Jayson Stark on Baseball Financials

[Admin]

Since when is arbitration more dependent upon success of the whole team than it is individual achievement?

[mystikol87]

Since when is arbitration more dependent upon success of the whole team than it is individual achievement?

 

 

Ugggh this X 99999999999999999999999999999999999

 

If you're going to make such a criticism, at least have some idea what you are talking about.

 

FWIW, though, a pitcher's win total does affect his arbitration ruling, but generally there is no difference whether you miss the playoffs by a game or with the World Series.

[dgreco]

Since when is arbitration more dependent upon success of the whole team than it is individual achievement?

 

 

Ugggh this X 99999999999999999999999999999999999

 

If you're going to make such a criticism, at least have some idea what you are talking about.

 

FWIW, though, a pitcher's win total does affect his arbitration ruling, but generally there is no difference whether you miss the playoffs by a game or with the World Series.

 

I do not doubt it does, and I know it is a rather objective procedure, but if Greinke were in arbitration do you think having the 8th highest win total would hurt his offer?

[BafflingBeerman]

The Hanley contract only came about because it was necessary for the stadium deal to get done. Which again is all about profits and not winning. Who knows how long Hanley remains with the team now that the stadium deal is done. Loria may just wish to go back to a 2006 payroll, with virtually all players making the minimum. We do have 3 ½ months before the season starts for him to get his profit margins increased.

 

 

 

So you are saying that if the Marlins didn't get the stadium deal done, Loria would hold onto Hanley indefinitely as a PR move, despite possibly losing even more money on a bad stadium deal at The Park Formerly Known As Joe Robbie? And now that he has secured a steady income, one that at least favors the team playing in the stadium and not a guy who owns the stadium (at least, not as slanted as it is in TPFNAJR), he is going to jettison everything that got him there? Including the player that he (according to you) envisioned suckering people into supporting the team? So, come 2012, he'll burned every possible bridge to make the Marlins popular again, just so he can sell 10,000 seats in a new stadium? Because, after all, winning doesn't bring more fans, and hence, more money to the team, causing an increase in profit that may even outgrow an potential increase in payroll. Interesting theory.

[Prince of Saxe-Meiningen]

The Hanley contract only came about because it was necessary for the stadium deal to get done. Which again is all about profits and not winning. Who knows how long Hanley remains with the team now that the stadium deal is done. Loria may just wish to go back to a 2006 payroll, with virtually all players making the minimum. We do have 3 ½ months before the season starts for him to get his profit margins increased.

 

 

 

So you are saying that if the Marlins didn't get the stadium deal done, Loria would hold onto Hanley indefinitely as a PR move, despite possibly losing even more money on a bad stadium deal at The Park Formerly Known As Joe Robbie? And now that he has secured a steady income, one that at least favors the team playing in the stadium and not a guy who owns the stadium (at least, not as slanted as it is in TPFNAJR), he is going to jettison everything that got him there? Including the player that he (according to you) envisioned suckering people into supporting the team? So, come 2012, he'll burned every possible bridge to make the Marlins popular again, just so he can sell 10,000 seats in a new stadium? Because, after all, winning doesn't bring more fans, and hence, more money to the team, causing an increase in profit that may even outgrow an potential increase in payroll. Interesting theory.

 

First off, nice try at putting words onto my post. Since when has Loria cared about burning bridges ? Look at what he has done from a PR standpoint since he bought the team. He continues to employ the midget, which all by it self is one of the greatest sins ever committed by someone who owns a major league team. That man continues to be an embarassment every time he opens his mouth.

[BafflingBeerman]

The Hanley contract only came about because it was necessary for the stadium deal to get done. Which again is all about profits and not winning. Who knows how long Hanley remains with the team now that the stadium deal is done. Loria may just wish to go back to a 2006 payroll, with virtually all players making the minimum. We do have 3 ½ months before the season starts for him to get his profit margins increased.

 

 

 

So you are saying that if the Marlins didn't get the stadium deal done, Loria would hold onto Hanley indefinitely as a PR move, despite possibly losing even more money on a bad stadium deal at The Park Formerly Known As Joe Robbie? And now that he has secured a steady income, one that at least favors the team playing in the stadium and not a guy who owns the stadium (at least, not as slanted as it is in TPFNAJR), he is going to jettison everything that got him there? Including the player that he (according to you) envisioned suckering people into supporting the team? So, come 2012, he'll burned every possible bridge to make the Marlins popular again, just so he can sell 10,000 seats in a new stadium? Because, after all, winning doesn't bring more fans, and hence, more money to the team, causing an increase in profit that may even outgrow an potential increase in payroll. Interesting theory.

 

First off, nice try at putting words onto my post. Since when has Loria cared about burning bridges ? Look at what he has done from a PR standpoint since he bought the team. He continues to employ the midget, which all by it self is one of the greatest sins ever committed by someone who owns a major league team. That man continues to be an embarassment every time he opens his mouth.

 

Hey, I didn't put any words in your mouth, I just used hyperbole to extrapolate what you said. And what you said was Loria wanted profits over winning. I was merely riffing on it. I'll make it clear to anyone who took that seriously, I wasn't saying that was exactly what you were saying.

 

Loria is bad a PR? Really? Things like signing Pudge and holding this big press conference to announce it (same with Delgado) and saying the right things at those conferences seems to say otherwise to me. With Delgado, he made an excellent PR move by tying in his signing with a push for a new stadium. When that didn't pan out, he did trade Delgado, but it was clear why. Heck, your main argument is that Hanley's contract was a PR move to get a stadium deal, and that worked! Loria was willing to spend money to get the stadium deal in place, via signing players, again I ask, once he has that deal in place and is now actually more able to keep those players, why would he trade it away? He can't be that bad. He mainly lets Beinfest do the talking about the baseball side of things. Forget Samson, no one takes him seriously and besides his role as severely been minimalized in the past few years. I don't remember any really bad snafus from Loria and Samson during the stadium negotiations and the media was on them all the time. Samson is an idiot sometimes, but I think if you go to each ball club you will find some public face of that club that its fans think is an idiot.

 

If you whole point is that Loria doesn't care about winning and just wants a profit, how do you explain 2003-2005? He spent money on Pudge and won. He spent money on Delgado and lost. In fact, after 2003, when we had a mid-sized payroll, we didn't make the playoffs either. We underperformed. We disappointed. Should we have sent more good money after bad then? Seems to me that money is not the only factor. Talent comes into play. We are essentially playing at the same level now with 25 million dollars that we did for 60.

 

If you are saying we are truly one player away from making the playoffs and the only, and I mean only, factor preventing us from getting that player is money and Loria's lack of spending it, who is this "magic bullet" player? How do we know that spending 5 million or whatever on this player will actually get us into the playoffs? Furthermore, what player (do we know) was the FO pushing for that Loria would not spend money on? Forget about players who turn down offers, as that is probably equally, or perhaps more, influenced by talent assessment than lack of money. The front office thinks a player is worth X, the player wants Y that is over X, and that is that. Some teams can afford to overpay and take a risk, some can't. I don't think you can lay that on Loria alone as a bunch of mid to small size teams do that. There is no assurance at the beginning of the season that your big splash in the off-season will actually pay off.

 

So let's say that during the course of the season, you need a player. Well, then the problem is Loria and his spendthrift ways, right? Not really, because while money is a component of trades, the bigger deal is what players your trading partner wants in return. So I don't see Loria and his "cheapness" really stepping on any toes there. You can also find many articles written about how the Marlins get the most bang for their buck, talentwise. We aren't the Nationals, we aren't the Pirates, we aren't the Royals, teams that have small payrolls are are lucky to finish within 10 games of .500. 2 out of the past 3 years, we've finished better than .500. We may be one or two players away, but I don't think money is the issue, it is knowing who that one or two players are.

 

So I guess my point is this: you can rail on Loria for pocketing the money. But you can't rail on him for not wanting to win, when evidence in the past (Pudge, Delgado, firing Torborg, even the embarassment with Girardi showed that Loria cares for the game enough to be emotionally involved to the point where he would aruge with an ump, like any fan would) and evidence in the present (signing Hanley long term, neogtiating with JJ even though those talks have broken down, the Chapman talks), shows he does care. But he has seen that spending money/not spending money nets just about the same result in the win/lost column and it only matters when it comes to the type of player you get, not the money you pay him. I know it is frustrating that we seem so close to the promised land, but Loria's money issues are not the only factor at play there.