The Chris Moeller Archives

The great unsigned

Major League Baseball officials have always operated a shrewd shell game in respect to their financial well-being. Players Association head Donald Fehr once said, "Two things never change in baseball-- you can never have enough pitching, and nobody has ever made any money."

That's why it's difficult to swallow recent claims by the ballclubs that they can't afford the salary demands of the almost 90 still-unsigned free agents-- almost half of the total number that filed-- less than two weeks before pitchers and catchers are required to report to Spring Training. Forgive me if I'm smelling that filthy rat of collusion once again.

One week into February, the Cardinals club that I root for has allowed its payroll for this season (at this writing) to slip almost $25 million below that of their division rival Chicago Cubs, despite two decades of nearly-annual 3 million attendance postings, playing host to the '09 All-Star game (insuring season-ticket renewals), a spiffy new ballpark in only its fourth season of service, buckets of new revenue in streams from internet, satellite radio, and the new MLB cable television network. Their off-season transaction activity, at almost comotose levels already last winter, has consisted this year of only the long-term signing of current starting pitcher Kyle Lohse, trading for the modestly-talented and modestly-priced shortstop Khalil Greene, and picking up left-handed reliever Trevor Miller, who's been diagnosed with a slight muscle tear in his shoulder, for just a half-million dollars. Franchise player Albert Pujols recently lobbied publicly for the signing of his fellow countryman, Manny Ramirez, an all-world slugger, to join the Cardinals' outfield, but this is a wild fantasy considering that the current club budget didn't even allow for the acquisition of southpaw relievers Will Ohman or Joe Beimel.

For 2009, ballclub owners have the public relations luxury of hiding behind a shaky U.S. economy, but if recent cinema box office is any indication, escapism entertainment, such as that of our major team sports, will be one area of the economy little affected by a deep recession. Attendance boomed in '08 despite the country being in a recession all year. And besides, owners in their ranks, as usual, have sporadically betrayed their collective claims this winter by continuing to dole out some hefty contracts, such as the one this week to lefthanded starter Oliver Perez from the Mets for $36 million over a three-year deal.

You can probably detect that my main criticism lies with the inactivity and penny-pinching of my favorite club. Despite promises to bolster a bullpen that blew more saves in 2008 than any MLB club for a single-season in more than a decade, Cardinals chairman Bill "DeWallet" DeWitt has evidently resigned himself to beginning the new season with the same committee of relievers that produced the disastrous results last season-- plus the lefty-specialist Miller, of course. There's successful precedence in the club's history to adopting a bullpen by committee-- the 1985 team that had just lost Bruce Sutter to free agency didn't blow a ninth-inning lead until the 6th game of the World Series, but that team had also added bopper Jack Clark to begin the season, bolstering a batting lineup that had produced only 68 home runs in 1984. The 2009 Cardinals have added virtually nothing to their roster to indicate that they can make up the 11.5 games they spotted the Cubs last year, despite more than $30 million coming off the books with the departures of once-greats Jason Isringhausen, Braden Looper, and Juan Encarnacion. Where is this money being re-invested?

The cries of poverty are being heard from other corners of the league as well. The man who owns the Milwaukee Brewers, Mark Attanasio, has recently begun lobbying for that long-forgotten concept of a players' salary cap, and while the league parity that he's claiming to champion is vital, the arguments in favor of a salary cap to strengthen it don't bear out. (Don't forget that Attanasio's team made the playoffs in 2008.) A different team has won the World Series in each of the last nine seasons. Nineteen different teams have won the World Series during the last 30 years, while in the NFL, only 17 teams have won the Super Bowl throughout its 43 year history.

For the 2007 tax year, the man who used to own the Brewers, Bud Selig, now the commissioner of Major League Baseball, made $17.5 million in his post, at least sixty percent more than any other sports league commissioner in the U.S. No salary cap there. That's more than all but four big-league players made in '07 (all of them Yankees), and no baseball fan ever bought a ticket to a game to catch a glimpse of Bud Selig, a man who once cancelled the World Series and who experts speculate likely sleeps wearing a suit.

The players' union is now considering opening its own Spring Training camp later this month on behalf of the unsigned players, possibly at the old, abandoned Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida. This would be an almost laughable step to be forced to take. Club owners may have a valid point in that the economic recession forces a conservative approach, but nothing in their history, from the court-proven violations of the collective bargaining agreement during the late 1980s to the half-century and more of collusion to exclude African-American players prior to that has earned this group the benefit of the doubt. Just last year, Barry Bonds remained unsigned throughout the entire season despite his physical and legal ability to play, and despite the fact that the BALCO investigation in which he had been implicated had not likewise blackballed Jason Giambi. who had also been named in court documents. Players agents and representatives for the union would have every justification already to call for a formal investigation of the winter's transpirings.

posted by CM @ 10:16 AM