11-30-2012, 07:41 PM
I'm with you on the idiocy of the comments. When I first heard about it, I assumed it was something taken out of context, but it really wasn't. As you say, in baseball, the playing field isn't level, there are real challenges based on market, and the Indians market is small, and the "Browns effect" is real, other cities feel it in different ways too. St. Louis is opposite, the Rams have to deal with the "Cardinals Effect", St. Louis is a "baseball town", Cleveland is a "football town". Yes both are big enough to support both, but for whatever reason (and they can generally be traced if you really want to, but that isn't important) people who are sports fans in those cities favor one sport over the other, so the ups and downs are easier to ride out.
Like you say the Rays are handling the differences well. The Oakland A's do a good job for a small market team as well, heck that's what the movie Moneyball is about. Free agency has a much larger effect in baseball than any other sport because so much of the game is individual performance. It's a team game but the interdependence on the other players is much smaller. This of course can be part of the draw of baseball, the numerous one on one battles that occur during a game. Football is on the other end of that spectrum, where a single players performance is heavily influenced by other players, in some cases 21 other players can have a direct impact on a play, not just a tangential impact. That of course is part of the draw of football even if people don't recognize it. The big exception in football is that with the way rule changes have lead the game, a great QB has a disproportional impact on the outcome of a game. You don't have to have a great QB, but a great QB makes winning consistently easier to do than a great player at any other position.
The way a small market (or more accurately a small revenue because market size is not the only impact on revenue) baseball can have success is spending bigger on the little things. Devote more of your budget to scouting and coaching to maximize the return you get from each player because you can't afford to pay big and miss in the same way. You can look at how the Rays and Marlins built their organizations, invest in the farm system and the player development pipeline, pay a few players, trade for young talent when you know you will lose the contract. Easier said than done and you still can't always outspend in the little areas, but one of the reasons I think St. Louis, a mid market team, is arguably the Yankees of the NL when it comes to sustained team success is that used to pay their good scouts and coaches more than other teams, even if they didn't always pay the big player contracts.
I grew up a Cubs fan, my grandparents were huge fans, from the ages of 5 to 16 they would take us to at least one game a year, even though we lived about 4 hours from Chicago. It was usually done as a summer camping trip. But I've been to quite a few games in Wrigley, we also ended up going to the old Busch Stadium in St. Louis in 84 and got to seem the clinch the pennant. I was at one of the few games that Greg Maddux was ever ejected from at Wrigley. But I've been in MO for the last 19 years now and constantly seeing how the Cardinals, in a smaller market than Chicago, did business vs what the Cubs did. I finally gave up on the Cubs and really baseball in general. I do actually follow the Cards pretty casually now. But I actually viewed being a Cubs fan like a disease. There was no logical reason to be a fan, and being a fan had more negative affects than positive on a person. But people kept going to the games even during the 50-60 win seasons, so why did ownership care, The Tribune Company who owned them from 81 till 07 (most of my life) really didn't care. They said similar things to Shapiro at times, it wasn't in their best interest to worry about the players on the field etc. The Cubs might turn it around the Rickett's family seems to want to have a winning product, but I no longer care and my life is better for it.
Like you say the Rays are handling the differences well. The Oakland A's do a good job for a small market team as well, heck that's what the movie Moneyball is about. Free agency has a much larger effect in baseball than any other sport because so much of the game is individual performance. It's a team game but the interdependence on the other players is much smaller. This of course can be part of the draw of baseball, the numerous one on one battles that occur during a game. Football is on the other end of that spectrum, where a single players performance is heavily influenced by other players, in some cases 21 other players can have a direct impact on a play, not just a tangential impact. That of course is part of the draw of football even if people don't recognize it. The big exception in football is that with the way rule changes have lead the game, a great QB has a disproportional impact on the outcome of a game. You don't have to have a great QB, but a great QB makes winning consistently easier to do than a great player at any other position.
The way a small market (or more accurately a small revenue because market size is not the only impact on revenue) baseball can have success is spending bigger on the little things. Devote more of your budget to scouting and coaching to maximize the return you get from each player because you can't afford to pay big and miss in the same way. You can look at how the Rays and Marlins built their organizations, invest in the farm system and the player development pipeline, pay a few players, trade for young talent when you know you will lose the contract. Easier said than done and you still can't always outspend in the little areas, but one of the reasons I think St. Louis, a mid market team, is arguably the Yankees of the NL when it comes to sustained team success is that used to pay their good scouts and coaches more than other teams, even if they didn't always pay the big player contracts.
I grew up a Cubs fan, my grandparents were huge fans, from the ages of 5 to 16 they would take us to at least one game a year, even though we lived about 4 hours from Chicago. It was usually done as a summer camping trip. But I've been to quite a few games in Wrigley, we also ended up going to the old Busch Stadium in St. Louis in 84 and got to seem the clinch the pennant. I was at one of the few games that Greg Maddux was ever ejected from at Wrigley. But I've been in MO for the last 19 years now and constantly seeing how the Cardinals, in a smaller market than Chicago, did business vs what the Cubs did. I finally gave up on the Cubs and really baseball in general. I do actually follow the Cards pretty casually now. But I actually viewed being a Cubs fan like a disease. There was no logical reason to be a fan, and being a fan had more negative affects than positive on a person. But people kept going to the games even during the 50-60 win seasons, so why did ownership care, The Tribune Company who owned them from 81 till 07 (most of my life) really didn't care. They said similar things to Shapiro at times, it wasn't in their best interest to worry about the players on the field etc. The Cubs might turn it around the Rickett's family seems to want to have a winning product, but I no longer care and my life is better for it.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.