Waiting to Exhale might have made for a good baseball movie title after an off-season in which Major League Baseball owners tried to trim two teams from their elite--leaving fans in Minnesota anxious to find out what might happen to their beloved Twins.
Meanwhile, Jeff Loria abandoned his Montreal Expos while robbing the organization of many bright minds as he found a new allegiance owning the Florida Marlins. Somewhere in between, the previous Marlins owner felt that Boston, with its Red Sox, might make a nice change of scenery. With multiple owners feeling the need to own different teams, maybe baseball does have one--or four--teams too many.
Yes, spring training is here and it's about time to see what all the off-field discussion eventually translates into. Now fans can see what kind of (inflated) numbers Jason Giambi might put up with that short right-field porch in Yankee Stadium. Maybe Gary Sheffield will bring a second championship to a Braves dynasty whose aging pitching cornerstones--Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux--are both free agents after the season. Will Ryan Dempster or C.C. Sabathia--or any of the handful of young, talented arms to come to the big leagues in the past several years--find that added edge necessary to become the elite?
These "what ifs" frequently become "could've beens" in any sport, but baseball fans often treat their passion with a vigor that combines scientific method with stock analysis (Garret Anderson might as well stay in Arizona for the month of April, for instance). For the first time in a while, however, this common sense is reaching the baseball owners and their front offices through more prudent financial actions.
Really, the first sign of good business sense that should have attracted people's attention was when Richie Phillips tried to organize an umpires strike. Some predicted ruin to a smoothly running season when many of the umpires submitted their resignations--replacement umpires, the thinking went, could not possibly be as good as the prima donas baseball then employed.
And how, under this logic, could the same owners who canceled the 1994 World Series allow another season to be tarnished with poorly qualified people in their objective spots? Commissioner Bud Selig and company, however, accepted the resignations and proceeded to replace the quitting umpires. The union's move backfired and MLB initially had its pick of the umpires it wanted to keep.
Should anyone be surprised that good business sense was bound to catch up with baseball? Owners or corporations already consist of some of the brightest minds out there. They spend millions of dollars to purchase baseball teams and some, such as the Braves, Cubs and Yankees, benefit from the instant television programming and subsequent revenues that the 162-game schedules provide--a better product on the field certainly cannot hurt. Some fault Selig for impartially presiding over MLB, but why should the owners delegate the responsibility over their incredibly expensive investments to an outside, "neutral" entity?
In re-evaluating the game's financial structure in the economic climate, teams were uncharacteristically reserved this off-season. The Yankees did make waves in the free agent pool, but few other signings followed. The Mets would have loved to add Juan Gonzalez as an outfield upgrade, but even they had to consider budgetary restraints; some say Moises Alou also lost out in this year's tight market. Meanwhile, fiascos such as the Alex Rodriguez signing last year in Texas and Albert Belle's joining the White Sox several years back demonstrate that just spending money on several key players does not work.
Still, money does matter in evaluating, obtaining, acquiring and keeping talent. Turmoil aside, would the Expos--even in this more sensible-free agency--have a serious opportunity to retain a young Vladimir Guerrerro, or would he jump ship like many other talented former Expos players, like Alou, Andre Dawson, Martinez or Larry Walker?
Few organizations in baseball have shown a greater inability to compete for extended periods than the Montreal Expos, even with their exceptional farm system. They rebuild with much hope, only to rebuild again. Maybe the strike year indelibly harmed the franchise's chances for financial stability, given that they were leading the National League East. Meanwhile, the Twins--a team that surprisingly is not losing money--seem to pursue five-year rebuilding plans and have questioned whether they can keep around a solid pitcher such as Brad Radke.
The Expos need to be eliminated; prudent business sense, which baseball owners are finally showing, demands the change. They have proven that they cannot seriously maintain a contending team for more than a year or two, all the while draining those collective television revenues that could help teams with less severe financial problems--something that becomes crucial in saving teams like Pittsburgh. Since baseball needs an even number of teams, and several have shown an inability to compete for the long haul, including the Twins, the Royals, Loria's Marlins. Someone else needs to go, and people should not treat this cold reality as a conspiracy theory.
These departures will undoubtedly lead to unhappy fans in those towns, but baseball cannot retain healthy competitiveness with teams that cannot even spend the money to keep their homegrown talent around. Other structural reforms to free agency are also necessary, but contraction remains an important first step. With two to four clearly uncompetitive franchises out of the way and more reserved free agency, baseball might have a better chance of balancing disparity among those borderline teams.
John Bush is a Trinity junior and editorial page editor of The Chronicle.
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