The Red Sox have opened Pandora's Box...

[Kneel B4 Zod]

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the fact that the posting system was already in place was the one that set up Pandoras Box. other leagues developing MLB talent was probably inevitable.

[/ QUOTE ] So does the posting system only apply to players in foreign leagues? If not, whats to stop a team from doing it?

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I'm not positive, but:

trades which involve greater than $x in cash paid by 1 team (I forget the actual amount) need to be approved by the commisioner, who can invoke the "best interests of baseball" clause to deny the deal. It came up in the Red Sox/Arod deal a few years ago, and was partly an issue in the Abreu deal this summer I think.

It's probably why nobody tried to buy Ben Sheets or Johan.

[MafiaPrince]

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Kenny Williams sounds like an idiot in this anecdote, given that the single most famous baseball transaction in history was the sale of a player and the fact that teams trade AAAA guys for cash all the time. Nobody would buy Contreras for $30M.

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While Kenny Williams is indeed an idiot his comment was to be taken as a joke..

[TyFuji]

I find the trade system more interesting than the EPL-type transfer situation. In MLB at least, many teams would just keep the money instead of re-investing... I think that trades in MLB encourage competition and team building.

[FlyWf]

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the fact that the posting system was already in place was the one that set up Pandoras Box. other leagues developing MLB talent was probably inevitable.

[/ QUOTE ] So does the posting system only apply to players in foreign leagues? If not, whats to stop a team from doing it?

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The posting system is where a team sells the right to negotiate with a player. Jose Contreras already has an MLB contract, there's no reason to "post" for him, you'd just be selling his contract.

[J.R.]

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what reason does selig have for not wanting this?

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Like any league they want parity yet cannot do away with local revenue and create complete economic balance, although they are working there with more revenue sharing, luxury taxes and more league wide revenue distributed equally amongst the teams. They don't want the perception that ML teams are essentially farm teams for large market clubs.

During Ban Johnson's ownership of the As in the 50s, they traded many young players to the Yankees for cash and aging veterans, thus significantly improving the Yankees' future prospects. Roger Maris had been acquired by the Yankees in one such trade, going to New York in a seven-player deal in December 1959. Many fans, and even other teams, frequently accused the Athletics of being operated effectively as a farm team for the Yankees. Baseball doesn't want to repeat this.

[ThaSaltCracka]

A problem with the trade system is that in most situations its one team with a short term gain and the other with a long term, growth/gain. Selling players could actually lead to either one. One team could buy a young or proven player. The seller could use that money to do the same, or to sign new players for their farm system. I don't think trades do all that much, as in most cases its one team dumping salary, and the other making a "stretch" run. I actually think if a team is able to purchase players, it could lead to more parity, but thats only if some sort of cap could be placed on the spending.

[youtalkfunny]

I was pretty young, so I don't remember the details of Oakland sending Rollie Fingers and Joe Rudi to Boston for cash.

But I do know that the commish put the kibosh on that one.

[J.R.]

Why would a professional sports league want to model itself after European soccer leagues, where clubs routinely go bankrupt? Selig is right to know that parity is where the moeny is - no league does well when a clubs face bankruptcy and extreme barriers to competitive success. Transfer fees are largely a by prodcut of economic inequality- clubs need cash to stay afloat, other clubs are flush with loot. Economic parity takes away much of the incentive for transfer fees.

The EPL sorta understands this, which is in large measure why it has seen success: The Premier League sells its television rights on a collective basis. But even then, the distribution is quite inequitable, as the money is divided into three parts: half is divided equally between the clubs; one quarter is awarded on a merit basis based on final league position, the top club getting twenty times as much as the bottom club, and equal steps all the way down the table. Thus only 4 teams have won, and ManU has dominated in a fashion that would appall most U.S. fans, who complained about the Yankee dynasty when they one three straight world series.

Read "national pastime", described by its publishers as:

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In National Pastime, Stefan Szymanski and Andrew Zimbalist examine how organizational structures have made Major League Baseball a profitable business (notwithstanding common claims made by the owners) while soccer leagues around the world struggle to break even. They weave a rich variety of stories, anecdotes, and photos into their account of how these games became businesses, and how these businesses have adapted to the demands of fans. The authors show how early administrators of baseball and soccer leagues were influenced by the parallel developments of each sport and, in particular, how the concept of the league was invented by American baseball and transplanted first to English soccer, and then to the rest of the world

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link

A commentator in this same link had this to say:

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The American sports leagues have understood that unlike in other industries, it’s not good for individual franchises to drive their competitors out of the market. Sports works best when there is rough parity of competition. Consequentially, they have instituted a number of collective measures that are actually punitive of success. The draft system from professionalising amateurs (in which the poorest-performing club from the previous season selects first, and so on), the luxury tax on player salaries, and television revenue sharing are all designed to ensure that rich clubs do not come to dominate the rest.

European football, by contrast, has resisted approaches like this, relying instead on the problematic promotion-and-relegation system.

Rather than stable competition within the top professional leagues, therefore, European football has seen the increasing dominance of the richest clubs, which has led to continuous talk (and actual implementation) of breakaway elite leagues.

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The EPL is such a league.

Further commentary on this issue from the Washington Post (in the context of discussing Malcolm Plazer's purchase of Man.U.

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Such strong emotions do not make for serene enjoyment, and the tormented life of an English soccer fan is vividly depicted in Nick Hornby's autobiographical 1992 novel "Fever Pitch." Hornby managed to explain just how difficult it is to support a team -- the sheer volume of unhappiness one has to go through in order to experience the buzz from winning. Now consider that Hornby is lucky to support Arsenal, which like Man U, is one of the few successful English clubs. The peculiar misery of most English fans arises from the fact that for most teams, the prospect of ever winning a championship is remote. That's because there is an extreme playing field imbalance built into English soccer, and it creates a defeatist mindset that few Americans -- except, perhaps, Cubs fans -- are likely to understand.

Think of it this way: American sport, not unreasonably, is built around the concept that spectators want to be entertained. Since they are largely entertained by winning, American leagues routinely redistribute resources, impose salary caps, implement reverse-order drafts and the like in order to maintain some kind of competitive balance. That doesn't happen here. There is almost no revenue redistribution in the soccer world, and therefore big city teams dominate perpetually. When the Yankees won three World Series in a row at the end of the 20th century, many fans were fed up and the baseball establishment expressed dismay. When Manchester United won eight out of the first 11 championships of the Premier League (1993-2003), no one batted an eyelid.
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In England, the vast majority of soccer clubs have never made a profit. Emulating the U.S. model and uniting Europe's top clubs -- Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan, Inter, Juventus, Bayern Munich-- into a single, closed league would be a surefire way to make more money. Not only would it add to the value of broadcast rights, it would create a system for controlling costs and raising revenue. But it wouldn't be the traditional English way.


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[ThaSaltCracka]

JR, interesting post. I want to read that book.

[JaredL]

Interesting reading JR. Thanks for posting it, I'll definately pick up the book when I have the chance.

Just to clarify:

" Rather than stable competition within the top professional leagues, therefore, European football has seen the increasing dominance of the richest clubs, which has led to continuous talk (and actual implementation) of breakaway elite leagues.

link

The EPL is such a league.
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Actually it isn't. The breakaway elite leagues that have been discussed are those like the thing you quoted below. Top teams from several countries that play each other. These super leagues tend to not have any sort of entry or exit design, just that the teams make their own league and ignore everyone else.

The Premiership is simply the top flight in England.