The "trickle down" effect is killing mid market teams like the O's.

[bpilktree]

My only point is that I don't think the problem has gotten any worse over the last 20 years; if anything, it's gotten a little better, at least in comparison with 2000-09. I don't think the Orioles' task is harder now than five or ten years ago. The rich teams always have the advantage, but I don't think 2/3 starting pitchers are any harder to acquire now than they were before. Prices go up just about every year, and especially in the last few while the teams have been enjoying a large increase in national TV revenue and have more to spend.

I disagree you have always had one or two high spenders but now you have more teams that are closer to the tops. IF you look at the last 10 years you can see the difference if you take out the top two outliers on the high and low end. . By comparing the 3rd highest payroll to the median you see a drastic change.

2006

3rd-103

14th- 82

difference 21

2007

3rd-115

14th 87

differnce 28

2008

3rd 137

14th 88

differnce 49

2009

3rd 135

14th 82

differnce 53

2010

3rd 146

14th 92

difference 54

2011

3rd 161

14th- 87

difference 74

2012

3rd 173

14th 93

difference 80

2013

3rd 165

14th 90

differnce 75

2014

3rd- 180

14th 110

difference 70

2015

3rd 187

14th 117

difference 70

So the you can see the gap between the 3rd highest payroll to the median taking out outliers has went over the years as the 3rd highest payroll went from low 100 millions to getting clost to 200 million while the 14th highest payroll has been right around 80 million to 90 million up until the new tv deal.

[Frobby]

I disagree you have always had one or two high spenders but now you have more teams that are closer to the tops. IF you look at the last 10 years you can see the difference if you take out the top two outliers on the high and low end. . By comparing the 3rd highest payroll to the median you see a drastic change....

So the you can see the gap between the 3rd highest payroll to the median taking out outliers has went over the years as the 3rd highest payroll went from low 100 millions to getting clost to 200 million while the 14th highest payroll has been right around 80 million to 90 million up until the new tv deal.

I don't see the change as very drastic. In 2008, the median payroll was 64.3% of the 3rd highest payroll. In 2015, it was 62.5%. I don't know why in 2006-07 the 3rd highest payroll was relatively low compared to the median, but it's been pretty steady since 2008. Actually, in 2015 the difference between the 3rd highest and the median was the lowest it's seen since 2010.

[sportsfan8703]

Well hopefully by the end of this week/offseason we wont be a mid market team anymore in terms of payroll. We just got the MASN decision reversed. They have to start all over with that litigation. I don't see PA losing. So maybe now he's releasing some of that money that had to be held up over the last few years in case we had to pay the nats.

[Frobby]

Well hopefully by the end of this week/offseason we wont be a mid market team anymore in terms of payroll. We just got the MASN decision reversed. They have to start all over with that litigation. I don't see PA losing. So maybe now he's releasing some of that money that had to be held up over the last few years in case we had to pay the nats.

That would be pretty imprudent, based on what the judge said in the MASN decision. The ultimate result may not be any different the second time around. Plus, 2017 starts a whole new reset period under the contract.

In any event, I think some posters are getting very carried away if they're thinking we won't be a mid-market payroll when the dust settles. According to BB-ref, right now we are 13th in estimated payroll (including guys who are arb-elegible and whose salaries are estimated, plus guys who aren't arb-eligible yet). We might move up a couple of spots, but we aren't vaulting out of the mid-market tier, IMO.

[Ohfan67]

Hey bpilktree - I haven't checked the numbers in a while, but I think the relationship between spending and winning has actually weakened in the recent past compared to say ten or 12 years ago. I think that's what Frobby is really talking about. I think most of us don't care if the Yanks, Dodgers, etc., want to waste money, we care if it means that the poorer teams can't win.

Personally, I think part of this is that older, expensive veterans are less valuable in the "post-steroid" era than they were ten years or so ago. Younger players are relatively more productive now than they were when a bunch of 35-ish year old players were juicing.

[winkies]

We have to get Peter Angelos to sell the team. It's the only way to build a consistent winning team here. He must leave this team.

[T. Legend]

I know it will never happen but baseball needs a salary cap. If every other professional sport has one...

Still don't see it happening but it should.

Baseball revenues are higher than ever before, and yet the players share continues to decrease. What baseball needs is owners that put money back into their teams.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-mlbpa-has-a-problem/

[DrungoHazewood]

We have to get Peter Angelos to sell the team. It's the only way to build a consistent winning team here. He must leave this team.

Because we know that if anyone else owned the Orioles the payroll wouldn't have just gone from $70M to $120M+ in the last seven years, it would have tripled or more.

[winkies]

Because we know that if anyone else owned the Orioles the payroll wouldn't have just gone from $70M to $120M+ in the last seven years, it would have tripled or more.

We used to have the highest payroll in the league. Angelos is bad man. He's got to sell the team.

[DrungoHazewood]

We used to have the highest payroll in the league. Angelos is bad man. He's got to sell the team.

It was one thing to cry foul when Angelos was overriding people and cutting payroll and running a minor league system like it was 1972. But we rarely hear a peep out of him anymore, payroll has almost doubled since 2008.

If your expectation is that the O's will return to the days when OPACY drew 4 million and ticket revenues were more important than media money you're going to be sorely disappointed.

[spiritof66]

Yes. But there were always people who remembered the Senators, whose dads and grandpas and uncles took them to MLB games in Washington. Washington had a MLB team of their own for 100 years, with a year gap here and there. Do you know the last city that was abandoned by MLB altogether before Washington? I think it was Baltimore in 1903. Before that Louisville. The Braves, Giants, Dodgers, A's and Browns all left two-team cities. The KC A's were quickly replaced by the Royals. The Pilots by the Mariners. The Braves by the Brewers. Now it's just Montreal commiserating with the ghosts of the Louisville Colonels and Cyclones.

If you go back to the early days of the National League (and exclude cities that lost franchises but got them back after a short while), you could add Hartford, Worcester, Troy NY and Providence to that list. A number of other cities that had what their citizens probably viewed as major league franchises in the American Association and Federal League could be added to that list.

For the first 25-plus years of the NL's existence teams folded and relocated, and the league expanded and contracted, and the AL as it morphed out of the Western League wasn't any different in its formative years. What I find interesting is that after the Orioles collapsed in 1903, there was an abrpt change: no franchise relocation for 50 years. Until the Browns moved -- to Baltimore. That move broke open the dam, leading in less than a decade to a succession of franchise moves, the threat of a third major league and expansion.

1903 wasn't the first, or last, time that the major leagues shafted Baltimore. When the National League contracted from twelve to eight teams in 1899, the Orioles -- one of the two strongest teams of that decade, on the field -- were among the franchises that were eliminated. Baltimore was then the sixth largest city in the U.S. (according to the 1900 census, and counting Brooklyn as part of NYC), and the contraction left it as the largest U.S. city without a National League team. The 1899 contraction was one of the factors that led to the creation of a second major league.

In 1915, the Federal League owners reached an agreement with organized baseball that called for the demise of the new league. The owners of two teams, the Baltimore Terrapins and Buffalo Blues, were not part of the agreement. In the settlement discussions, the Baltimore owners (principally through their lawyer, Stuart Janney) sought a major league franchise for Baltimore. The Buffalo owners eventually made a deal, leaving only the Baltfeds out in the cold. As the seventh (per the 1910 census, in which Cleveland has passed it) or eighth (per the 1920 census, in which the Motor City had done so, too) largest city in the country, Baltimore was by far the largest without a major league team. The Baltimore owners' lawsuit against organized baseball led to the 1922 Supreme Court ruling that organized baseball is not subject to the federal antitrust laws, which has insulated MLB from those laws ever since.

In 1953, when Augie Busch with his brewery fortune bought the Cardinals, Browns owner Bill Veeck could read the writing on the Sportsman's Park wall. He sought to move the Browns, first to Milwaukee and then to Baltimore. He was rebuffed by his fellow owners both times. At least that denial of an attempt to bring major league baseball back to Baltimore was motivated by the disaffection of the owners (and according to Veeck, especially Yankee co-owner Del Webb) for Veeck, not for Baltimore, and of course it was short-lived.

[awannabegeek]

We used to have the highest payroll in the league. Angelos is bad man. He's got to sell the team.

Angelos was the owner the year they had the highest payroll...

Why is he a bad man? Are you judging his character based on his incompetency? You don't need to be a bad person to suck at something, he thought he knew more about baseball than his baseball people....that was his problem.

[DrungoHazewood]

If you go back to the early days of the National League (and exclude cities that lost franchises but got them back after a short while), you could add Hartford, Worcester, Troy NY and Providence to that list. A number of other cities that had what their citizens probably viewed as major league franchises in the American Association and Federal League could be added to that list.

For the first 25-plus years of the NL's existence teams folded and relocated, and the league expanded and contracted, and the AL as it morphed out of the Western League wasn't any different in its formative years. What I find interesting is that after the Orioles collapsed in 1903, there was an abrpt change: no franchise relocation for 50 years. Until the Browns moved -- to Baltimore. That move broke open the dam, leading in less than a decade to a succession of franchise moves, the threat of a third major league and expansion.

1903 wasn't the first, or last, time that the major leagues shafted Baltimore. When the National League contracted from twelve to eight teams in 1899, the Orioles -- one of the two strongest teams of that decade, on the field -- were among the franchises that were eliminated. Baltimore was then the sixth largest city in the U.S. (according to the 1900 census, and counting Brooklyn as part of NYC), and the contraction left it as the largest U.S. city without a National League team. The 1899 contraction was one of the factors that led to the creation of a second major league.

In 1915, the Federal League owners reached an agreement with organized baseball that called for the demise of the new league. The owners of two teams, the Baltimore Terrapins and Buffalo Blues, were not part of the agreement. In the settlement discussions, the Baltimore owners (principally through their lawyer, Stuart Janney) sought a major league franchise for Baltimore. The Buffalo owners eventually made a deal, leaving only the Baltfeds out in the cold. As the seventh (per the 1910 census, in which Cleveland has passed it) or eighth (per the 1920 census, in which the Motor City had done so, too) largest city in the country, Baltimore was by far the largest without a major league team. The Baltimore owners' lawsuit against organized baseball led to the 1922 Supreme Court ruling that organized baseball is not subject to the federal antitrust laws, which has insulated MLB from those laws ever since.

In 1953, when Augie Busch with his brewery fortune bought the Cardinals, Browns owner Bill Veeck could read the writing on the Sportsman's Park wall. He sought to move the Browns, first to Milwaukee and then to Baltimore. He was rebuffed by his fellow owners both times. At least that denial of an attempt to bring major league baseball back to Baltimore was motivated by the disaffection of the owners (and according to Veeck, especially Yankee co-owner Del Webb) for Veeck, not for Baltimore, and of course it was short-lived.

That's a good summary. Baseball often thinks of 1903-53 as a golden era of wonderful stability. But they let the country evolve and move and change to the point where they almost lost their monopoly, and the pent up demand caused great chaos with franchise movement. It's hard to believe that a post-WWII America had no MLB teams west or south of St. Louis, and there were multiple teams in Boston, St. Louis, and Philly.

In some ways I wish that MLB had been more stuck in the mud, and not let teams move and not expanded when they did. Because the PCL would have gone Major and the world might be a better place.