O&A Board Regular
Registered: Oct. 00
 | This is why a minimum cap is just as important as a maximum cap. In my opinion, if you can't at least field a $50 million minimum cap, either sell or contract the team. The problem is not the Yankees. The problem are these scum sucking bottom feeders who could field a good team, but instead put nothing towards their team and pocket the revenue sharing. If you want revenue sharing, 100% of it should be put back into the team. Say teh team gets 12 million from revenue sharing. You should either add 12 million in salary or help get you out of debt. Baseball owners are like Worldcom and Enron, stealing from their teams and putting out shit in its place.
quote:
couple of related events in the aftermath of the All-Star Game travesty — the Cincinnati Reds managing to dump salary in the trade for much-needed starting pitcher Ryan Dempster, and reports of the Detroit Tigers experiencing financial problems — merely underscore the sham and hypocrisy of Bud Selig's revenue sharing scheme.
Reds owner Carl Lindner, the billionaire Chiquita Banana magnate who last year got $12.7 million in revenue sharing, sent word to his GM Jim Bowden prohibiting any trades that involved increasing the payroll. It didn't matter that the Reds were surprisingly hanging in, a couple of games behind the St. Louis Cardinals in the very winnable NL Central. Lindner insisted the Reds payroll could not exceed the present $45 million — which, by the way, did not include a cent of that $12.7 million in revenue sharing.
In fact, despite public denials, Reds upper management has privately admitted that all outside income reaped by the club is being funneled toward construction costs on the new stadium in Cincinnati.
In other words, George Steinbrenner is now being asked to help pay for new stadium construction in Cincinnati, in addition to paying the Christmas bonuses of the Minnesota Twins front office personnel (which is what Twins billionaire owner Carl Pohlad did with his revenue sharing last year) and subsidizing the financial blunders of so many other mismanaged middle market clubs that would get revenue sharing booty under Selig's proposed straight pool plan.
Say this for Bowden, however. His personality quirks aside, he continues to be one of the most creative and aggressive GMs, despite being severely handicapped by ownership. He was able to pull off the deal for Dempster — the front-of-the-rotation workhorse starter the Reds desperately needed to maintain any hope of staying in the race — and actually shed salary by shipping backup infielder Wilton Guerrero to the Expos and waiving disabled minor-league righthander Seth Etherton, who was claimed by the Yankees. Dempster earns $2.475 million, while Etherton is making $270,000 and Guerrero $850,000.
But here's the point: Isn't revenue sharing supposed to be the cure-all for baseball's competitive imbalance? Isn't revenue sharing supposed to enable the teams with considerably smaller local revenue streams than the Yankees to boost their payrolls to the point where the playing field for getting and keeping talent is more even? In theory, yes. In reality, however, clubs are using revenue sharing for just about everything except players.
Similarly, it is interesting that the Tigers are now said to have major financial problems. They are owned by Mike Ilich, the same Mike Ilich who, bankrolled by the fortunes he's made as CEO of Little Caesar's Pizza and his casino interests, has spent millions on free agents to keep his Detroit Red Wings the powerhouse they are in the NHL. Whenever this is brought up, Ilich's operatives note that the investment in the Red Wings is justified by the fact that they sell out every night. Duh? Why does he think the Tigers aren't drawing in their new stadium? Do you think maybe six straight losing seasons — the product of gross mismanagement by former GM Randy Smith — might have something to do with the baseball apathy in Detroit? Nevertheless, the Tigers got $6.7 million in revenue sharing last year — with a new stadium — and will get considerably more this year as a bonus for their mismanagement.
Next up: Cleveland, where over-leveraged owner Larry Dolan is turning one of baseball's most profitable franchises into a stripped-down junker, and Jacobs Field from a cash cow to an empty warehouse. For that, the Indians will undoubtedly soon qualify for a revenue sharing handout as a newly minted financially-strapped team.
Bottom line: until or unless there are realistic minimum payrolls established or specific stipulations as to how revenue sharing is to be used by the recipients, the notion that this is what's going to put the Royals, Twins, Brewers, Padres, Reds, etc., on more even footing with the Yankees is pure fantasy.
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