Lookout, and it's not collusion.....

by David Todd on Dec 10, 2009 2:39 PM EST

Here are a couple articles, one concerning MLB and the other the NBA. I'm not drawing direct parallels between the two sports just showing the impact the economic downturn is having. $80 tickets just aren't going to cut it going forward. There are another dozen articles like this relating to the NHL as well. Salaries (and in the case of the NBA and NHL, salary caps) are going to adjust downward as revenues decline. Contraction is certainly going to be on the board in the NBA and NHL in the next few years. Vlad, feel free to disagree.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20091202&content_id=7746074&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

http://ken-berger.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/11838893/18850386?source=rss_blogs_NBA

(would someone please take a second and help me link these two articles. For some reason I can't copy the URL into the "link" box that pops up and when I just past the URL it doesn't show up as a link. Sorry and thanks.)

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the managing editor (Charlie) or SB Nation. FanPosts are written by Bucs Dugout readers.

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http://ken-berger.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/11838893/18850386?source=rss_blogs_NBA

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20091202&content_id=7746074&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

by God Loves on Dec 10, 2009 2:59 PM EST reply actions

Thanks

by David Todd on Dec 10, 2009 3:01 PM EST up reply actions

MLB gross revenue...

…was only down a hair last year. And given current economic trends, I’d be surprised if 2010 doesn’t beat 2009.

I think it’s interesting that on the same day your link says that salaries for middling MLB players are due for a crash, Lyon got three years at $5M per from the Astros. Maybe the revolution isn’t all that imminent after all…

by Vlad on Dec 10, 2009 3:15 PM EST reply actions

Holy crap

I didn’t see what Lyon got from Houston until now. My goodness that’s an awful contract.

by biggyv on Dec 10, 2009 3:34 PM EST up reply actions

I think......

it just confirms Ed Wade is an idiot and says nothing more. At least I’m sure we can agree on the first part. And, just for the record, the article was written a week ago, before the meetings. The fact that so many guys didn’t get contracts is telling IMO.

Any thoughts on what Giles gets?

by David Todd on Dec 10, 2009 4:23 PM EST up reply actions

I think he's lucky if he gets a NRI.

Life on the margins of a roster is hard for wife-beaters. If he were still a top-level talent, it’d be different, of course.

by Vlad on Dec 10, 2009 4:29 PM EST up reply actions

Ed Wade is amazing.

He still has a job.

by IAPiratesFan on Dec 10, 2009 7:46 PM EST up reply actions

Agree on the first part?

I think we can agree that what happened to the American economy over the last two years has affected the American professional sports landscape. I’m not sure I agree with what you’re implying.

I don’t think it necessarily affects all sports the same. And from a baseball-salary perspective, Bobby Abreu got $5M/1yr last year when the outlook was sketchy. Now, while the economy is not exactly booming, it has stabilized, and Abreu got almost double the money and two years with an option. Abreu’s game hasn’t changed, and he’s getting older not younger.

I think the Figgins deal also points to the health of baseball salaries. I think teams are getting wiser. They could also be colluding. I don’t think it necessarily has to be one and not the other. I think salaries are rebounding in baseball. It may not be like the past, but so far this offseason, i think the Big Economic Scare is over.

by azibuck on Dec 11, 2009 9:55 AM EST up reply actions

My reference.....

to “the first part” was, Ed Wade is an idiot, that is what I thought we could all agree on.

As for what I’m implying, well, I’m not really implying anything. I was sharing some facts and opinions on what is going in markets and the economy.

I will say the fact that so few free agents have been signed so far is pretty telling. Clearly teams don’t want to overspend. Citing Abreu, who had a great year, and Figgins I think really proves the point. They are the exceptions. What about the 100 guys like Vlad, Giles, Ankiel, Nady and the like who aren’t really getting a sniff at this point. The MLB article says the market is becoming increasingly stratified and I agree. Guys will pay for a superstar who can put them over the top, sure. But why would a team pay Ankiel $9 million for three years when you can pay John Raynor $450K and probably get 80% or more of his production in our case? Who is going to pay Vlad more than $5 million on a one year deal—maybe the Twins? Most guys aren’t going to get what they think they are worth.

And the NBA is in for a even greater stratification in my view, as is the NHL.

by David Todd on Dec 11, 2009 10:37 AM EST up reply actions

I would feel a lot more comfortable...

…saying that none of these guys are going to get big deals once the season has actually started and they didn’t get big deals. Up until then, the absence of evidence isn’t the same thing as evidence of absence.

by Vlad on Dec 11, 2009 10:58 AM EST up reply actions

I mean, Ankiel is a Boras client...

…and Boras never lets his non-elite guys sign early. Ankiel is also a second- or third-tier option in a market where the best players at his position (i.e. Bay and Holliaday) haven’t signed yet. Once those two go off the board, you’ll start seeing a lot more interest in the Vlads and the Nadys as the teams who had been hunting bigger game lower their sights.

by Vlad on Dec 11, 2009 11:48 AM EST up reply actions

Furthermore

I think that the flip side of the increasing valuation of prospects in the trade market is decreased valuation of veterans in the FA market. The guys we’re talking about aren’t, for the most part, young guys getting their first big payoffs. Logically, teams that will no longer part with a couple AA pitchers for a mid-level OF aren’t going to sign that same OF for big money, either.

I think that a Jason Bay, 5 years ago, is getting plenty of offers as good as or better than the Boston one. But too many GMs realize that he’s only going to get worse, and the advent of UZR and increased usage of other advanced stats makes it more clear-cut that a guy like Bay isn’t as valuable as he seems. Now take that same thinking down the line to a Nady or an Ankiel (granting the Boras point) – I think the day of guys like that getting big paydays is largely over. You’ll still get idiots like Wade making bad deals, but they’ll be immediately called out as bad deals (see Wells and Zito).

All that said, there’s no inflation IRL; I certainly wouldn’t expect to see any inflation in payer salaries, and a tiny step back wouldn’t be a shock either. But the retrenchment that dtoddwin has been forecasting for months… there’s still not much evidence of it. If Holliday signs for $10M, then call me.

by JRoth95 on Dec 12, 2009 2:35 PM EST up reply actions

As you point out....

the retrenchment isn’t going to be the high end guys. It’s going to be guys like Brian Giles ($9million), Vlad ($15 million), Dye ($11.5 million), Ryan Freel ($4 million), Geoff Jenkins ($6.75 million), Austin Kearns ($8 million), Nady ($6.55 million), Dave Roberts ($6.5 million), Sheffield ($14 million), Randy Winn ($8.25 million), even Damon and Matsui ($13 million each).

Sure Bay and Holliday get paid. Sure a few guys got signed and extended by their current teams. But the market is not going to be handing out contracts like the ones that just expired. I would expect only Dye, Damon and Matsui make more than $5 million this year out of the group above.

by David Todd on Dec 12, 2009 3:07 PM EST reply actions

Most of those guys aren't taking haircuts because of "retrenchment".

They’re taking haircuts because they’re old and they had disappointing seasons at the end of expensive multi-year deals (which generally have dead money built into the last year or two). Those types of guys have been doing badly in free agency pretty much forever. Lance Parrish’s price tag didn’t drop from $2.4M in 1992 to $334k in 1993 because the market was contracting – it dropped because he was a 36-year-old catcher who’d only been able to play 93 games the year before. Chuck Knoblauch’s price tag didn’t drop from $6M in 2001 to $2M in 2002 because owners suddenly became more reasonable – it dropped because he declined from a solid defender with a 140 OPS+ to a shaky one with an 80 OPS+ over the life of a four-year deal, and had to look hard to find a team that’d give him a starting role of any sort at all.

For there to be an actual dropoff in the market, you need to have guys who were at least modestly productive in 2009 getting less than they would’ve gotten in past offseasons.

by Vlad on Dec 12, 2009 6:58 PM EST up reply actions