When Major League Baseball announced its decision to expand its horizons to Arizona and Tampa Bay in 1998, many homeowners reveled in the rippling value of public relations and the duplicity of goodwill. The loudest baseball lord, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, was reliably available for comment.

“The best part of these meetings is the expansion into two areas that deserve it, and if anyone deserves it, Tampa-St. Petersburg does it,” said Steinbrenner, a Tampa resident and member of the expansion committee. “Right now, I just want to relax and enjoy Tampa Bay.”

But there is no joy in Tampa. Three years of financial trouble and the verdict has been delivered. Rights do not guarantee stability. Despite managing the 10th highest payroll in the league, the Devil Rays were only able to amass an average of 19,218 fans last season, partly attributed to poor quality of the game.

It’s no secret that baseball has been enduring the effects of a diluted talent pool since the last expansion draft. With a shortage of 2.50 ERA pitchers and .300 hitters, MLB executives realize that top talent is a valuable asset. And more divisive among owners, it has a premium.

The argument that only the top 10 teams on the roster can emerge as World Series contenders is futile. Analysts were proven wrong last season that baseball could not produce a sporadic loser to challenge the Yankee dynasty. The fault lies in the method itself.

Instead of evaluating the accumulated wealth between franchises, consider a rudimentary breakdown that really differentiates the so-called winners and losers. This analysis, however you look at it, reveals that Los Angeles and New York versus Montreal and Minnesota are separated by about four major players, respectively. As the post-expansion syndrome perpetuated the decline in talent, top-tier franchise owners accelerated the supply of top-tier athletes, disproportionately compared to top players.

When analyzing the Baseball Elite (the 80 highest paid players), there is a predominant condition of high weight teams. By Opening Day of the 2000 season, Steinbrenner’s Yankees committed a staggering 73 percent of their payroll to eight members of the Baseball Elite. In 1999, Jerry Colangelo and the Arizona Diamondbacks, making a concerted playoff run, assigned a league-leading 68 percent to seven members of the Baseball Elite. As a parenthetical note, their competition was not far behind in both years. So after the feeding frenzy, the residual crops are not enough for the smaller teams.

The largest franchises are not always indicative of the highest total payrolls. The Boston Red Sox have funded a top-tier payroll in the past two years, but they allocated only 24 percent to Elite players in 1999, 31 percent in 2000. With additions such as Manny Ramirez and Dante Bichette, the Red Sox They open the 2001 season with nearly 50 percent committed to the elite.

As the Texas Rangers look to ways to subsidize the Alex Rodriguez firm, it becomes clear that franchises may emerge from only a small number of player acquisitions, but significant enough to enhance their formula for success.

Ranking the heaviest teams does not discourage sports analysts and special interest groups from discussing inequalities among MLB teams, even though playing 162 grueling games inexorably results in a deviation in achievement. These groups were the same groups that lobbied for franchises in Tampa and Miami, followed by failed attempts (so far) in Charlotte and Northern Virginia. The repercussions of entering saturated markets were not recognized. No evaluation was conclusive on the long-term sustenance of fan attendance and stadium revenue.

Before MLB’s recent expansion, critics viewed the league as obtuse, unwelcoming, and unfair. After the 1998 inauguration, they modified their disapproval to “obtuse, welcoming, but still unfair.” This rhetoric suggests that the invisible hand theory should not be successful unless the public controls the hand.
It would be foolish for expansion enthusiasts to forget the most fundamental lesson of the difficult situation in Tampa Bay. Franchises must be scalable to the cities that foster them.

The real irony is that the perpetrators of MLB’s mess will have to bail out. Owners have been forced to follow public opinion on expansion issues, simply in response to its poor image among fans. Now that the hype has faded in cities like Tampa, Steinbrenner and company must look to reality. Their product has been tainted with mediocrity, causing an unbalanced payroll and creating a new baseball elite. As usual, homeowners have done more harm to each other than anyone on the periphery could ever accomplish.

However, the condition is not as faulty as the approach itself.

Reducing the MLB membership can serve as a cathartic effort for the operations of each surviving franchise. The call to action may be even more important. And if Steinbrenner emerges as a committee member for this cause, be clear that no city “deserves” a professional team more than the Baseball Elite “deserves” to divide the contenders from the suitors.

[Originally Written 1/10/01]

© 2007 LineDrives.com, Michael Wissot,