February 23, 2001

The Debate to End All Debates

As you know, the question of whether or not there is a problem with baseball's current economic system between "small market" and "large market" teams has been a subject of heated debate in the mainstream media and in this league's various forums for more than a year now.  I have written several essays on this subject in the past, including some heavy analysis that proved (or so I thought) that this problem doesn't exist and another essay in which I theorized on the motives behind those who continue to advance Bud Selig's propaganda.  I've also posted an on-line debate I had with Scot Zook on this subject.

Scot has also written on this subject several times in his own forum, "The Hot Corner."  Scot, of course, is on the opposite side of this argument.  He not only believes there is a problem, but his solutions to this problem are even more extreme than those of Selig himself.

Since the threat of another work stoppage will make this issue front page news all year, I thought it would be interesting to post a continuing series of debates here between myself and Scot.  Before we begin our debate, a tale of the tape:

MIKE: Before we begin our debate, I think what we need to do is figure out exactly what we're arguing. Makes sense, right? With that in mind, take a look at the following statement:

"In baseball's current economic environment, small market teams cannot compete with large market teams."

Is that an accurate statement? If not, let me know what the basic premise is to your position. If so, let's break down this statement and talk about each piece of it.

First, the statement "in baseball's current economic environment." By "current", do we mean the past three years that the Yankees have won the championship? Are we talking about the environment since the strike in '94? Are we talking about baseball in the past decade? Or baseball since free agency began in the mid-70's? Because, really, the way in which teams acquire players hasn't changed since free agency began.

SCOT: I believe that the current economic structure is ludicrous in that Major League Baseball does not consider itself one entity, but 30 individual pieces that presently are destroying each other rather than making attempts to sell their product as a whole to the fans. As far as a starting point for baseball, that's a tough question. As for our conversation purposes, we can use 1980 as a starting point for further debate if that works for you.

MIKE: Well, baseball's economics were no different in 1980 than they were in 1976, 1991 or 2001. If we're going to pick a starting point, why don't we choose 1992? It was the year after two last-place teams played in the World Series. The argument now seems to be that a team like Minnesota or Atlanta can never again go from last to first because of the game's economics. So therefore, 1991 must have been the last year of "fairness" in baseball. Do you agree?

SCOT: First off, that was the only time that has ever happened in baseball. I don't think you can use make an example of one extreme instance to base an argument. You've stated time and time again that the Yankee's are the exception in that they do spend more money than most all of the teams and they do win. Why would you point to the only time that something like that happened and try to argue that was the last year of "fairness" in baseball?

MIKE: Okay...you're making this tougher than it has to be. If we start our debate at 1980, then how do we explain how the Twins (everyone's favorite small market team) won two championships within a five year span?) Or the Royals in 1980 and 1985? Or the Brewers in 1982? I'll ask the question another way: at what point could small market teams no longer compete with large market teams?

SCOT: I believe your asking a question that I really don't know how to answer. This has been a gradual thing that has been occurring over the years. That's like asking for the exact moment that the Roman Empire began to collapse. In a nutshell, this is not a black and white situation so there going to be gray areas.

MIKE: Jeez...it's as tough to get a straight answer out of you as it is Bill Clinton! So I guess we'll just have to work off the premise that baseball's economic system was once fair, but now it is not. Would you at least concede that baseball was fair in 1991?

SCOT: No, I wouldn't say that. I would say baseball was fair in 1970. To progress the debate I will say that the late 80's and early '90s is when the gap in between teams started to widen to the point where baseball could feasibly cancel the season and just start the playoffs in April.

MIKE: I'm still confused as to how the Twins could have won two championships in the late 80's and early 90's if the system was unfair to small market teams at that time, but at this point, I'm exhausted just trying to get a simple straight answer so I'll move on. Now, when we talk about "small market" and "large market" teams, what criteria are we using? Is it the region's television market? Population? Revenue? Payroll?

SCOT: Not necessarily so, in the past you've called upon such teams as the Cubs to be ranked in as a small market team, which simply is not the case at all. A small market team is exactly like it sounds, a small market. The league's ability to sell it's product in whatever region is the market for that region. I consider the television market and the population to go almost hand in hand. If you have a large population in your area, there will be more fans in your area, that's just obvious. The more fans you have attending your teams games and buying your teams products the more revenue your team is going to have. With this extra revenue that this team has that other teams don't have, the team is able to pay the outrageous contracts that the players are more than happy to ink for them. Most importantly, that team will have the pick of the litter of the available free agents because they've got the money to pay them. I fail to see this drastic definition problem that you're having. All of this goes into the big picture. If we both went into a Baseball Card Shop and you bought a Mickey Mantle rookie card and I bought a Lonnie Smith rookie card, how many people are going to want to see the Mantle compared to the Smith?

MIKE: Okay, just so we're talking about the same thing, we'll use television market as the criteria, since TV market is based upon population and earning power. I don't have numbers for Canadian TV markets, but I know that of the Major League cities, the following cities are ranked in the bottom ten: Milwaukee (#33), Cincinatti (#32), Kansas City (#31), San Diego (#25), Baltimore (#24), St. Louis (#21), Pittsburgh (#20), Anaheim (#19), Denver (#18) and Phoenix (#17). Would you agree, then, that these are small market teams?

SCOT: Before I answer this I want to know where you're getting your information at. Personally, correct me if I'm wrong here, but how can Milwaukee be ranked #33 and Denver be ranked #18, but still both be in the bottom ten of your list. I can type up some numbers and send them to you but that doesn't make them right. By the way, Cincinnati has two n's, not two t's.

MIKE: Man, oh, man! Now you're going to start picking on my spelling?? My mistake. (By the way, you shouldn't end sentences with the word "at".) My figures came from a Nielson ratings web site. According to that site, Milwaukee is ranked 33rd in the nation in TV market size and Denver is ranked #18. Both are ranked in the bottom ten in MLB because not every TV market has a Major League city.

SCOT: For the sake of argument, I'm not going to verify your source. We'll agree to use your listings that you've graciously provided, just to get this moving.

MIKE: Like I said, we can use whatever rankings from whatever source you'd like. You mentioned using population instead. I don't remember where I found the TV market data, so why don't we use U.S. census data, available at www.census.gov. In that case, the "large market" teams, as you have defined them, would be the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, White Sox, Cubs, Astros, Phillies, Padres, Diamondbacks and Tigers. And the "small market" teams would be the Devil Rays, Angels, Rangers, Reds, Cardinals, Pirates, Twins, A's, Marlins and Braves. Do you agree?

SCOT: I would base it upon the population and television market size. If we incorporate both, like I originally stated, you'll find that the top cities are: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit. I will agree that no one is screaming about how the Phillies or the Tigers can't compete because they essentially can compete, at least should be able to compete financially. The bottom teams are Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Cincinnati. I consider St. Louis to be sort of an aberration in that they've signed players in the past that were highly questionable, and were able to get the most out of them (Hentgen, Kile, Clark, etc). Before you start about how do the Reds afford Griffey, I just want to point out the fact that the Reds were the only team he would play for. If he wanted to play for the Twins, he would be there instead. So using the rankings that you've provided, these are the teams that I would include as both small and large markets. I've left plenty of holes in this for your rebuttal, so fire away.

MIKE: Boy, did you ever. We'll get to that soon enough. Right now, I just want to establish what the argument is first. Now, let's look at the phrase "cannot compete." How are we defining the word "compete?" Do we mean the ability of a team to reach .500? To be above .500? To make the playoffs? To win a playoff series? Or to win a World Series? And once we figure that out, what is a reasonable time frame for a team to be competitive? Surely we can't expect every team to be competitive every year. So are we talking about being competitive at least once every ten years? Once every five? Twice every five?

SCOT: Compete should not be the word here. The chance to win better illustrates my views. If all the teams were completely even, there would still be the Red Sox of the world and that's fine. At least they are playing on the same field as everyone else and nobody could ever say that they don't win because they can't afford to win. Once again to cross reference with the NFL, the Cincinnati Bengals are the worst team in the league, but nobody ever says that they don't have the opportunity to build a winner, they are just a very poorly run organization. How long does it take to become competitive? That should depend solely on your ability to judge talent and use it accordingly, not how big your wallet is.

MIKE: The reason no one ever says the Bengals can't compete is because there isn't this national hysteria over market sizes in football fueled by the ownership. The Minnesota Twins aren't any further away from competing than the Bengals. But for some reason, Twins ownership is intent on bad-mouthing their own product, and they don't want to spend the money they have or hire the right people to get the job done.

SCOT: I disagree here. The reason there is no "hysteria" in the NFL is because of the cap that they football was brilliant enough to institute. Every fan of every NFL team honestly believes that there team can make a legitimate run at the Super Bowl every year which is what makes the matches more of an event rather than a weekly game. That is also why football is dominating baseball every year.

You've said it yourself in the past, football is an event. Why is that? To me it seems that football compared to baseball is that football is more interested in what the fans want and that is to see their team win. Baseball is not interested at all in what the fans want and it shows clearly. Remember when the players took the field after the '94 strike? All the players everywhere were signing autographs, joining their communities and just being overall very good guys. With a few exceptions, where are they now? They've got us back and are now back to the same old ways, play the game and get paid, to hell with the fans.

MIKE: Do you honestly believe that football is popular because "every team has a chance to win?" If that's so, why was football popular before the cap? Why was football popular during the dynasties of the Packers, Cowboys, Steelers and Broncos? Football is an event because it only happens once a week. If football teams played 162 games a year, do you really believe their TV ratings wouldn't be just as low as baseball?

Instead of debating which sport is more popular (because, based on revenue alone - the currency of popularity - there is no debate; baseball wins hands-down), or which sport includes players who are better role models for the community (again, baseball wins in a landslide), let's stick to the topic at hand.

My original question was: for the purpose of this debate, how are we defining the word "compete?" I thought it was a pretty simple question. By your definition, "a chance to win" sounds a lot like "make the playoffs." Is that fair to say?

SCOT: No, you're trying to cross words here and I won't have it. A chance to win is exactly what it sounds like, a chance to win. Making the playoffs is every team's ultimate goal every season but not every team can make it. However, there is no reason that any team should be stuck anywhere in the rankings every year because they cannot afford the more talented players. The players are human and they are going to sign with whomever offers the most money, their are very few players who would play for less out of loyalty. You call this fair, that everything is on the up and up. If you and I were to construct cars for a race but you had $100,000 to build yours and I had $1000 to build mine, when it was all over with, who do you think would have won the race? I didn't have a chance from the beginning which is the same thing that is happening in baseball. The Twins don't have a chance to win.

MIKE: Again, we're getting off the topic talking about race cars. I'm asking: what is the definition of "compete?" If we are going to debate something - anything - we have to have a way of measuring our theories. If your definition is "a chance to win", that's impossible to measure. A chance can mean many things to many people. I believe the Twins have a chance to win. You don't. It also depends on the time frame you're talking about. A chance to win right this minute? A chance to win five years ago? A chance to win five years from now? What are we talking about? So I'll ask once again: what is your definition of "compete."

SCOT: If you don't want to compare how football is dominating the American viewer's attention (or the world's for that matter) that's fine. Please note, however, that I find it difficult to point out baseball's problems and provide an intelligent answer when I have nothing to compare it to. Please take the time to realize that free agency in the NFL is still a fairly new item but the owners and players were smart enough to put use a salary cap. The Packers, Cowboys, Steelers and 49er's dynasties were almost entirely homegrown talent. The Broncos are a perfect example because they won the Super Bowl two consecutive years and then fell off the face of the planet. In 2000, they were back in the playoffs again. Sound familiar?

MIKE: I would disagree that football is "dominating the American viewer's attention", but like I said, I want to stay on topic. Let me just point out, though, that the use of a salary cap in football has nothing to do with the owners' intelligence. NFL owners can get away with a salary cap because the NFL player's union is much, much weaker than baseball's. The only reason NFL owners instituted the cap was to save themselves money. It had nothing to do with putting a better product on the field or making things "fair." Again, I'd rather not deviate from the topic at hand, so let's move on.

SCOT: Compete - compete for something; engage in a contest; measure oneself against others

But that's not enough and I really don't think that's what were looking for in this debate. Let's add this to the mix:

Balance - a state of equilibrium; harmonious arrangement or relation of parts or elements within a whole (as in a design): "in all perfectly beautiful objects there is found the opposition of one part to another and a reciprocal balance"- John Ruskin; equality of distribution

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I believe we are looking for in MLB is competitive balance. If the Yankees spend more than double what the Royals can in salary how can we legitimately call this balanced, much less competitive?

MIKE: Okay...given your definition, the Royals can certainly "compete." They can "engage in a contest." And they can "measure (themselves) against others." I don't even know what to do with the philosophical quote you threw out there. I'm just looking for a way to measure the word "compete" so that we can debate it. I didn't think this would be so hard to do.

As for "balance", I wonder if you could define that for me (in twenty words or less, please!) Are we talking about a balance of talent? Or a balance of money?

SCOT: We could assemble a twenty-four man roster just out of the BDBL owners and take the field against the Yankees and yes, we would compete. We would not, however, stand any chance of winning. I did mention competitive balance (I don't know if you caught that or not). As for a definition of balance I believe this says it best: equality of distribution. I really don't know how else to put it to you. Each team should be balanced enough financially, and if the team's management spends their money wisely, then also balanced on the talent end of the spectrum. Do you disagree?

MIKE: Like I said, "compete" means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. That's why I wanted to get your definition. But apparently, that's not going to happen. Well...this hasn't gone as well as I had hoped. I thought this little exercise would take a day and instead it's taken a week. And after a week, we still don't know what we're arguing about. Apparently, we'll need to modify my original statement to read:

"In baseball's current economic environment, which began sometime around the late 80's and early 90's and has gotten progressively worse since then, teams from cities with low populations cannot maintain a competitive balance financially or talent-wise with teams from cities with high populations."

Whew!

Now that we have a theory, let's test it. For now, let's concentrate on the second half of that sentence. Can teams from a small population maintain a competitive balance with teams from a large population? You disallowed the use of playoff appearances as a means to measure success, so why don't we use wins instead? I think (at least I hope!) we can both agree on that.

Here is the method I used. If you'd like to use a different method, feel free. I first divided the 30 teams in MLB into three groups: Top-10, Middle-10 and Bottom-10. I then added up all the wins in each group for the past ten years. Since the MLB has consisted of 26, 28 and 30 teams during this time, I took the average number of wins instead of the total in order to keep everything equal. In 1994 and 1995, teams played less than 162 games, so the averages look a little smaller than you'd think. Here are the figures I found for grouping teams by population:

Top-10: 78 wins
Middle-10: 77 wins
Bottom-10: 78 wins

I was actually surprised myself to see how consistent the numbers are. There is literally NO correlation at all between a city's population and the number of wins for a team playing in that city. Since I know you'll come back to me and ask me to do the same analysis for TV market, here you go:

Top-10: 79 wins
Middle-10: 78 wins
Bottom-10: 76 wins

As you can see, there's not much of a difference here, either. There's only a 4-percent difference between the Top-10 and Bottom-10 groups, which amounts to an average of three wins per year. Want another iteration of this analysis? Let's try a combined ranking of population AND TV market. To do this, I admit I was a little lazy and just added the ranks together. For example, the Yankees are ranked #1 in population and in TV market, so their combined rank is "2". Kansas City is ranked #31 in TV market and #32 in population, so their combined rank is "63". It's not really the best, most scientific way to do it, but it works well enough. Here are the numbers:

Top-10: 78 wins
Middle-10: 80 wins
Bottom-10: 75 wins

Again, the difference between the top and bottom teams is minimal (4-percent or three wins), and the middle group is actually better than both ends thanks to Atlanta (which is the 10th ranked TV market, but only the 39th ranked population.)

It appears that I have proven that teams from cities with (relatively) small populations can, in fact, maintain a competitive balance with teams from cities with (relatively) large populations. Do you agree? If not, please provide some proof.

Stay tuned for Scot's reply!