It’s been 31 days since the Yankees lost the World Series to the Florida Marlins, which means it’s been 30 days since armchair GMs started tripping over each other to offer blueprints for fixing the numerous glaring weaknesses of a team which won 101 regular-season games and its sixth pennant in eight years. The past month has seen pundits posit the pinstripes as the perfect prescription for every marquee free agent this side of Pudge Rodriguez. They’ve plotted trades for big names such as Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, Curt Schilling, Carlos Beltran, and Javier Vasquez, among others. They’ve expected George Steinbrenner to pound a panic button which would jettison Alfonso Soriano to the far reaches of the Walla Walla Sweet Onion League for his meager postseason performance, coax Roger Clemens out of retirement, trade Nick Johnson for a mouthy, over-the-hill former ace who’s an armchair GM himself, and claim Manny Ramirez‘s $100 million contract and ten-cent head off of waivers from the Boston Red Sox.

Yet despite all of the ink spilled in this rush to remake the Yanks, none of this has happened. Surprise! What’s next — an article from Peter Gammons entitled “Pitching Comes First for Yankees”? Too late. Sorting out the fly shit from the pepper — to borrow a phrase from my father — when it comes to the Yanks’ offseason plans has been a tedious task, one that I’ve pretty much avoided except in private conversation. After all, most of these deals don’t even pass the crack pipe test (“If you were a GM who’d been smoking crack for a week, would you make this trade?”), let alone merit a blow-by-blow evaluation.

For once, the team with the game’s biggest payroll seems determined not to set the market. That’s likely an impossiblity, given that the Yanks can always outbid their opponents, and that they may be the only team capable of making a multi-free-agent splash. But like every other team, they seem determined to wait for the secondary free-agent market (based on non-tendered players as of December 20) to present cheaper alternatives and perhaps bring down the asking price of the non blue-chip free agents.

Let us review where the Yanks stand. The Yankees have eleven players under contract for 2004, in commitments that total nearly $100 million. Believe it or not, they have even more money tied up in 2005, and nearly $400 million committed over the next six years. Here are their long-term commitments, with all figures in millions, via the MLB Contracts Page. These numbers have been calculated to include prorated signing bonuses; year-by-year team totals include buyouts but not team options:

2004: Jeter $18, Mussina $14, Williams $12, Giambi $10, Posada $9, Contreras $9, Rivera $8.89, Matsui $7, Weaver $6.25, Karsay $5, Lieber $2.45. Total: $99.59 million

2005: Jeter $19, Mussina $17, Williams $12, Posada $12, Giambi $11, Weaver $9.25, Contreras $8, Matsui $8, Lieber $8 team option/$0.25 buyout, Karsay $5. Total: $101.5 million

2006: Jeter $20, Giambi $18, Mussina $17, Williams $15/$3.5, Posada $13.5, Contreras $9, Karsay $6.5/$1.25. Total: $82.25 million

2007: Jeter $21, Giambi $21, Mussina $17/$1.5, Posada $12/$4. Total: $47.5 million

2008: Jeter $21, Giambi $21. Total: $42 million

2009: Jeter $21, Giambi $22/$5. Total: 26 million

Whew. For better or worse, the Yanks are locked in on several players; due to their large, backloaded contracts, Giambi and Jeter would almost certainly sail through waivers just as Manny did. These commitments make a wholesale housecleaning impossible, requiring the Yanks to patch up their foundation and improve incrementally. Fortunately, a housecleaning is not what the Yanks require, and unlike most other teams, they’ve got the money to pay salaries other teams can only bitch about.

As it stands right now, the 2004 Yanks face two fundamental problems:

1) The rotation may be facing its biggest overhaul of the Joe Torre era.

2) The team’s up-the-middle core, second baseman Alfonso Soriano, shortstop Derek Jeter, and centerfielder Bernie Williams, is bordering on defensive inadequacy for a ballclub with championship aspirations.

I’ll explore both of these problems in greater depth in next couple of weeks. For now, here’s a quick glimpse at a few of the free-agent situations they’re facing:

• They’re not getting Curt Schilling for their starting rotation. A couple of weeks ago, the word was that George Steinbrenner was set on Schilling as Roger Clemens’ replacement in the Yankee rotation. But the Diamondbacks appeared to overplay their hand. According to a report from ESPN’s Jayson Stark (who is apparently Schilling’s personal mouthpiece, judging by his three columns in ten days devoted to the pitcher’s Hamlet-like deliberations): “Arizona asked for Nick Johnson and Alfonso Soriano and a prospect. And the Yankees were expected to assume not just Schilling’s $12-million salary for next year, but also more than $16 million in deferrals. And take back either Matt Mantei or Junior Spivey.” One can only hope Brian Cashman didn’t break a rib laughing at that one.

Since that rebuke, the Red Sox have put together a trade for Schilling, one in which they’d give up pitcher Casey Fossum and three prospects — in other words, no proven talent. But that deal is contingent on Schilling waiving his no-trade clause, presumably to sign a two- or three-year contract extension which would enable him to end his career in Beantown. Until he decides to lobby for another trade, that is. And only if the team hires his pal Terry Francona as manager, a move the Boston Globe reports is in the pipeline.

Of course, the New York-area papers are ready to paint Schilling-to-Boston as another crisis which will have Steinbrenner screaming for vengeance. Please. The Yanks didn’t get to where they are by going off half-cocked every time some tabloid spelled out a Sox deal. If you’re a Yanks fan, count yourself lucky they didn’t give up either Soriano or Johnson in a Schilling deal, and that he’ll soon be somebody else’s headache.

Steven Goldman, who writes the “Pinstriped Bible” column for YES, had an enlightening take on the Yankee angle to this deal:

The two Yankees young enough not to have fought in the War of 1812 are safe, at least until Boston resolves Curt Schilling’s contract demands. Given the lesser package Arizona seems to have accepted — three pitchers of unsettled destiny plus an outfielder who slugged .295 in the Sally League, Arizona’s demand for Alfonso Soriano and Nick Johnson can be viewed as an opening gambit, a bluff. It also serves as an epitaph for the Yankees farm system.

The Yankees currently do not have sufficiently exciting prospects to put together a package of nearly-ready talent. If you’re thinking of trading with the Yankees and you don’t want expensive veterans or fringe-y youngsters, Johnson and Soriano are really the only items of interest left on the menu.

While that may be true, there are still other reasons to like Schilling in a Red Sox uniform from the Yankee point of view. One is that it would appear to limit Boston’s long-term spending options. They already made a desperate move to free themselves from Manny Ramirez’s contract, and they’re in the final year of Nomar Garciaparra’s and Pedro Martinez’s deals. Handing out $25-40 million in extensions to the new kid in town isn’t likely to be a hit with those two, and it’s also unclear whether Boston would assume responsiblity for the deferred money. Additionally, signing him would likely eliminate the Sox as one of Andy Pettitte’s suitors.

Steinbrenner’s admiration to the contrary, Curt Schilling is not Roger Clemens. He’s a pitcher who’s had two excellent seasons and several good ones over the course of his career, but he’s never won a Cy Young award, let alone six, and he’s got a ways to go to win 200 games. He’s a flyball pitcher, not particularly well suited to Fenway Park, where he hasn’t done too well historically (career 6.04 ERA in 25.1 innings). On the other hand, he’s still a fine pitcher who strikes out more than 10 men per nine innings and has pinpoint control, allowing less than two walks per nine in each of the past four seasons. Though he spent a bit of time on the DL last season, that time was due to an appendectomy and a broken hand, not shoulder or elbow trouble. But as the Yanks found out in the World Series, old pitchers have a nasty habit of breaking down at inopportune times. Let Schilling break down on somebody else’s watch.

• They’re not getting Vladimir Guerrero as their rightfielder. The 27-year-old is, as ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick puts it, “The only player young, talented and accomplished enough to set the standard for free agents this winter.” But Vlad picked the wrong year to become a free man, or at least the wrong strategy to pursue. The market is slow, and teams aren’t inclined to give out the large, long-term contracts that they tossed around so freely in the past (see Ramirez, Manny).

Yankee GM Brian Cashman has shown little interest; his long-term payroll obligations are too high to justify signing Vlad to a multi-year deal. As he told Crasnick: “He’s a 27-year-old premier free-agent outfielder, and I’ve got a lot of guys on very large contracts. Not that we’re not interested in Vladimir Guerrero, but our current commitments negate us from being a player on him.”

Fair enough. As the New York Daily News‘ Anthony McCarren points out, it’s possible that Cashman is just being a savvy negotiator (imagine that!): “[M]aybe the Yankees are positioning themselves for a late run if Guerrero doesn’t get what he wants elsewhere.”

• The Yanks appear to prefer Gary Sheffield as their rightfielder. Unlike Guerrero, the 35-year-old Sheffield is in no position to demand a deal longer than three years. A few days ago, Sheff’s uncle Dwight Gooden floated the rumor that his nephew was poised to sign with the Yanks, something along the lines of $35-40 million over three years. That’s not an unreasonable amount of dough for a guy who’s averaged 35 homers, 105 RBI and an OPS in the neighborhood of 1.000 over the past 5 years, even if he does lead the league in headaches. Sheffield appears to like the Yanks as well.

But it’s not a done deal — Sheffield lawyer/contract consultant (he fired agent Scott Boras this year) is still giving the standard “We’re talking to many teams” spiel, and the Braves, his team of the past two seasons, are still in the picture. The money from either team may not be as high as Sheffield desires. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the Yanks are preparing a 2-year, $22 million offer, while the Braves are offering about $10 million a year for two or three years — this despite the fact that Sheffield made $11 million this past season.

Expect plenty of bitching before this one comes to pass.

Rich’s Weekend Baseball Beat continues its fine interview series this weekend, checking in with David Pinto of the prolific Baseball Musings blog. What’s most interesting about Pinto is that he has a lot more professional experience around baseball than most bloggers. He built software for Stats, Inc., working with Bill James and John Dewan and helping to develop the Zone Rating system. He worked as the head of research for ESPN’s Baseball Tonight TV show, creating graphics and putting numbers at the fingertips of the show’s hosts. He numbers Peter Gammons and Rob Neyer among his friends. Recently his name even came up in connection with an opening for a stat analysit in the New York Mets front office, though the job apparently went to somebody else. Rich Lederer touches bases with Pinto on all of these topics in his interview.

In addition to his short takes on the news of the day, Pinto has been working on a much larger and more complex project related to defensive statistics which he calls “Probabilistic Model of Range”. Here’s how he describes his work to Lederer:

Range is the Holy Grail of baseball stats. We all have a feeling for what range represents, but it’s really difficult to pin down with a number. Plays per game, plays per nine innings, and zone ratings were all attempts at measuring range, and they all have their flaws. UZR was the first probabilistic model that I know of. It looked at the probability of making a play in a particular zone (area) on the field. Mine is similar to that, although I eliminate the idea of a zone.

Basically, there is a probability distribution of balls put into play. The normal position of fielders should be where those probabilities are densest; in other words, the shortstop should stand where the most ground balls are hit in his area of responsibility. Ground balls hit in the densest region should be easier to field because that’s where the SS is usually standing. So if you field a ball there it’s no big deal, everyone does that. But as you move left or right from the region of highest density, the balls are more likely to get through for hits. So a SS who consistently fields those balls well should get more credit than someone who doesn’t. So the probabilistic model of range tries to model these probabilities and assign them to fielders based on where balls are hit.

For the uninitiated, UZR stands for Ultimate Zone Rating, a system by Mitchell Lichtman which examines defense using play-by-play data including the location and speed of batted balls. Basically, what both Lichtman’s and Pinto’s systems are asking is, What is the probability of a batted ball becoming an out, given the parameters (direction, how hard, and type) of that batted ball? From Pinto’s blog:

I’ve used the STATS, Inc. database to obtain three parameters for each ball; its direction (a slice of pie fanning out from home plate), its batted type (ground, fly, line, bunt or pop) and how hard the ball was hit (soft, medium or hard). I then did a maximum likelihood estimate of the probability of an out given those three parameters for each of the nine fielders.

In a follow-up post, Pinto explains the difference between the two systems. Ultimately, work such as this will give us a better understanding of just how much influence a pitcher has in influencing the outcome of a ball in play, expanding upon the work of DIPS inventor Voros McCracken.

Pinto is definitely a prominent figure in the world of baseball blogging, one who’s clearly got the skills to be employed inside the game. Catch up with him before some team entices him to put his number-crunching skills to work for them.

I’m pleased to report that my surgery on Wednesday went well. In an operation that lasted about an hour, my surgeon made four small incisions and put in two anchors to repair my torn labrum. He said the surgery went “perfectly” and that there was no damage in my rotator cuff.

I’ve been convalescing in relative comfort at home, thanks to my girlfriend, who’s been a great nurse throughout. I’m unable to do much of anything with my right arm, which is immobilized in a sling, so it’s been a difficult process to eat, and my typing has devolved into the hunt-and-peck stages. So I’m going to sit back and relax for another couple of days before trying to resume my regular blogging here. Thanks again to everybody who’s sent along their best wishes. It’s nice to know I’ve got friends out there. I’ll be back in the lineup soon.

Wednesday is my labrum surgery, and as you can guess I’m a bit anxious. But after all of the homework I’ve done, the consensus of people I’ve talked to — doctors, physcial therapists, family — is virtually unanimous; this needs to be done. I spoke to my doctor today and he reassured me about the procedure, which will likely take 45-90 minutes depending on whether they find damage in my rotator cuff as well. Inquiring GMs are standing by, trying to gauge whether to offer me an NRI to go with my MRI.

Thanks to everybody who’s called or written over the past several days to wish me the best. My surgery will be sometime Wednesday morning, and I’ll be home by the afternoon. I should be back in my usual chair in a couple of days, when we’ll see how well I can blog with my left hand and a few painkillers.

Neil deMause’s book Field of Schemes (co-written with Joanna Cagan) has been in my reading pile for quite a while, and I thought of him a couple times over the past few days while reading and writing about the Milwaukee mess. The book’s subtitle, “How the great stadium swindle turns public money into private profit,” serves to remind that the people of Milwaukee are not alone in being bilked by club owners.

There must be something in the air, because today deMause has an excellent free article at Baseball Prospectus called “The Stadium Game.” The piece examines the boom which has seen 19 new stadiums built in 18 years, counting the new ballparks in San Diego and Philadelphia slated to open next spring. According to deMause, these new parks have cost taxpayers around $5 billion, On the boom, he writes:

The start of the new-stadium craze is easy to pinpoint. In 1989, SkyDome demonstrated that a retractable roof was technically feasible (if pricey–the SkyDome lid drove its total cost over $600 million in Canadollars), while introducing baseball’s first full-scale food court, complete with baseball’s first seven-dollar hot dogs. It also shattered attendance records: the Jays are still the only team other than the Rockies in their Mile High days to sell more than four million tickets in one season, demonstrating that fans would turn out just to take a gander at a new building (though the two titles won by the Jays in SkyDome’s first five years helped some, too). When two years later Camden Yards inaugurated the “retro” craze, single-handedly sweeping HOK’s old concrete-bowl blueprints into history’s dustbin, it set off a feeding frenzy among teams to be the next kid on the block with a shiny new toy.

The result has transformed baseball. On the field, the new home run-friendly parks have helped create the surge in offense that typifies Selig-era baseball, while turning such traditional homer havens as Wrigley Field into relative pitcher’s parks. In the stands, the layers of luxury seating that are de rigeur in modern facilities have made the cheap seat with a good view a thing of the past, as nearly every new park has featured upper decks more distant from the field than the old buildings they replaced. The new parks raised demand for tickets, and owners have taken full advantage–new parks have seen average ticket price as much as double in a single off-season.

DeMause examines the remaining candidates for new parks, rating them from contenders to long shots. The most obvious contender is the World Champion Florida Marlins, about whom he writes:

Though Marlins execs have never stopped griping about the unsuitability of Pro Player Stadium for baseball… the team’s real problem is the albatross of a lease that Huizenga designed as a way to siphon off funds from the team while crying poverty. (Economist Andrew Zimbalist estimated that in the 1997 championship year, it enabled the former garbage-hauling king to turn a $14 million profit into a $34 million paper loss.) What really needs to happen, says Zimbalist, is “Huizenga ought to renegotiate the lease. If he doesn’t, they’ll probably get a new stadium, and he won’t get any money out of it. Pro Player is a decent stadium, and with a decent lease, that place can work.”

DeMause also notes that we’re unlikely to see another privately-financed stadium like San Francisco’s Pac Bell any time soon:

Pac Bell Park became the only privately funded ballpark of the last four decades for a reason: It was built in a city with the world’s highest concentration of dot-com tycoons, at precisely the moment when they were flush enough to be hit up for the long-term seat licenses that laid the foundation for the new park…

The dodgy prospects of even an unmitigated success like Pac Bell–one estimate by Sports Business News projected that the team needs to sell 30,000 tickets a night for the next 20 years just to break even on its stadium debt–points to the dirty little secret of the stadium boom: On their own, they don’t make money. Though team owners have been enriched by their new digs, it’s not from the new luxury-box and concessions revenues, which wouldn’t even pay debt service on all the steel and concrete. The only money to be made in new stadiums is by subsidizing team profits with the public purse.

That doesn’t exactly paint a pretty picture for going the Pac Bell route — not that Bad Rug Bud is about to let another team try. But with no stadium currently under construction for the first time since 1985 (when the Toronto Skydome broke ground), let’s hope that the taxpayers in these candidate cities take a long, hard look at the disasters that have taken place in Milwaukee, Detroit, et al before falling into similar traps.

With the Brewers Payne-ful situation lurching towards a conculsion, Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has an article examinning a situation Milwaukee fans are all too familiar with: when bad ballclubs enter new ballparks. The consistency of this trend is alarming:

The lessons learned in Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Cincinnati in recent years have been harsh, bringing a sobering dose of reality to franchises counting on new ballparks and ramped-up payrolls to result in tremendous success, on and off the field. All four ballclubs now are in disarray, financially and competitively.

“When you look at it, all four general managers – Dean Taylor (Milwaukee), Jim Bowden (Cincinnati), Cam Bonifay (Pittsburgh) and Randy Smith (Detroit) – were fired,” said Doug Melvin, who replaced Taylor last year.

“All of them tried to go into new ballparks with higher payrolls and thought it would make a difference. That’s out the window now. Clubs like San Diego and Philadelphia have to be a little wary about that.”

Haudricort rattles off lots of numbers pertaining to the Unfab Four, as he calls them. Rather than regurgitate those numbers, I thought it would be helpful to assemble them into a simple chart, but then I took it a notch further by plugging it into a spreadsheet. Because Haudricort’s payroll data had some gaps and inconsistencies, I tossed it aside, instead opting to use the handy USA Today Baseball Salary Database. That database uses opening day roster figures (not my favorite measure) but actual salaries and prorated bonuses (as opposed to average salaries plucked from multi-year contracts which may be heavily backloaded — a big plus). Looking at the four teams, the trend becomes very visible (payroll and attendance in millions):

              old0     new1     new2    new3     new4

Detroit       1999     2000     2001     2002     2003

 payroll     $35.0    $61.7    $49.4    $55.0    $49.2 

 attendance   2.03     2.44     1.92     1.50     1.36

 wins           69       79       66       55       43

 losses         92       83       96      106      119



Milwaukee     2000     2001     2002     2003    

 payroll     $35.8    $45.1    $50.3    $40.6     

 attendance   1.57     2.81     1.97     1.70    

 wins           73       68       56       66    

 losses         89       94      106       96    



Pittsburgh    2000     2001     2002     2003    

 payroll     $29.6    $57.8    $42.3    $54.8     

 attendance   1.75     2.46     1.78     1.64    

 wins           69       62       72       75        

 losses         93      100       89       87        



Cincinnati    2002     2003                

 payroll     $45.1    $59.4                 

 attendance   1.86     2.36                

 wins           78       69                

 losses         84       93                



Average      4 tms    4 tms    3 tms    3 tms     1 tm   yrs 2-4 

 payroll     $36.4    $56.0    $47.3    $50.1    $49.2    $48.8

 attendance   1.80     2.52     1.89     1.61     1.36     1.70

 wins         72.3     69.5     64.7     65.3       43     61.9

 losses       89.5     92.5     97.0     96.3      119     99.9

Make no mistake, whether we look at the “before” or the “after,” these are bad ballclubs. There’s not a single winning season in the fifteen under examination, and the teams’ aggregate winning percentage in this chart is .412, equiavalent to a godawful 67-95 record (or rather, fifteen of them).

Looking at the Average section, here we can see that the typical team, entertaining delusions of grandeur, boosted its payroll by a whopping 54 percent upon moving to a new park. Its attendance shot up almost as dramatically, 40 percent upon moving, but on that new field, the team was actually three games worse. The second year in the new park, the team slashed payroll by 16%, and lost big — another five games on the field, and 25% of its attendance. In year three, payroll was increased ever so slightly, but the on-field product stagnated and attendance sagged another 15%. Year four was downright biblical for the one team that’s gotten so far; next year’s Brewers and Pirates should beware.

Granted, it’s a small sample, but what’s perhaps most alarming and depressing about all of this is that once the novelty wears off, these teams look to be worse off than before. Comparing the average of the years 2-4 to the final year in an old park, we see a payroll that’s 34 percent higher, attendance that’s 6 percent lower, and a team that’s ten games worse. Even throwing out last year’s Tigers, average team is seven games worse off than before in years 2-3.

What all of this underscores is that, far from Cleveland Indians model and the rhetoric of Bud Selig and various owners, a new ballpark is anything but a panacea for a mediocre team hoping to become competitive. Once the honeymoon’s over, disappointment in the team’s onfield performance can generate a backlash in the fan base that footed the bill for the new venue, exacerbating a cycle of misery and making it even harder for a team to improve enough to contend. Far from being a model for success, this is a recipe for failure.

Call this a remix of what I put online earlier this evening…

Grab the Money: Superdupestar Barry Bonds pulled a puzzling move the other day by announcing that he was pulling out of the Major League Baseball Players Association group licensing agreement. The move is a first in Players Association history but not unprecedented in the world of sports; Michael Jordan pulled a similar stunt. The agreement covers money each player earns through the sale of licensed merchandise such as jerseys, cards, and video games, and means that Barry’s name and likeness won’t be used as part of those products unless and until Bonds negotiates a separate deal with each company producing the product. That means you or your kids won’t play Barry Bonds on a Playstation 2 game, or flip through a pack of cards in search of a Bonds one until Barry gets more money for going it alone.

Damn. Just when I thought I had come around on my opinion of Bonds, he pulled the rug right out from under me. There’s no way of spinning this as anything other than a purely selfish move, a cash grab out of naked greed. Is it within his legal rights to take this action? Yes. But licensing money is a slice of the pie by which all major leaguers are created essentially equal, with their payments based solely on service time (see below), not on star power. Unlike the 25th guy on the Tampa Bay bench, Barry’s already got an astronomical salary ($16 mil in 2004) and endorsement opportunities galore in which he can reap the benefits of his prowess.

The MLBPA is the strongest union in the world for a reason — its stars stay in line with the rank and file, increasing all of their bargaining power. For Barry to do this sets an ugly precedent; if Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield and a few more eight-figure guys forego the licensing agreement, suddenly the Melvin Moras of the world are going to be out a significant chunk of change.

As for the dollars involved here, I don’t have a full grasp on them. Judging from the scarcity of information on the Internet, just how much the MLBPA makes in licensing money appears to be a closely guarded secret (the only source I could find was in a book costing $1,095 — thanks, I’ll wait for a used copy to show up at the Strand). According to a USA Today piece on Topps baseball cards from 2001:

Each big-league player receives a $500 check from Topps in addition to the licensing royalties the company pays the Major League Baseball Players’ Association. (Licensing revenue is the major source of revenue for the MLBPA). The union gives each player one check for all licensing rights, from cards to videos to T-shirts. The amount is on a scale, based of years of major-league service, but the MLBPA doesn’t disclose the figures.

Five hundred dollars isn’t much, but remember that’s just one of a multitude of products which the MLBPA licenses. The impact on the players is one thing, and while it won’t prevent the aforementioned Mr. Mora from feeding his quintuplets, it’s just a jerk-assed thing to do.

But the message this sends to fans is even more jerk-assed. Bonds is saying in effect, “Hey, I’m too good for you to be able to buy my cards and jerseys the way you buy those of everybody else. You fans should have to pay more for Barry Bonds than you do for somebody else.” That brand of arrogance has prevented many fans from taking to Bonds as he’s scaled unprecedented heights of individual performance the past few years. An extra $20 or $50 for a Bonds jersey may seem like chump change to Barry. But it just proves he’s the chump.

• • •

Hide the Money: Doug Pappas, the foremost authority on the game’s finances, has been covering the developing Brewers’ situation in his Business of Baseball weblog. On Friday, in response to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article which stated that in addition to cuts for 2004, the Brewers payroll was going to be reduced through 2006, Doug did some figuring. His estimate reveals a considerable gap between what the Brewers can expect to take in and what their reported operating budgets are:

[T]he report says that the Brewers’ baseball operations budget — not just major league player salaries, but the cost of benefits, coaches, trainers, managers, and the entire minor league system, including signing bonuses for draftees — will be $60.58 million in 2004, $60.5 million in 2005 and $61.4 million in 2006. For a club in a new ballpark that expects to receive $15 million from the revenue sharing pool this year and more in the future, that’s ridiculously low.

The Brewers say they’re paying $8 million/year in debt service. Adding that to the baseball operations budget brings the club’s expenses up to about $70 million/year. While the Brewers haven’t released revenue figures, MLB’s 2001 financial disclosures provide a basis for some reasonable estimates. The Brewers probably receive:

• $15 million/year (and rising) from the revenue sharing pool

• $25 million/year (and rising) from national revenues

• $6 million/year from local radio and TV

• $50 million/year from gate receipts and other stadium-related revenues. The $50 million figure represents a 40% decline in these revenues since 2001, the Brewers’ first year at Miller Park, when they took in $83 million from these sources.

These conservative estimates bring the Brewers’ revenues up to $96 million/year. If they spend $70 million/year on baseball operations and debt service combined, that leaves $26 million for other expenses. Where is all that money going?

Those 2001 financial disclosures are the ones Doug thoroughly explored in his award-winning eight-part series, “The Numbers,” and they are essential reading for anyone who wishes to grapple with baseball’s finances and the sleight-of-hand which they reveal. So if Doug says there’s $26 million missing and somebody else (even –especially — a Selig) tells you “that ain’t so,” ask them to get out their spreadsheets and run through the figures for you.

And speaking of Bad Rug Bud, another J-S piece reveals that while he’s the commissioner of baseball and his ownership stake is in a trust, Bud has put $13.2 million of his own money into the team “over the past five or six years.” Hmmmm, doesn’t the supposedly neutral commissioner putting millions of dollars into a team suggest a conflict of interest?

Not according to Bob Dupuy, MLB’s CEO and president: “In my opinion and the opinion of the clubs, I think Bud has been scrupulous in avoiding any appearance of either favoring or being involved with the operation of the Brewers.” Well, case closed, right? Dupuy did elaborate: “The only thing that he has a right to be consulted on is putting up money. He has a right to say he’ll invest or not invest when they make capital calls.”

So then, Bud the Owner can put his money behind a scheme which Bud the Commissioner (different guy, see?) has helped to create and enforce, such as a revenue-sharing setup which brings the Brewers the most money out of any team in the league and which will cover at least half of its payroll next year. That is rich, and I don’t mean Sexson. Kids, if that ain’t a conflict of interest, I don’t know what is.

• • •

Où est le Boof? The reasons behind it are a story for another day, but the winter GM meetings in Arizona wrapped up after a week with only a single deal going down. In the lone trade, the Minnesota Twins traded All-Star catcher A.J Pierzynski to the San Franscisco Giants for reliever Joe Nathan and two minor-league hurlers (repeat after me: There’s No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect). One of those minor-leaguers — Boof Bonser — caught my attention not just because of his improbable name (which is almost as good as the just-released Stubby Clapp) but also because he’s got a blog named after him which is devoted to his now-former team. Here’s what the site had to say on Friday:

And, thanks for the concern, but the name of the blog didn’t convey any sort of special attachment to the goofy-named ex-Grizzly. It’s a play on “Waiting for Godot”, a play where the protagonists wait for someone who never shows up, and my snarky way of saying we shouldn’t hold our breath waiting for a Giants prospect. My biggest fear was that the guy was going to make the Giants roster, because then I’d really be screwed and have to consider a name change. “Waiting for Merkin” was a possibility, though that would sound like a blog for some freaky fetish site. Not because that’s a problem in and of itself, but because it would just get lumped in with already established sites like, “Waiting for a Bullwhip and an Apology”.

Oooookay. Anyway, Bonser just turned 22 in October and he got his first taste of AAA at season’s end, going 1-2 with a 3.13 ERA and 28 strikeouts in 23 innings. At AA, he was 7-10 with a 4.00 ERA and 103 strikeouts in 135 innings, numbers which are a bit less impressive when you consider that he allowed 20 unearned runs to go with the 60 earned ones.

The Giants have now traded a considerable amount of pitching over the past year: Livan Hernandez, Russ Ortiz, Damien Moss (who they got from Atlanta as part of the Ortiz deal), Kurt Ainsworth (who went with Moss to Baltimore for Sidney Ponson), and Boof. They also lost rookie pitcher Jesse Foppert to Tommy John surgery in September, and ace Jason Schmidt underwent minor elbow surgery (not TJ) following the season. I’m not sure where the Giants plan on getting their innings from next year beyond Schmidt and Kirk Reuter and don’t particularly care. But wow, that’s a lot of turnover.

Beyond noting that Twins Geek John Bonnes is very psyched to have a boy named Boof to cheer for, I’ll let somebody else take a crack at analyzing this deal. The Transaction Guy — Cub Reporter Christian Ruzich in a new role — has to say:

The Giants get trash-talking AJ, a good-hitting and solid-defending catcher, marking the end of the Benito Santiago era. AJ is arbitration eligible and should make between $2-3M, assuming the Giants don’t sign him to a long-term deal. He’ll be 27 next year, theoretically just hitting the prime of a career that’s already seen him put up three years of increasing OBP (last year: .360). They give up a pitcher who hit his stride as a reliever this year after a few frustrating, and injury-filled, years as a starter, and two minor-league pitchers who might turn out to be something special.

The Twins open a spot for The Natural, Joe Mauer, who tore up the AFL this spring [sic — it’s the Arizona Fall League] and may be ready to take on the role of starter at the tender age of 20. If his arm is healed, Nathan can start or relieve, though I imagine he’ll slide into the role soon to be vacated by LaTroy Hawkins. Bonser and Liriano are probably a few years away from being major league starters, but they are nice pickups for the Twins.

At the tender age of 20 Mauer hit .341/.400/.453 in half a season at AA after going .335/.395/.412 in high A. But despite those numbers and the optimism folks such as Ruz are expressing, I think Mauer, the overall #1 pick in the 2001 draft, is probably a year away from a full-time job in the Show. At the very least, the Twins will need a veteran caddie along with Mauer, with Matt LeCroy able to play behind the plate as well. But with that kind of depth and a mandate to keep their payrolll at the same level, it did make more sense for the Twins to deal A.J. and try to keep one of their stellar relievers (LaTroy Hawkins or Eddie Guardado) instead of losing them both.

• • •

Bronx Bonds on the Beat: In the second installment of his interview series, Rich Lederer of Rich’s Weekend Baseball Beat catches up with Bronx Banter’s Alex Belth. The conversation runs from Alex’s girlfriend (“I’ve always viewed sports and girlfriends like church and state. They have to co-exist but I never try to mix them”) to his film career (a post-production assistant on Ken Burns’ “Baseball” series, plus he worked for the Coen Brothers on The Big Lebowski) to his celebrity encounters and interviews (from Marvin Miller and Buck O’Neill to Michael Lewis and Rob Neyer) to his to his work on a book about Curt Flood to his favorite Yankees.

But the most revealing part of the interview comes when Alex talks about his often-stormy relationship with his father and how they’ve managed to connect through baseball:

But from the start, I remember, if not exactly fighting with my dad, then at least some sense of friction that I rooted for the Yankees. I don’t know that it was my first baseball memory, but as far back as I can remember my father railed against George Steinbrenner’s boorishness, his arrogance. Steinbrenner was a bully, and an out-of-town bully to boot. Dad didn’t care much for Billy Martin either. The truth is, as much as my dad despised George and Billy, he possessed similar character traits. At that point, my dad was drinking heavily and his alcoholism cost him his career in the TV business as well as his marriage. He was manipulative and a bully, too. I wasn’t aware of that stuff at the time, but I did know that the one Yankee my old man did hold in some regard was Reggie Jackson. He appreciated Reggie’s showmanship, not to mention the fact that he was intelligent and well spoken. So I think the fact that I could connect just a little bit with my dad through Reggie made me care even more about Jackson.

Alex exposes some raw, powerful stuff in that interview, and then he delves further into the topic of fathers and sons at his own blog today, even bringing up the aforementioned Bonds piece I wrote about earlier.

It’s almost eerie to read about the Reggie link in Alex’s relationship with his father; it’s a much darker reflection of the special place Reggie holds in my own baseball bond with my father. From the time I came to understand the game on a professional level, Reggie provided a frame of reference between us. He was the superduperstar then, and while we were unencumbered by an obligation to root for his team, my dad and I were as fascinated by his mythology and his loquaciousness as we were of his talent. He was larger than life, but in a happier way, perhaps, than he was in Alex’s world.

An ugly situation is brewing in Milwaukee. Brewers team president/CEO Ulice Payne is apparently being forced out after one season by the team’s board of directors, who have also decided to slash the player payroll by 25 percent, a move which will make the club an even tougher sell to a skeptical fan base. And it gets worse.

Following the worst season in franchise history in 2002 (yes, even worse than the Seattle Pilots which a certain used-car salesman hijacked), team president/CEO Wendy Selig-Prieb, daughter of you-know-who, relinquished her title. The moribund team brought in the charismatic Payne — at a price of $7.5 million for five years — just over a year ago to inject some hope and chart a new, less Selig-addled course. He chose a new regime in GM Doug Melvin and manager Ned Yost, and with nowhere to go but up, the ballclub improved by 12 games (to 68-94), at one point reeling off 10 straight wins.

Now the Brewers board of directors (chaired by the very same Selig-Prieb) has apparently told Payne that the team needs to cut their payroll from $40 million down to $30 million for next season, a move which will almost surely require the team to shed its two All-Stars, first baseman Richie Sexson and outfielder Geoff Jenkins, who will both make over $8 million. Payne doesn’t like the message that’s sending to the fans, who have already waited through eleven consecutive losing seasons. The board apparently doesn’t like Payne, releasing the public statement about the team’s budget cut without his knowledge. Payne’s been reduced to no-comments such as “I am in discussions about my situation.”

Legislators apparently don’t like the message any more than Payne, and are turning up the heat on the ballclub. As it sought its $400 million taxpayer-funded stadium (Miller Park), the team had pledged to “create an economic structure so that the Brewers have the financial resources to consistently field competitive teams, which will maximize attendance and the economic benefits to the city, county and state.” State Assembly Speaker John Gard sees the team’s current actions as reneging on that pledge: “The taxpayers of this state have made a multimillion-dollar investment in this baseball team and taken the club’s decisions on faith. This week’s revelations of a ‘fire sale’ at the ballclub have shaken this faith, and it is time for us to actually be given a look at the books and review how the team is managing its finances.” Unfortunately, that’s little more than political posturing, because the Brewers are a private entity and can’t be compelled to turn over the books for perusal.

So here you have a team that hasn’t seen a .500 season since the first Bush presidency. They have a $400 million state-of-the-art boondoggle (with a busted roof, to boot), a 40% decline in attendance since said boondoggle opened, and $110 million in debt. Neither the $24 million in new money which investors have poured into the club over the past two years nor the revenue-sharing windfall they reap annually seem to be earmarked for improving the product on the field (hmmmmm), so — shocker of shockers — they’ve decided to go into a rebuilding mode by cutting salary, a move which will likely cost the team its top gate attractions.

As often happens when I come across such an absurd spiral of misery, a Simpsons quote springs to mind. In this case, it’s from the Scorpio episode, where Bart’s sent to a remedial class after the family moves:

Let me get this straight. We’re behind the rest of our class and we’re going to catch up to them by going slower than they are? [making “crazy” gesture] Cuckoo.

That about describes it. What’s even worse for the Brewers (wait, it gets worse?) is that these revelations have reduced any leverage the team had going into the winter with regards to moving Sexson, Jenkins, or any other commodity they might actually have. Any GM that picks up a newspaper knows the Brewers are desperate, so getting value for their stars will be even more difficult for Melvin.

With the Florida Marlins now holding a World Series trophy and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays clinging to a bit of promise with their home-grown talent and an experienced manager, the Brewers are officially the worst franchise the sport has to offer. Except for Detroit, if they’re still considered major-league. It’s a wonder the good people of Milwaukee don’t torch Miller Park and lynch the Seligs.

What has to be the most embarrassing thing about all of this for Brewers supporters is that the man synonymous with Milwaukee baseball, commissioner and owner-in-exile Bud Selig, has been whistling a tune about making the Brewers competitive for a long time. His song included the part about needing a new, publicly-funded stadium to be competitive, which the taxpayers gave him. His song included the part about needing greater revenue sharing for his small-market team to be competitive, which the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement gave him. Bud got his Brewers both of those things, but the fans don’t have jack shit to show for it in the form of a more competitive ballclub, nor will they in the foreseeable future. Can you blame them for staying away in droves? And where the hell is the money going, anyway?

The headline to the articles concerning the CEO/president’s ouster say things like “Payne May Be Done at Brewers.” But when it comes to the Brewers, there’s nothing going on but pain.

In the AL Rookie of the Year voting, I cast my own ballot for K.C. shortstop Angel Berroa at the Internet Baseball Awards and had Hideki Matsui second. In a narrow vote, the Baseball Writers Association of America came to the same conclusion. But the way they arrived at that result rankled some, including Matsui’s ever-voluble employer, and for once George has a point: the two writers who left Matsui entirely off their ballots did so for misguided reasons, as a protest to the rules which made the Japanese League veteran elibigle. One of them, Jim Souhan of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, issued a self-righteous missive in which he compared himself to “whipping boys Joe Torre, Billy Martin, Yogi Berra, Reggie Jackson, Don Zimmer, Mel Stottlemyre and Dave Winfield” for being on the receiving end of Steinbrenner’s ire. Uh-huh, he’s a martyr just like Yogi. How could he have left Dick Howser off the list?

ESPN columnist and resident Royals fan Rob Neyer was upset by the way Berroa won as well. He offered the best summation of the situation:

As you might have heard, two voters didn’t list Matsui on their ballots at all; not first, nor second, nor even third. Both voters have publicly stated that they didn’t consider Matsui because of his extensive experience in Japan.

I hesitate to criticize my colleagues, but these guys — the Worcester Telegram & Gazette’s Bill Ballou and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s Jim Souhan — couldn’t be bigger clowns if they wore red noses and big floppy shoes.

1. Matsui is, according to the rules, a rookie.

2. The rules instruct the voter to vote for the best rookies.

Case closed. If a voter thinks the rules don’t make sense, he has two viable options: he can refuse the ballot in the first place, or he can accept the ballot but decline to return it. Either of these actions would make the point, and might lead to a change in the rules. Heroic even, in a very small way.

But no. Instead, Ballou and Souhan want to have it both ways. The writers love to vote, because it’s as close to playing God as they’ll ever get. So they vote and they protest, except the protest rings hollow, since it’s accompanied not by sacrifice, but by whining.

Reviewing the two candidates myself, once you get past Matsui’s gaudy but misleading RBI total (103) they look pretty even. Shortstop Berroa had almost exactly the same OPS that leftfielder Matsui had (.789 and .788, respectively). Baseball Prospectus has Berroa at 27 runs above a replacement-level shortstop and Matsui at 23.6 runs above a replacement level leftfielder, again comparable totals. But Win Shares, which takes defense into account, shows a wider gap between the two. Matsui comes in at 19, good for 35th in the AL. Berroa comes in at 16, 61st in the league. In retrospect, that probably should have been enough to sway my vote the other direction.

But oh well, I could say the same about the NL Rookie of the Year, which not only saw Dontrelle Willis beat out the more worthy (according to Win Shares) Brandon Webb, but saw the best-hitting rookie, Brewer Scott Podsednik get jobbed as well. Podsednik racked up 22 Win Shares, while Webb garnered 17 and Willis 14. I do think Willis’ impact on the Marlins turnaround was worth something, as was the Fernandomania-style buzz he generated in attendance, so I won’t lose a whole lot of sleep over that one.

For what little it’s worth, while I’ve previously had cold feet about Japanese Leaguers being eligible for the Rookie of the Year, I’ve come around on it. More than ever after watching Matsui, it seems clear to me that the jump between Japan and the majors is a bigger one than most people realize. The combination of larger ballparks, stronger competetion, and a cultural gap as wide as the Pacific Ocean makes the transition for a Japanese Leaguer anything but automatic, so if they’re new to the majors, they ought to be eligible for the award.

The blogsphere’s A-Rod of verse

Saw his mood take a turn for the worse.

But showed he was able,

Built a Periodic Table

Of Bloggers, an impressive first.

Yikes. If the Score Bard is the Alex Rodriguez of baseball-related poetry, I’m its Enrique Wilson, so I’ll hereby make a solemn pledge not to bust any more rhymes here until the Beastie Boys accept my job application. The enigmatic Bard’s muse has apparently been spending time south of the Mendoza Line, so in an attempt to shake things up, he created the Periodic Table of Bloggers, a color-coded page of links mimicking that Periodic Table of the Elements which taunted you throughout high school chemistry. The table was under wraps, but somehow Instapundit got wind of it, forcing the poor Bard to stay up late to finish the page.

I’m flattered to find myself included in the baseball section. My chemical symbol is Fr, for Francium, a “vanishingly rare” radioactive metal which has never been isolated in its pure form. I’m not sure whether the Bard is trying to say I’m tough to pin down, dangerous even in small doses, or completely useless, but as Bill Veeck said, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity as long as they spell your name right.”

Check out the table, and while you’re there, marvel at the Bard’s Primey-worthy poetry.