Tuesday, October 05, 1999
Small-market Reds 1999's big bargain
But can team re-sign players for next season?
BY JOHN ERARDI
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Usually, Cinderella isn't so easy to spot in baseball's postseason lineup. Usually, there is no bona fide Cinderella.
This year, the fairy tale is legit.
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BY THE PAYROLLS
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The nine Major League teams still alive Monday and their payrolls (according to an April USA Today survey; figures in millions):
1. NY Yankees: $88.2
4. Texas: $77.0
5. Atlanta: $75.7
6. Cleveland: $70.7
8. Arizona: $65.8
9. Boston: $62.7
10. NY Mets: $62.5
13. Houston: $54.6
22. REDS: $35.4
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The 1999 Reds have a lower adjusted-for-inflation payroll than any of the teams that have qualified for the postseason since 1995, the first year of the wild card.
According to USA Today figures published earlier this year, the Reds' 1999 payroll is $35.4 million (the figure does not include the Reds' pro-rated share of Juan Guzman's salary). The next lowest figure: Houston's $54.6 million.
“The Cinderella theme will really kick in if the Reds beat Greg Maddux and the (high-
payroll) Atlanta Braves in the first game (of the National League Division Series),” said Jon Miller, who was in town Monday to do ESPN's play-by-play of the Reds-Mets playoff game for the National League wild card.
But Miller doesn't regard the Reds as a Cinderella team, because they are so good. Charlie Steiner, who did Monday's Reds game for ESPN radio, agreed.
“I know there's a lot of talk about Cincinnati as the Cinderella team, but one of the things I found this year as I watched the Reds is they are a really good team,” Steiner said. “While it's fashionable to say they are Cinderella, I kind of think of them more as Giorgio Armani in a blue-collar neighborhood.”
Even based on figures not adjusted for inflation and baseball's skyrocketing economics, according to USA Today, only two postseason teams in the past five years have had a lower payroll than this year's Reds: The 1996 San Diego Padres ($33.4 million) and 1997 Houston Astros ($34.9 million).
The Players Association, of course, loves all this Cinderella talk, because it takes the focus away from the “haves” making it to the postseason, and the “have-nots” staying home to watch on TV.
But something Players Association representative Gene Orza said to USA Today back in April is something Reds fans hope is prophetic this year:
“Take the bottom eight teams in revenue today. In the next four or five years, one of them will win the World Series. I can't tell you which one. But one will. That's the history of baseball.”
The disadvantage the Reds are under is that they probably cannot generate the revenue they need to keep this magical team together beyond this year — unless they go deeply into the postseason, And even then, they might not be able to keep everybody.
“A lot of people are saying you cannot compete without a $50-million payroll,” said Joe Morgan, the former Big Red Machine star who was in town Monday to do color commentary for ESPN on the Reds-Mets game. “Other teams are saying, "Well, look at the Reds and the Oakland A's.' ... But the question is, how long can you do it (compete) with a small payroll? I don't think you can do it for very long.”
That may be true, Miller said, but time is the ultimate test. And one thing's for sure: you can't compete at all, no matter the length of time, without a good plan.
“Look at Kansas City,” Miller said. “Where are they? They have had three different plans in the last five years. They haven't carried through on one yet. Five years have gone by, and they've been running in place. They are where they are, not because they are a small-market team, but because they've been screwing up. And, on the flip side, the reason Baltimore is where they are despite having incredible resources is they've been screwing up.”
The Yankees, on the other hand, have a core of home-grown players, and players they've acquired in trade, Miller said.
“Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte — these are all stars, impact players, all out of their farm system,” Miller said. “The foundation of their success is the studs they've produced ... Same with the Braves. Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones, Javy Lopez, Tom Glavine. There's no good (long-term) substitute for a productive farm system. The Reds, under the previous (i.e. Marge Schott) ownership, went just the opposite direction when that (a productive farm system) could have been their salvation.”
Miller, while noting he is “an outsider looking in,” cautions the Reds' new ownership against assuming that because the team didn't generate enough money to cover the Greg Vaughn and Juan Guzman acquisitions this year, they can't cover their salaries next year.
“Next year is the year the Reds can capitalize (at the gate),” Miller said. “They can capitalize on it by keeping their club together to keep (fans) excited through through the winter. Whenever the team is done playing, the Reds should have their sales people on the streets capitalizing on this great season.”
Two weeks ago in Cooperstown, N.Y., after a meeting of Major League Baseball owners, some interesting numbers were floating about the media room. In an in-house survey prepared by Major League Baseball for each of baseball's 30 franchises on revenue sharing for the 28 non-expansion clubs in 1998, Cincinnati was fifth from the bottom in “defined local revenues.”
The number for Cincinnati is $26.9 million. The number for the New York Yankees is $125 million; the Mets' number is $71 million. The only franchises with lower defined local revenue than the Reds are Oakland, Pittsburgh, Minnesota and Montreal.
“Defined local revenues” include local TV revenues — one of the areas in which there is a huge gap between the “haves” and “have-nots.”
“When you're (a small-market team), it's like being a small business,” Morgan said. “In a small business, you have to be more diligent than the big guys. You can't experiment and throw things against the wall and hope it sticks. You have to be more conservative in your spending.”
The Yankees paid $14 million into the revenue-sharing pool; the lowest of the have-nots, the Montreal Expos, took in $13 million. The Cleveland Indians — the team that is four hours up the highway from Cincinnati, the team that everybody in Reds Country wanted the Reds to be in four years (until Reds general manager Jim Bowden put this 1999 Reds team together) — has defined local revenues of $105 million.
According to Major League Baseball's revenue-sharing numbers, the Indians paid in $8 million; the Reds received money, although it couldn't be determined exactly how much.
That's a pretty good story line for an I-71 World Series, should it come to pass this year.
“Even though I don't think you can do it (compete) over the long haul (with a small payroll), the Reds have proven you can do it over the short term,” Morgan said. “They (the Reds) have won 96 games (going into Monday night's game). That's impressive.”
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