Pirates serve breakfast to needy

Firsties

Dejan

That's fine, we can wait a few days--not like they are going be on the MLB team this season :)

Looks like Teke has been eating some of the leftovers over the years.I remember him standing behind a groundskeeper rake and being barely visible.  :-) All in all it's a good thing they're all doing for others less fortunate.

Goody!

  I can't wait to hear from Rene Gayo!  (Of course, I hope it proves to be worth it!)  PoH is right IMHO.  If Kahlil Greene would agree to play for us, I believe we'd be pleased with the results.  I was at a game with San Diego, when he and Bay were neck-and-neck for the Rookie crown, and it was truly special.  This fellow has some talent!  

 Having travelled throughout the country over the last 40 years, I have to say that Pittsburghers really know how to make a person feel at Home.  There is no better tonic for the anxious soul than to come Home!  So, bring him Home to Pittsburgh.

Tampa acquired catcher Kelly Shoppach

the Pirates may be struggling in the standings, but you can't say enough good things about the team's committment to charity work.  It seem pretty genuine to me and not just PR stuff.

I did a double-Teke looking at the Kent Tekulve lately.  Great guy though he could lose a few (can't we all?).  

And by the way, has the Teke ever been on the HOF ballot?  He deserves some consideration.  Heck, Bruce Sutter made it in...  

Spike - yeah Khalil Greene has been impressive at times.  He's erratic at the plate.  But he has nice power.  He'd be a definite improvement over Cedeno.

Plus there'd be another long-haired blonde on the team again since the departures of McLouth and that other RF we picked up from the Indians who's now gone :)

Baseball Fan

Not quite, Dejan does some links in his post.  I add any recent links in the morning and do the morning blog and MLB links.  Some links are added as people request, such as the voting for the MLB Year Awards and the MLB transactions.  Kind of a group effort.  

Larry

He got six HOF votes in 1995.

The Tampa move pretty much guarantees that Doumit will not be traded unless something completely out of the blue occurs.

I went to my aunt's house one day and we were talking about the Pirates. She opened the door to her daughter's room - the daughter is now in her mid to late 40s, but the room is pretty much as she left it - and there is a Teke poster in there - him in that "pitch like a preying mantis" thing he did. Talk about flashback!

Hi, L-Z!

  I'm hoping that Pittsburgh would have a calming effect on Mr. Greene's psyche.  This is a much smaller, less active (in temrs of Baseball) and more forgiving "pond" than St. Louis - don't you think?  If he feels well - I think he'll play well - I know I would!

That's mostly Mark's excuse Dejan - the Pirates are cheap because of the fans/city.

<<The Tampa move pretty much guarantees that Doumit will not be traded unless something completely out of the blue occurs.>>

If only it were so.

Anytime I read comments about drawing people to baseball, I think of the Yankee Pirates series of 2008. Full house, no problem. Weeknights. And on night one, the Bucs were certainly something to cheer for!

"Nothing draws me in like a mention of market size."

I'm a sucker for the finance discussions.

I saw Teke a few weeks ago and to me he looks like he dropped about 10 or so.

From a rail to huge the last few, but maybe heading back down, believe it or not.

Oh well,

Once again, "Everything I know is wrong!"  (Surprise!)  Nonetheless, I stick by the "Homey 'Burgh" and "feel good-play good" aspects of my thoughts, since I have proven them out in my own limited areas of experience.

Thanks for the educational moment, DK!  It's one of those things that makes the Blog so compelling!

DK,

Some great points by Mr. Henry but the 16th largest media market? By what standard?  

Market size may be the same but I agree with Spike.  Living here near the St. Louis market (you're either a Cubs fan or a Cards fan here in the Quad Cities) I believe the pressure would be far less in Pittsburgh.  One of the few silver linings due to being bad for so long.

In just a quick read of that article it sounds like Henry has a bad case of Yankee envy.

First of all, he's in fantasyland for comparing MLB to other industries.  It's not the same - not even close.  The MLB doesn't compete with another major baseball league.

And a tax on payroll might not stop some teams from spending.  So as a result if that tax money goes to a team that has to meet some minimum payroll requirement as he suggests, they may be forced to give that money to current players because top tier free agents still aren't going to those teams.

He's on the right track in some respects though but there needs to be a cap.  All you have to do is look at how it has worked pretty well I would argue, in the NFL, NBA, and NHL.

St. Louis baseball market extends well past their media market -- their fan base goes up into Iowa, most of Southern Illinois, down into Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, and a whole lot of Missouri that's in Kansas City's market, a good hunk of Oklahoma, and Kansas too.  They were the westen edge of baseball through the first half of last century.  

BF,

Not many K's for such a drastic (6' 6") downward plane.  ;-)

Not realizing that ants had marched, I commented on John Henry's article on the previous thread.  I think his valid point is that the purpose of revenue sharing is to make the "poorer" teams more competitive, and so spending the money they do get at the MLB level would seem like the fair thing to do.  

Personally, I favor a floor and a cap.  

""Some great points by Mr. Henry but the 16th largest media market? By what standard?""  

BetterDays:

Good question.

A Designated Market Area (DMA) is a trademarked term of Nielsen Media Research and refers to a group of counties that form an exclusive geographic area in which the home market television stations hold a dominance of total hours viewed.

Here are the Top 5 DMAs:

Rank/City/Number of TV homes.

1 New York 7,375,530

2 Los Angeles 5,536,430

3 Chicago 3,430,790

4 Philadelphia 2,925,560

5 Boston 2,375,310

here is Dutton's twitter bit on Wright

twitter.com/.../6246397754

Reading that Huntington was in the kitchen cooking breakfast made me wish he was also "cooking" up something with a FA right fielder.

"I think his valid point is that the purpose of revenue sharing is to make the "poorer" teams more competitive, and so spending the money they do get at the MLB level would seem like the fair thing to do"

I think the purpose of revenue sharing is to keep the poorer teams from going bankrupt JHadar and I agree that we need a floor and a cap.

My suggestion to an owner like Henry is that if he doesn't like the system that he himself approved, then sell.  If he wants to make more money annually while he owns the team, then lower your payroll.  But if he really wants to cash out big time, sell.

21s -- Just for the sake of discussion, no strong feelings here, but if some of the poorer teams did go bankrupt, wouldn't MLB be able to find new ownership groups to take them over (or take them over and move them to greener pastures)?  And, likewise, wouildn't making teams more competitive make them less likely to go bankrupt?

Shoppach was part of the deal were we didn't get Cliff Lee for Jason Bay, as I recall.  Ouch, we got Hanson instead!!

There are consequences to a team going bankrupt that MLB finds unacceptable.  That's why it's been pumping money into the Rangers since Tom Hicks' company defaulted on a number of debts.  For one thing, if a team misses payroll, the players might all become free agents, which MLB certainly wouldn't want to see.  That's how Catfish Hunter became a FA--Charley Finley failed to make a payment Hunter was due under his contract.

JH

Making teams more competitive might help some teams stay solvent but some are just in low draw area.  The Marlins were 87-75 and 2nd in the division and drew less than the Pirates.

JHadar,

I feel pretty confident in saying that I really don't think MLB wants to have to go through finding owners for bankrupt teams and/or moving them.  MLB saved the Diamondbacks from bankruptcy in the late 90's by giving them a loan that's why I think revenue sharing started.

And why would a new owner think that they could sustain a profitable and cash flowing organization if the prior owner couldn't?

"And, likewise, wouildn't making teams more competitive make them less likely to go bankrupt?"

You betcha.

ants march to the Jamey Wright thread

=============================================

BF said - That's mostly Mark's excuse Dejan - the Pirates are cheap because of the fans/city.

================

#1. The Pirates are not cheap. They spend in proportion to what other teams spend considering their revenue.

#2. St. Louis is a perfect example of what the Pirates could become if they had drafted well and made good player moves the past 15 years.

#3. The Cardinals have an exactly average payroll, but their attendance is 134% of average (40K/game). With a market of 2.8M people (500K more than Pgh), this gives you an idea of how many people the Pirates would have to draw to afford an average payroll.

#4. The Cardinals have been a great franchise for many, many years and this is what it takes to build a large rabid fan base which sustains the franchise during down years (like the Steelers). In the past 30 years, the Cardinals have had 20 winning seasons and have gone to the WS 5 times.

#5. In the end, the Pirates cannot afford to spend very much on payroll right now because they themselves created a situation of devaluing their franchise. However, the only way to build value again in the franchise is to do the things which really build value in a franchise - superior player development, scouting, and drafting. When those things are done well, then the Pirates will need to spend money to RETAIN the value they have built. The money they have will be determined by the attendance and excitement that they can generate in the city of Pittsburgh.

Baseball Fan

I am not sure what that was about.  

Maybe Neal was cooking up some CHEAP beef on toast. :-)

RE:  MLB & Team Solvency -

  I have to admit, fellows, that the thought has crossed my mind on occasion that Frank and Neal are plants from MLB, charged with setting one of its oldest franchises back on course.  (That's only when I'm having paranoid flashbacks from my misspent youth...!)

G;>}  

21 -- You're probably right about not wanting to go through finding owners for bankrupt teams.  Doesn't mean they couldn't do it, though.

As for << And why would a new owner think that they could sustain a profitable and cash flowing organization if the prior owner couldn't? >>  Maybe I'm hoplessly naive, but I would like to think that there are people out there who have made their fortunes elsewhere and would buy a team for the fun of competing regardless of profit/loss.  Sort of a hobby for the superwealthy sportsman.  There were owners like that in the past -- but maybe the world has become a better place.

JAL -- Florida.  As I noted above re: St. Louis -- media market doesn't necessarily baseball fanbase or team market area.

JHadar,

You bring up a very good and often overlooked point. Comparing market size is not really the best way of determining how much revenue a team can expect from its locality.

There are too many variables that are not considered like:

1. Local competition

While the size of the metro area might be comparable, the number of teams within a close proximity is drastically different.

Cleveland, Baltimore, Washington, Toronto, Detroit are all within 200 nautical miles of Pittsburgh with Philly and Cincy are within 225. That's a lot of teams to have to compete against to build your fan base from and generate TV revenue and merchandise sales from.

Now, if you look at the teams that Pgh is most often compared to, Milwaukee, Kansas City and St. Louis, you will see that they have:

Mil - Chicago (Detroit sneaks in at 219 nautical miles)

KC - none (St. Louis is 203 nautical miles)

St. Louis - none (KC is 203 nautical miles)

While there is a denser population in the mid-Atlantic region where the PBC plays, there is a lot more competition for what available fans are there.

"I doubt Nutting is in danger of bankruptcy."

Without revenue sharing, I think it's a possibility.

"Henry isn't allowed to voice his concerns about the system without being told to sell? "

I'm not allowed to SUGGEST that he sell when he voice his concerns?

Hmmm...one charity case helping another...