When the flow of baseball news slows to a trickle over the offseason in the absence of game action, it becomes a challenge to maintain a stream of interesting content. After we baseball bloggers are done debating not whether the awards voting was poorly done but whether we should even care about it to begin with, we are left with a few means of filling content aside from playing whack-a-mole with an RSS reader until something intriguing finally materializes. One of those techniques is to keep hitting "refresh" over at MLBTR and pray the word "Yankees" appears (something we generally avoid), while another is to scroll through the newsblog over at BBTF and hope something strikes our fancy.
Of course, there's another common method of finding something to write about that doesn't require aggregators to deliver the typically baseless speculation of Ken Rosenthal or Jon Heyman, or the work of other columnists and bloggers. The more enterprising of us internet scribes go out and drum up interviews with well-respected writers and bloggers to carry us through the cold winter months.
Since we have yet to secure any interviews this offseason, we took the liberty of rounding up some of the better ones from around the baseball-related interwebz:
DRay's Bay has also done several excellent interviews this offseason. They talked to Jonah Keri (who is in the process of writing a book which culminates with the run of the 2008 Rays) about some of the economic realities present in the MLB and also some more specific topics about the AL East and the Rays' future plans. They also (digitally) sat down with Rob Neyer and picked his brain over the course of 16 questions.
Shortly before Christmas last year - on December 23rd to be exact - I was sitting down for lunch/dinner at my company's holiday party at the 21 Club, cutting into a piece of prime rib when I felt my phone vibrate. I didn't want to be rude but I fished my phone out of my pocket with my non-fork hand and stole a glance at the incoming text message. It was from my friend Joe: "Yankees close to signing Teixeira".
My face must have betrayed something when I read the message because my co-worker Greg nodded his head towards me and went, "What's up?".
I replied, "Holy shit, I think the Yankees are going to sign Mark Teixeira".
I put down my knife and fork and stared at the middle of the table shaking my head. I honestly couldn't believe it. Maybe it was just a rumor. They had already locked up CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. Did Brian Cashman and the Yanks really have the balls to orchestrate an eleventh hour coup for the most coveted position player on the market? Over the next hour or so, the texts kept flowing in from friends and cousins and college roommates, each one more certain than the last.
After the party, the other big Yankees fans from my office and I huddled up at the bar downstairs, having drinks on the company tab as groups of people would stand up and take turns belting out Christmas carols printed on a Salvation Army pamphlet they must have been handing out in exchange for donations outside. Between the renditions of Frosty the Snowman and sips of Macallan 18, we tried to get our heads around the fact that, amidst the faltering economy, the Yankees had just sent a message to their fans and to the rest of baseball: "We want to win a World Series that badly"
I got up early the next morning to head back upstate for Christmas with the family. I loaded up my car in the near-freezing rain, drove up the Westside Highway and crossed the George Washington Bridge, thinking I was going to beat the traffic upstate. I turned onto the Palisades Parkway and was met with a sea of taillights which bluntly informed me that this wasn't going to be a smooth getaway I had envisioned. The highway was a sheet of ice.
After 15 minutes of not moving one inch, I put the car in park, unbuckled my seatbelt and took out my iPhone to thumb through my Google Reader. At that point I needed something - anything - to keep my mind off the fact that I was hungover and stuck in standstill traffic in New Jersey to which there was no end in sight.
One of the first posts I came across this one from Shysterball and suffice it to say, it sort of blew my mind. An incredibly poignant blockquote from Will Leitch about Dock Ellis' no-hitter on acid and two beautifully dovetailed paragraphs from Craig summing up what writing about sports should really be about. It couldn't have been more up my alley.
And that's when I decided that I was going to start a blog. Well, I had technically already started one. I reserved a domain name wrote one post about trying to decide who to root for when the Red Sox played the Rays in the ALCS a little while back but that was the only thing on there.
Then on Christmas Day, after our visiting relatives had departed, I sat down and pounded out 1000 words on the Yankees most recent acquisition on my laptop. I drafted an email entitled "The Fack Youk Manifesto" to five or six of my friends informing them of my intentions, and said:
I realize that there is like an 85% chance that this never really goes anywhere, then dies a slow death from neglect, but there's that 15% that we can carve out this little space for our thoughts, all contribute and make it interesting/entertaining enough for some other people to check it out. I talk enough sports with you guys and hear interesting stuff worthy of a blog post and it makes me think that we could put that stuff to use and concentrate it here.
A lot has changed since then. Joe and Will don't really contribute much anymore because of the demands of studying for the bar exam and fascist corporate internet policies. I got unimaginably lucky to find Matt in the comments section, who, is not only a talented writer with a great sense of the history of the Yankees, but a great dude with similar musical tastes.
On the shortest of notice, I handed him the reigns to the blog for almost a full week back in May when I left for a road trip, which coincided nicely with a 9 game winning steak by the Yanks. He didn't miss a beat - which was far more than I had any right to expect - and the site has been markedly better ever since.
In the months since then, we've previewed and recapped every game (except for the three against the Blue Jays 4th of July weekend) and churned out almost 800 posts between us, which is very nearly 5 per day, including weekends.
I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a huge sense of personal validation involved in the Yankees winning the World Series for me. Since the playoffs began, our work has been recognized by a lot of people and we've more than doubled our average daily traffic. We've received even more kind emails and insightful comments from you guys than usual, which makes this all seem worthwhile. We've got some other recognition from well-respected baseball writers that I really couldn't have imagined when I wrote that first post on the signing of Mark Teixeira.
I've devoted what can only be described as an unhealthy and perhaps inadvisable amount of time reading about baseball in order to make my writing for this site as good as possible.
Unfortunately, that not-so-indirectly led to me getting laid off from my last job - the one that brought me to that company party in the beginning of this post. I wasn't going to regret the decision either way because I've spent the last six months doing something that makes me want to get out of bed in the morning as opposed to smothering myself to death with my pillow like my last job.
I highly doubt I have a career ahead of me as a writer, but seeing someone like Craig, whose work I have a lot of respect for, make that jump just two days ago is quite inspiring. Regardless of where it goes from here, I'm incredibly proud of what we've managed to do with this site in terms of traffic and recognition but mostly in terms of content. 105,000+ unique visitors and 270,000+ pageviews later (and counting), here we are.
Now I'm back in Albany, not far from where I grew up, living with two of my good friends from high school, doing something that's barely profitable at all which in no way shape or form is a real job, despite the fact that I treat it like one. In some ways, it has come full circle.
Tomorrow, Matt, a few of my buddies and I are going down to the parade, so if you are going to be there and want to meet up, use my email address on the left side of the site.
After that, I don't know. This blog isn't going to disappear regardless of what happens, but we're going to have to scale back the content here if I ever want to get my shit together. There will be still be posts - probably much more off-topic material - but they won't be going up at 9:00, 11:00, 1:00, 3:00 & 5:00 all offseason, obviously.
If you've made it this far, I'd suggest you subscribe to our RSS Feed via Google Reader (164 people can't be wrong!). It will tell you when there is a new post so you don't have to come to the site to check. It will hurt our pageviews but help your sanity.
So thanks for reading this year. Thanks for your great comments and signed baseballs and for filling in the gaps where our knowledge is lacking. Thanks to those other bloggers who were kind enough to link, especially Joe from River Ave. Blues, Craig, Jason from IIATMS, Kevin Kaduk from Big League Stew, Ross from New Stadium Insider, Pete Abe, Rob Neyer (once), and even A.J. Daulerio, you know, back when Deadspin used to link to other blogs. A big thanks to Cliff who helped me a lot behind the scenes and Boston Bren who is mostly responsible for the site layout. There are others I'm forgetting, so I apologize for the omissions.
So, before we all disperse, there of course has to be a song. And it's only fitting that what is probably the de facto band of Fack Youk provides the soundtrack to this post.
See you around.
Jay
Say you want to be a rolling stone, Get your sail out in the wind, Get out on the highway and let 'er roll on, Roll on back to someplace you ain't never been.
When I was younger I was hard to hold, Seem like I was always goin', Whichever way the wind would blow, Now that travelin' spirit calls me again.
Since the Jays are in town and this move effects both the White Sox' playoff chances this year and the direction of the Blue Jays going forward, I figured I would take some time to examine the decision to acquire Yankee Killer Alex Rios off the waiver wire by the White Sox.
Coupled with the Jake Peavy trade, ChiSox GM Kenny Williams has taken on roughly $115M in future salary over the past two weeks. The Sox are one game over .500, so they don't figure to factor into the Wild Card mix, but are still just 3 games in back of the Tigers in the AL Central. Peavy is still on the disabled list and won't make his first minor league start until later this week at the earliest so he probably won't make more than 4 or 5 starts for the Big League club before the end of the regular season.
Rios', on the other hand, will make an immediate impact if used optimally. In his career with the Jays, Rios has primarily held down RF while Vernon Wells played CF. Jermaine Dye and Carlos Quentin are holding down the starting corner outfield jobs for the Sox, which would be a problem were it not for the fact that Rios is a more than capable CF as well. He's much better than Wells, actually. In 106 games in CF, Rios has a UZR/150 of 12.8 whereas Wells' is -6.8. The Sox started Ken Griffey, Jr. in CF for 32 games last year, so they obviously aren't too concerned with shifting someone from a corner spot to center.
Considering the meager production the Sox are getting out of their current center fielders (.224/.281/.313), Rios' line of .264/.338/.383 is a significant upgrade, even before you consider the boost he'll be getting from playing at US Cellular Field. He's also a base stealing threat with 32 last year and 19 already this season.
Despite being in his physical prime at 28 years old, Rios is having a down year, which is the major reason the Blue Jays decided to let the White Sox walk away with him for nothing more than the required $20,000 transfer fee. The two teams engaged in negotiations before the trade deadline, meaning the Sox would have actually had to give up something at that point, but they waited it out, were the only team to make a waiver claim and got him for essentially nothing.
From the Blue Jays' perspective, they shed a major chunk of salary (not the one they really wanted to, though), but also parted with Rios at his lowest value thus far in his career. Even still, he will come close to equaling his contract value this year and has far exceeded even the $12.5M he is due in 2014 in both 2007 and 2008 according to FanGraphs. And those numbers calculate his value mostly as a RF, not a CF.
Does this move foreshadow a Roy Halladay trade this offseason? Dumping a productive player with a long term deal like Rios for salary reasons and getting nothing in return doesn't exactly signal the desire to compete now. This is a step beyond the Scott Rolen move. By dealing Halladay, they could save themselves a significant amount of money and net some good prospects in return, if they are indeed moving towards rebuilding. I'd be willing to be that the Jays would have tried harder to find a place for Halladay if they knew they could dump Rios after the deadline.
It's possible that Rios' offensive production will continue to decline and the Jays are thrilled with their decision in a few years, but I think it's more likely that they watch him become a solid contributor for the White Sox and regret the fact that it made financial sense at the time to get rid of him. If Rios were to hit the free agent market this offseason, he almost surely wouldn't get the kind of contract he is signed to, but the way that the baseball economy moves from here through 2014 could make the deal look very shrewd or very foolish on either side.
"This is not just a stadium for baseball," Yankees COO Lonn Trost said. "It's a stadium for college and university football."
To refresh, this is Lonn Trost, the man whose fingerprints are all over the New Stadium and who was more responsible than anyone else for designing it. Got it? Now take a look at this:
See how well the football field fits into the dimensions of the baseball configurat... wait, I'm sorry, what's that? It doesn't fit at all and the dugouts might have to be filled-in during these games just to accomodate the corners of the endzones? Just look at how the stands unnecessarily jut away from from the 50 yard lines! I like what you did there, Lonn. There's hardly a good seat in the house!
You'd think that if someone with Mr. Trost's "appreciation of the history" of the Old Yankee Stadium might have thought of this beforehand, if they truly had wanted to play college football games there. Perhaps the need popped up after the Yankees' revenue projections fell short for this year and they are taking steps to cover their behinds just in case the economic conditions don't improve.
But the fact remains that it IS a Stadium just for baseball, which explains what it was explicity fucking designed for it without taking any other events into consideration. You can try to shoehorn a football grid into it or put a stage for a concert in centerfield, but it's going to be completely awkward because baseball parks aren't meant for anything else. Just like football stadiums weren't meant to house baseball games. Again, historically, this was done out of necessity. Now it's being done out of nostalgia and greed and I'm not sure which of those is worse.
This article by Wallace Matthews of Newsday was published on Saturday but for some reason it didn't show up in my Google Reader until this morning. I wish it never had.
Why he thought it was necessary to spend 850 words wandering around the topic of poor attendance at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field is beyond me to begin with. To make matters worse, it's not like he gets right to the heart of the matter. He tiptoes around anything that could be considered "topical" or "relevant" like he's slowdancing with his mother and instead churns out paragraphs like the one below.
So far, the Yankees are averaging 44,636 in their new crib, the Mets 38,806. If baseball is so popular in this town and Yankees and Mets games truly are must-see events, as both clubs insisted throughout the offseason, why aren't there 10,000 people milling around outside their ballparks every game night, trying to buy up every last ticket in the house, and the rest going home empty-handed and disappointed?
Well, since you asked... Ticket. Prices. TICKET PRICES. The price of admission, the cost of entry, door fees, gate charges. Call it whatever you want. Incredibly, Matthews does not mention pricing once in his column. Prices were set it a totally different economic climate that the one that exists now and since some of the seats were already sold, it's tough to go back and change them.
One of the reasons, of course, is simple and self-evident. It's the economy, stupid.
Hmm... does that phrase sound familiar? I'm guessing that Jason's recent national exposure and resultingmedia tour had a little something to do with that, although Matthews would certainly never admit it. Those four words sum it up pretty nicely, though. So that's the end of the article, right...?
But in a metropolitan area that certainly has more than 83,442 people - the combined average attendance at both parks - wealthy enough to buy their way into these exclusive clubs dressed as ballparks, there has to be something more to it.
It's not the same 83,442 people showing up at the parks every night, you dummy.
Does there have to be more to it? I'm pretty sure those last two points - ticket prices and the economy - pretty much cover it. But, okay, let's humor him. Tell us, Wallace. What is this incredible insight you have into the matter? What could be this mysterious X-factor keeping fans from coming to the park? It's not going to be some meaningless cliche, is it?
It just might be that the remarkably deep-pocketed, thick-skinned and resilient sports fans of this town finally have reached their limit.
Deep-pocketed? Remember eight seconds ago, when you said it was "about the economy, stupid"? Not every sports fan is deep-pocketed, especially not at the moment. And what does being "thick-skinned" or "resilient" have to do with attending a sporting event?
It never has been easy to be a fan, especially around here, where aside from the Yankees' transcendent five-year run in the late 1990s and the occasional Giants Super Bowl appearance, our teams have never given much return for what always has been a hefty investment.
You know, aside from 1971-1977, Led Zeppelin wasn't that great of a band, anyway. The Yankees made the playoffs for 13 straight fucking years and appeared in six World Series you ungrateful prick. It's been insanely easy to be a fan around here.
The Giants have won three Super Bowls in the last 23 seasons. Given that there are 32 teams in the salary-capped NFL, that's pretty amazing. The Mets had some bad stretches, but made a good run in the late 90's, have been competitive for the past four seasons and project to be good for quite a while.
And what the fuck do you want from your "investment"? No one is making you buy tickets to the game. When I head up to the Stadium, I don't need a promise that the team is going to win a championship that year. I go because it's a fun time, the team is competitive and I enjoy watching sporting events in the venues in which they are played.
It's simply no longer worth it, no matter how good the team is or how deeply ingrained in your DNA the ritual of going to the ballpark on a summer night really is.
Attention baseball fans: Don't bother going to games anymore. Yankees vs. Red Sox battling for first place on a Friday night? Nope. Wallace Matthews says it's not worth it.
He ends the column with not one, but two one-sentence paragraphs.
Even in a city this big, sooner or later, you run out of suckers.
Then the only suckers left are the teams themselves, and the people who run them.
Wallace Matthews might be a total fucking moron, but at least he's not a sucker!
I didn't take a picture, because that would be weird, but I found out something about the New Yankee Stadium during our descent into Section 112 that really pissed me off (pun intended... wait for it). There are dividers between the urinals on the Field Level, but not anywhere else in the Stadium.
Is it a huge deal? Of course not, but could there be a better symbol of how much the Yankees have bent over backwards to cater to the wealthiest customers and how they could care less about the core fans? By installing the dividers at the field level, they are acknowledging that it matters, but only providing the "luxury" to those purchasing the most expensive seats. It's an issue of simple human decency, and they can't possibly cost that much to put them in.
Have you ever had a friend who desperately tried to date someone who was out of their league while ignoring a person who was legitimately interested in them? The object of their affection was strikingly attractive, but even if they gave them the time of day, it was just to be nice. The second option wasn't as good-looking, but they had actual feelings for your friend and probably would have done anything to be with them. Guess what, Yankees, the corporate guy, who you want to sit in the insanely expensive seats... he's just not that into you.
Forgive the sweeping generalization, but most of the people who could afford the highest priced seats at the New Stadium are not real fans. Here is why: If you have a job that allows you to spend anywhere from $100K to $800K on two Yankees season tickets, you aren't going to have much time in the day to read blogs or listen to sports talk radio. Wealthy folks also go out to dinner pretty often. When do they do that? Probably in the neighborhood of 7-10 at night, give or take, and three or four star restaurants aren't going to have the game on TV. The more money you have, the more options you have, and everywhere you look in this city, companies are bending over backwards to cater to what remains of the uber-rich. The Yankees are just one option; an option that's not in Manhattan and requires an commitment of 81 games and a small fortune.
The people (and corporations) who buy those seats are never going to love the Yankees as much as the average fan, and the direction of the economy has blatantly exposed that. There are still some who could absorb the price increase in the new building, but for them it was a luxury. You can tell by the outrage and disenfranchisement of the people who were displaced from their affordable full or even partial season ticket packages that they thought of it as a necessity.
It's clear that it doesn't make sense to alienate the average fan in the name of the casual but much wealthier fan from a loyalty standpoint. Given the state of the nation's finances right now it doesn't makes sense in the general ledger either. Did it ever? Ben K. from River Ave. Blues doesn't think so.
So I had one of my two fantasy drafts last night. First round, I selected Ryan Braun with the #5 pick. Great, a Brewer... I strongly dislike the Brewers -- from the Selig connection, to all the hard miles they put on Sabathia, and their GM Doug Melvin bitching after he signed with the Yankees.
In the second round I picked Johan. I want to see Johan fail. Why? Because I'm a Yankees fan and if Johan fails, the Mets fail. Also, as an ardent Phil Hughes supporter, I want vindication and do not want the pressure of equating Johan on the young Mr. Hughes.
Third round, I took Prince Fielder to have the pleasure of manning my First Base. Great, another facking Brewer. Please refer to the aforementioned Braun commentary. Thankfully, this league does not count defensive statistics.
The Fourth Round came up. I could use a Third Baseman. With a good OPS. Who is available? Not Wright nor A-Rod nor Evan Longoria nor Brandon Phillips. Who else is available? This blog's Anti-Christ. Kevin fackin' Youkilis.
Did I pick him? If you guessed that I answered this question in the affihmative, you would be correct. Fackin' great. My most hated player is on my team. How much do I hate this guy? I write for a blog named "Fack Youk." I had the Greek/Jewish God of Walks on my team last year too (when I won the league!), so this is nothing new to me. Why did I pick him? Does this mean that I like him? Does this mean that I have to quit writing for "Fack Youk?" Fellas, please forgive me. I promise that I will not root for him.
Like my ownership of ProShares UltraShort S&P500 (ticker SDS) in which I benefit from Barack Obama operating the economy in a manner similar to how Chuck Knoblauch operated at Second Base, namely throwing everything away, I treat it as a hedge position. Why not benefit from his production? Why should he have to screw me twice by screwing the Yankees and my fantasy team when I play against him? Fackin' A, fackin' Youk is on my fackin' team again...
What is your worst fantasy conflict of interest story?
Nice work, Manny, you've accepted a deal that you just rejected under a week ago. Please step forward and claim the $5M you earned by forcing your way out of Boston. Hey, at least you got to shove around our anti-namesake in the process...
All it cost you was your hallowed place in the hearts of Red Sox Nation, your competitive integrity and your overall reputation! Isn't it rather heartwarming to see dubious move by a doobie-ous character go up in smoke? The economic environment certainly conspired against him, but karma can certainly be a bitch.
Rejoice, Yankee fans, because he officially will no longer be terrorizing the Yankees to the tune of .321/.411/.618 for 18 games a year. Good riddance Man-Ram, have fun in Cali. Joe Torre tells me the wheatgrass is amazing.
I hate advertising. I watch everything on TV with my DVR trailing behind so I can fast forward through commercials. If I catch up, I'll pause or mute it. I think I'm allergic to ads. Stick around here long enough and I might even tell you how to pause two channels at once on your DVR and watch two NFL games airing concurrently on different channels.
As you may or may not have noticed, there are no ads on this blog. That is partially because we would literally make no money off them, and partially because online advertising is an exercise in futility. Think of how much time you spend online, and then think about how many things you've purchased via an online advertisement. You've probably bought plenty of stuff on the interwebs, but chances are you knew where you were going, or got there through Google.
Anyway, when I see terrible advertising, it bothers me even more than most people. The online stream of ESPN radio has some epically awful ads, probably because the companies who can afford legitimate ads buy spots on traditional radio. Also ESPN probably sees the internet feed as a potential second revenue stream and isn't about to give that away for free to the companies paying for regular radio spots. I usually take my earphones out when the commercials come on, but sometimes I get focused on what I'm doing, and one of the awful ads sneaks into my brain. If you listen to ESPN radio online, you'll probably recognize some of the following gems:
A spot that asks "Do you know what the difference between all the millionaires out there and YOU is?" [Hmmm... Hundreds of thousands of dollars?] "They decided they WANTED to become millionaires"
"Do you were a career correction, or just some direction?" (in reference to working for the New York City department of corrections). [Just a thought, but if an employer has to advertise their openings in this economy, you probably don't want that job.]
Mike Golic talking about Dial for Men ("Maintenance For Your Mansuit") and calling "odor causing bacteria" the "most dangerous player on the field". [Just because you are advertising on sports talk radio doesn't mean everything has to be a fucking sports related analogy]
Now, I don't really like doing this all that much, because it is also related to a certain championship winning New York City athlete, but it is my duty as a the proprietor of a semi-obscenely named sports blog. The Double Stuf [sic] Racing League (NSFW: Obnoxious Music) must be prodded to death with a fireplace stoker in the hottest portion of hell.
I have no problem with Mike & Mike. If you like a show that will put you back to sleep in the morning, give you only the mainstream opinion, and tell you absolutely nothing of import, I highly recommend theirs. But hearing Greeny and Golic talk about having a "lick race" makes Two Girls One Cup seem palatable.
The worst part is that during the commercial, Greeny says he can beat Golic at a sport. Golic then asks if he's talking about chess or tennis, to which Greeny responds, "No, Golic, a REAL sport".
Yes, these two asshats, who make their living talking about actual fucking sports like football, baseball and basketball sold out so badly, that they are calling two people licking the filling off of a sandwich style chocolate cookie "a REAL sport". Nice work, I hope it wa$ worth it.
What's the fucking end game, guys? Is anyone on earth going to buy a package of Oreos and actually have a race to see who can lick the filling off faster? Oreos are kind of gross to begin with, even when you aren't watching adults eat them like they are six year-olds.
This one is on you, Nabisco. Decisions like these are the reasons our economy is in the shitter. Some retard actually came up with this idea, pitched to some pretty high level executives, and didn't get laughed out of the room? I will never understand this world.
Benjamin Disraeli once said, "It is easier to be critical than right." Ironically, when ripping on Peter Abraham's pinch hitter, I was also doing it in the "easiest, laziest" way possible. In light of this, here are a few points I'd like to make in favor of moves Cashman has made this offseason.
Lost in the juxtaposition of Yankees' splashy free agent acquisitions and the general timidity with which GM's around the league have approached this offseason, has been Brian Cashman's attention to detail. Sure, Cashman has financial resources that other GM's do not, but he's also paying attention to the little things just as much as an executive of a small or mid-market team would.
Remember this move? The Yankees sold the rights to Darrell Rasner to the TohokuRakuten Golden Eagles of the Japanese Pacific League for $1M. Aside from that cool million, the Yankees are off the hook for Rasner's salary (maybe another $500K?). The move also works out nicely for Rasner, who also has a chance to make up to three times what his salary would have been if he stayed in the MLB and will have a chance to pitch against weaker hitters than in the AL East. I think Cashman realized that it would be better for both parties to ship Rasner to the Pacific Rim, and saved a million and a half bones in the process. At a time when the Red Sox broke some unwritten rules and signed JunichiTazawa, Cashman has maintained a more amicable relationship with Japan.
In trading for Nick Swisher, Cash picked up an underrated guy coming off of a terrible season for marginal bench guy Wilson Betemit, and B-level minor league prospects Jeff Marquez and Johnny Nunez. A corollary to this, I believe, is that proclaiming Swisher as their starting first baseman, quieted the "Teixeira To Yanks!" rumors enough for them to swoop in at the last minute, under nearly every one's radar.
Cashman also declined to offer arbitration to Andy Pettitte, Bobby Abreu and Pudge Rodriguez before it was apparent just how far teams would cut back spending this year. If they had offered arbitration to any of those players, they all almost certainly would have accepted, leaving the Yanks with too many catchers or outfielders or Andy Pettitte for over $16M. A less conscientious GM might not have gauged the market correctly, leaving the Yanks with untrade-ably expensive spare parts.
When Cashmansigned his 3 year $6Mextension at the end of September and went on the New York talk radio circuit, he had an edge in his voice. It seemed like he was out to correct the public perception that because of the massive payroll, anyone could GM the Yanks.
I think he's the perfect, and possibly the only guy for the job. Cashman is entrenched in the organization (an employee since he was 19) and has shown the ability to manage the sometimes unwieldy undercurrents of the front office. Do you think a new GM could have understood the complicated dynamics existing between Hal, Hank, an aging George and Randy Levine (more on him soon) quickly enough to get as much accomplished as they have this offseason? I would tend to think not.
In doing some more research on the topic of my previous post, I came across this article by Tim Marchman published in the National Review, back in December of 2003. He (not surprisingly) goes into more depth about the history of collusion in MLB than I did, and adds that joint holdouts were another big reason for the inclusion of the anti-collusion language in the CBA. He also says:
It was for violating this deal in the 1980s that owners agreed in the early 1990s to pay the players $280 million, a payment which drove expansion as owners sought to recoup the money by charging huge fees for the rights to new teams. Sandy Koufax decides he'd like to get paid something like what he's worth, and 40 years later you get to watch the Florida Marlins cavorting around in teal uniforms; what better illustration of the law of unintended consequences?
See what you can learn on these here Internets? The impetus of his post were "the ominous shadows of collusion falling across this weekend's winter meetings in New Orleans [in 2003]". These "shadows" stemmed from the exploitation of a seeming loophole the owners found in the CBA. At the time, the MLBPA was considering filing a grievance alleging that the owners were flooding the markets with free agents, according to Marc Edleman.
In his 2005 paper "Has Collusion Returned To Baseball?" Edleman details how, following the 2002 World Series, many teams began to talk about shedding payroll. Then, on Dec 20th, clubs simultaneously non-tendered 46 arbitration eligible players including PudgeRodirguez and other top level talent, thereby devaluing the price of all free agents (Edleman gives specific examples if you have time to read the essay). This also redefined that year's "fair-market value" and adversely affected outcomes of the hearings of the players who accepted arbitration.
Edleman says, "Federal antitrust law finds that an agreement to effect price exists even when there is a tacit or inferred agreement", and cites two cases involving American Tobacco and Monsanto (Sidenote: watch The Corporation) as indicators that the arbitrator may rule against the owners. He concludes:
When considering both the documented series of events that occurred during baseball’s 2002–03 off-season and their economic effects, it seems plausible that a baseball grievance arbitrator may find that Major League Baseball clubs once again violated baseball’s “collusion clause”.
This was of course written before the decision was handed down, and he was right to take an somewhat ambiguous stance.
Marchman's take was different, essentially dismissing the charges of collusion (also before any ruling had been handed down). He proposes a hypothetical situation in which two GMs are talking about each others arbitration cases and who they will or will not non-tender that year. He deduces that similar scenarios were probably unfolding at the time in team offices throughout the league, one at a time, but was likely not in violation of the CBA.
The owners did have to pay, but only $12M, and with no admission of guilt.
In light of this, the circumstances I laid out yesterday seem pretty frivolous and almost certainly won't result in any judgment against the owners, considering they non-tendered 46 players on the same fucking day, and didn't have to admit any guilt.
I just really don't like the thinly veiled, tacit encouragement to scale back spending that Selig endorsed when he asked Volcker to address the owners and executives. Like I said in the previous post, maybe the owners would have come to that conclusion anyway. So why allow the appearance of impropriety? Perhaps Bud could have presented Volcker as a resource for the owners to contact individually if they had specific questions.
It just gives a lot of credence to the sentiment that since Selig was an owner, he is now a stooge for the owners. Baseball will be better off if their next commissioner has the betterment of the game in mind, instead of the interests of the owners alone.
The word "collusion" gets thrown around a lot in baseball circles, most recently in reference to this gentleman, and shortly before that, this guy and as Joe said in the comments it's only a matter of time before it's said in conjunction with Manny. In all three cases, I would tend to take things at face value and conclude that these are 30 teams all acting rationally and coming to the same conclusions.
An interesting fact that I was unaware of: It was Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale who created the need for these regulations by demanding joint negotiations with the Dodgers prior to the 1966 season (Wikipedia). As a result of the leverage provided by these transparent negotiations, the two pitchers received the two largest contracts in baseball history at the time. The owners were obviously none too pleased, and wanted to ensure this was not allowed to happen again.
In 1968, when Marvin Miller negotiated the first Collective Bargaining Agreement, he ensured that the owners were not allowed to collude either. The final language in the CBA reads "Players shall not act in concert with other Players and Clubs shall not act in concert with other Clubs."
According to Roger I. Abrams in his book Legal Bases, the owners didn't see how this restriction could ever apply to them. They were wrong. In the age of free agency, players gained the upper hand and were now able to negotiate with all other teams, and the resulting competition drove salaries upward, theoretically.
In 1986, a year when only four free agents switched teams and free agent salaries declined by 16%, the Player's Association filed a grievance against the owners, claiming that they had been acting together so as not to bid for each others players. The arbitration process consisted of 32 days of hearings spread out over almost a year, and in the end Arbitrator Tom Roberts ruled in favor of the players. Again according to Legal Bases, the rationale was that:
"Reaching a formal agreement was only one of many ways for two or more parties to act in concert. Some 'common scheme or plan' would be sufficient to provide a violation of that parties' bargain."
For roughly 45 minutes. According to several people who attended the meeting, Volcker discussed what led to the current economic plight and where things might be headed. His assessment was not upbeat, the attendees said.
At the end of his presentation, Volcker took several questions from owners and officials but did not specifically address how the economy could affect the 30 teams, big market and small, in the months to come.
Those who spoke about Volcker’s remarks did so on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be linked to the public discussion of a private meeting.
The off-season was already under way, but basically no free agent signings had occurred yet. On a certain level, you have to think that Selig knew that Volcker's assessment wasn't going to be "upbeat". They certainly must have spoken recently about the state of the economy before Selig asked him to address the owners.
Selig said he first broached the idea of having Volcker address the owners when he saw him at a World Series game last month.
You think they might have had some sort of a discussion about the economy when they ran into each other at the World Series? The World Series obviously took place in October, a month when the market posted triple digit fluctuations in 20 out of 23 days of trading. If Selig respected Volcker's opinion enough to have him address the franchise owners of his mega-billion dollar corporation, then he would surely have sought some expert insight in such turbulent financial times. Men of much smaller intellects and bank accounts were discussing the economy at that time. It was the most important and prevalent conversation echoing throughout the country and had been since the Lehman bankruptcy over a month before.
So what I'm getting at is... doesn't that sound like "acting in concert" or at least promoting or encouraging "a common scheme or plan"? Not surprisingly, neither Selig or Volcker have commented on the what was said during the 45 minute address. Even if Volcker didn't "specifically address how the economy could affect the 30 teams", doesn't this at least create the appearance of impropriety?
Maybe teams would have come to the same conclusions and almost universally ratcheted down spending (save for the Yankees, who have historically taken their own stance against the MLB). But if you were an executive or owner, wouldn't you be more reluctant to spend after hearing a pessimistic assessment of the economy from an ex-Federal Reserve Chairman who had "warned against the credit collapse for several years"?
When the flow of baseball news slows to a trickle over the offseason in the absence of game action, it becomes a challenge to maintain a stream of interesting content. After we baseball bloggers are done debating not whether the awards voting was poorly done but whether we should even care about it to begin with, we are left with a few means of filling content aside from playing whack-a-mole with an RSS reader until something intriguing finally materializes. One of those techniques is to keep hitting "refresh" over at MLBTR and pray the word "Yankees" appears (something we generally avoid), while another is to scroll through the newsblog over at BBTF and hope something strikes our fancy. 
See how well the football field fits into the dimensions of the baseball configurat... wait, I'm sorry, what's that? It doesn't fit at all and the dugouts might have to be filled-in during these games just to accomodate the corners of the endzones? Just look at how the stands unnecessarily jut away from from the 50 yard lines! I like what you did there, Lonn. There's hardly a good seat in the house!
Nice work, Manny
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