Salaries Are Escalating, but They Don’t Guarantee Winning

Legendary baseball executive Branch Rickey reigned in the golden age of baseball management. “It was easy to figure out Mr. Rickey’s thinking about contracts,” remarked Chuck Connors, who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers before moving on to a more lucrative career as television’s Rifleman. “He had both players and money--and just didn’t like to see the two of them mix.”

Modern baseball executives, on the other hand, at least a select few of them, have lots of money and seem intent on throwing it at players. The Texas Rangers shelled out $252 million to secure the services of shortstop Alex Rodriguez for the next decade. The Boston Red Sox anteed up $160 million for eight years’ worth of outfielder Manny Ramirez.

These signings, the mind-boggling totals notwithstanding, make at least a modicum of sense. Rodriguez, at the modest age of 25, when most ballplayers enter their prime years, has already established himself as perhaps the greatest shortstop of all time. Ramirez, 28, has driven in 632 runs over the past five seasons.

But, as maverick owner Bill Veeck commented in the early years of free agency, one rarely overpays a superstar; it’s the cost of the supporting cast that most often proves crippling. How, for example, can one explain the $55 million paid out by the Los Angeles Dodgers for pitcher Darren Dreifort? Dreifort, it’s true, was the second choice in the 1993 amateur draft, taken just behind Rodriguez. Unlike A-Rod, however, he has yet to fully deliver on his potential. He has never won more than 13 games in a season, never recorded an earned run average below 4, never thrown 200 innings or struck out 200 batters in a season.

Time may ultimately prove this a wise investment for the Dodgers. The perennial shortage of even modestly talented pitchers clearly placed a premium on Dreifort’s value. The Colorado Rockies reportedly offered him $60 million to hurl in Coors Field, a perennial pitchers’ graveyard. Dreifort, already wealthy beyond most people’s wildest dreams, judiciously turned down the extra millions to toil in the friendlier confines of Dodger Stadium. Nonetheless, $55 million remains a remarkable reward for a 12-game winner.

My usual approach to baseball salaries is to ignore them. They are, or should be, a private matter between owner and player. I should be no more interested in Dreifort’s income than he is in mine. Since free agency became a reality in 1975, every bump up the salary scale from Reggie Jackson’s $600,000 a year in 1976 to A-Rod’s $25 million in 2001 has evoked cries of ruin and desolation from baseball Cassandras. Yet, baseball’s popularity has grown steadily (when not interrupted by strikes) and spectacularly in the age of free agency. Cable television has enhanced baseball’s marketability, and per-game attendance has more than doubled between the 1970s and 1990s. Nor, despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary, do fans seem to balk at paying higher ticket prices, especially when the money goes to winning teams or those playing in new stadiums.

Yet, the recent splurge in salary spending has raised more substantial issues. Has the division between baseball’s haves and have-nots accentuated to the point where only a handful of very wealthy teams can afford the best talent and contend for the pennant? Has the game evolved to the point where the majority of low-income teams, like the Montreal Expos, are doomed to fail before their lackluster hurlers even fire their first pitch?

The history of baseball yields little support for the proposition that a fundamental change has overtaken the game. The greatest competitive imbalances occurred not since the onset of free agency, but during the era in which the reserve clause bound players to one team and gave owners the upper hand in salary negotiations. Between 1921 and 1968, the Yankees won 29 American League pennants in 48 seasons; the Giants, Dodgers and Cardinals accounted for 34 of the National League championships in this span. In most of these years, teams like the Phillies, Athletics and Senators had less hope of reaching the World Series than the Expos do today. Ironically, free agency, which many feared would lead to domination by wealthy teams, had exactly the opposite effect. Between 1976 and 1993, nine different National League teams and 10 different American League teams won pennants.

Many believe, however, that the post-1995 emergence of a new Yankee dynasty heralds the dawn of a new age of competitive imbalance. The Yankees, who boast the highest revenues and largest payroll in the major leagues, have won four World Championships in five years. Their opponents in three of these series, the Braves in 1996 and 1999 and the Mets in 2000, also rank among baseball’s economic elite. Furthermore, the Yankees have now presumably paved the way to more pennants by signing former Baltimore Oriole pitching ace Mike Mussina to a long-term contract. Surely, argue many observers, including Commissioner Bud Selig, the baseball situation has reached crisis proportions and the game’s future is in dire jeopardy.

This may well be true, but the evidence is less than conclusive. The current Yankees may be no different from earlier dynasties, like the Cincinnati Reds of the 1970s or the Oakland A’s of the late 1980s. A strong farm system, shrewd trading and excellent personnel decisions--in short, wise management--has played at least as large a role as excess revenue streams in the Yankee success. Nor has a dynasty emerged in the National League, where four different teams have reached the World Series in five years.

Certainly, having ample revenues is an advantage. But the Chicago Cubs have the third-highest TV income in baseball, and no one has seen them in the World Series in more than half a century. The Dodgers and Orioles indiscriminately dole out multiyear, multimillion-dollar contracts and accumulate lavish payrolls, but neither team has parlayed their extraordinary largess into a pennant in recent memory.

Indeed, the results of the 2000 campaign, the ultimate Yankee triumph notwithstanding, point to the most evenly balanced competitive baseball universe in decades. For the first time in major league history, no team in either league had a winning percentage exceeding .600 or a losing percentage under .400. While the Yankees staggered to victory in the American League East, the Chicago White Sox and Oakland A’s, teams at the bottom end of the salary scale, won the Central and Western divisions. The San Francisco Giants triumphed over their more profligate rivals in the National League West.

The Yankee example perhaps proves that deep pockets and sound management may be an unbeatable combination. The courtship and signing of Dreifort, however, gives hope to underfunded franchises and their fans. Rickey explained good fortune in baseball and in life with the adage, “Luck is the residue of design.” He might have added the following corollary: No amount of luck can overcome a flawed design, no matter how much money you spend. *