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Thread: Edskin's bi-monthly column: Edition #1

  1. #61
    Team Tuck
    Let's assume from '93-'97, I spend $40m and the rest of the league spends $35m. They all finish with better records. I get a -29, right?

    From '98-'02, I spend $40m and the rest of the league spends $75m and I finish with a better record than everybody else. I get a +29, right?

    -29+29 = 0

    I am a middle of the road GM, right? lgj, don't start arguing with the facts, because these facts apply to me in my fantasy league. Just tell me if I did a fair analysis??

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  3. #62
    Team Tuck
    Originally posted by M2
    You've also heard Minnesota.

    Beyond that, Montreal, Florida and San Diego all seem to be on at least equal footing with the Reds.

    St. Louis, Colorado and Phoenix have population bases pretty much the same size as the Reds do, yet no one perceives them to be second-class citizens. I understand the reason for that discrepancy isn't JimBo's fault, but that's who I look to when I'm doing a comparison.

    I don't really care that the Reds are better than the Pirates, Brewers, Royals, Tigers and Devil Rays. They damn-well better be.
    I agree with many of your points. And yes, the St. L and Arizona GMs have historically had a little more margin for error than Bowden.

    I understand your point about the bottom feeders, but why would any COMPLETE analysis of small market/small payroll teams exclude the Royals, Brewers, Pirates, etc. They are small markets, and have historically been small payroll teams.

  4. #63
    Team Tuck
    lgj, we obvioulsy have different perceptions of what a small market/small payroll team is. In this thread, you've mentioned Atlanta, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Houston, some of the largest markets in the US and some of the payrolls that have doubled ours over the past few years.

    You've also mentioned Seattle and Cleveland. M2 threw in Arizona, St. Louis, and Colorado. Maybe similar in market size, but no where near a similar payroll to the Reds over the past few years. All with new stadiums except St. Louis, and St. Louis has the best fans in the country.

    I'm relieved to know that the Yankees have not yet entered the small market/small payroll arena.

    You completely ignored my point about how much payroll discrepancies between big and small spenders has grown since the early and mid-90s. Most teams used to be in the 25-40m range as recently as 1995 and 1996. Now that range is 40-150m and even excluding the Yankees, 40-110m. It's a different ballgame now vs early and mid 90s. To ignore that and act as if your analysis can be accurately applied to all eras and that your analysis is all the proof we need is very simplistic thinking at best.

    Unfortunately, in an era of HUGE payroll discrepancies, the teams that have historically had payrolls similar to the Reds are the bottom feeders of the league. Now, just because we beat out the Pirates, Brewers, Royals of the world, am I excited about that? NO. But it does point out that things could be a lot worse than the Reds. No, Bowden is not Billy Beane. But, several other small market teams have done worse. AND, quite a few bigger market/bigger payroll teams have done worse (Rangers, Tigers, Orioles, Rockies). Hard to argue that Bowden's not at least a top half GM.

  5. #64
    Posting in Dynarama M2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2000
    I'll give you top half, but I wouldn't list JimBo as a top-10 GM.

    I'd put him between 11 and 15 with guys like Steve Phillips and Dan Evans.

    I understand your point that the Royals, Pirates and Brewers are examples that things could be far worse for the Reds. JimBo probably has the skills to prevent that kind of debacle from happening in Cincinnati. Yet I no longer hold out much hope that he's got the vision and ability to make the Reds a substantially better team.

    The ugly truth may be that the Reds need to cut JimBo loose and suffer under the yoke of a can't-do ownership/GM combo for a few years before something better rolls into town.

    There will be a post-JimBo era and no matter how unpleasant it might be the JimBo era has flagged enough that I no longer see much of a reason to forestall the future.

  6. #65
    Team Tuck
    M2 - good points. In all fairness, I'm willing to give Bowden 2 more years for the following reasons:

    1. It'll be the first time he's had new stadium revenues to work with. I think he deserves that opportunity after spending 3-4 years in small payroll hell. Plus, he won't have the Larkin contract on his hands in 2004. So far, we've seen very few moves to make us optimistic and one that is very difficult to assess (Lopez deal). I'll be disappointed if we don't make a couple moves between now and Opening Day. With the payroll currently under the $60m plan, I'm almost certain we will.

    2. I think a small market GM should at least have the benefit of having his premier player (Griffey) healthy for a season or two.

    3. Let's see if any of the young starters at AA develop into big league starters.

    Now, if we don't see success on the field in the next 2 years and/or we don't see some development of starting pitchers, then I agree it's time to move on. Until then, I remain confident that we're not done seeing the Jimmy Bowden who had that nice run from 1997-2000.
    Last edited by Team Tuck; 01-04-2003 at 03:39 PM.

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