Is Spending More the Answer?
The comments on the last post got me thinking about this. I’m definitely in the camp that says the Orioles have to make improvements this offseason, and that those improvements by nature must involve spending. I think that’s a no-brainer.
The bigger question, though, is this: has spending or lack thereof been the root of the team’s problems for the past 11 years?
Here are some relevant payroll figures from this year, all of which have been rounded up or down based on this source:
Orioles: $67 mil
Yankees: $209 mil
Red Sox: $133 mil
Blue Jays: $99 mil
Rays: $44 mil (second-to-last in MLB, last in AL)
Twins: $62 mil
D-Backs: $66 mil
Braves: $102 mil
Brewers: $81 mil
Mariners: $118 mil
Notice a trend?
As much as I (and perhaps a lot of folks) would like to believe otherwise, there is no direct correlation between payroll and performance. In fact, a fellow named Ben Fry has a great page that charts salaries vs. performance, and the results do more than a list ever could. Give it a long look and you’ll find that the two things simply don’t directly correlate.
What the Orioles need to do is not spend but invest. They need to identify intelligent ways to make their money work, not simply throw dollars at the problem(s). Which, by the way, is pretty damn difficult.
Winning teams blend a top-notch development system with intelligent free agent acquisitions. There is no other formula for long-term success in MLB.
As we get more deeply into the Hot Stove season I have a feeling I’ll be bringing this up again. Because, frankly, if we’re going to be bad then I’d just as soon see it happen without foolish contracts that cripple the team’s financial flexibility for the next 4-6 years. Complaining about how much money they spend is a red herring and nothing more.
I agree, of course – who wouldn’t? Like I have said, we can’t afford disasterous investments (ala Danys Baez, Ramon Hernandez, and Jay Gibbons) the way the Yankees can shrug them off as glancing blows. Which is why I was relieved to hear that MacPhail’s putting a Markakis and possibly a Roberts extension near the top of the to-do list. Investing long term in at least Nick the Stick would go a long way towards ensuring that mystical, unseen and unheard of emerald future we’re supposedly on the golden road to.
As far as free agency is concerned, everything is going to be high risk high reward, from Mark Teixeira on down to the surely overpaid deals Derek Lowe and A.J. Burnett will receive. But I think it’s rather critical that the Orioles take some gamble on somebody with actual talent, instead of the gambles they like to take on four year extensions for the likes of Jay Gibbons and Melvin Mora.
i’m not sure i get the point of this post, then again i’m pretty drunk and frankly couldn’t read too many words in a row – and i didn’t get to the second link btw.
i clicked on the first link and the first thing i saw was the top payrolls in baseball.
N.Y. Yankees $209,081,579 $6,744,567
Detroit 138,685,197 4,622,840
New York Mets 138,293,378 4,609,779
Boston 133,440,037 4,765,716
Chicago White Sox 121,152,667 4,487,136
Los Angeles Angels 119,216,333 4,110,908
Chicago Cubs 118,595,833 4,392,438
Los Angeles Dodgers 118,536,038 4,233,430
i haven’t watched ONE MINUTE of baseball this year, but isn’t EVERY ONE of these teams either in the playoffs or barely missing them? guess i don’t see the point of rooting for a sport that really seems to have predetermined winners.
i have a feeling this is the opposite opinion of this post but from an outsider looking in the orioles are fucked no matter what. and don’t come to me with that pollyanna devil rays shit.
Actually, yeah I disagree with the idea that spending and winning aren’t related. We’re talking about the teams that compete year in and year out, and they are all spending money. And who’s near the bottom regularly? Washington, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Florida.
My thing is, that there is lots of different ways to not be competitive. You can have a clueless front office, like we have had between Syd Thrift and Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan, you can refuse to ever extend any home grown player to keep payroll down, like the Marlins who only compete once in a blue moon, you can go double whammy and have terrible front officing and low payroll like the record setting Pirates. For a low payroll team to compete, they need to either have super genius Billy Bean running things, or they need to begin raising payroll once all those prospects from the losing start showing up (something Tampa has begun, I think), or they need to be a fluke.
And it works the other way, too. If you’re a top payroll team, you’re probably competing every year, because you’re signing the top free agents every year to big contracts. You can make a mistake and sign a bad class A pitcher to a big contract and forget to improve the rest of your pitching staff, and then you’ll be bad – but generally, you’re going to be a pretty damn good team. It will really take a fluke year to send you out of any sense of competition.
If you were one of the people who shelled out $400 for a Dreamcast when it first came out, this is an example of how spending a lot of money won’t get you real far. The Orioles need to sit down, work on their scouting, finding a better way to adapt their pitchers from the minors to the big leages, and fix whatever it is that routinely is destroying our pitchers labrums. The Rays have a playoff team built on careful drafting, good management and wise spending. The Orioles have the money to do whatever they want; they need to find out what it is they need to do with it.
The Orioles aren’t forced to spend money in the off-season.
If they like finishing in last place with 6,000 people in the stadium over the last month or so, they probably should reduce their payroll again in ’09.
After all, going from $90mm to $65mm sure worked wonders for them in ’08.
Maybe they can go from $65mm to $45mm in ’09, save $20 mil and win 60 games and draw 1.5 million to the park.
Maybe no one will know the difference.
Let there be no mistake: they will need to spend this offseason. I thought I made that clear in the first paragraph, but let me restate it just so there’s no ambiguity.
My point is that spending, in and of itself, won’t amount to much. They have to spend smartly, which is why I draw the distinction between “spending” and “investing.”
In other words, they could probably afford CC Sabathia at, say six years and $22 mil per. But would that make sense, and would it make them winners? Doubtful.
But if the Orioles cut $30M off their payroll going into 2008 and won the same amount of games and 2007… doesn’t that mean that things are getting better? At least fiscally?
I think this is a smart post. It’s not necessary to spend money to win, as is blatantly obvious. However, I think it’s necessary when you’ve fallen behind the 8-ball in drafting and developing talent. I feel comfortable for once spending money because we have a GM in Andy MacPhail that will more than likely spend it wisely. As you said, Neal, invest money. Yes we need to spend on some starting pitching. No, we don’t need Tex. No, we don’t need bullpen help. Get some starters, make some trades, continue to unearth no-name talent like Bass and Simon (both great, low-risk, high-reward moves in my opinion, and exactly the kind of moves we can continue to expect from MacPhail when he’s not blockbustering it up).
Of course the O’s need to spend money this offseason. But they did well to NOT spend any before THIS season. This was about freeing up money, evaluating the talent that we do have (and now we know that Olson, Liz, Penn, etc aren’t ready to fill out the rotation), and figuring out what to do going forward.
“This season was about freeing up money…”
Are they broke? lol
They’ve extorted $60 million a year from Comcast for the last three years, plus another $30 million or so from other cable providers during that time.
That’s $270 million. Have their expenses been $270 million as well?
Probably not.
Make that, definitely not.
I love how you guys can excuse them for not spending money.
Of course, why would you spend it when you’re busy bathing in it, right?
Personally I love bathing in money. It really does work better than shampoo.
Anyway, I thought we were all agreed that the Orioles DO have to sign some quality free agents (plural) this winter or the rebuilding train will get derailed. We still need everything except a catcher, a center fielder, and a right fielder.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter how clear things are, Andrew.
All I was saying, Drew, was that they didn’t really NEED to spend a shit-ton of money this season because it’s better to wait and see what they have first and what the real needs are. We had just traded our highest paid player and our ace pitcher in an effort to get younger and acquire quantity, if you don’t remember. Also, it was largely agreed by the Oriole fanbase and the majority of sports radio “personalities” that the O’s should focus on getting younger instead of overspending for veterans and being stuck in between rebuilding and trying to appear that they’re contending when really they’re just wasting money and years on middling veterans. Right? Didn’t we want to get away from that? Everyone pretty much agreed, and it wasn’t until we realized that our farm system pitching was bad that people like you started clamoring (once again) for “Angelos to open up the checkbook”. Let’s think about why we are where we are today with Oriole baseball. Bell, Tejada, Payton, Walker, Palmeiro, etc, etc, etc.
Also, this point never seems to be remembered: people have to want to come here. We can’t just buy players when we want to, unfortunately.
But I do support SMART, THRIFTY spending on players that can help for more than two years, on reliable, non-injury-prone pitchers. But please, a $200 million contract on one bat or one thrower really isn’t going to do us any good.
Why am I surprised that Neal doesn’t get it?
Oh, that’s right.
I’m not.
the top three teams in payroll (Yankees, Mets, Tigers) are NOT going to make the playoffs
this team moved Bedard and Tejada last offseason
are you saying that massive spending (perhaps exuberant extensions for those two players?) would have been a better route?
can we agree to not bitch about them not spending money this offseason…until the end of the offseason?
I hate Speculative Bitching, and that is what this is Drew.
Sure they lowered payroll and didn’t put up much of a fight in 08.
but can’t we agree that they are finally pulled out of their decade long nosedive and have leveled off (at the very least) and seem to be headed in the right direction?
Everyone puts so much stock in “making the playoffs”.
How about we just start with…”play a game in September that matters”??
Let’s start there first. I don’t even need them to make the playoffs to be happy. Just play a home game on September 15 that could bring us to within three games of the wild card lead if we win. I’d take that right about now and call it “successful”.
Do you realize since 1997 only three teams in the American League East haven’t played a September game that mattered? Kansas City, Toronto and – ta da – Baltimore. And hell, even Kansas City managed an 81-81 season a few years back and the Blue Jays had a few above .500 seasons sprinkled in there even if they didn’t sniff the post-season.
How can you possibly say the team pulled out of its decade-long nosedive when they finished in last place and complete the ’08 season with major question marks in 4 of their 5 starting pitching spots, a handful of bullpen spots, SS, 1B and, possibly, even 3B?
It’s not “speculative bitching”, because assuming they WON’T be able to bring in high-quality free agents is more a future-fact than it is “bitching”…
Anyone want to bet right now that they sign two top level free agent pitchers?
I didn’t think you would.
And sure, we can agree not to bitch about them spending money this off-season until the end of the off-season. We can do that. In fact, that’s exactly what the franchise hopes the fans do.
That way, when February rolls around and they DON’T sign anyone, the new mantra will be: “Can’t we just wait to start bitching about the season until after the season is over and we see how it plays out…”
It never ends.
I fancy most of you guys pretty smart folk, but it never ceases to amaze me how unwilling you are to see the truth.
Remember, the franchise brought this on themselves when they started their TV network and obligated to all of us that they would spend more money on players.
You remember that, right?
“We can’t compete with the Yankees and Red Sox because we don’t have the revenue stream they have because we don’t have a TV network to add that additional cash to our budget…”
You DO remember that, right?
I do.
And it’s been three years and they’re spending LESS money now than they were spending before Cash Cow TV took over…
I just can’t believe you guys are still buyin’ it…
Why is it a fact that the team won’t spend any money this offseason? That hasn’t historically been their MO other than last off season, which was specifically put down as a “take a step back and then rebuild from the very ground up” winter. I really don’t get the speculative bitching, Drew. Haven’t you, on lots of occasions said that you like the job MacPhail has done?
You remember that, right?
Or, yes, when you were speculatively bitching about how the May uniform change deadline was passing and the Orioles were again going to let it go by and release some lousy quote about talking about it. Except you wouldn’t call it speculative bitching then, either. It was “future facts” or whatever the hell you called it. And of course the dealine passed and the Orioles released a quote about them discussing uniform changes but not wanting to get anything done this year.
I remember that….no wait, that didn’t happen at all, did it? You DO remember that, right?
Basically, the MacPhail led warehouse has done nothing to let us believe they will fall into the mistakes of the past and sit on their haunches and consider a repeat of 2008 to be okay in their books, so why aren’t we giving them the benefit of the doubt?
Really, what I’m asking is, what crawed up your butt lately, Drew, that’s made you go sour on Andy MacPhail?
I still haven’t seen an official press release from the Orioles about the ’09 road jerseys. All we have is “scuttlebutt”. In typical O’s fashion, they even squandered THAT opportunity to get people on their side by dodging the issue even after they leaked word out in the first place.
I’m not sour on Andy MacPhail. I think he did a credible job considering that he spent $25 million less this year than last year, even if the results were worse — or similar, at least.
I just wrote a piece at WNST.net that you’re welcome to review (no link…that way Neal won’t get mad) in which I AM critical of MacPhail for a few things he discussed with the media today, but none of those were “baseball issues”, which is his domain. He made a remark about attendance being down in Baltimore because of baseball in DC…so I had to whack him around for that inaccuracy.
Overall though, MacPhail has done a good job here. If I were his agent, I’d be imploring him to get out of Baltimore and start lobbying for Selig’s job where his efforts will be better rewarded – but I digress.
What’s crawled up my butt is this: another year has gone by…the team still stinks…the crowds this year looked more like a Northern Illinois football game than pro baseball in Baltimore…and, for the most part – save the 1,000 or so brave souls like most of you here who still give the team unconditional support – the city has disassociated with the franchise. Ironically, or maybe not, the team disassociated with the city over the last 6 years or so.
Paybacks are a bitch, I guess.
What’s crawled up my butt is that I’m betting it’s not going to get better.
You can call that speculative bitching or speculative betting…either way, I see nothing that tells me they’re going to suddenly turn full circle and start winning, drawing fans and caring about the community again in 2009.
I can’t give the franchise the benefit of the doubt.
They don’t deserve it.
I’ll link it myself: right here.
Posting an on-topic link to something you wrote is not the same as someone who’s never participated before going dramatically off-topic to try to score free advertising.
Well, Drewski, I’ll give you my thoughts and then let someone else look foolish for a while. I agree that its real frustrating watching (or not) the Orioles slum through September. I had written way back in April that the year would be judged on September, and it’s been a failure on the field. It’s shameful (to use your choice of terminology) to see the team never play for anything in September, isn’t it? I don’t think that we here are unconditional supporters of the Orioles…I seriously doubt that anyone is watching all of these games anymore. Heck, I’m as diehard as they come, I guess, and I’m not watching the Orioles at all – I’m watching the Mets, Brewers, White Sox, and Twins this weekend. Because they’re interesting to watch and the Orioles are definitely not.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but your tone offends me. I’m not going to huff and puff or nothing, but reading you, I’d be led to believe that you consider yourself above us “unconditional diehards that always buy the team’s crap” and further I’d think that you’re like a pig in shit with the Orioles losing. Now I know, nobody in Baltimore wins when the Orioles lose – the vendors, the fans (which is all of us: you, me, Neal, everyone), the players, the city – but the way you attack the team at every chance just smacks me that you’re quite happy to see them fail, and I’d assume it’s because of some sort of professional squabble you have with them. That’s fine if that’s what you want to do, but then why come on here and talk down to us about it? Are you just trying to get conversation started or is it your endgame to make us all never watch the O’s again or what?
Anyway, back to the matter on hand: you’ve put a lot of effort into saying over the past couple of years that I’ve been familiar with your work that the Orioles fail because the fans don’t show up because the Orioles hate the city of Baltimore in favor of Lancaster County. You’ve again said today that they don’t care about the community and won’t be a winning team until they put their hearts on their sleeve and reach out enthusiastically to the city itself with some sort of hardcore winter marketing. Okay, but if the team still stinks, whose showing up to the games? We all (or at least I) lost interest not because the marketing is bad, but because the team is bad. Do you honestly think people would be more willing to go to a baseball game if the Orioles had Nick Markakis come onto your radio show to ask them to, or if they signed C.C. Sabathia, Mark Teixeria, and Derek Lowe in the winter?
So for me, it’s the team. And yes, I know that I can’t really answer that question because the team doesn’t have to market to us kool-aid drinkers, which I again do not think we are. Do you see any of us saying the Orioles are definitely going to hit .500 next year? I think if you did a poll, most of us would say probably not but maybe in 2010. But there’s a lot of proof out there that nothing breeds attendance like a consistently competitive team and nothing loses attendance like a consistently losing team. Heck, this year the team did tons of great promotions, between the 50 million and the 100 million and the 1 dollar tickets and the throwback days (the ’83 remembrance was probably my favorite…god I do love Eddie Murray) and so on…but at the end of the day, this is the worst attendance season ever in Camden Yards…because the team is bad.
I’m done on this stupid argument. Because it is stupid. Someone else take this up for me.
remember that time when drew thought brian billick was still the answer for the ravens?
“I’m betting it’s not going to get better.”
Drew, you’re a damn moron. When the team starts winning games, the fans will come back. It happened in Colorado last year. It happened this year when we were flipping our brims up. It happened when the Ravens won the Superbowl.
It will get better. The farm system is ranked #4 right now in the Majors, it hasn’t been that high since 1994. Your tone is annoying and “holier-than-thou”. Everything you say is stated as fact rather than opinion. It’s not appreciated.
Regarding the road jerseys: the “scuttlebutt” is true. I say this on the basis of having very, very solid confirmation.
Now, one thing I don’t know for sure is whether the change is full-time or part-time. My feeling is that it’s a full-time change, but my actual knowledge is just that it’s a change of some sort. So, “Baltimore” will be back, but I don’t actually know what form it will take.
On MacPhail’s point that the new Nationals stadium leeched attendance from Camden Yards, Drew is pretty much right. The Nats drew the worst per-game crowds for any new stadium in more than 20 years, so claiming that their new park had an effect doesn’t hold a lot of water.
That said, it doesn’t matter. Corporate communications is a game of its own, and while I don’t always like it I certainly understand it. Him making that claim has absolutely zero bearing on the future of the team. It’s just one of those things. Fair to call it out, for sure, but silly to assign it a whole lot of weight.
When we say Baltimore will be back “in some form”, what does that mean? Obviously, we all had it in our minds that the road jerseys would replace the script Orioles with script Baltimore and that would be that. What other form could there be, exactly? I’m confused.
Tonight we clinched the regrettable fifth pick in next year’s draft. Hooray beer.
Hopefully, tomorrow we’ll put the Orioles to bed on a good note with The Stormin’ Mormon going at it and when we think about them again in February, they will be very, very different looking. I’m still dreaming of the day Baltimore toasts two good franchises.
I don’t mean to be confusing — sorry ’bout that.
Here’s what I know: “Baltimore” is coming back. What I don’t know for a fact is whether or not the change is full-time (every road game) or just on a “special occasion” basis. That’s the only reason I qualified my statement.
My gut feeling is that, yes, “Baltimore” will be on the road jerseys and that’s that.
To be quite honest, the only reason I’m hedging ever-so-slightly is because I basically forgot to ask the right question. The possibility of a “part-time” change only occurred to me after the conversation I had, so now I’m just trying to be as honest as I can be.
How fucking great is it, by the way, that Guthrie worked his way back to make this last start? That’s commitment right there. It gives me great feelings about where this team is headed. He could have easily shut it down, but he didn’t. Respect.
Man you cats crack me up.
The day those charlatans over there at OPACY start caring more about the lineup than lining their pockets will be the day they start putting fannies in the seats.
But what do I know about marketing, right?
And Neal it’s good to see you’re still bending over in the right places to get a semi-scoop once in a while lol
***
this e-personation brought to you by mennen
Just…wow.
And so, the season mercifully ends with a blowout in front of17 people with a quick ninth inning. How appropriate.
Ugh, let’s just waste the bad taste out of my mouth, bring on some Monday Night Football and some playoffs. Whew. I already feel better.
I was at the game today — by myself — from inning 1 through inning 5, before I bowed out and headed to watch some football. I didn’t want to go at all but I couldn’t bring myself to skip it. I had to say goodbye.
So I had a beer and some Boardwalk Fries and I walked around soaking up the atmosphere. It was pretty lifeless on the whole, but Camden Yards is Camden Yards. I’m glad I went.
That said, I’m also glad it’s over. Bring on the playoffs and fire up the Hot Stove.
And, again @BBOL…wow.
@BBOL: the “lol” really sold it. Well done.
i hope drew knows i do it because i love his posts. when i see df1570 on the page i know i’m in for a treat.
Actually, yeah – me, too. Brilliant!
I had a long talk with my dad on the phone today about how just plain frustrated he and I both are at this travesty of a baseball team, and how long it’s going to be until we aren’t anymore. Nothing got done, and nothing is done, but I think feeling frustration is better than feeling nothing, you know?
And now, my picks to click: Red Sox over the Angels, Twinkies over White Sox, Rays over Twinkies, Rays in the World Series
And those other guys: Phillies over the Brew Crew, Cubs over the Trolleydodgers, Phillies over Cubbies
Rays-Phillies world series? Tam-pa Bay-Tam-pa Bay…
Oh, yeah, and I claim victory and lordship over everyone in the first annual Lost Column Fantasy Baseball League.
I want everyone, especially Joe to acknowledge my superiority over everything.
“And now, my picks to click: Red Sox over the Angels, Twinkies over White Sox, Rays over Twinkies, Rays in the World Series”
Well this makes no sense. Twins and White Sox can’t be in the playoffs together. Unless you meant Red Sox, then you’d be excused.
ALDS Bosox/Angels – Angels
ALDS Rays/Twins-Chisox – Rays
ALCS Rays/Angels – Angels
NLDS Brewers/Phillies – Phillies
NLDS Dodgers/Cubs – Cubs
NLCS Cubs/Phillies – Cubs
WS Cubs/Angels – Angels
I’d really like to see the Rays go all the way though. That would be the feel-good hit of the summer.
How about CC? 3 days rest, 3 times to get into the playoffs. Nasty.
The Mets! hahaha nuff said.
I hope the Twins get in.
Andrew in Rochester did in fact win the First Annual Loss Column Fantasy Baseball League. A saavy draft and constant manuevering in the face of losing some of his best players to the National League.
I can only hope that he is willing to gamble the 20 I owe him on playoff baseball.
Here’s my predictions:
BoSox beat Angels.
Rays beat Twins.
Sox beat Rays.
Brewers beat Phillies.
Dodgers beat Cubs.
Dodgers beat Brewers.
Sox beat Dodgers.
I meant, ahem, that one of the White Sox and the Twins needs to be eliminated yet. Both are still alive in the playoff hunt. I predict that the Twins win the AL Central one way or another.
And yes, Joe, I’ll go double or nothing with you, for whoever gets the most picks correct. I’m noting that we both picked the Twins over the White Sox, the Rays over the Twins, the Red Sox over the Angels, and everything else is completely different.
Sweet!
Redemption bet (it’s all I ever had)
Damn… Lohse just signed an extension with the Cards, so there goes one veteran starter.