Pete,

My crystal ball suggests the future of MLB is to have a premier league composed of the top 24 franchises and a major league composed of the next 24 largest markets.

This approach solves the problem of what to do with the KC Royals, Oakland A's and Pittsburgh Pirates. It also enables MLB to put its own franchises in growing AAA markets like Albuquerque and Raleigh as well as in promising International markets like Mexico City.

The Premier League will have the best players and draw the most attention. The quality of play will exceed what we currently see in the majors and this will revitalize general fan interest in the sport.

The final improvement is to shorten the season to 144 regular season games but to extend the playoffs and add world and interleague tournaments.

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Pete's reply: Wow. Is your crystal ball attached to the Hubble Telescope? When is this going to happen?

I was just catching up on your blog and read the one about the bench coach. How about Eddie Murray. He would be perfect. He seems to bond strongly with the people around him; knows a little about hitting; would be a great influence on the young guys and wouldn't necessarily be viewed as a replacement for Trembley. Ed-die. Ed-die. Ed-die.

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Pete's reply: I don't think Eddie would be perfect. For some reason, he has never been particularly successful as a coach, perhaps because he was such a great player.

Jerry. Eddie Murray is my all-time favourite Oriole and I would love to see him back in some capacity. I don't think he'd want to play second fiddle to a guy like Trembley as a bench coach.
He might fit in better as a hitting coach but the O's, for whatever reason, seemed to be set on giving Crowley that job for life.
As far as parity in baseball, that will never happen unless there is some type of salary cap. It seems to work pretty well in other sports so not sure why the owners don't push for it more in MLB. There are only a few teams that have massive payrolls so why don't the other teams form an alliance of some sort ?

The New York fat cats, whether in pin stripes or on Wall Street, need to be saved from their plundering greed and excess. They are Exhibits A and B for the case that capitalism needs to well regulated in order to be saved from its own excesses--for the good of all of us. Alan Greenspan has been exposed as an Ayn Rand idiot. So will Selig unless he clamps down.

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Pete's reply: Boy, you really went around the block with that post. Might be the first Ayn Rand reference here on the blog. I think that the level of regulation attached to our capitalistic system fluctuates with events and political shifts and eventually finds its own level. There will always be excesses, but I still prefer this system to all the others. Also, I wouldn't call MLB a capitalistic system. It's actually a form of private socialism, since the clubs hold a monopoly on the sport, share revenue and the players union basically has undermined any free market restraints on salaries.

Pete how come when i said all year that the orioles have no chance of winning in our division due to the current financial structure in baseball you told me that i was crazy and that andy's plan was going to work.. Now after the season ends you are getting on the badwaggon about lack of parity in baseball.Pete after watching these playoff games and the teams that are involved i am more certain then ever that Andy's plan under the current structure he has laid out will never work.You can not compete in this division unless you are willing to spend big money on some players that you need to fill in around all the young prospects. And that still isn't a gurantee because no good player will even entertain the idea of signing regardless of what money is offered.

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Pete's reply: Not sure what you're refering to, and I see you're talking Orioles again. Welcome back. I do think Andy's plan gives the O's their best chance to become competitive, but I've also said all along that I don't know if that will be enough to make them a consistent contender. You can go back and look it up. I have voiced my fear over and over that the plan might work and the Orioles might still be a third-place team. What you're refering to, I think, is my contention that the plan has to be giving sufficient time to work, but I guess we have to define what will be considered success. The plan was to develop pitching and position players and, at the right time, make some big-time free agent acquisitions to complete the picture. I think they are moving in that direction, but you're still going to be at a perpetual disadvantage in the free agent market. When they overcome that, they'll be in a position to win once in awhile, but I don't think they will be able to overcome that year after year in this economic system. Since you're already certain of this, tell me again the plan you propose?

Fine article as usual Pete. MLB is going to have to do something about this disparity eventually. Look at what has happened to attendance in Balto. and Pittsburgh. The AL East is essentially a two team division now, with an occasional brief appearance by one of the other three. Just how much fun is it for fans in Tampa, Balto. and Toronto to go into every season knowing that they are pretty much fighting for 3rd place? Some of the smaller market teams that would have gone under completely may still be around, but can you really call the league healthy when so very many teams just aren't competitive? The NFL figured a long time ago out that parity is good for for the league, but MLB and the players union just can't seem to undertand that. The players need to realize that when there are only a half dozen teams in the league that can really compete, that the vast majority of their membership is going to suffer. The Yankees can't carry a 75 man roster, a lot of guys are going to have to play with the smaller market teams. They would serve their own interests if they helped those teams be competitive.

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Pete's reply: The problem is getting the genie back into the bottle. The NFL figured things out before it became what it is today. Baseball is a $7 billion industry, which makes it -- by nature -- very conservative when it comes to economic change.

I propose having leagues based on income, put the all the high market teams in the AL, all the small market teams in NL. This would allow small market teams a fighting chance at winning a title and for the larger markets, a chance to buy a Tex or CC, or trade for the best Pittsburgh Pirates players. Bet that would not change.

Schmucker, you're better than this.

Comparing NFL "parity" to MLB "parity" is apples to oranges. NFL parity is defined as "anyone has a chance to make the playoffs." Well, that's not because of the economic system, but because 12 of 32 (37.5%) of the league makes the playoffs. In MLB, 8 of 30 (27%) make the playoffs. Fans of the Bengals, Browns, Bills, Texans, Lions only have "hope" because the pool of teams in the playoffs is bigger. None of those teams has made it to the final 8 (Divisional Rd) in the last 10 years. Baseball has 4 such franchises (Orioles, Royals, Nationals, Pirates) you can say that about. I don't see the disparity. But because the Bengals played one playoff game in the last 20 years, the NFL has parity and MLB doesn't?

Compare the "Final Four" from the last 9 years, and you'll find that more MLB franchises have made it to the LCS than football franchises have made the Conference Championship game. Baseball has had more franchises win titles since the '94 strike than football has. And the NBA, with it's salary cap, is no better, as the Lakers, Spurs and Bulls have dominated the last 15 years.

It's easy to write this article with New York, LA, LA and Philly remaining. But these articles weren't being written two years ago when Boston, Cleveland, Colorado and Arizona played in the LCS. Your memory is better than this.

I suppose the Yankees' spending spree of last offseason makes this story more appealing. While the rest of the league was dealing with financial turmoil, the Yankees were oblivious to the storm around them. And because their free-spending ways seem to be working, it heightens the perception that baseball has a parity problem. But that's all it is - perception.

The NFL has done a wonderful job of selling you the potion of salary cap combined with more playoffs teams makes parity. But it isn't more parity. They're just better marketers than the MLB people are.

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Pete's reply: My memory is irrelevant. If you look back before 1994, there was way more competitive balance than there is now. My point is that despite MLB's efforts, the thing is moving in the wrong direction. Sure, this is a convenient time to chime in on the situation, but so what? You're right that the NFL and MLB are apples and oranges, which is why your comparison doesn't work. The difference with the NFL is, the dominant teams got dominant more because of good management strategy than great demographics and massive local revenues. That's why the best teams in the AFC are in Indianapolis and Pittsburgh.

Hey Matt,

I don't have time to reproduce the numbers but save for a few exceptions the standings of the 32 teams back in August could largely have been ranked by Divison by payroll. There were some excepetions such as the Mets, but as Blancione has been pointing out all year, The Orioles stand little chance of sustained success in the AL East as long as the New York All Stars and the Boston Rent Sox spend at will on free agents.

There will always be aberrations whereas a given low payroll team such as the Orioles will complete a successful rebuild through the farm system and make the playoffs for a year or two. However that success cannot be sustained as the players developed will eventually move on to greener pastures lined with absurd amounts of money.

I have another solution. Rather than a salary cap I suggest that MLB should attach an onerous penal sum amount to the team that signs a free agent from another team when offering a contract that exceeds 20% of the players existing contract. That penalty would allow the team that is frisked by, say, the New York All Stars to select a players from the All Stars Major League roster or Minor League system., as was done in expansion. The All Stars would be able to freeze 15 players on their Major League roster and 5 Minor League prospects. The All Stars would also contribute to the existing contract of the player that was selected from their roster.

This system would deter teams such as the All Stars from pillaging the talent developed by low payroll teams and bring parity to the game.

I don't think the Bengals and Browns have a chance of sustained success while playing in a division with the Steelers and Ravens. In the last 10 years, the NFL has marketed the parity idea by selling stories like the '01 Rams. In reality, those stories are not much different than the '08 Rays or '07 Rockies. The Rams made it back to the SB the next year, and where have they been since? That's not "sustained success." The Bengals won a division title in '05, and have been under .500 the last 3 years. That's not "sustained success." The NFL has told you that they have a chance at that, but really the stories of bad teams becoming good and sustaining success is few and far between.

But even with that, I don't disagree with the premise that there is a disparity between the Yankees/Sox and O's. You're right that the O's are at a competitive disadvantage. But I disagree that this problem is unique to baseball. And given that we know the pain associated with the solution (a full scale labor war), I disagree that it's enough of a problem to warrant trying to solve. Arthritis in your hands may be a problem, but you wouldn't cut off your hands to solve it.

And the O's problem hasn't been that their good young players "move on to greener pastures with larger sums of money." The O's have had one "good young player" leave in the last 15 years (Moose). If we had kept him, I don't think the O's records would be much different over the last 8 years.The O's problem, much like the Bengals, Lions, Browns, Bills, has been terrible management. Not the financial structure of the sport. Yes, it will be hard to compete, but it's not impossible. We just can't be stupid.

Here is an idea that you might actually get by the union and the networks and the rich clubs that will help level the playing field a little bit. I am very interested in your opinion of this approach:

Leave the divisional alignment as is, but, instead of playing 18 against your own division and 6-7 against everyone else in the league, play 18 against your "payroll peers" in the league and and 6-7 against everyone else. Also, make all interleague games against "payroll peers".

To figure out "payroll peers" just take the top, middle and bottom third of payrolls using the most recent 3 years as your measure. The O's would give up 11 or so games against the Yankees, Blue Jays, Red Sox and Rays and gain back 11 or so more games against the clubs in their payroll neighborhood, regardless of division. The Yankees and Angels and White Sox and Red Sox can beat eachother up for those extra 11 games per year instead of clobbering the mid-tear and lowest payroll clubs in their divisions.

This is sort of like the NFL scheduling that allows harder and easier schedules based on previous years' performance. The networks and bigger clubs should go for it because their revenues and ratings go up when they play other big market teams. The mid and lower tier teams should like it because more of their revenue comes from their local fan base and more local fans will come see their local team throughout the year if the locals have a better record, are in the chase longer and are not condemned from Opening day to have 90-100 losses.

This ubalanced schedule for your division is recent, not yet ingrained in the fans' expectations, and ensures that the lower payroll clubs get drubbed by the biggest market in their division year after year. I am not sure that the Union would even have to approve of it, but if they did, I don't see where it hurts them that much.

We'd still get the Yanks and Sox for 6-7 games a year, so it is not like we will never see them.

You could tweak the apprach further by backloading the divisional games towards the end of the season. Or by going with 15 games vs your payroll peers an extra game or two vs. everybody else.

What do you think?

I know that Angelos loves the extra gate revenue of those 22 extra games vs the Red Sox and the Yanks. But, I think his total gate will increase a lot more by having 10 or 12 more wins per year from not having the rich teams kick us around for 25-35% of our schedule.

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Pete's reply: It's creative, I'll give you that, but since payrolls are determined in the winter preceding the season and usually aren't final until February, it would be logistically impossible to create a master schedule every year based on them.

The problem with some of the recommendations being batted around is that "MLB" doesn't exist. I agree that the disparity is bad for baseball, but who or what exactly is this "baseball" thing? There is no "baseball," just like there is no "they" everyone talks about. There's only the players and the owners. The players are getting money they could only dream about a few years ago, and the owners, even those who are losing money year-to-year, are seeing the value of their franchises go wild. So no one with a stake in the game sees anything that needs fixing. What about the cities with teams which can never compete? The Montreal experience shows that this doesn't hurt the players or the owners, so it (us!) is a non-problem.

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Pete's reply: There is some truth to that, and the increased emphasis on cable/satellite television as well as the internet revolution is making gate receipts less and less important.

Matt,

You are absolutley correct that the demise of the Orioles franchise has had little to do with losing free agents. That's because, as you pointed out, the franchise and the farm system was in such terrible shape that we were not producing more than a couple quality players to lose to free agency.

But now that it appears that the Orioles are developing young players. They will eventually lose these homegrown players to free agency, under the current system. Just look at Johhny Damon's career, for example. Developed by Kansas City, he was traded by the royals to the A's in 2001, because Kansas City knew they could not sign him when he became eligible for free agency. The A's had his contract for 2001, but could not afford to sign him when he became a free agent. Then he hit the big money in Boston, then on to New York.

That's what is wrong with Major League baseball. There is no serious compensation for the loss of a free agent, or seroius penalty to the teams that sign them. I think it is worth fixing although you are right the Union and the Owners like it just the way it is.

Free agency dollars is a minor part of the issue. The real discrepancy created by the disparate franchise revenues is in player development. The Orioles cannot even find a decent facility for spring training while the Yankees have their Taj Mahal in Tampa. The Yankees can always sign their draft picks while the Orioles have lost players they could not sign.

This is why I believe the best route for MLB is to separate the franchise winners from the franchise losers and stop pretending they are on equal footing.

Gil -

What makes you think the Orioles won't be able to sign their quality young players?

They've already signed Nick Markakis to a long term deal. Brian Roberts is locked up as well.

This team has money, we all know that. When they had the right players to spend that money on ('96 - '98), the O's were one of the top-spending teams in the game.

There's really no reason to believe that the O's won't be able to lock up future stars like Matt Wieters and Brian Matusz (unless Andy MacPhail can't supplement the young talent with solid veterans and the team fails to compete, causing Wieters and Matusz to look for greener pastures.)

On parity: I'm with Matt.

The only reason we're talking about this is because the Yankees spent a billion dollars on free agents and they're on the brink of another World Series appearance.

I'm fine with letting them have their fun for a while. That team is going to be an absolute disaster in a few years.

Think about the 2012 Yankees:

A-Rod ($30m per) will be 36 and in the fifth year of a TEN YEAR contract that won't expire until he's 42.

Teixeira ($22.5m per) will be 32 and in the fourth year of an EIGHT YEAR contract that won't expire until he's 38.

Sabathia ($22.8m per) will be 32, he'll have another 2000 innings on his arm and he'll be in the fourth year of a SEVEN YEAR contract.

Burnett ($16.5m per) will be 35 and in the fourth year of a five year contract. The big disaster here is that there's probably something close to a 95% chance that he'll have another major injury sometime between now and the end of the deal.

So that's almost $100m for four players that may be well past their prime only halfway through their contracts.

And that doesn't even include the "lifetime achievement" contract that Derek Jeter's going to get after the 2010 season. Who knows how ridiculous that's going to be.

So let's all let the Yanks have some fun for a while until their insanely expensive team gets old and collapses.

Matt,

Here is the fundamental flaw with your argument against a salary cap. With no Salary cap, big market teams have more ways to build teams. If the Yankees don't draft well, that's ok for them because they can pay for the best free agents every year. They can even make 10 mill per year mistakes and not be affected cause they can afford to be wrong on free agents.

The O's and other small market teams can't afford to ever be wrong when it comes to free agents and certainly can't afford multiple 20 million dollar per year players. They also can't afford to be wrong about draft picks cause they can't pay for the best FAs to cover up those mistakes.

In other sports, each team has the same amount of money to work with and can also build via the draft. This accentuates teams with bad manangement (like the Raiders and Redskins) that having unlimited resources can cover up.

Baseball needs to do 3 things to even the playing field.
1. Institute a salary cap and floor. Something like a team can't spend more than 140 mill but all teams must spend $70 mill.
2. have a draft with a slotting pay scale so the worst teams don't have to pass of players because of contract demands.
3. Either have an international draft or put international players in the current draft. Get rid of this bidding system for these international "free agents"

b,

What makes you think the Yankees won't have a $250 million dollar payroll in 4 years and be able to afford a bunch of younger top level free agents?

B your logic might have some merit to it , but every year they go out and replesh with the best current younger player available.Do you think they give a rat's A$$ if these current crop gets older in 3 years . By that time they will have won 2 more world series and just reload again. Since boston didn't win this year they will even be more agressive in the off season. Either prince or adrian g will be traded to them and they will do everything possibe in the off season to once again get better then the yanks. This will continue to be one vicious cycle and no matter how much you want the orioles to win they can't. 72 games against the toughest teams in baseball will always kill them no matter how brain washed andy has made you and the fans of this town. Using your logic brian roberts who is 32 and getting older will be over the hill before they can even sniff the Yankee's or Boston. Nick is already showing signs of frustration due to lack of protection in the line up.END OF STORY KEEP TEARING YOUR HEART OUT EVERY YEAR.

Sam, well said!
If the salary minimum is reasonably set then overall player revenues can be similar, but better distributed (along with the associated talent) among the teams.
The big market teams should be able to make more money (because of high local advertising revenue and a larger fan base). But that should just provide a higher return to the owners of those teams, not a bottomless well to draw on to throw at free agents.
The playing field needs to be leveled for the sake of the fans. The MLB mutually dependent oligopolists and their employees (the players) have long ignored the fans and just take them for granted.

bob -

Nice to have you back. I have to say it came sooner than I expected.

My point was this: Even the Yankees have limited resources. The reason they were able to spend an insane amount of money this past off season is because of the contracts that expired...

- Jason Giambi was making $23m per in his last two years in New York. Drop that, add Teixeira and you're even.

- Bobby Abreu made $16m in his final season in New York. Drop that, add Burnett and you're even.

- Mike Mussina made $11m per year in '07 and '08. Andy Pettitte made $16m in 2008 and then signed for $5.5m in '09. Combine the difference there with the Moose savings, drop it, add Sabathia and you're even.

Aside from Mariano RIvera's deal, which expires after next season, the current Yankee regime has ZERO big contracts coming off the books any time soon.

The Yankees resources are unparalleled, but they aren't unlimited. It's going to be a while before they go on another huge spending spree like they did last offseason

B Trust me the only reason i am back is because the subject is something that i have preached about all last year and is dear to my heart. All last year i have said that no matter how succesful Andy's plan is the best the orioles can ever finish is 3rd in this division, under the current structure in baseball.And that my friend is if all pieces of the plan go exactely as plan and that never happens.

Pete- You said ,The difference with the NFL is, the dominant teams got dominant more because of good management strategy than great demographics and massive local revenues. That's why the best teams in the AFC are in Indianapolis and Pittsburgh.

The same with baseball to a degree. Look at the home growwn talent on the Yankees and Red Sox. The Orioles had a higehr revenue stream than the Red Sox for years and out-drew them until 2001. It was new ownership that turned the franchise around there by increasing revenues through creative marketing, etc. Oh, Theo Epstein helped.

By the way, it a salary cap come in baseball and the revenue of the owners (NY, Bos, etc.) stay the same, the players would scream bloody murder.

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Pete's reply: Well, the players will scream bloody murder way before anybody institutes a salary cap. It's just not going to happen.

Pete,
The disparity in baseball started with the regional baseball networks. The simple luck of the draw means NY and Boston along with Chicago have a monopoly on the monies brought in by tacking on two dollars to every basic package offered to their designated territory. So NY makes 600 million before they even put a fanny in the stadium. Bob Costas wrote in a book almost 15 years ago how this was only going to get worse. At the time it was the “new stadium” that brought the windfall but now it’s the baseball networks tied to the teams.

The problem I have is that it takes “TWO” teams to create a broadcast so the monies should be split the same way they would be as if it were any other production. The small market teams need only bring this to court with the threat that they will not allow their games to be broadcast to NY in the future. The second problem is that networks such as the “YES” network broadcast other sports so in fact the revenue gathered by advertising for a hockey game (a sport with a salary cap) can then be flipped to fund the baseball team. The Yankees and Red Sox actually take advantage of the salary cap of other sports they broadcast to spin these profits to the Baseball team. I believe it will only be a matter of time before the other sports or shows on this network realize they are funding the Yankees and bring suit to grab some cash.

That said there is no way Selig will allow the wonderful cash cow of Yankees or Boston going to the play-offs each year to be messed with. He loves this and has said time and again how good it is for “baseball” when these teams are in the play-offs. When Selig says good for baseball he‘s really saying, “the business of baseball” because we all know it’s not good for the integrity of the sport just the bottom line.

Now comes the big question…Can a small market team such as KC make more money if they DON’T make the play-offs because they keep their payroll so low and rake in MLB licensing money generated by the large market teams making the play-offs who do? If this is the case it’s time for the books to be opened. What is the difference in licensing money generated during post season by large teams vs. small market?

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Pete's reply: It's been time for the books to be opened for a long while.

I don't expect the owners and players to do anything now. They will change the balance when fans stop accepting the status quo. I've watched only a few innings of one playoff game so far.

A salary cap is nothing more than the trick the owners play to protect themselves from one another.

Kenn - you are correct regarding the networks. However, NESN survives because they have the other pro teams (Celtics, Bruins) and college teams that are more popular than some pro teams (BU hockey, etc.)

Angelos was hoping to take over the Comcast presense and get the Caps and Wizards so have a year around schedule and hence revenue. Instead, they have college teams no one cares about and picks up feeds from other cable networks (no revenue there). If MASN was the only game in town, the Orioles COULD compete with most of the higher revenue teams.

Where was all this complainig when the Orioles had the 2nd highest payroll in the majors. They out-drew almost every team.
They generated more revenue than the Red Sox or any other AL team but NY. The management caused the 12 year demise since then. The rules of MLB did not change. No the landscape is not equal, but the Orioles were not in the position of a KC or Oakland. They put themselves in that spot. The money they have left on the table is huge.

Please don't suggest Eddie Murray for manager. How is a guy who never got his pants dirty, had a problem hustling at times and would not talk to the press be a good influence? He stats can't be argued, but as a person, he was a bum!

bob -

Last year, the Rays won the same division that you're saying is in the firm grip of the Yankees and Red Sox.

Also this year:

- The $36M Marlins finished 17 games ahead of the $149M Mets. Those same Marlins won more games than eight other $80+M teams.

- The $65M Twins beat the $115M Tigers and $96M White Sox to win the AL Central.

- Despite injuries and down years from some of their best players, the $63M Rays still managed to stay competitive in the AL East until early August. (Watch out for the Rays next year if B.J. Upton bounces back, Carlos Pena is healthy and David Price and Wade Davis improve upon their rookie seasons.)

And it's not like this is a one year wonder...

In 2008, the eight playoff teams were ranked 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 15, 29.

In 2007, they were 1, 2, 4, 8, 13, 23, 25 and 26.

Sure, the top ten probably fills half the spots each year, but even if you have a salary cap there are still going to be top spending teams and those top spending teams are going to make the playoffs year in and year out.

Heck, look at the capped sports compared to baseball:

Since 2000, six different NFL teams have won the Super Bowl, five different NBA teams have won the Championship and eight different teams have won the World Series.

Let's go through that again.

How many different teams have won Championships since the year 2000?

NFL: Six
NBA: Five
MLB: Eight

No parity in MLB? Come on. The proof is right there.

Oh, and how about different teams that have PLAYED in each sport's championship since 2000?

NFL: 13
NBA: 11
MLB: 14

The other two catch up here, but MLB still leads the pack.

And one more factoid:

Team with most championship appearances:

NFL: Patriots - 4
NBA: Lakers - 6
MLB: Yankees - 3

So what's the big deal?

I think weare talking about the American League East Title here, which since 1995 has been won once by Tampa Bay, once by Baltimore, twice by Boston, and 11 times by new York.

Yep, sure looks like parity to me.

How about spreading the "Luxury Tax" within the division rather than across the league? It seems that the salary disparity between the Royals and the Yankees is less important than the disparity between the Orioles and the Yankees because the Royals don't have to be better than the Yankees in order to win their division. It has been proven over the years that "salary" doesn't buy a championship, however it has also been proven that "salary" does buy a division.

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Pete's reply: There's some truth to that, but the Orioles don't really need the handout.

This is convenient. I have had many dreams about pipes.

Gil - Look how good players each team has drafted and brought up from their farm teams. The Orioles are last in that category.

Pete;

I think that the money the Yankees spend obscures the fact that they have a very good player development system which is at least as big a reason for their success as the free agents they sign.

Let's not just look at this year, but also back a bit. From 1979 to 1995, just as now, the Yankees were consistently at the top in terms of payroll, yet didn't win the WS even once. Then from 1996-2000, they won it 4 times.

So how do we explain the periods of relative famine and feast. Their spending habits didn't change. I would argue that it was their player development system that produced Jeter, Williams, Posada, Pettite and Rivera that was the difference.

It's easy to look at the numbers that Yankee free agents put up this year and miss the contributions of Yankee homegrowns. Their free agents wouldn't be anywhere near as close as they are to sipping WS champagne without them.

It's obviously true that the money they have allows them to have both high priced free agents and high priced homegrowns. On the other hand, if they hadn't had the money they do, what would they have gotten in return if they'd dealt guys like Jeter when they were close to getting the big money.

I'm not arguing that money isn't an advantage, something the Yankees and Boston will always have, just that a well run middle market team like the Os can compete, even in the AL east.

If you disagree, how do you think the Os would have done over the last twelve years if PA had left Gillick alone to run the team. I don't think many would disagree that we would have had a pretty consistently winning team that would have gotten into the playoffs a few times.

Is AM capable of doing a "Gillick". I think so, but time will tell. My point is that good management can trump money, at least some of the time.

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Pete's reply: Bob, I agree with you and have said many times on the radio show that the Yankees are more than just a big payroll, but the nearly unlimited salary budget is a huge factor, too.

This thread deserves to be preserved.

The relevant facts, creative thinking and logical analysis have enhanced my understanding. For example, I just discovered Pat Gillick's biography.

Peter, thanks for encouraging such an illuminating free-for-all.