Continuing expectations game
Ahhhh, just when you might be getting excited about the team picking up some good young players… not so much! Bob Finnigan (dubbed “Pocket Lint” previously for other articles of this sort) breaks the exclusive news, as he does frequently, that the Mariners don’t have as much money as you’d think! No, really! Like $13m. Less, actually.
You see, it turns out that the clubhouse boom box is Jeff Nelson’s, so they have to mail that to him and then buy a new one. Then a recent audit turned up some deferred payments to Russ Davis the team has to pick up. After all the expenses and related fees, they’re looking at having seven dollars and change to spend this off-season.
What we’re going to need to wait for, according to Finnigan, is neeeext year, when even more contracts roll off the books and — I’m sorry, I can’t type any more of this without laughing.
Seattle Times, dear readers. They’ve won Pulitzers.
Comments
75 Responses to “Continuing expectations game”
Finnegan has been wrong before. Especially with his facts. Howard Lincoln has also been quoted saying fans don’t understand how budgets work. Why spend money on Dan Wilson when we traded for Olivo to be a number 1 catcher? Baseball Prospectus stated Rene Rivera is a good defensive catcher, why not give Rene the games Wilson would steal from Olivo?
Derek,
I’m sure that you have been waiting for the other shoe to drop since the PR spin around the $ available gaffe that Lincoln made to Thiel during the interview…
Finnie is the house organ, much as Pravda was for the Soviet Union.
Shea Hilebrand might be our top pickup…as if Scott Boras or any self respecting agent would do anything but use the Mariners to get their clients more money.
55 to 60 wins…there its out. I said it…
I’m not sure who Finnigan talked to, but honestly, I’ll take my sources over his on this one. When you add in the flaws in his article, its tough to take it too seriously. A few examples:
1. The Mariners have 10 players under contract for $57.5 million, plus $6 million going to departed players (Jeff Cirillo, Kevin Jarvis, Wiki Gonzalez)
The Mariners are sending San Diego $4.75 million to cover the cost difference between Cirillo’s contract and the Jarvis/Gonzalez deals. They aren’t actually paying Cirillo; they’re simply finalizing the deal that they completed last January. Considering how far they undershot last year’s “budget”, the ethical thing to do would be to apply the surplus to the cost that they sunk during the last Fiscal Year. Apparently they’ve decided to do even more accounting shenanigans, however.
2. A handful of veterans, including free agents Dan Wilson and Ron Villone, whom the Mariners want back, will cost about $10 million.
Is three now a handful? Wilson, Villone, and Jolbert Cabrera are the only three Mariners with expiring contracts. Cabrera has a team option for $1.5 million, which will probably be exercised. That means Finnigan is projecting a combined salary of $8.5 million for Villone and Wilson. There is no one else who fits into this category. There’s just no way the M’s pay $8.5 million for these two next year. I’d put it more around $4 million, and that’s assuming Villone comes back.
Then, there are the figures at the bottom. He lists Moyer’s salary at $8 million, which is only true if you include the prorated signing bonus money. However, earlier in the paragraph, he notes that one of the contingency funds being setup is for “prorated signing bonuses”. So, the M’s are double counting that money, or they’ve set up a special fund to pay upcoming signing bonuses, which mean they are putting the full amount towards this years payroll. Same with Ichiro’s $12.5 million number (that’s $10.5 million in salary, $2 million in bonuses). And he lists Guardado at $6 million, though the team is expected to decline their 2005 option, forcing Guardado to pick up his personal option at $4.5 million.
I’ll stand by my numbers; the M’s will spend in the neighborhood of $20 million in actual payout this year, slightly higher if you want to calculate it as average annual value of the long term contracts they’ll sign.
My favorite quote:
Just a small note from a Sox fan – he mentioned Embree as a bullpen possibility, but Embree had a vesting option for 05 that kicked in this year.
Dave’s on it. Finnigan needs to be held to account on this one.
I totally agree with Dave. I think Finnigan blows up few numbers just to prove his point. I laughed so hard at the so called Verteran group salary. That group should only cost between 7 to 8 million. The only big chunk in that group goes to Meche and he shouldn’t be making more than 3 million. And if the cirillo deal from last year can still count against 2005 budget, then we should demand Kazu and Freddy’s deal savings to put back into the poll also.
Dave,
Finnegan counted Meche and Olivo (along with Wilson, Villone, and Jolbert Cabrera) for the $10 million amount. I am not trying to defend Finnegan; he is using accounting figures as bad as Howard L.
If the M’s actually spend only $13 million on new free agents, I think that they will be making a huge mistake. It would be extremely unlikely that they field a competitive team, and attendance would go down significantly.
Agree with Dave. I allowed $7.5mil for Jarvis($500K buyout this year)Cirillo ($4.75mil) and Wiki ($2.25mil). $53mil for existing contracts plus obtainable incentives (source: Dugout Dollars). Allowed $10mil to sign Wilson, Olivo, Cabrera, Meche, Villone and for minor league contracts. Through in the $5.5mil for contingencies only totals $76mil.
Is there a Mariners fan who has endured barren winters forever that wants to bet they’ll spend closer to $20M than $13M? And, even if they do spend $20M will it be on anyone *worth* that amount? You may argue they’re under pressure to make a splash, but there really is no reason to make a one-year splash considering the 2005 outlook.
I wish the numbers in the papers were exactly right. But does it really matter when we the fans know the Mariners are cooking the books anyway? I would love to run my household budget like the Mariners do. Something tells me I’d be making extra trips to Cabo every December (instead of making serious offers to good players, much like the front office of my favorite team).
Even if the FO uses the propaganda numbers, it only puts additional pressure on Bavasi to execute some good trades. Isn’t it still part of his job to improve the team?
Gonzalez is still in the organization, isn’t he?
Also, don’t forget that 2 weeks ago, Pocket Lint said we had $20-25..
He is just bored, and wants to scare people…
I should have been clearer about this, but I really did think PLF’s article was amazingly bad, not just on the facts but in general reasoning. Even if we manage to come around to figuring out how he got where he did, it’s at best a terrible, unclear piece of writing that gives readers an impression the team’s in trouble.
Besides Alan Embree, Finnigan listed Felix Rodriguez as an available free agent. He exercised his player option with the Phillies for 2005 about two weeks ago…As usual great research.
I found this part in their free-agents to yarget section about Richie Sexson.
Has missed much of past two years with injuries; career .253 hitter but with great power.
Uhh… he played every inning of every game in 2003. There was no way he could have played more.
It’s sad that we have already resigned ourself to failure.
One question: why does everyone call him pocket lint?
Finnigan is the biggest Homer front office yes-man I have ever seen. It is like he is daring the front office to do nothing.
You have to wonder if he is on the team’s payroll.
Wow! All I can say is that it is a good thing that the Mariners are not a publicly traded corporation, because their accounting shenanigans would cause Andy Fastow to gulp. I guess in this biz candor doesn’t work: yeah, we could afford to splash big in the FA pool, but only at the cost of owners’ balance sheets, and having run the cost/benefit analysis . . . nahhhhhhhh.
Hope Dave is right that Finnegan is just winging it (again).
I wonder if there will ever be a time where a light will go off in Finnigan’s head and he’ll think “You know, I wonder if the team is using me to spread their PR so they don’t have to be accountable for anything. Maybe I should actually check the facts they gave me instead of being a worthless corporate tool.”
Never mind; there’s too much golf to be played.
Mariners total salary has increased to $80 million! Doubleplus good!
Is three now a handful?
It was for Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown.
Thhe column was the usual offseason, “I don’t have much to write about so here’s a whole lot of nothing” pap. But there’s one point I’d agree with: that the organization should be focusing on 2006. The Mariners last season were like a car up on blocks in Howard Lincoln’s front yard, missing three tires and with chipmunks nesting in the engine block. I suppose there’s a parallel universe in which Howard Lincoln would suffer a psychotic breakdown, become convinced he’s George Steinbrenner, and throw money around in an attempt to turn the team around in a single season, but that’s such a high-risk strategy that I’m not sure I’d want to see it, even for the entertainment value. I’d rather root for a smart organization than a lucky one.
BTW, what’s the origin of the “Pocket Lint” nickname?
Someone should write a letter to the Times calling him out.
The front office has to love this article, because it helps position their spin tactics down the road. If they only spend $12M this offseason, Finny will say that’s all the money they had available. If they wind up spending $15-20M, the team will boast about how they courageously went over their budget to rebuild the team. The problem is, anyone with half a brain should realize that Finnigan’s piece is sports journalism at its worst – poorly reasoned with inaccuracies galore. Publishing $13M as “the number” is an insult to Mariner fans. It’s as if Finny is daring us to see how much b.s. he can get away with.
Raymond,
I did write him an email. I would encourage everyone to do the same. I wrote to the editor of the Seattle Times also. He needs to be held accountable for his BS. The media, in turn, needs to hold the M’s accountable if this is what they are planning on doing.
I am really wondering if Finnigan is just a fool, or if he is a fool on the M’s payroll. Regardless, this article is not just horribly written and factually inaccurate. It provides a dangerous justification for the front office to not follow through on their promise to invest in this team, even if it means taking a loss this year.
On October 7th, Lint said we had between 20 and 25 million.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2002056282_mari07.html
This guy is a liar.
Maybe he’s working covertly for Lincoln and trying to lower everybodys expectations so that when they pick up a couple decent players we’ll all think the Front Office is actually trying to put a winning team together…
I’m still taking a “wait and see” attitude…Finnigan stopped being a reliable source for M’s information years ago.
if the M’s are aggressive in the market, the fans will continue to go to the ballpark. if management plays it like ‘business as usual’, the M’s will sink into irrelevance [see 2004-05 Sonics; 1990-2002 Seahawks, 1980-90 Mariners if you need to understand what that's all about.]
Ok. Wrote my letter. I directly accused Finnigan of tarnishing the reputation of the Seattle Times. I blind CC’d it to the Executive Editor.
I got their spam firewall.
Is it too late to re-name the stadium “Enron Field”?
I should also make something else clear: I believe that the sports department of the Times, and PLF, long ago made a conscious decision to be the voice of the Mariners. Since then they’ve rarely criticized the team and even then, it’s the Steve Kelley column that broadsides them for the wrong thing — the easy thing — while they let the team get away with saying whatever they want to push to the public with no editorial intervention. Even then their coverage is late and rarely does anything but re-hash what the PI and TNT (and sometimes EH) already started.
They’re like the Fox News of Seattle sports discussion. Do you want to know what the Mariners talking points are on whatever issue faces them? Read the Times.
Regardless of whether Finnegan is right or wrong on the facts, clearly the M’s ownership is setting us up to not expect any major acquisitions. This is exactly what I’ve been predicting all along. They just don’t like spending money. Everyone–including you guys–who expects otherwise this year is just kidding himself.
I can see it now……..2 weeks from now it will be…”We don’t have as much money as all you fans think, we have $2million left to spend, but my gawd we will get one competitive utility player with that money!! Doesn’t matter that we’ll overpay someone like Deivi Cruz by $1.5 Mil, he’ll be compeititve!”
But then 4 weeks from now, it will be “We don’t have as much money as you all think, we really already have a payroll of $110 million, (due to paying off old Kingdome debts, Bobby Ayala’s shrink from the 90′s, and ARod’s old dry cleaning bills from 1996…yada yada) thus we are forced to trade away $30 million. But don’t worry, we will make trades by sheding payroll that will make us competitive!! Sure we’ll get cheap All-Star players for Ibanez, Franklin and Winn, just you wait and see the magic Bavasi can do!!”
The front office for the M’s is at a cross roads this winter. They can either go about business as usual or they can step up to the plate and spend some of the cash they’ve been hording the past three seasons.
This is a franchise that has no debt. They’ve consistently run large profits since moving into Safeco Field and since they paid off the stadium cost over runs they’ve taken their profits and built up a huge war chest of cash that’s just sitting there earning interest.
If management continues to go the cheap route and cry poor, they are going to run this fan base into the ground.
There is absolutely no reason, from an operating standpoint that this franchise can’t spend $100+ million on player payroll and not loose money on a cash basis. An organization of this size probably has $10-$15 million in depreciation/amortization expense (this is a non-cash expense) included in their operating expenses every season. So when the organization says they generated $10 or $12 million in “operating profits”, they really had $20 – $27 million in “operating cash flow” that season. Now there are certain expense items that need to be covered by that “operating cash flow”, like interest expense, debt reduction (they haven’t had any debt since the stadium cost over runs were paid off) capital projects on the stadium (think batters eye) adn the likes, however those items don’t come anywhere close to totalling up to $20 million (assuming the low side).
This franchise has been stocking cash away for a rainy day…..well, that rainy day has come via the 2004 season. Its time to step up and crying poor or budget contraints, just isn’t going to cut it any longer.
Some things don’t add up in Finigan’s numbers:
He has Moyer at $8 million which won’t be the case I don’t think since he didn’t hit all incentives.
Where is $12.5 million coming for Ichiro? I had thought his contract was weighted on the backend and more likely to make about 10.5 this season
Guardado at $6 million? Why would the Mariners exercise their option on him at that price?!? Let Guardado exercise his option or go elsewhere.
Finigan’s numbers almost look like they have prorated signing bonuses added in. Then he adds ANOTHER 3.5 million for protated signing bonuses later.
If the M’s spend $10 million on SP Gil Meche, RP Ron Villone, C Dan Wilson, C Miguel Olivo, UTIL Jolbert Cabrera, then all hope is lost.
#31, I don’t trust Howard Lincoln and the company, but I don’t get your point. “Regardless of whether Finnegan is right or wrong on the facts, clearly the M’s ownership is setting us up to not expect any major acquisitions.” I would like to know where do you get the information that the ownershp is setting us up now since you said Finnigan’s article is irrevelant.
At the most, the 10 m for veterans is more like 6.
1.5 for Cabrera
1 For Wilson
.5 for Olivo
2 For Villone
3 For Meche
And those are MAXIMUM numbers…
That’s not true, Meche is arbitration-eligible, and we don’t know what he’ll file for, much less what he’ll get, until he and the team sign a deal to pre-empt arb, or if goes to arbitration.
The origin of pocket lint is that Finnigan is so deep in the pockets of the M’s front office he may as well be pocket lint. One of the USS Mariner staff used it last year and it’s stuck like glue. In fact its stuck a lot better than the strands of spaghetti Finnigan continually throws at the wall. The guy first attempted to be a Peter Gammons wannabee by pushing every trade rumor on the planet and hoping one came true. Since that tack failed miserably a few years ago he basically writes PR pieces for the front office.
This is bizarre beyond belief.
So I guess the question is: Is Finnigan doing this because he’s an idiot who can’t add and knows nothing about the business of baseball … or is he doing it because the owners want to send out a plausible-deniablity message that they’re not going to do in the offseason what Bavasi and Lincoln have already said directly and publicly they WILL do?
And how can The Seattle Times, a newspaper that constant flogs its commitment to the highest standards of journalistic integrity, continue to countenance story after story from a staff writer whose reports are a) factually inaccurate; and b) shoddily sourced? This from a paper which recently fired a business columnist for penny-ante plagiarism and put itself through an exhaustive and expensive internal investigation to find out the exact depth and dimension of his lifted work. Yet nobody seemes to fact-check Finnigan’s work, and nobody seems to hold him to a tightened, post-Jayson-Blair standard of identifying sources for each fact and quote … or at least making him explain to his editor and in print why it’s necessary to leave his sources unidentified. It’s terrible, unethical journalism … and everybody at The Times seems not to care.
Unbelievable.
DMZ,
This is an interesting topic. I am not sure what the M’s should do with Meche. I would think that he would get 2.5-3 million in arbitration. But perhaps the M’s should try to lock him up in a 2 year, 6 million deal with a team option for a third year.
Meche is a tough guy to gauge for the future. He has been really inconsistent, and is always a risk given his previous history of arm problems. But he looked really good at the end of this season and in the first half of 2003. He has had two extended stretches were he was very solid. If he can pitch like he did after he was brought back up, he would be a bargain for 3 million/year. If he can maintain some consistency, he could easily win 15 games and be a solid #2 or #3 starter. Since he is only 26, perhaps he can gain some consistency. But that is a lot of if’s.
2004 will be an important year for Meche. I wonder what the M’s will do about it this offseason. Locking him up for a few years will either be a really good or a really bad move. But if he does finally put together an entire solid season, he will get a lot more expensive.
Love the origin of Pocket Lint! Thanks for clarifying it for us newbies. While it’s true that Finny now writes PR pieces for the M’s, I’m confident he’ll still put out his annual “Griffey is coming back to Seattle!” article right around, say, March 6th or so. After all, PLF is the embodiment of journalistic integrity.
Olivo may be arbitration eligible this winter because he has more than two years of service time in the majors. A certain percentage of players with 2+ years of service time are ruled arb. eligible (along with the players with 3 or more years of service) and are knows as “Super Two’s”. Obviously if he’s arbitration eligible he’ll make more than $500K next year, more like $1.2 mil to $1.8 mil, largely because it’s expected that he will be the club’s starting catcher in ’05.
DMZ:
They’d have to be nuts to pay Meche more than 3 million. I wouldn’t take Meche to arb.
I would try to work out a contract, and if he declines, then we send him off into the sunset.
The Mariners would have to be insane to take Meche to arbitration if it would mean paying him more than 3.
In a sick and twisted sense, I think if Pocket Lint’s article WAS true, and we ended up with, say, Koskie, Estes, and Vizquel as our FA signings it would be downright funny.
Especially since apparently the Angels will make a play at Beltran.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-glaus30oct30,0,2176358.story?coll=la-home-sports
Can you imagine the season ticket sales disaster if the Angels end up with an OF of Anderson, Beltran and Vlad, and our big signings are a starting pitcher whose career ERA is around what James Baldwin’s was when we signed him, a 38 year old SS we declined a trade for last year due to failing a physical, and a 32 year old 3B who’s never slugged .500?
I don’t think they’d sell out after Opening Day…
Ooops, that URL didn’t come through all the way. Cut and paste all of it in your browser.
And what can I say- I have a demented and black sense of humor. From many years of being an M’s fan.
I am with most of guys, I don’t think Meche would make more than 3 million next year. And I think they should tender him with a 2 years contract with 3rd year optional. It is a risk. However since his recall, he seemed to be quite consistent. I sure hope he is not going to be another Freddy Garcia.
Oh great, just what I need, another excuse to get really drunk tonight.
I suppose an alcohol-induced coma may be less painful than seeing this coming offseason.
eh– it’s Finnigan, and it’s innacurate. So what’s new.
Unlike similar articles in previous years, he doesn’t quote anyone from the front office directly. The Lincoln remark is a reworking of Finnigan’s piece several weeks back where Howard said they’d be willing to lose money this year if needs be.
The Bavasi quotes, which actually seem to have been taken from the on-air interviews Bill has been doing around town this week (note that Finnigan doesn’t give the remarks any attribution) They refer only to positions they need to fill, and say nothing about an inability to fill them. Interesting if Finnigan is supplementing a poverty piece on them, as Bavasi has said that they can afford to go and get several big-ticket players, and plan that in 2006 they will have more money again to continue to improve the ballclub…
The rest is just a ramble though Finny’s printout of the FA list… so, if Sexson re-signs with the Dbacks, will Finnigan notice or will he keep telling us about Brush Prarie’s own?
#33 Frozenropers,
I totally agree with your entire post, and have been saying the same exact thing since the start of last offseason!
AND, I know everyone will think this is impossible, but I have NO DOUBT that the M’s have the cash reserves to sign all of these players:
Beltran, Beltre, Delgado, Clement
The other thing that disturbs me? Our 2004 budget was $95M, and management stated publicly that they would be “willing” to go over $95M by the July 2004 trading deadline if the right deal came along. Well hello, we ended the season paying out $79M in payroll…that is $16M less than the entire 2004 pre-approved budget of AT LEAST $95M.
Why, Why, Why in the world don’t they apply that $16M toward the bad contracts that we ended up releasing but are still stuck with through 2005: Cirillo, Jarvis, Wiki…So that their salary doesn’t effect the payroll budget in 2005?!
Then, WHY can’t they take the difference and extend our 2005 budget from $95M to at least $105M?
This would ensure several things:
1. That we could lock up Beltran for the next 6-7 years.
2. That we could lock up Beltre for the next 5-6 years.
3. That we could lock up Delgado for the next 3-5 years.
4. That we could lock up Clement for the next 3 years, with an option year.
5. That we could even pickup Nomar for CHEAP for the next 1-2 years, on a incentive laden deal, with an option year.
Everybody will deny that the M’s would do any of this, but my point being is that the money $$$ is there to do all of this. And in noway am I going to except any BS regarding how much money we “don’t” have this offseason from people and idiots like Finnegan!
5.
Re: Finnegan’s poor journalistic standars and the Seattle Times’ reputation: it’s par for the course. I’ve lived in Chicago, Boston, and now Seattle, and it’s a universal that newspapers that trumpet their high standards make no show of them on the sports pages. I think they just assume that sports is like an editorial; you write your opinion and no one should expect any more. If you have a sportswriter who carefully checks his facts and does his homework, cherish him, because he’s the exception to the rule.
Re: lowering expectations — I don’t think this is a bad idea. If the Mariners suceed in lowering our epectations, they have two possible outcomes this winter: either they sign a big name and we’re all pleasantly surprised, or nothing happens and we get what we were expecting. In either case there’s no ranting, raving, or impetuous cancellation of season tickets. Businesses lower expectations all the time, as a way of pleasing their customers. Netflix, for instance, invariably tells me that the movie I rented will arrive the day after it does. If they say Wednesday, it gets here on Tuesday. If they say Monday, I look for it on Saturday. This way I’m always pleasantly surprised when the movie comes, because it always seems early.
So look at it on the bright side: if I’m right, the lowering of expectations does not mean that they’re not planning on doing anything this offseason. It just means that they want us to be pleasantly surprised when/if something happens.
Here’s an e-mail I just shot over to Mr. Finnigan on his horrible article. I’m SOOOO sick of this BS that I had to say something…
>>
Mr. Finnigan:
I faithfully read both the Times and the PI sports sections’ colmnists, as well as other stories from other newspapers. In addition, I peruse and comment in the M’s blogosphere. I may not have as much inside information as you have access to, but I’m aware enough that the information you’re providing in your article appears to me to be completely inaccurate and misleading. It really appears that you are trying to continue to lower fans’ expectations for this offseason and what the M’s will do, by implying that the M’s really don’t have a whole lot of money to spend upgrading their team, both now and for the long run. As you may be aware, the USS Mariner has called you out on this specific article. See http://ussmariner.com/index.php?p=2007 if you haven’t already.
I’d also like to point out Jeff Sullivan’s entry on the “Leone for Third” blog, and how the information seems to point out that the M’s should have the financial resources to commit over $100 million to payroll. http://leoneforthird.blogspot.com/2004_10_17_leoneforthird_archive.html#109846501599443540 I’m really inclined to believe this information, and would like to understand the situation a whole lot better.
Realizing that you do this for a living, I’m begging you to respond — but not necessarily to me, rather to both Mr. Sullivan and the folks at the USS Mariner. Commenting is and has been allowed for quite some time, and I’m asking you to explain the apparent discrepency in what your article mentions as being the $$ available, and what others in the M’s blogosphere are saying. There’s obviously a discrepancy, and I’m curious as to your thoughts as to the discrepancy.
Thanks!
<<
I’d like to point something out. About 35 or so people complained above about Finnigan’s consistent inaccuracies and egregious lack of research. I agree fully. So, instead of just posting comments on USSM, why don’t we also email the sports editor of Seattle Times? Just copy and paste. Honestly, I’ve worked for newspapers – no matter how long Finnigan has been around, editors don’t like it when readers pour in emails, bitching about a writer’s incompetence. Seriously. Give it a shot. I’ve already sent mine.
Can I make a request, however? If you send an email to the editor or Finnigan himself, please keep three things in mind:
1. He’s a human being. Regardless of what you think of him as a writer or this column in particular, refrain from personal insults or childish putdowns. It’s not going to accomplish anything. It’s just going to get your message ignored as the ventings of an angry fan.
2. Among the local media, bloggers are viewed as extremely negative, arrogant folks, for the most part. Firing off an angry, vengeful email isn’t going to do anything to remove the stereotype. If you want your voice to be heard, write thoughtfully. Be articulate. Point to quoes from Bavasi or other sources that would be viewed as legitimate to folks. Dugout Dollars is not going to be viewed as a viable resource for major league salaries. The guy who ran that (now defunct?) blog got his information from googling; so can you.
3. Bob Finnigan isn’t going to put his career on the line by making up the information he posted in the article. Write with an assumption that this was given to him by someone inside the organization, which is almost certainly true. If you want to call him out for being the mouthpiece of the front office, that’s legitimate, but make sure he knows what the criticism actually is.
very well put Dave, the goal of writing is to get your message heard
Soooooooooooo I should probably stop calling him Pocket Lint, huh.
try Mr. Pocket Lint
At the risk of being a BF apologist, let me point out something. The link to the October 7 article in post #24 should be read carefully before dumping on Finnegan’s math. He says early in it that there’s 20-22 million to spend, but later clarifies that that includes 6-8 million to resign Wilson, Villone, Meche, and some others; this sounds like the group he has figured in at 10 million in today’s piece (and BTW, the itemized list in #36 totals 8 million, not 6). In the earlier article, Finnnegan concludes that leaves 14-16 million for free agents. So in between the two articles, he increased that figure by 2-4 million and decreased the remaining budget by 1-3 million. Close enough.
He is certainly careless about some other numbers like the prorated bonuses. I’m sure not going to ask him for help on my income taxes.
So as a follow-on to #53.3 above, Dave, what concerns me with Finnigan’s article is the probability that, as you say, he did indeed get his numbers from an organization source: the spin in his piece is _the organization’s_ spin, not his.
Now, historically, I personally do not give much of a damn about the stated budgets of ML franchises, and almost never do a fine-scale breakdown: I simply assume that the for-consumption numbers are completely bogus, since that has been the manifest state of ML public accounting since free agency began at the very latest (and since forever, acutally, but that’s another issue). Some franchises are manifestly cash-strapped: Tampa Bay since Day One, Toronto recently, the Athletics under current ownership, the Mariners through their first years, etc. Such teams have owners with limited, and more important illiquid capital and more importantly all have poor to very poor attendance, typically with local media revenue commensurate. All other teams one can assume _could_ afford a major signing in a given year if they so chose. Wealthy franchises—and the present Ms are manifestly wealthy, very wealthy—could afford two major signings. Foolish franchises that encumber themselves with 4+ big contracts typically run into big trouble when a guy (or two, usually) goes down or south, so the roster needs some intelligent management, sure. What I’m saying is that most franchises not obviously broke can afford to go after a player if the owner and his FO so choose. But they usually spin their numbers not only to keep their own players guessing, but especially the agents for prospective players guessing. The agents aren’t stupid, and do their own cost-plus calculations, but teams always are trying to manage fan and agent expectations, and their first-use tool is the ‘we’re tapped but trying’ press release. That’s just how the game is played.
That said, I really believe that the Ms FO of the last half-dozen years has enmeshed itself so totally in a culture of spin about their budget that the practice begins to concern me in and of itself, and beyond the normal ‘managing expections’ BS that is standard. The hide-and-seek contract savings; the disappearing (but always unused) in-season acquisition funds; the “Bavasi will have all the money he needs”/”$13M available (’cause that’s all he needs)” non sequiturs that I’ve seen time and time again. When someone (some many) spend this much time being bogus, I just can’t shake the sense that they are actually hiding something; not just blowing smoke as a matter of course, but genuinely trying to throw observers off the track for some reason. I don’t think that this truth-as-foreign quality has directly to do with who they will or won’t acquire this offseason, personally.
I have earlier on this blog kicked around the idea that the Ms owner(s) have year-by-year taken very substantial profits out of this team’s revenue. I certainly can’t prove it, and I’m not at all wedded to proving this, either, but simply do the math: there is a large _eight-figure_ difference each year between what they take in and what they spend on their far and away largest cost, labor. The team has NO DEBT. Either there is a vault with several hundred million dollars sitting in it, or someone has taken that profit for other use. Now supposing that this is even the case, personally I don’t even care, because as I said some weeks back if you can’t build a winner with ~$90M in salaray a year, you need to hire a GM who can because this is most certainly doable, so why throw more money at the issue. And operating a major sports francise is, in principle, a profit-making enterprise, and I begrudge Mr. Nintendo nothing for that. But I believe the REAL impetus to all this spin on the budget is to keep the public from getting up and fussy over Mr. Nintendo countinuing to take his _ large eight-figure_ cash out from revenue in ’05 and ’06 and ’07 and . . . . Just think, what if this thread was really about, Why are the owners continuing to budget a _high eight-figure_ payout to ownership when the team is manifestly broken? Why don’t they/didn’t they cut that to a mid-eight-figure number and make a best-bid for Beltran (not that I think they should, but it’s an obvious question)?? Supposing that they botch the rebuild this offseason, and put a 73-90 team out there, but having already sold the fan base on ‘we’re rebuilding for ’06′ prior to the season [pure unmitigated crap, they could and should be working to at least contend next year, the pitching will be better than league-average and that's the tough part to re-do] and get about the same number of fans next year as this, do you seriously thing that the planned high-eight-figure cash-out will be foregone at the end of ’05??? Of course not; Mr. Nintendo will get his projected revenue, Bill Bavasi will be defenestrated from the team headquarters, and someone else will be brought in to ‘finish the job.’
I think the whole budget shinola is to black-out the fact that WHOEVER is signed this offseason, the ownership fully intends to maintain its personal profit level, regardless of the team’s actual results on the field next year or the year thereafter. Someone wants us to get caught up in talking about, where’s the $90M, not WHERE’S THE $150M, hey??????? This is why all the making-of-motions on what is or is not committed/can or cannot be added on always _stop_ at aroung the $90M level; the team never talks about touching that manifestly massive cashflow north of $90M, it’s like that money doesn’t exist in Seattle spacetime. Because, well, it doesn’t: it’s budgeted already for some use not related to this franchise at all. Or that is my working hypothesis on all this.
Two short responses to Bela’s longer point:
First, Oakland is not cash-strapped. Steve Schott is hugely wealthy. That ownership group could spend if they could: like the Twins, saying that they’re cash-strapped is simplistic at best. In both cases, the ownership’s decided that cheap + modestly profitable is a better deal than investing much more money for a possily greater return.
Second, on the “no debt” point: we don’t know exactly how much of the stadium overruns they’re paying off, but that’s a huge chunk of change that they’re likely to have financed over a long term.
The larger point, though, that there’s something bizarre about how the team puts up a continual smokescreen about how much they spend on payroll and when, is well-taken.
In my experience, honesty (or dishonesty), and the manner in which someone does business (or conducts themselves largely) isn’t limited to one area. When the CEO of a company belittles good questions and then lies in their answer, you probably shouldn’t own stock in that company. While there’s some degree of glad-handing to be expected in a business that depends so much on relationships, the M’s essential dishonesty in the pursuit of impressing the public with their earnestness is unsettling.
You see, it turns out that the clubhouse boom box is Jeff Nelson’s, so they have to mail that to him and then buy a new one.
Lines like this are the reason I keep coming back for more. Bravo.
Dave, well put again. I was thinking to write Finnigan but since I don’t think I would have any nice thing to say to him, I decided to take your advise under consideration. But I am going to call in KJR on Monday and hopefully with more calls on this article, we can give Mariners front office some warnings from us fans.
First, Oakland is not cash-strapped. Steve Schott is hugely wealthy.
Just playing Devil’s Advocate here, but why should an owner be obligated to spend money he earned in other businesses on his baseball team? Baseball isn’t a charity, soliciting contributions from other, more profitable businesses. It’s a business that needs to live within its own means. Now, you can argue that the A’s should be more profitable than they are (or claim to be), and that could well be true, but if they’re not then Schott’s surplus wealth really shouldn’t enter the equation.
There is no obligation for an owner to spend their money on a team. In fact there is no obligation to even field a competitive team. Dave’s statement is that should he “choose” to invest in the A’s, he has the capital to do so. The same holds true for the skinflint owner of the Twins. The Mariners, on the other hand, run as a baseball operation, in the black and ownership is choosing to take money out of the franchise instead of investing it back in.
Bela and Derek,
This all goes back to the antitrust exception. The manifest behavior is entirely in the realm of the 1890s and the James J. Hills and Rockefellers. While in real terms the baseball money is smaller, its still enormous.
Derek’s remarks about the disengenous responses as well as the disinformation flowing to Finnegan captures the obfuscation underway very well. People lie when money and sex are involved. Clearly, with Finnegan the latter is out of the question. What is reasonable speculation is that the size of the cashflow to the ownership since 1995 and since the move to the new stadium is probably something they would find embarrassing if it were revealed. Sullivan’s work that Dave referenced earlier which captures the declining committment to player salary is the essence of the organization.
It is not wrong to repeat that the people of this state have underwritten the possibility of and actual cashflow via Safeco. The club made a committment to winning baseball. 2004 was especially galling to Mariner fans. 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 were probably more frustrating in that the team was so close and the team did nothing to close to the chase.
Thiel has frequently written that the Ms think their fan base is different and that the fan base will watch the players they’ve bonded with, whether they win or lose. I think that notion has been shaken, but only to the extent they engage in this disinformation/expectations management campaign.
Just out of curiosity, what is the best objective source of Mariner payroll, as well as budget and other finances? Given that the Mariners are privately held and have no obligation to open up the entirety of their accounting to public scrutiny, I think it’s no wonder that so many different figures are floating about and so much confusion has ensured.
So … Dave and DMZ : Where do you get your numbers for determining what each player makes in a given year, what the Mariners have budgeted for each player, etc.? And if your sources are “insiude,” then what is the best publicly accessible source for close-to-correct-as-possible numbers?
Terry — On the money thing, the stadium lease provides for profit-sharing with the public once certain conditions are met (“debt” accumulated pre-Safeco, for instance), so the M’s have a massive financial and PR benefit to hide revenue and to not have the government poke around in their books too much (which, side note, they absolutely should).
Jim: USA Today has a baseball salary database I use a lot. ESPN lists current salaries on individual player pages and for teams lists all player salaries on Opening Day.
There are other sources, like Dugout Dollars and that UK dude, but they’re all variously flawed: there seems to be little, if any, information available on actual player salaries and details. I’d do a detailed contract page for the Mariners if this gig paid well enough to put bread on the table.
Would that they were smart enough to hire you.
I find it to be a small comfort that the team is supressing the anticipated blast into FA spending. Bavasi’s record with Anaheim and so far with the Ms (at least for his portion of responsiblity).
I have written Finn-n-grin multiple times but he still wins stories for the front pages of the Times. I don’t see anything changing until he hits his pension caps but like to use my imagination that he was a good writer back in 60′s or 70′s.
I’ll buy you a loaf of bread. Real nice bread. For a year. If you do it.
Unless you’re willing to bake money into the bread, no deal.
Hmmm. $10 a loaf?
Wait. Why would I give you an unlimited supply of bread with money baked into it for a year?
How about just money? How much would you charge?
I’m unwilling to discuss something as unseemly as compensation numbers in public. If anyone ever wants to be the patron of the site, they can email us and discuss rates for putting one (or more) of us on the job full-time.
So DMZ, interesting point on the profit-sharing threshold, I’d never heard that before. That may explain quite a lot, and I’ll keep that in mind: it’s for points like this that I read through this blog, so thank you.
I obviously do not have personal knowledge of just what budget issues are in play for the Ms beyond the broadly knowable salary issues. It’s just obvious that $200M income minus ~$90M outlay leaves appreciably more money floating around than any rational calculus of the _organization’s_ costs can account for. It is the consistent, essential dishonesty of the team’s announcements regarding money issues that disturbs me, yes; not a fudge here, or a moderate, obvious lie there, but consistent smoke-and-mirrors.
Re: Oakland, Schott is _not_ strapped, sure, but the team is, their attendance is miserable, their stadium is a pit, and there is a permanent, absolute ceiling on what they can draw in the Bay Area. I actually lived in the East Bay for eight years, and attended many games there in the 80s; this team needs to move, has needed to do so for years, and eventually will. It is quite rational for Schott to say, I’m not going to pour money down a dry hole, I simply can’t get my numbers into a nicely profitable zone so I’m going to hold down costs, take no loss, and wait until I can move or sell for _my_ price point to someone who can move. And like was mentioned above, I don’t know that Schott is obligated to finance a better team at a loss out of his own pocket. The days of civic-minded funding like that are long gone: MLB is a big, big business. I don’t say that I like that, but I do say that I understand Schott, Polahd, and others acting like businessmen, and it wouldn’t be rational on my part to expect them to go nuts and donate money to their teams. STEINBRENNER isn’t donating money to his team, his income for the Yanks IS that big and more, which I’m sure you know, too. I can expect Naimoli to build a better organization to get his attendance and cashflow up, or to get out of the game, and can fairly criticize him for not doing so. Schott has an innovative GM, a winning product—and lousy attendance. And makes his decisions (e.g. nix on Jeff Kent) accordingly. There’s plenty to argue here as to whether he’s right, but certainly his decisions are buisnesslike and rational on the face of them anyway.
#73, I worked at South Bay for the last 12 years and had just moved back two years ago to Seattle where I grew up. The Oakland Colliseum is completely ruined by Al Davis and attendance is pathetic. But the owner’s approach is not going to get him anywhere. He wants to have a new stadium built and funded by the city. That is simply not possible with oakland side of east bay, not exactly the rich side of north california. Giants is blocking the San Jose location. So unless he moves his team farther to Sacramento or sells his team eventually , I don’t know how oakland can get out of this. And once his big three is done in the next two years, I am sure curious to see if Oakland can sustain that type of roster change and remain competitive.
My insider at the Times is standing by Finnigan’s story and payroll figures, for what it’s worth. Time will tell…
Jimmie