2022 MLB Non-Phillies News/Notes

I don't think I can agree an extra million in international spending and competitive balance pick(s) is the fix being in. Part of a strategy certainly. The Cardinals scout, pick and develop players better. They don't (didn't) sign players with QO attached. They trade players and prospects when value is highest and walk away from their own and other FAs when future salary doesn't match with plan. If the Phillies have a budget that allows for $50 million more in free agent spending, certainly they should be able to use that to offset the international spending and draft comp the Cardinals receive. I wouldn't trade 50 million in payroll for 1 million in international draft money and an extra 2nd or 3rd round pick. I would trade 50 mil in payroll for a front office that has a smart strategy and can execute on that strategy.

I say the fix is in, because the Cardinals get poor-team perks, while not being remotely poor, or low budget.

I'm not at all questioning the benefits of the Cardinals philosophy and baseball-side talent, they've done an awesome job, but they definitely do benefit from baseball's small-market rules.

The Phillies have been incredibly stupid in losing so many draft picks to signing of QO players. It's worth it to sign a star FA, but the Phillies have lost too many draft picks by signing mediocre or even dreck QO FAs. That almost seems the Phillies way, as it goes back at least to the time we signed two relievers, including Cormier.

This is a part of the article that Arbuckle (and I) strongly agree with, and where the recent Phillies management has stunk:

"Scouting players and developing players are technically two different processes and two different departments of a front office. But with the most successful teams, they are one long swing. Mozeliak credits that handoff — “a really seamless process” — as a key reason for his team’s never-ending success."

That's one of the organizational qualities the Phillies have lost since the days of Arby.

Being a poor team and being in a small market are far from perfectly correlated.

And being 'small market' is a fairly useless current definition, if the goal is equity. Only the Dodgers have a higher attendence per game in 2022 than the Cardinals do. Size of 'territory' means little. KC and St. Louis share/divide a territory, but KC draws less than half what Cards do. In Forbes rankings, the Cards rank #14 in revenue and 7th in value of team. That is why I say that the fix is in. The Cards are very far from being a poor, small market team.

Apparently not, if Forbes is to be believe. There are many ways of finagling revenue, especially TV revenue. Forbes attempts to get an actual measure of team revenue, cutting through the obfuscation of team's getting 'ownership' revenue, disguising purchase of TV rights, etc. Given the always high Cardinal attendance, it seems reasonable that they are 14th in revenue -- I actually thought they would be higher than that. TV revenue isn't really based on the TV station's in-region potential audience, I would think, but how many fans are likely to tune in. Game attendance is probably a reasonable proxy for fan interest.

What fraction of revenue comes from attendance (including things like concessions)? I'm guessing that revenue from other sources like media, marketing, etc. is much more.

It's interesting to note that the Cardinals market is much larger than the St. Louis metro area. It would seem to include most of Missouri, much of Tennessee, southern Illinois, Arkansas, and maybe some other places (Mississippi? Louisiana?). The Phillies are hemmed into southeastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey, and Delaware. Probably more populous than the Cardinals' area, but not by as much as by looking only at the metro areas.

Here is Fangraph estimate of TV revenue for each team. It is for 2020, a year in which the Cardinals received a charity pick. The Cards ranked 13th in TV revenue that year.

The Cardinals got $65 million in local TV revenue that year. Forbes estimates their total 2021 revenue as $$287 million.

I got the sense that before the Braves moved to Atlanta, the Cardinals was basically the South's team.

The attached article shows 15 teams with competitive balance picks. But you are right, no Cardinals this year. Yay! These picks are tradeable, so it's possible they did, but more likely they missed the formula. It's the teams that are either bottom 10 in revenue (which they clearly haven't been) or bottom 10 in market size (I don't know how that is defined. I still think it insane to qualify for bottom 10 in market size, with 2nd highest attendance in MLB),

It is such an arbitrary system. MLB really missed an opportunity to reclaim the local broadcast revenues with the internet. Originally Selig got an a agreement to share everything but at some point maybe 5 years ago MLB reversed that, likely at the behest of the larger market clubs.

Market size really is important in the number of TV households in that market that can get that $5 a month from RSNs on cable systems. If streaming revenue were shared equally (or more equally when it comes to local games) there would be no need for competitive balance picks. NY and LA will always have more money, but as we have seen, a good small market team can sell out their stadium and enhance local revenues if they are well run (like the Cardinals are).

More revenue sharing has worked for the NFL and NBA. There is no need for competitive balance picks in those leagues.

This is also a refernce to some other comments upthread but, in my opnion, the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers and Cardinals are the game's four elite franchises. They never have to rebuild (or at least not rebuild for long). They reload. All four franchises know the secret to simultaneously building a WS contender every season and building for the future. All four of those organizations exude cultures of competence and excellence from top to bottom.

I would probably put the Braves, Giants, Astros, Guardians and Rays on a second tier. They don't reload but their rebuilds are never long and their rebuilds typically work and they've field good teams over the past thirty-plus years far more often than they haven't (or since 2008 in the case of the Rays).. The Rays are what the Expos were from the late-'70's to 1994, the fiancially-strapped organization that plays in a dumpy dome and which cannot afford to keep ML stars for long but has extraordinary front office, scouting and development acumen that enables them to field a contender each season (and just maybe catch lightning in a bottle one October).

The other 21 franchises basically get lumped together and have to go through up and down cycles of success and rebuilds (and their rebuilds don't always work out). However, I may be inclined to put the Marlins, Reds, Rockies, Royals and Orioles on a worst franchise list.

Guardians / Indians? Clearly you missed the reason that "Major League" used the Indians as their example of ineptitude​

Ah, but Major League was filmed in 1989. Form 1994 onward, the Indians/Guardians have been one of the game's better organizations.