Should The 2010 Astros Cut Payroll?

I've been looking through lots of articles, trying to get even the faintest sniff of any Astros news/rumors because I am figuring this is an honest way to keep putting off writing up my evaluations of the Astros 2009 season, which is, um, ugly.

To be nice about it.

Basically, almost everything I've glanced through has said something like - how the Yankees/Red Sox are going to trade for the young, cheap stars of other teams (Adrian Gonzalez, Curtis Granderson, Edwin Jackson, etc) for some cheap-o prospects/cheap rooks who aren't exactly Evan Longoria type Grade A+ guys. And this is because San Diego needs to cut Gonzalez' 4.5 mill salary (you GOTTA be kidding me, right???) and because Detroit needs to get rid of (of all people) Curtis Granderson's 5 mill salary, which is choking the team (not Magglio Ordonez' 18.5 mill) or some such nonsense. And besides, the Yankees/Red Sox deserve to be allowed to accumulate all of the good players (check out all the talk about how Joe Mauer IS going to be a Yankee in 2 years because the Yankees deserve the best and besides, Mauer must want to go to a winner, right?)

Part of it is that most of the national baseball writers are out of the closet Yankee/Red Sox fans.

But

part of it is that a whole lot of owners are, in fact, at least talking about cutting payroll. (Like Drayton, you know.)

I happened across this article written by Nick Cafardo, which I found in a pile of Red Sox articles (you know that each paper has like FOUR reporters who write about baseball during the entire offseason. Our ONE reporter is lucky to be able to talk about the Astros getting some players to sign baseball for some charity or play golf or something. It feels like 2002, except that year's team was a little better, but going nowheres. And there was almost nothing in the off-season Astros news. If ONLY we could find another Rojah.)

where was I?

Oh yeah.

Anyway, Cafardo was interviewing/quoting Scott Boras. Yeah, that guy. I know that a whole lot of people think that if he just up and disappeared then ballplayers would all want to play for free and the owners wouldn't care if they made any money and would spend their OWN money and seats would all be a dollar again. Just enough to pay the electric and groundskeepers, right? (Enter the guys with the butterfly nets)

But if there is one thing Boras knows, it is money and how much money teams get and how much money teams spend and on what and on who. Yes, he has a few occasional screwups, who doesn't, but his judgement of the market and who will pay what is simply outstanding. Check out a few quotes:

“We heard a lot last year about the impending doom of the economics of baseball, and they had another record year of revenues, $6 billion again this year, and the economy is better... So the real truth of baseball right now is a lot of teams are starting to identify their ownerships from the following perspective: that they have an ownership that’s going to pay off their debt by getting the revenue sharing and money they’re getting from central baseball - $80 million-$90 million a year - and they’re going to turn around and draw 1.5-2 million, make $40 or $50 a head. All of a sudden, they’re sitting there with $200 million in revenues and they’re spending $50 million, $60 million, $70 million on players.

"We have clubs who aren’t successful getting $80 million before they ever sell a ticket. The question is always going to be, in the end, what are they doing with that money? For most of them, they’re paying off their debt to purchase the franchise. So they become owners, debt-free, but they have not done a lot to contribute to the success of the game.... (they are) basically using our industry as a method for acquiring hundreds of millions of dollars in assets on the backs of the industry.’’

The fans have to look at it and realize that kind of revenue is available. The other part of it is I think we’ve proven time and time again that investment in players produces revenue streams and success points for franchises. Even in an economy where many businesses are struggling, in our industry, as I said last year, we’ve been able to keep revenues at a record level.’’

Cafardo didn't suggest this, but I wouldn't be surprised if many owners are cutting payroll and intend to pocket the difference to pay off their OTHER debts, and leave baseball fans in the lurch for the simple reason that they will not lose money if they lower payroll under what they will receive from MLB. They have zero reason to even try to put a winning team on the field. So what if the Big 6 go out and get every single good player? So what if we end up in the "Golden Age" of the same 3 teams getting in/winning the WS? It would make the media deliriously happy and none of the owners would lose a penny.

Would the fans of the other 24 teams finally just lose all interest? Would all stadiums look like Marlins' Stadium? You see how badly it has cut into Jeff Loria's profits. NOT. 

I think it will take a while before Drayton could get himself seriously into thinking - so what if this team is a bad losing team like the Pirates/Royals? Would he trade Oswalt/Berkman/Lee for a bunch of minor leaguers and have a 40 mill payroll and not care a bit that no one would show up to the stadium to watch that lousy team, even if he just made himself 40 something mill more? Not just yet, I think.

As I always say, people who insist that he sell the team had darn well better come up with the name of someone who will spend even more AND agree to spend HIS OWN MONEY and not mind that he loses HIS OWN MONEY every year. Yeah, surrrrrrre.

We all know that Drayton is not going to trade the Big 3 unless they demand it, and we all know that Berkman and Lee are not going to agree to be traded (which reminds me - anyone care to explain why a player who negotiated a no-trade clause in good faith owes it to the team to leave if they happen to want to get rid of him? The reserve clause has been gone for 35 years and some people STILL can't get over it) and we all know that Oswalt isn't going to fetch much, not with his injury history of late and not at that salary. We have no one to replace Wandy and any FA is going to cost a LOT more and require a longer contract and Pence is the fan fave who at least isn't a serious negative on the team (like Francoeur with the Braves) and trading him would be dumb at this particular point. Fans WANT favorite players. Unless they are A's fans and like Billy Beane trading off everyone every 2 years - how exciting!!!

But the fact is that Drayton either needs to commit to a team of young guys this year, even though they probably won't be real too much better than last year, or he is going to have to go out and get more Jason Smith/Matt Kata/Mike Hampton type crappy fringe major leaguers. I don't mind if he scrimps IF he agrees to buy good players in the draft. Thing is that he also knows that if he has a losing team for too long, that top FA aren't going to want to sign - and it really WON'T be about the money (see Carlos Beltran.)

But

if he has gotten to where he understands, like David Glass/Jeff Loria that it really doesn't matter if your team is terrible and will suck for the rest of eternity, he'll still make money getting beat up by the Big 6 every year, then I don't guess it will matter.

Meanwhile, Drayton and Pam have decided that putting butts in seats is good, and they are offering a nice deal for the Cheap Seats - Buy 2 season tickets, get 2 free. I swear if we had the money I'd go for it.

Yes, I know. I admit it. I'm not ready to kick the Astros habit and I'll pick up that phone and call Astros Anonymous some other time. Hello, my name is Lisa and I'm an Astrosholic. But I promise that if Drayton decides that David Glass has been right all along, I'll be the first in line to make that call...