"This stinks, and it doesn't stink because the Yankees just added an expensive player."

Really? Don't you think it stinks just a little that the Yankees have (and are allowed to have) virtually unlimited resources to do so?

Give to us your poor, talented, albeit expensive players and we will give you in return... a fourth outfielder. Merry Christmas, Braves fans!

This was a good one Joe.

I suppose you can blame Bud Selig for not going out and recruiting a fleet of owners who are willing to risk short term dollars for long term success (although it's difficult to think of another sport that has done so), but this isn't exactly a new problem in baseball. The dichotomy between the spenders and the penny-pinchers has been around for a long, long time -- at the very least, since Connie Mack sold off his best A's teams -- and I'm not sure anyone, not even Bud Selig, can wave a magic wand and fix the problem.

Braves fan here, but they're making me enjoy reading about baseball more than watching them...

You claim that investing in a good team is profit-maximizing behavior, and then you claim that profit-motivated ownerships don't want to invest in a good team.

One of those steps is not correct, and I suspect it's the first one, at least to some degree. If I recall, the Braves were unable to sellout playoff games in the first half of this decade, so perhaps Lib Med is right not to break the bank for a shot at the playoffs, at least given their goals.

I'm a huge Braves fan. I hate Liberty Media for their cheapness and I hate Ted Turner for "bailing" on the team.

My biggest hope is that all this short-term thinking is a sign that Liberty Media is trying to increase the sale value of the team-- though by that token, no prospective owner that I would approve of would view these moves as value increasing.

As a fan of the Braves living in Philadelphia I couldn't agree more. I was hopeful for this upcoming season when I saw the Phillies treading water with the Lee/Halladay moves. Vazquez was the one piece (other than Tommy Hanson) of a fine rotation I didn't want to see moved, let alone for (yet another) fourth outfielder type.

The Braves had an opportunity to gain on the Philies by adding an impact bat (at the cost of a Lowe or Kawakami), but the uninterested Liberty Media took this away. Thanks, Joe, for pointing out that this isn't the work of an "inept" GM; rather the bottom-line mentality of a corporation.

How I long for the days of bringing in actual talent (Fred McGriff, Marquis Grissom, Greg Maddux).

I agree with tooci4. Is the Braves' market temporarily jaded, such that playoff appearances return significantly less money there than elsewhere? Don't see any reason why that couldn't be possible.

And playing off of what SaberTJ says. I find it hard to believe that the Braves didn't shop Vazquez and Soriano around. You'd think they must have.

If so, why then didn't SOMEone better the way below-market offers for Soriano and Vazquez? I mean, aren't all those teams then acting Liberty-Mediaish also? Either Wren is incompetent in this particular way, or else just about all the teams are cost-watching not all that differently than Liberty Media is.

"Any headline on this trade that does not mention Arodys Vizcaino is totaly missing the point"
-KG

Joe, I agree with your point about Selig. As I recall, the winning bidder in each of the last two team purchases wasn't the highest bidder, but the bidder with ties to Selig. But I don't really follow your point about the Phillies. It wasn't that the Phillies valued $9 million over Lee, but that the Phillies valued Polanco, Gload, and the other heart-and-soul guys they signed recently over Lee. That's not so much a fixation on the bottom line as it is silly resource management.

Working in the pro sports industry, I can tell you two things:
1) This is an incredible piece of writing that I agree with 150%.

2) This is true from a front office perspective as well. It's amazing to watch teams scale back front offices and hope for success on the field - only to watch that blow up in their faces. Teams that invest in people, and create an atmosphere of hope (see Trail Blazers post Jail Blazers) can start selling tickets BEFORE a team makes the jump, so the fan can say they were there for the jump (the Orioles would be a great example where this might work).

Just a terrific, terrific article.

While Ted Turner was setting up his UN Foundation, he was at a cocktail party, lamenting the taxes he'd have to pay on selling his Time Warner stock to raise $1 billion for the Foundation. Fotunately for Ted, a tax attorney overheard him, and quickly intervened.

Ted Turner is the grand example of why it's better to be lucky than good.

Joe's comments on the horrors of corporate ownership are mostly correct. Look -what the Chicago Tribune did to the Cubs.

George M. Steinbrenner prioritized winning over everything except breathing. The result is a team that makes so much money that it can now afford to spend many times more than the average baseball team.

As a Yankees fan, Steinbrenner is a greater hero to the Yankees than Derek Jeter, and he has my admiration. Fans care about winning, and the greatest gift than an owner can give to fans is to care just as much.

Thank you, Joe, for yet another outstanding article.

"When you win, you collect the return on the investment you make. This has been true for decades in baseball, and it remans so today, as the Phillies could no doubt explain if you could hear them over the ringing of the cash registers."

According to BP's 2008 annual, the Phillies payroll was between $88 and $95.5 million in the first 4 years that Citizens Bank was open (2004-2007). The payroll, post two World Series trips and a solid wall of sellouts, will be up to $140 million this year, and Phillies fans who have carped for years about the stinginess of the owners can't really complain. The Phillies market was a longtime slumbering giant, and the ownership group is finally starting/able to take advantage.

pbconnection - Sorry, my computer won't allow me to reply directly. The ironic thing about the Yankees is that a big reason for their success - George Steinbrenner - was the kind of guy that Selig would likely never allow into the ownership club these days.

Royals have a $70 million (not $40 as you indicated above) million and their '08 draft set a record for bonuses (over $10 Million). The Royals certainly spend their money at the major league level poorly (Jose Guillen, Farnsworth, Kendall, etc) but I think the evidence shows that they spend money as freely as any organization, especially considering that Kansas City is the second smalled metro area for a baseball team with around 1.8 million people.

You can and absolutely should question the Royals decision-making, but please don't lazily classify the Royals with the Marlins (a "small market" team in a wealthy metro area of nearly 4 million people) and Pirates (2.4 million).

Sorry for the rant, but I get sick of good analysts just classifying all small market teams together because they don't want to look up the facts. KC and Milwaukee, the two smallest markets, spend fairly aggressively considering that most other teams in baseball comes from a market 50% larger. (the Brewers just spend far more wisely).

Good stuff, as always, Joe. And I'm very much in agreement with your general take on the corporation-as-owner issue. But I actually don't hate this deal for the Braves.

As you said, they had six solid SPs (Vazquez, along with Hudson, Lowe, Tommy Hanson, Jair Jurrjens, and Kenshin Kawakami), and Vazquez represented the best candidate of the six to be dealt considering both marketability and inherent value. Hanson (along with Jason Heyward) is the franchise, Jurrjens is himself a pre-arb untouchable coming off of a monster year, Kawakami and Hudson are locked up on relatively cheap deals ($7.5 and $9 million per, respectively), and as you noted, Lowe was simply too expensive to be moved (the Braves certainly tried to do so). Vazquez was priced somewhat below market, but was under control for just one more year. A move had to be made, and given the crickets on Lowe, it had to be Vazquez.

So the question becomes whether the return was enough. First the name we know. While Melky Cabrera is entering into his arb years, I would think that he may actually be the type of player who might not do as well in arbitration as he would deserve to based on his real life baseball value. That is, a significant part of his value is in his fielding ability (incl. his ability to play center), and even with advancements in metrics to measure fielding, I'm guessing that arbitration awards still don't fully account for this value. Whereas on the hitting side, Melky doesn't pile up big counting stats in the "money" categories (HR, RBI, SB). Given that Melky settled for $1.4 million last year, and had a better year all around in '09 (but not drastically so), $4 million might be right. But that seems a relative bargain for an average-to-plus defensive outfielder who can spell the defensively-stretched Nate McLouth in center, and whose bat (and modest power/speed combo, combined with the ability to switch hit with a minimal platoon split) can at least play in left. It's fair to say that there's not much more room (if any) for projection on Melky, and that he is what he is right now. But what that is is a 25-year-old who at least held his own while playing nearly half of his games in baseball's toughest division. At minimum, the Braves could do far worse as a placeholder/insurance policy for Heyward, the ghost of Jordan Schafer, et al.

What's more, your article did not even mention the best player in this deal on the Braves side of the ledger, Arodys Vizcaino, the Yanks' #2 prospect according to Kevin (#3 at Baseball America). Sure, TNSTAAPP (TM), and even if he does pan out, Vizcaino is at least a couple years away. But that's exactly who you should be looking for when you have an already over-crowded rotation locked up for the next few years. He may lack the ceiling or polish of a Kyle Drabek, and perhaps this doesn't quite represent the bounty the Jays exacted for Halladay (who, like Vazquez, was locked up for only one more year). But Vazquez isn't quite Halladay.

I suppose if anything could be criticized here it could be the Braves' lack of foresight last off-season in signing both Lowe and Kawakami, moves which helped to create their rotation logjam in the first place. But I think that criticism is much easier in hindsight. Hudson's successful return from TJ, Jurrjens' emergence, and the translation of Hanson's and Kawakami's prior success to the show -- none of these things were sure bets.

I hate the Braves. I hate the welcoming of corporate ownership groups into the game to the exclusion of crazy rich guys (and the antitrust exemption which permits it). But I don't hate this deal.

The commenters who suggest that Braves playoff revenues may not be as high as other teams' because of jaded fans are missing the point. Any playoff revenues over zero improve your bottom line. A 90% full stadium come playoff-time still makes them plenty of money, and that doesn't begin to quantify the benefits you get from in-season attendance by fielding a competitive team.

One thing that bugs me about all this is that the Braves have a Hall of Fame manager heading into his final season, and they have a real chance to send him off as a winner, and they're blowing it. Maybe I'm being sentimental, but that's disappointing. (And I'm a YANKEE fan.)

I agree on the corporate ownership piece and, as a Braves fan, I would be THRILLED if Liberty Media sold the team to a guy like Mark Cuban. However, I disagree on your assessment of the Braves with regards to these two trades. The Braves signed both Billy Wagner and Takashi Saito for a total of 10 million. Their salaries replaced the previous dollars spent on Mike Gonzalez and Soriano. They had hoped Soriano would not accept arbitration - when he did accept the offer they traded him for a usable bullpen pitcher. Also, the Braves save 9 million in this Vazquez for Cabrera deal. IF they spend this 9 million to upgrade their offense then I don't consider this to be a salary dump trade. I think judgement needs to be reserved on the Braves moves until after all the trades/signings are complete.

And, as others have pointed out, getting this Vizcaino kid was a great deal. They basically traded one year of Javy Vazquez for an elite prospect, a replacement for Ryan Church, an upgraded lefty reliever, and salary relief. IF they use this money to re-sign LaRoche (or get another good hitter) then it was a good move.

"The difference between the Yankees and the Braves isn't revenue." Huh? That's the difference between the Yankees and everybody.

While Joe's article is insightful as always, I agree with FourScore: It's far too early to jump to conclusions. We're still two months away from Spring Training!

What the Braves have now is more flexibility to trade and they still retain four starting pitchers who could play in the All-Star Game. Atlanta now has a number of MLB players and farm boys that they could flip for a big bat.

Let's wait at least another six weeks before we assume Frank Wren is Liberty Media's go-fer.

The premise of the article is dead-on and ultimately the important take away. Like a few of the other commenters, I am a Brave's fan and can't stand the treatment of the team by LM. Many of us in Atlanta often wish for the return of Ted.

However, I would also agree with a few of the others here in not hating this deal - even for 2010. The likely downgrade from Javy to Kawakami or Medlen is probably about the same as the upgrade Melky gives them over whomever would have played LF against RH's (and certainly over last year with Anderson). If the cash savings enables them to get an impact bat, the net impact to 2010 could easily be a positive.

And the post-2010 impact certainly looks to be a net gain as they would not have re-signed Javy after next year. I think the saved $ in 2010 plus the 3 guys obtained in the deal will have value above the 2 lost picks in 2011. Just my opinion for what that is worth.

But Joe's main point far outweighs what this does or doesn't do to the Braves in 2010. So I guess I am wasting everyone's time!

Joe ignores one very important factor when it comes to fans relationship towards ownership. Increasing the payroll by $20 million over budget isn't just a one-year thing. Teams are just about never allowed by their fans to decrease payroll. If the Braves increase their 2010 payroll to $110 million , then that's their bar for 2011 when it comes to maintaining good will.

Retaining those two players wasn't a $20 million decision, it was a $200+ million decision.

I think the Braves made the better deal hands down.

Vazquez' median ERA in his four AL seasons is 4.75. Everyone is fawning over his career year last year, but I see a pitcher who is one the wrong side of 30 and spent 3 of the previous 4 years as little better than waiver wire fodder.

If the Braves had just gotten Vizcaino, it would have been a long term wash for the Braves. But Cabrera does have value beyond a 4th OF. He has the 7th best EQA in the NL for any starting CF, who is also league average CF defensively. That makes him a league average CF already before he enters his prime years. He is not the defensive player Granderson is, but he actually slightly out hit Granderson last year by EQA.

So the Braves got an elite prospect and a young starting CF for an extra piece who was overpaid. As I see it, they got younger, cheaper and better plus gaining an elite prospect.

It was probably a good deal for the Yankees as well, but only because Cabrera with much of his value tied up in being able to play CF was a bad against Granderson and they can afford to buy a LF and they desperately needed another starting pitcher. Even with this, they are probably still a starting pitcher short of where they should be.

Amen. Top shelf stuff, joe.

You know what scares me? When a team thinks it has 'too many' starting pitchers and decides it can afford to trade one or more away, it just opens up the possibility of at least two of the remaining arms to break down and miss half the season or worse. Disabled lists get used. A lot. There's nothing wrong with stockpiling pitchers.

I don't disagree with your analysis here, but at the same time, for years the following has been sound advice: "If Atlanta offers you pitching in a trade, walk, don't run, in the opposite direction." I'm tempted to speculate on what they know about Vazquez that we don't.

I'm not saying this factored into the Braves decision, but I don't think the article accounts for the changing attitude of the fan as a result of fantasy baseball. More and more people continue watching baseball both live and on TV to see "their" players. Less people are loyal to the cloth that these players put on in order to generate their results. This is probably the wrong baseball site to bring up the topic, but many people like myself would still watch a local team play simply to keep track of their fantasy team. If the trend continues I believe front offices will understand they have a certain percent of their fan base that does not care about team results.

I'm just glad that Sam Zell doesn't own the Cubs anymore. Could Bud have stepped in and forbade him from being the worst shepherd the game has seen? If I recall, he both completely froze the Cubs payroll and constantly bragged about how he was going to pull off the sale of the Cubs without paying a dime in taxes in the deal.

Thanks, Joe. Tomorrow I might be looking for evidence that certain types of ownership really act so differently, but today a dose of taut, lucid, righteous anger really hit the spot.

The Giamatti line was especially priceless.

Great article, but now what? What can fans do about this, short of getting rich and buying a team? If people stop going to the games, I assume owners will get even more nervous about staying within budget. If people continue to go to games, the owners feel justified in their behavior.

I have nothing to add to this article except, "my God, what blinding truth is pouring from your pen today." What hope is there of this situation changing?

Yankee fan here. Sorry to see Bobby Cox getting the shaft on his way out. He's everything that's good about the game. The Braves probably could have done better, but they botched the Soriano deal worse. They should have let Mark Cuban buy The Cubs. How could they be any worse and the owners need shaking up. They don't line up cleanly with the just over 30 GM crowd. He would have brought even more fun and joy to a great franchise with awesome fans and a rich history. The Cards and Cubs rivalry should be every bit as contentious as NYY-Boston, SF-LA (which needs a real boost) and NYM-Philly. It's great for the game. New York forfeited two decent prospects and a fourth OF (thank god someone finally agrees with me on this...I can't believe how many so-called smart baseball people think Melky can actually play everyday...I'm so thankful he was used as bait I can't even put it into words...I was hoping for Brandon Morrow, but whatever) to rent Javier for one year guaranteed. That's a big price to pay if in fact they have no plans to sign him longer term. Melky is relatively irrelevant in this deal althought I apologize to Braves fans for saying as much. Again, they could have done better, but they will eventually be happy with Vizcaino and this deal will be forgotten about my Braves fans eventually I think. I agree with Joe's premise here big time as well. I was never totally on board with Steinbrenner's intereference (been a Yankee fan since 1968), but oen thing I could never question was the reinvestment of dollars back into the team. Selig would never let Steinbrenner into the game he now runs. I'm so looking forward to his leaving. I don't know if it'll ever come to fruition, but once he's gone wouldn't it be great if we could use the DH as leverage to abolish Interleague play and bring back the balanced schedule? I absolutely detest that so many Wildcard teams have been able to win the World Series, but I have to begrudgingly give Selig some props for the Wildcard in general. It has made the game more interesting to many for much longer into the summer. I won't miss him when he steps down though. 1994, 'Nuff said...

Joe, you may rail about the ownership of Liberty Media, but as bad as they are, I'll take them over Tom Hicks. At least they can make payroll. Hicks may have wanted to win, but when you leverage your team to buy another team, then to buy another team, then get so far into debt you can't afford to service that debt, things are overly bad.

The Rangers have made a significant profit every year since the strike (mostly because of their new stadium) and yet this past summer they were chalk dust away from going into receivership. Having to borrow money to make payroll? Losing out on signing their first round pick because they coudn't afford the signing bonus?

Hopefully Chuck Greenberg won't get too greedy and stick with being the owner of the Rangers for a while. Also, hopefully his investment group will captialize the team such that they can operate this year and make the deadline deals that will push them into the post-season.

Joe,

Like many others you are cavalier about spending other people's money. The real fix for baseball would be a salary cap, negotiated as a % of revenue for the players. Because you see, teams are supposed to win because they play better, manage better, develop better personnel, etc. Not because they own a cable network or not because they have a huge ego and are willing to spend billions to get a trophy in their case by buying up the best players.
Competition will generate more interest in the game, more attendance and actually more money for more players and owners. We should not be discussing finances, we should be discussing strategy and value.
Your theory will force the smaller markets into bankruptcy or medioctrity because they will never be able to compete with the larger markets or deep-pocketed owners. Cap the salaries and spread the wealth through automatic adjustments to overall revenue.
30 super sized egos will only result in higher ticket prices and richer players, not better teams or better baseball.

"The Atlanta Braves struggled on the field but they produced strong financial results." (Liberty Media's 2008 Annual Report, p.4)

As a lifelong Braves fan I ask, is 10:15 AM too early for a drink?

This is just silly. The goal of a business is to maximize the returns to its owners. To the extent that winning will improve Liberty's returns, they'll pursue that goal. Frankly, with a mind towards things like returns on investment (precisely the sort of thing that sites like this purport to measure), I'd expect them to pursue it +more+ efficiently than the independently wealthy who run their teams as vanity projects.

Now that the Braves have signed Troy Glaus as their "big bat" and confirmed that the true purpose of the Vazquez trade was not to free up payroll for a "big bat," but rather simply to dump salary, I just want to chime in that, Joe, I really appreciated your column. You basically nailed all my feelings as a demoralized Braves fan. From Time Warner to Liberty Media, corporate ownership has been horrible for this franchise.

I just hope that the time will soon come when Liberty Media can sell the Braves without jeopardizing their precious tax break.

I think the bigger problem was just how the Braves handled operating under a budget rather than having a budget. Choosing Tim Hudson over Vazquez was a mistake. Signing Wagner before the arbitration deadline was a mistake. Yeah, the Braves should be willing to spend more to win .. but they could have made a lot smarter decisions with the money they have to spend.

Joe, it is great to see your good fastball again. One item that should have been mentioned is Selig likely used his power to approve change of ownership to score three big media contracts: InDemand/MLB Extra Innings, TBS, and MLB Network. Do the ends justify the means?

Happy Festivus and other holidays to my fellow baseball fans!

Tom
www.elguaposghost.com

I don't get it. Absent a salary floor and ceiling, there have to be teams which spend less and teams which spend more. Lets say 27 Bill Gateses bought all the teams but the Yankees. Would you be writing the same things about the Steinbrenners that you're now writing about Loria?

Secondly, what do you think the definition of "win" is for Liberty Media. You said they took x action to avoid seeing red on their spreadsheets. Um, yeah. They'd be a pretty irresponsible business if they didn't.

I'm beginning to think you might be economically illiterate.