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Originally posted by Thanos:
blah blah blah

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Originally posted by Thanos:
**** the Yankees.

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There's no crying in baseball!

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Originally posted by speechjew:
Big Game Hunter is hunting sting rays today.

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LOL..I kept trying to find the "like" button for this post.

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Originally posted by gaeacradle:
Sigh...Rangers lost again. Oh well, Price vs. Lee in Game 5 should be amazing.

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Originally posted by Greven53:
Ahh, the Twins lost and I can officially close the 2010 season in my head. Congratulations to the Yankees and Phillies for buying the World Series (I hope I am wrong), if it takes a lock-out to fix this crap then perhaps it is time.

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Originally posted by Thanos:
I don't understand how you can claim the Phillies bought their team when most of it was farm raised or traded for with with the farm system.

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Not to mention anyone who wins the World Series technically bought it since they did have to pay their players something.

I can understand the frustration in that the system does make it easier for certain teams to retain their pricey players as well as afford a few mistakes along the way. But for now, that's the way the system works and though it appears that a NY-PHI World Series is in the cards, there's also nothing wrong with seeing two very good teams play each other to see who's better.

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Originally posted by Greven53:
Ahh, the Twins lost and I can officially close the 2010 season in my head. Congratulations to the Yankees and Phillies for buying the World Series (I hope I am wrong), if it takes a lock-out to fix this crap then perhaps it is time.

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yeah man, what are you smoking? Howard, utley, rollins, Hamels, ruiz, victorino, polanco (former philly), and werth were all either original players or signed young.

They traded bourn for lidge, drabek for halladay, happ (3rd round) and gose (2nd round) for oswalt, and made minor trades for romero and durbin.

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Originally posted by speechjew:
yeah man, what are you smoking? Howard, utley, rollins, Hamels, ruiz, victorino, polanco (former philly), and werth were all either original players or signed young.

They traded bourn for lidge, drabek for halladay, happ (3rd round) and gose (2nd round) for oswalt, and made minor trades for romero and durbin.

The only big free agents on the team? Raul Ibanez and Joe Blanton.

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Yankees 2010 Payroll 206 million
Phillies 2010 Payroll 142 million

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Originally posted by rats60:
Most teams don't have that type of money to spend on players.

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That's what they want you to believe, but it's not true.

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Originally posted by JoshSherman:
That's what they want you to believe, but it's not true.

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Do you really think that the Rays can spend 142 million to resign their players? ROTFLMAO. Teams in small markets can't compete. How do you think the Yankees would like it if all the small market teams decided to move into the NY/NJ area. The Rays and Twins could draw a lot more fans and make a lot more money. Then they might be able to come close to evening the playing field. The Yankees would never go for that, they want to always be able to out spend everyone else.

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Originally posted by rats60:
Do you really think that the Rays can spend 142 million to resign their players? ROTFLMAO. Teams in small markets can't compete. How do you think the Yankees would like it if all the small market teams decided to move into the NY/NJ area. The Rays and Twins could draw a lot more fans and make a lot more money. Then they might be able to come close to evening the playing field. The Yankees would never go for that, they want to always be able to out spend everyone else.

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Are you saying if the Rays/Twins moved into NY, that people will root for them over the Yankees?! Really? The Rays and Twins have so much more of a history than the Yankees huh?

The Pirates are in the top echelon of profiting baseball teams yet they don't spend that much on their payroll (they do spend more than any other team on their farm system)

The Yankees can afford to outspend everyone because the majority of the profit that is generated by the team and the YES network go back into the major league product.

Players also want to come to NY for A)Chance to win a championship, B) the high quality they are treated and C) for the rich history that the Yankees have.

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Originally posted by rats60:
Do you really think that the Rays can spend 142 million to resign their players? ROTFLMAO. Teams in small markets can't compete.

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The Rays are in the small market, and they are competing. According to Cot's baseball contracts, the Rays are actually spending more than Texas by a bit. Only the Yanks and Phillies are over 100 million.

Consider that the following teams are also over 100 million:
Dodgers, Mets, White Sox, Angels, Red Sox, and Tigers. Of course, none of those teams are in the playoffs. Some of them being outright awful teams.

http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/

Awesome website btw.

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Originally posted by rats60:
Do you really think that the Rays can spend 142 million to resign their players? ROTFLMAO. Teams in small markets can't compete. How do you think the Yankees would like it if all the small market teams decided to move into the NY/NJ area. The Rays and Twins could draw a lot more fans and make a lot more money. Then they might be able to come close to evening the playing field. The Yankees would never go for that, they want to always be able to out spend everyone else.

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I don't know about the Rays, but the Rangers should have no excuse from here on out on spending. Especially since THIS will give them $150M a year before they even sell a single ticket.

Now, the question becomes who can sustain their own networks. The Yankees obviously benefit from having their own network to charge whatever ad rates they can get away with. Their target audience is almost as big as number 2 (LA) and 3 (CHI) combined. And that's just in NYC proper.

There are at best 5 or 6 teams that could sustain their own networks. Yankees, Red Sox, and Cubs for sure. Possibly also the Dodgers, Phillies, and Mets.

At some point, individual network revenue is going to have to be dealt with because as far as I know the current system has a huge loophole. Tom Ricketts (the Cubs owner) can personally create his own Cubs Network and then sell the Cubs broadcast rights to the network for $1M annually for 20 years. That is the only number that would be reported to MLB in the team income portion for revenue sharing purposes when in reality Ricketts has also pulled in anywhere from $150M-$200M from the Cubs Network.

That kind of imbalance (while great if you're a fan of any of those teams) is going to cause even more problems as the divide grows. Any guesses as to where Strasburg or Harper are going to end up in 8 or 9 years?

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Originally posted by stu55:

Are you saying if the Rays/Twins moved into NY, that people will root for them over the Yankees?! Really? The Rays and Twins have so much more of a history than the Yankees huh?

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No one is going to out draw the Yankess, but they would at least be more competitive financially. Look at the Mets with their 133 million payroll this year and 150 million last, despite having losing teams. You don't think that more people would rather go to a Rays or Twins game than a Mets game?

If the Rays had 150 million to spend on their players, they could bid against teams like the Yankees to keep their players. Teams in small markets can only win thru their farm systems. It is much easier for teams like the Yankees to just buy the stars when they need them.

Rangers and Yankees' payrolls have the biggest disparity ever.

Yes, some of the numbers are not 100% true. They are not what the teams are paying them, but what the players are earning. It is two different things.

The Rangers are only paying 4 mil of Lee's 9 mil, while the Yankees aren't paying a cent of Berkman's.

Still pretty cool to see the underdog Rebel Alliance take on the Evil Empire.

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Originally posted by speechjew:
Rangers in 7

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I hope so. I'm just glad all the Yankees hater will be supporting the Rangers.