As he told Brian McTaggart:

“We would love to have a salary cap, but the (players’) union has been very resistant to that.”

Well, duh.

All a salary cap would do is transfer even MORE profit from the players to the owners. Naturally, the billionaires WANT to pay the players the least amount of money possible. Salary caps don’t say that any team HAS to spend that much money. The Lorias of the owners will still be allowed to put a 30 million dollar team on the field and pocket 30-40 mill a year in profit.

According to Forbes, the Astros have made a minimum of 75 mill profit over the past 5 years. But Drayton is crying poverty? He wants to pay the players even less and keep even MORE?

Please.

He decided a long time ago that he would pocket even more $$$ by essentially ignoring the minor leagues and signing FA stars to attract paying customers to the ballpark.

Speaking of ignoring minor league development, I ran across this very interesting article from Amalie Benjamin, one of the Red Sox beat reporters, (yes, of course I’m pimping grrrrrls stuff) writing about that Organizations decision to make the effort AND SPEND THE MONEY to sign and develop their minor league system. Yeah, I know I hate the Sux, but still, think how much better off the Astros would be right now if Drayton had bothered to invest some of that 75 mill into the minors.

I don’t understand why it is that so many people actually REALLY want the owners to keep more of the profit generated by MLB than they already do. Baseball players keep THE lowest percentage of revenue generated by any of the 4 big sports. They should keep even less, now, WHY? It is so important that baseball players:owners = coal miners:mine owners back in the 1800s WHY???

If it is not a question of the actual number of dollars that a player is paid, but a question of wanting every one of the 30 teams to essentially be the same, have a .500 ball club and the winner determined essentially by luck/injuries, then a salary cap won’t do that. You would absolutely need to have every dollar of revenue split between 30 teams and have a salary floor and salary cap set each year dependent on the revenues from the year before, with a certain pre-determined percentage going to the players, a certain percentage going for amateur bonuses, a certain percentage going for minor league/player development and a certain percentage for owner profit. No team could make more by any means whatsoever (can you say Wrigley Field Premium Tickets) than any other team.

Besides,

I sure as heck don’t see parity in the NBA. The networks/owners seem to WANT the same 4 teams to win every year (one of the reasons they hate Mark Cuban). And I sure as heck don’t see parity in the NFL, either. Parity means that over a 10 year period, there should never be any dominant team and every team should have the same record as every other team.

Right

The NFL exists for gambling and if every team is exactly like every other team, pretty hard for a gambling organization/company to predict outcomes. It will never happen.

Interesting that Richard Justice isn’t the only one to write that they are glad that the Yankees are spending all that money, and that Yankee dominance is a good thing because they are so popular.

But popularity is a chicken and egg thing. The Yankees weren’t particularly popular in the 80s/early 90s because they were not winning and they CERTAINLY were not the away draw they currently are. SURE they drew more than a losing team, but there were no sellout guarantees as there are now. Winning teams draw fans and crowds. Teams who mentioned, praised, broadcast incessantly draw fans. I have pointed out that increasingly over the past 5-6 years, ESPN/Fox have covered Yankees/RedSox/Mets/Cubs to the point where the vast majority of their broadcast time is centered on those teams. Certainly that increases their popularity.

Access/face is key. Does anyone believe that appearing on WGN had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Cubs increased popularity? Or the Braves acquiring a national fan base because of WTBS? When every single Braves game was broadcast, I knew the names and stats of every single player because I watched all those games. The Braves decline in popularity conincides exactly with the decision of Time Warner to stop broadcasting games, or at least, most games AND the decision of ESPN to pimp their big 4.

Anyway, back on the Astros, McLane isn’t competing with the Yankees anyway, so he certainly doesn’t NEED to spend to keep up with them. In fact, the average of all NL teams spends less, about 15 mill a year less, on salaries than the average AL team, even omitting Yankees. He doesn’t need to worry about them. He NEEDS to spend some of that vast profit on the minor league system and not throw away 5 perfectly good cheap young players for the likes of Miguel Tejada.

And anyway, he and Fast Eddie are very optimistic about the team’s chances this year because they have added some high character guys. Isn’t that special. Personally, I’d prefer a few good pitchers/hitters…

Oh yeah – last but not least – take a guess which team has made the LEAST profit over the past 5 years?

Yep. The Yankees….

Here we go again. Sorry, but that was the only line that posted from an entire entry don’t ask me why, but I’m too angry to rewrite the entire thing again, so here goes.

The Yanks threw 161 mill at Sabathia and in spite of his talk about wanting to hit, wanting to stay in Milwaukee/go home to California, in the end, either he and/or the Union took the most money and there you are.

shrug

However, the Brewers, possibly in a total state of sulk, decided to gift the Yankees, after they took their star pitcher, with their outstanding CF, Mike Cameron, in exchange for the Yankees lousy CF Melky Cabrera, so he can stink up their lineup cheaply for the next 3 years. Hey, they should just hand them Ryan Braun for Andy Phillips or Brett Gardner or something while they’re at it.

And the Mets got a setup guy/backup closer to augment Frankie Rodriguez – JJ Putz from the Mariners for suckulous middle reliever Aaron Heilman (and change.) No wonder these guys think the rest of baseball should kiss their butts – the rest of baseball DOES.

Now Gerry Hunsicker pulled off a decent trade – starter Edwin Jackson, a guy with all this “potential” and “stuff” with not much to show for it, to the Tigers for highly regarded AAA infielder Matt Joyce.

While Fast Eddie has done his best to trade Tejada and Wiggy and gotten nothing to show for it (toldja that Drayton McCheap was cutting payroll, not increasing it) he did pick up some slag off the waiver wire/Rule V heap:

Jeff Fulchino, RH SP, age 29, off waivers from the Royals. He was picked by the Marlins in the 9th round of the 01 draft, then signed as a 6 year minor league FA by the Royals last year. He has spent the last 4 years (mostly) in AAA, which doesn’t say much for their AAA staffs, I’ll say that. Here are his ERA/WHIP over those years: 5.06/1.61; 4.50/1.43; 5.83/1.67; 4.84/1.60. About the only good thing I can say about him is that he has always had a very low HR rate – 0.7/9 IP. And yeah, he has thrown 14.1 dreadful innings in the majors, just in case you were curious.

Lou Palmisano, C, age 26, picked in the Rule V from the Orioles, in spite of the fact that he was with the Brewers. Don’t ask me to explain that one. Lou hasn’t hit higher than AA, had a .787 OPS in 07, and was hurt last year and spent it split between Rookie and A ball. He did hit .407 over 13 games in the AFL, which means so much to Fast Eddie that he is talking about Palmisano competing with Quintero. And Quintero is a worse hitter than Ausmus, which tells you that Towles is finished as far as the Astros are concerned. Naturally, they won’t trade the guy and try to get something of value, they’ll just let him rot in AAA as a punishment for failing last year.

Andrew Locke, 1B/OF, age 26, picked in the Rule V from the Dodgers, who selected him in the 19th round of the 05 draft. He hasn’t exceeded high A, and his OPS last year was .843. Can’t see the guy sticking on the ML roster all year. 

Gilbert De La Vara, LH RP, age 24, picked in the Rule V from the Royals (WHAT is the obsession with the Royals castoffs????!!!!) Anyway, he was picked in the 15th round of the 04 draft. Unlike the others, this guy looks as if he might could possibly stick – he’s thrown 259 innings over 4 years with a 3.40 ERA and a 1.16 WHIP. He split last year between high A and AA and pitched quite well – 77 IP with only 1 HR, 56 H, 17 BB, 52 K. He must be a contact pitcher, probably a GB pitcher, seing as how he gave up so few homers, and in fact, has only give up 13 homers over the past 4 years. He’s Wesley Wright sized and all yall KNOW I rootrootroot for the little guy…

With all the owners except Yankees and Mets pretending they are poor, guess they are waiting out the players, hoping they will get desperate and sign for peanuts toward Spring Training.

Roy Oswalt has apparently offered to re-do his contract if Drayton will sign a good starting pitcher. But that might could mean that Drayton would have to actually spend money, so I’m not holding my breath.

sigh

Cheapo Drayton McLane is already trying to get rid of 2 of the 5 most productive players on the club so that he can sign a #4 pitcher to yet another long term contract – and not spend any more money, either..

Naturally…

He therefore has to decide whether or not to offer arb to Randy Wolf, who earned 7 or 8 mill last year and would get a raise (but at least it would be a 1 year contract) and Doug Brocail, who is a Type A, who earned 2.5 mill last year and, naturally, would get a raise. Heck, the Cheap-stros didin’t even want to pay him the extra 750K to pick up his option, so I have a feeling they will not offer arb – and we won’t get him back and we won’t get draft picks. For goodness sakes, it would make more sense to offer arb – worst comes to worst, he could be traded for even a few lower level prospects.

But Drayton has long been concerned more with cents than sense.

I understand that they don’t want Loretta back, as they certainly don’t want to have to pay him even what he got THIS year, 3.5 mill. They let Newhan go to FA, so I don’t guess he’s coming back. I hope and pray Tomas Perez, one of Eddie’s all time fave ballplayers (he’d be nice and gritty, except he is Latino and it is against the Rules of Grit to be Asian, Latino, Negro, or any combination thereof.)

We have only Geoff Blum, who is NOT a good second baseman nor an adequate third baseman, so I am guessing that the Organization is planning to promote Drew Sutton. SOMEbody has to play second WHEN Kaz goes down right on schedule. Not sure who on earth they are planning to use to give Tejada a rest – I guess Manzella, as Sutton can’t really play short. Maybe Adam Everett??? Who could probably be had for close to minimum, after he was hurt most of last year.

I am starting to believe that the owners are playing a game of chicken with all the players, to see who gets desperate and signs for cheap. It was, after all, Charlie O Finley who said that ALL players should be made FA every single year. And it was, after all, the Union who was just as opposed to that as the owners, who were all opposed to Finley, just on general principles of him being, um, uh, difficult, let’s say.

I am especially thinking this in view of the fact that Drayton-n-Eddie announced that they are, um, dragging their feet on Randy Wolf negotiations. I am thinking that they just really might could want him for just a 1 year deal, youneverknow.

As far as trades, Alyson Footer has written that Carlos Lee has made it more than clear that he will absolutely positively refuse to be traded, that Berkman wouldn’t be real too happy and Roy-O just might could.

At this point, the Astros don’t have enough to go for anything but mediocrity and Drayton will refuse to tear down and rebuild – which, this year, might not be the worst idea, seeing as how the player market is looking lousy.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t much of any baseball news, even at the GM meetings next week neither.

sigh

This is, without question, the slowest offseason I can ever remember. And it will be VERY interesting to see what happens with ticket sales, not just here, but all over the league…