL games first started being televised, each team made its own deal locally. Soon, teams like the Bears, Giants, and Rams got rich at the expense of other teams. That led to assigning the TV rights to the NFL. Maybe, the local TV revenue in the MLB should be split.
Lets be honest though this is the Pirates, they should just make their jerseys with velcro on the back to change the names as often as they do so we don't have to keep buying new ones
I'm young enough that I expect, someday, to see a salary cap. But I’m betting it happens after we have computers calling balls and strikes, catchers wearing Ironman suits and fans arriving by a North Hills Light-Rail System.
I'm in complete agreement here, and yet I'm one of those silly fans who get invested in certain players. Russell Martin's talent and leadership helped to change the fortunes of this team that lost so many games for so long. It would be so cool to see a guy like Russ pull a Kiesel, and stay because he really likes it here, and that's a heck of a lot of money for anybody.
Not only is there no cap, they placed a cap on how much teams can spend on draft picks (Josh Bell rule, thanks Red Sox). How much can you handcuff these small market teams?
If you think about it, when Barry Bonds left Pittsburgh, it ended up hurting the Pirates (and others) in more ways than one. That's when the inequity in the game really took off. Since '92, only one team in the bottom half of payroll has won the WS. The 2003 Marlins.
And the 2003 Marlins largely won because of prospects gained by selling off pieces of the 1997 Marlins in a massive fire sale, so they aren't exactly a typical example of smaller market team building.
Would be great to have Martin back, but I'm betting that the winning team will get closer to the pre-Pirates catcher, not the guy we've been cheering for the last two years. Even the Pirates offer (whatever it may be) will be paying too much for him.
Been saying MLB needs a salary cap for years, unfortunately that's just like being Don Quixote. Why baseball media types are okay without one is beyond me. And don't forget ESPN shoving Yankees/Red Sox down everyone's throats. Interest is waning, but keep playing that fiddle.
Owners don't push for cap because it require them to disclose profits to players since all other cap systems guarantee players a percentage of revenues which is only fair since they are the product we buy. As it is now revenues and profits are at best educated guesses even for Forbes. It also would require increased share of local revenue streams to be pooled and shared which the big boys certainly don't want.
One reason I think the media doesn't get behind the cap is the incorrect use of the term small market team. The size of the market has nothing to do with it since they use this to say that small market teams like STL can succeed while ignoring that the Cardinals are traditionally a top 5-6 revenue team year in year out because they have little competition in their part of the country. A team like PIT has 2 teams within hours of them and another across the state competing in the media market of their own state, even BAL. competes for western MD residents in the media market. This leaves the Pirates with little room to expand their fan base outside the Pittsburgh area. Even teams like MIL and MIN have markets well outside the actual geographic areas which has contributed to them having revenues in the upper half of the league most years.
If we could just get the media to stop using small market and focus on the real issue, revenues, and a teams realistic chance of increasing those revenues it would at least be a start.
Brilliant work, DK. You laid the case out perfectly. The system in baseball is so wrecked that they use terms like "the window is closing" on a team's chances to demonstrate the inevitable unfairness. The window is permanently propped open in large mkts.
That in no way lets teams like the Bucs off the hook for 20 yrs of bad decisions, nor does it excuse them for not spending another $20M on payroll. But, they are smarter now, & that $20M won't get them a level playing field. The revenue disparities are simply too great.
Curious on something, DK. Maybe you've mentioned in the past, but I don't recall. Have you ever had conversations w national media types on this issue? If so, how do they defend their stances, if at all? I'm not saying it's your job to ask them. Just wondering if you ever have.
That's a great question Jim. Certainly not DK's responsibility but few can properly defend this position like DK. Lead the charge DK! These knuckleheads need an education.
It's been said before, but the other pro sports are run like one business with 30 or so franchises, while baseball is run like 30 competing businesses who cooperate on a few items. MLB really more like college football, in some ways.
I believe the small mkt teams have accepted a pat on the head & some scraps from the big boys in exchange for that level field, Bill. I said earlier this yr that appointment of the new Commish was just tacit approval for more of the same. I seriously doubt he'll push for change.
Great analysis. It's (mostly) fun to go to the games in great places like PNC whether we have a level playing field or not...so there's a collective shrug. Salary cap? Meh...play ball!
My fire as a fan has burned brightest for the Pirates, even in the midst of the streak. I'll thank my grandpa for that. This economic disparity is maybe the one thing that can begin to douse that fire. So unfortunate.
That said, regardless of what happens this offseason, I believe we will see another summer of good baseball.
To further illustrate uneven playing field, notice all the continued & rumored pending Cubs moves. A rich team can rise from the ash heap to contender in @ 4 yrs. And, if they are halfway intelligent, they stay there on an annual basis. & they'll be celebrated by national media.
No doubt! I get so tired of hearing how "great" these GMs or Coaches are when they have unlimited resources! You want to prove your mettle, take a bad, small market team with limited spending cash and turn them around.
Youre absolutely right Dejan. Royals went to WS for first time in decades. Won't be able to keep their best pitcher because of price. National media considers it a given. No outrage at all. If this was the Yankees or Sawx though, well it wouldnt be. They'd just sign him and go on
spot on about the emotional toll it has on fans in any city. all major sports need a cap to run fairly. why even have a draft then? seems like you should be able to lure based on money alone and not having first rights . ridiculous!
The argument doesn't hold much water perse as look at Kansas City being in the World Series this year!!!
Not Yankees
Not Red Sox
Not etc etc
Owners will need to give up 5 years of "control" of young players if they want Salary Cap.
We’re saying that the odds are stacked against them not that a small budget team can’t compete. Plus, as I said in before, just one WS winner out of the past 21 has had a small payroll so your argument really doesn’t hold up.
A Number 1 star for this column DK.
This is a sport that has DIFFERENT RULES for each league for goodness sake. Think about that. Can you imagine the AFC and NFC playing under different rules? It's ridiculous. No salary cap is just par for the course.
"No matter how much technology changes scouting, no matter how much free agency & big TV contracts change the business of baseball, I hope & pray that the heart of the game will never change" - - - Pat Gillick
The big markets will rule until things change. That's the way MLB wants it because that's where all the big TV money is. I won't blame Russ for taking full advantage of an unfair system . I also will not blame the FO. Russ has earned the big payday with his play on the field and his leadership and professionalism off of it. Can't blame him for going where the money takes him.
I made the comment earlier that big markets don't buy championships, but instead they buy off the ability of smaller markets to sustain their competitiveness. The false narrative put forth by MLB and national media that payroll doesn't equal winning needs to be discredited...
I guess in some strange way this actually does lead to competitive balance because it means that the team that was smart and made a run is forced to give way to other small market teams to make their run. The problem is each small run is followed by years of suckitude while the b
How is it fair (or legal from a copyright perspective) that local team keep all the local television revenue - it takes two teams to play the game and both teams should share in revenue from the game - if they only paid half the actors in a play ...
Excellent article, as usual. Sad facts to face though, because Martin is beloved in Pittsburgh, and it will hurt if the Pirates lose him. Salary Caps just make sense(for sports league Commissioners too)!
Martin may get a deal that is out of the Pirates budget. It happens in business every day. How many players are small market teams going to bid for? so what 5 or 6 players a years make mega deals and tell me again how all those deals end up. Very few of those deals impact races.
They don't impact races but the teams that lose those players along with several others that are overpriced and part of their core suffer and can't sustain success as a result. I could repeat Craig's summary over and over.
Columns like this are why my subscription is the best $54 I've spent in a long time. (My wife might say it's the only $54 I've spent, but that's another story). If you need a holiday gift for yourself or another sports fan in your life, a subscription should be on the list.
My season tickets went up 23%, based in part on the success of the last 2 years. If all of our free agents leave, I'm going to be stuck with an expensive pile of sh@tty tickets.
Season tickets have to go up. The chant " Sign Russ" should have been followed by a chant from the front office "Show us the money". There is a lot of income that "smaller market teams get that Nutting does not. Parking, for 1. Local sports corp money. I could go on and on.
There was a good portion of the 2014 season I thought I was stuck with crap tickets. Even still, I'm glad to have them just for guaranteed key games like Opening Day. At least until they start doing those tickets guaranteed only to full and half holders like playoffs.
I don't give two s###s about Baseball. One reason is the lack of a salary cap, and the biggest reason is, I find the sport boring, but very well written Dejan!
Excellent article. I was telling my co-worker the other day that the Pirates can't afford to offer 5 years to a guy who might be done in 3, because the other two years would hamstring them. Meanwhile the Dodgers have no such worries. An extra $15m/yr is a small write-off to them
This problem has always been on the owners of small market teams. They have a seat at the negotiating table, yet they still vote for these crazy CBA's that favor the big teams. They have got to SPEAK UP.
Absolutely! It's like the small market owners are the "Thank you sir, may I have another" crowd. They either need to grow a pair and stand up for themselves or have full disclosure of how much money thay are making. It makes no sense that they keep voting for those "crazy" CBAs!
Great post. I want Russell back next year. The QO clearly shows the Pirates will spend at least $15.3 mil on him for a year. But I don't think they will give him the 4 year contract he wants and rightly deserves, at least based on other contracts offered to Pirates players.
I think it was DK who had the Idea of front loading a 4 year deal. You could give him an opt out in year 4. you could easily give him a 4 yr 60mil. 25 mil in '14. 20 mil in "15. 10 mil in '16 and 5 mil in '17...Done. He may even give back that last year to move to the AL.
The overall narrative needs to shift from "Does baseball need a cap?" to "Would baseball be better off with a cap?" You might scrape together an intellectual argument for not "needing" one, but there's no reasonable argument for why the game wouldn't be better with one.
MLB already has a "soft" CAP whereby there is a significant "luxury tax" to the team (almost 1:1) for going over it. $178million.
That penalty is distributed to teams like the Pirates.
Yankees and Dodgers are only teams over soft Cap.
One points to a cap as if that solves the issues of actual baseball. Not really in baseball play. The cubs stink because they mad very bad decisions on talent. The money allowed those bad decisions to happen. The Giants have won three WC in the last five years. Dodgers nada.
The cubs are going to supposedly be a big player in free agency this offseason. They’re rumored to have ties to Russell Martin, Jon Lester, and Max Scherzer. No way could the Pirates obtain two of those three guys but the Cubs could. This is the problem at hand.
No one is saying a cap solves all woes. That's pretty ignorant. It just puts more of a focus on smart management decisions as opposed to who has twice the money to spend.
Good decisions are always the best answer. The point is that having no cap makes it much easier for free spending teams to eradicate their mistakes, while low revenue teams get stuck living with their Ike's, Gaby's, and Pedro's.
Instead of the cap. Should local TV revenue be divided more fairly. Half of all local TV revenue should go into a pot divided among the visiting teams because there would not be big TV revenue to watch intersquad games the opponents should get half
You always hope your favorite player will stick around, especially one like Martin...so instrumental. But, he has an agent and the agent wants money too, so he waits till end of year when emotions are lower and the grass is ever so green in Cali or ?? You can skate on the beach
I was encouraged to hear Huntington say yesterday that he's not going to get caught waiting around for "player a" while other potential targets go elsewhere. I think he's feeling a bit singed by the Burnett situation last year.
It's a hard lesson that has to be learned by every GM. Just ask Ray Shero about Marian Hossa. Good for Neal. That was my 1st indication that he wasn't exactly thrilled with his lackluster performance last winter either.
Seems the narrative has really changed over the year. Most, I think, felt we had a sh0t and now NO ONE thinks we have a shot based on this new scenario that he will be signed for a bazillion dollars over four or five years but won't be productive after two and only rich can pla
Very well written article. The fact that there is even a possibility that Martin could get $75mil at his age is just one example of why there needs to be a cap. I love him, but the odds of him being worth that cash are slim, and it makes it unfair to teams that want good players but don't have bazillions to spare.
We allowed to link stuff down here? If so, everyone should go see the payroll charts mlbtraderumors.com just posted in a recent article. It's all you need to see to support DK's article.
I don't disagree with any of this discussion, but what's lost in the Pirates-specific conversation is that none of this would be talked about if not for the complete failure of Tony Sanchez to develop into a viable MLB catcher. Martin was intended as a stopgap from the get-go.
Sorta true in this specific instance (though Sanchez' emergence, or lack thereof, notwithstanding, Russell Martin's come along once in a generation -- once in an existance -- to a team). But Martin today, Cutch tomorrow, then Cole, etc. etc. W/o reform, have nots always behind.
In other news; The European Space Agency landed their craft on the comet. Not surprisingly, there were no turnovers and Justin Bieber was nowhere near the control room. When asked his opinion of such a feat, Mike Tomlin simply nodded forcing Mike Mitchell to run into a wall.
Well done, Dejan! To my discredit, I rarely comment, I will try to change that. But this is right on the money and something I plan to site routinely as a Pirates fan living in Red Sox nation. Again, very well done!
1) scrap the luxury tax.
2) teams get to keep 50% of their TV revenue and ticket sales straight up. 25% gets pooled and distributed evenly among all MLB teams. 25% (TV-prorated per game/ticket sales-exact) goes to the opposing team.
You have to wonder why, even though it is to their benefit, the smaller revenue owners to speak up more than once. Not a coincidence. Most likely an agreement to not in exchange for some slack on enforcing the rules of how the salary tax distribution sharing is spent.
People always ask why baseball doesn't have the numbers it once did, this is the exact reason why. Small market teams play a different game than big markets. Hell, most of the time the Yanks payroll is 2 times the Pirates. Unfair playing field when teams can just buy talent.
I can honestly say that I wouldn't feel like the Pirates earned a championship if they spent double or triple what other teams did. How do these fans not scream for some fairness.
In all fairness then shouldn't there be sympathy for the teams that sign players to big contracts only to have them never live up to their salary? Shouldn't the Pirates thank the Mets for taking Bonilla off of our hands? Shouldn't they thank the White Sox for grabbing Drabek?
November 11, 2014
Column: A tip of the (salary) cap to Martin
by Dejan Kovacevic • Columns • Pirates
Russell Martin is doused by champagne in Atlanta for the Pirates clinching a playoff berth. — GETTY IMAGES
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
Russell Martin will leave the Pirates someday soon, in all likelihood. My belief is that the Pirates will be true to their word and put forth their legitimately best effort, although, like everyone else, I’ll want solid proof. I’ll want the numbers. I’ll want them independently confirmed by Martin and/or his agent.
Still and all, he’ll be gone.
Bob Nutting will be blamed. Martin will be blamed. His agent will be blamed. Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington will be blamed. Nutting will be blamed some more.
And barely a soul will dare discuss the real reason Martin is leaving.
____________________
“Asking for a baseball salary cap is like asking for world peace.”
That sentence was spoken in 2012 by Buster Olney, ESPN’s renowned baseball writer. And it couldn’t possibly have better summarized why a salary cap in Major League Baseball will never be pursued, much less constructed.
Because Bud Selig and now Rob Manfred would never have it?
Because the owners would never have the guts to make it happen?
Because the union is too tough?
No, no and no. Rather, it’s because a movement of that scope almost always starts with an outside spark from the media, from those with the loudest voices for change.
And those voices are utterly, strikingly unanimous that a cap isn’t needed.
Say what you will about the influence of media in general. My view is that it’s overblown. But in this case, many of the same bylines over the past two, three decades have been the instigators for meaningful change in baseball, including the latest hot cause of speeding up games. If there’s a sport-wide issue, love them or hate them, they’re the ones documenting it for the masses.
These gentlemen will almost never mention a salary cap, unless it’s to mock it.
Tom Verducci in 2012: “Complain all you want about baseball’s economic system. It has its flaws, including the gap in payroll disparity. But when it comes to getting teams through to the championship round, it is no different than the hallowed system in the NFL.”
Jayson Stark in 2009: “The crying game is on. It isn’t fair. We need a salary cap. The system’s broken. Well, the system may be broken, all right. But don’t just look at the top.Why not just put a tax on teams that pocket the money they get from revenue sharing?”
Ken Rosenthal in 2011: “A third team in New York and/or second team in New England actually would be the best pure economic solution.”
Rosenthal also wrote just this past May that the Yankees signing Japanese mega-free-agent Masahiro Tanaka represented “the natural order of things” and added, “This is not a team that should be getting outbid by the Pirates for catcher Russell Martin, as it was last offseason.”
I cite these, but the available examples are endless. And that goes for talking heads and radio jockeys, too. Even the blogging community, which disagrees with mainstream media as its raison d’être, stands in solidarity.
A cynic would suggest all of the above are based in bigger markets and have a rooting interest. I don’t believe that for a second. But I do believe people are a product of their environs, and if what they experience suggests that all is well with baseball as far as the eye can see, that’s going to influence as much as being a lifelong Pittsburgher will with mine. It’s only human.
But that doesn’t make the position right. In fact, it’s as wrong as wrong gets.
The NFL, NHL and NBA all have salary caps. They all engaged in bloody battles to get those caps. That wasn’t by accident, and it wasn’t solely so they could count up how many different teams reach the postseason year after year. I don’t even think that was the primary motivation in any case. They did so, one, to make the business more sound and, two, because of a goal of inherent fairness.
Well, baseball doesn’t need help with business. Not as a whole, anyway, with $9 billion in annual revenues and no decline in sight. Whether the money has come from New York or Milwaukee doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that it’s come in unprecedented waves.
Some will stop here with the justification for not having a cap, as if they’re somehow linked. This is so ridiculous it doesn’t merit a response.
And the inherent fairness thing … wow, that just never comes up.
That’s only what all of this is about.
The main reason that some NFL, NHL and NBA teams enjoy repeated success is because they first make good decisions, then operate in a system that doesn’t punish them for making those good decisions. If the Packers get Aaron Rodgers in a city the size of Erie, they can keep him. Same for the Steelers and all their superstar talents over the decades. Same for Penguins and Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and others. Fans of our other two teams can embrace without fear. Tough decisions are involved, but the toughest of all — here is one player we really, really want to keep but can’t — very rarely is among them.
So goodbye to Martin, the one player the Pirates really, really want to keep in the context that Andrew McCutchen is already signed to a terrific rate through 2018.
Goodbye even though Martin would stay if all else were even close to equal. I’ll take his word.
Goodbye even though Martin had a chance to position himself as the greatest catcher in the franchise’s 128-year history.
Goodbye even though Martin could contend here, at least theoretically.
Goodbye even though this could only have happened here …
And this, too …
Goodbye even though ownership, again presumably, will offer a contract unlike any in its past, unlike anything most would imagine that any team would pay for a catcher who will be 32 years old next summer.
That, my friends, is a systemic flaw. It’s rotten at the roots.
Baseball might end up with decent parity in the playoffs — I happen to feel that has far more to do with the fickle nature of starting pitching — but it’s built on a grossly inequitable floor that forces teams in one city to compete while counting every penny, teams in another to conveniently patch up mistakes by simply opening the checkbook.
Here’s another element that seldom gets raised in this equation: Fans get attached to players. And as with any relationship, they value the faith that it can last more than just a short time. Call that quaint, but it remains reality. If they believe there’s at least a chance that player can stay, they’ll invest emotionally and financially.
When they don’t believe … well, they spend an entire summer doing what Pittsburgh just did in pining for Martin, when simultaneously exalting and agonizing with his every great game, before he was even gone.
That doesn’t build baseball. It deteriorates it. For every run by the Royals that temporarily rekindles that connection, there’s an immediate and devastating boomerang effect when the truth sets in.
Ask the Brewers. Mark Attanasio, their owner, was one of the precious few to step up and speak up when, in 2008, his unreal-for-Milwaukee bid to keep CC Sabathia was beaten by a snap of the Yankees’ finger. He was bitter. He wondered aloud if it wasn’t time for a cap.
The national writers, of course, scoffed.
Funny, but neither Attanasio nor the cap topic have been heard since. Nor have the Brewers.
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None of us can say with certainty that a cap would keep Martin in Pittsburgh. We also can’t say that, if he were to stay, the Pirates would stay at this competitive plateau. Far too many variables.
But what can be said definitively is that they’d have the same chance as everyone else.
And in that context, they’d benefit from having made the shrewd move in ponying up $17 million for two years of a catcher fresh off a .211 season — you might recall I was one of the dummies who ripped them at the time — as well as from having set up the rest of their roster smartly enough that Martin would be affordable.
These are acts that the NFL, NHL and NBA reward. It’s one that baseball rewards, too, if you count some nebulous compensatory draft pick.
Nothing will change. Any owner will be shouted down, declared a whiny welfare recipient for not being more grateful for the Yankees’ tablescraps. It won’t change if Nutting and/or Coonelly speak up, though I continue to feel strongly they should do far more. It won’t change until it starts with a seismic shift in the national media’s myopic, echo-chamber mentality on this topic.
Worse, this problem is about to grow exponentially. You’ve heard and read about some of the insane local TV deals, but you’ll still hear and read more about recklessly irresponsible and dishonest owners like the Marlins’ Jeff Loria than you will about the mounting disparity. That’s because it’s easier to extend that broader narrative by targeting Loria than to justify a system where, before long, the Dodgers will be able to shop the open market like Bill Gates at a flea market.
Just the natural order of things, you know.