Feature Articles

The Cost of Reversing The Curse

November 03, 2004

by James Meyerriecks

For starters, congratulations to the Boston Red Sox on finally snapping their 86 year World Series drought. They clearly outplayed the St. Louis Cardinals in the Series, and the team that they built deserves all of the praise and glory that they'll continue to receive for their championship.

Brief disclaimer: Those of you who have read either of my columns or any of my features know that I'm from St. Louis, so this entire article may sound like something that a bitter Cardinals' fan might say to undermine the Red Sox for beating them in the World Series. Others of you may realize that I'm not a Cardinals fan at all, but that (as an Expos [or whatever they're going to be called in DC] fan) I love to point out some of the economic and political issues (or, in some cases, inequalities) in our beloved game. Either way, the Red Sox just absolutely punched the Redbirds in the mouth in the World Series, and it had little to do with money. While it simply came down to the players in the series, I do think that how those players ended up where they did is notable. So, we're going to start with one short and simple quote from about two years ago.

"No, I'll make a comment. The evil empire extends its tentacles even into Latin America." - Red Sox president Larry Lucchino, after the New York Yankees signed Cuban defector Jose Contreras in the winter of 2004.

Baseball (err... Non-Yankee) fans across America can sympathize with Lucchino's comment. Since baseball instituted the luxury tax near the end of the 2002 season, we've seen time and time again that the Yankees have absolutely no respect for the soft salary cap that the two sides agreed on. In fact, in the offseason between 2002 and 2003, the Yankees added $22 million to their payroll, despite the fact that their 2002 payroll of $125.93 million was already nearly $9 million above the figure where the luxury tax kicked in.

For nearly a decade, the Yankees have been the blueprint for absolute fiscal irresponsibility in the major leagues. Do they win? Yes, but they've had the highest payroll in the majors in every season but one (1997) since 1994. In short, they should win as they're putting more money into winning than any other team in the league. Lucchino said what was on everyone's mind when he spoke out against the Yanks reaching and outspending every other team for Conteras' services. Two years later, though, it's time for Lucchino to look in the mirror.

Before you give up on this article because the Yankees outspent the Red Sox by a disgusting $57 million this season, I urge you to take a step back and look beyond the payrolls of just the Yankees and Red Sox. While the Yankees literally doubled the payroll of the Los Angeles Dodgers (sixth highest payroll in the bigs), the Sox don't come off so squeaky clean in baseball's battle to even the economic scale.

Here's a look at the top ten payrolls in 2004:

Team Total payroll
New York Yankees $ 184,193,950
Boston Red Sox $ 127,298,500
Anaheim Angels $ 100,534,667
New York Mets $ 96,660,970
Philadelphia Phillies $ 93,219,167
Los Angeles Dodgers $ 92,902,001
Chicago Cubs $ 90,560,000
Atlanta Braves $ 90,182,500
St. Louis Cardinals $ 83,228,333
San Francisco Giants $ 82,019,166

The luxury tax entering this season was at $117.5 million, and not one but two teams were over the soft cap: The Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. In fact, the Red Sox outspent every team other than the Yankees by nearly $30 million and outspent their opponents in the World Series by nearly a three to two margin. Should the Sox have any right to call any team in the league the "Evil Empire" when they're the only team that appears to be nearly as bad?

It goes beyond the simple factor of total payroll, though. Let's take a look at the Red Sox major offseason moves from last season.

- The Sox went out and added Curt Schilling's $12 million contract in the offseason in a maneuver that would have busted the budget of just about every MLB team except for them and the Yankees. They dealt a handful of prospects (most notably Casey Fossum) and shed virtually nothing from their payroll to add Schilling.

- They signed Keith Foulke to a backloaded $21 million guaranteed deal. Foulke made just $3.5 million on the Red Sox' books this year, but is guaranteed $7 million in 2005 and $7.5 in 2006 with a $7.5 million option in 2007 that includes a $3.5 million buyout if the option is not picked up.

- They attempted to get Alex Rodriguez' $25 million a year contract off of the Rangers' hands, only to see the Yankees swoop in after the players' union refused to let the Sox re-structure A-Rod's deal. While it's notable that the Red Sox would have shed Manny Ramirez' contract in this deal and traded Nomar to the White Sox in exchange for Magglio Ordonez, the two deals would have added over $5 million to the Sox' payroll.

- The above excludes several moves that the Red Sox made that more fiscally responsible organizations could afford, such as the signings of Pokey Reese, Mark Bellhorn, and Gabe Kapler for a combined $2.5 million. Of those three players, only Bellhorn ended up starting by the end of the season, while Reese and Kapler filled in primarily as defensive replacements. Nevertheless, the trio came at a tremendous value.

All in all, the Red Sox paid a pretty hefty price to win their first World Series since 1918. In 2003, the Sox had the sixth highest payroll in baseball at just over $99 million. While Boston's first round opponent, the Anaheim Angels, were touted as one of the biggest offseason spenders that MLB has seen in years, Anaheim's payroll only jumped from $78 million to $100 million, an increase of $22 million. The Sox, however, watched their payroll jump $28 million from $99 million to $127 million. Again, this increase was topped by only the Yankees ($32 million).The Red Sox' opponent in the World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals, actually shaved $500,000 off of their 2003 payroll.

To give an example of just how close we should have expected the World Series to be, the salary figures of the top seven players on the Red Sox payroll to start the year are as follows:

Ramirez, Manny $ 22,500,000
Martinez, Pedro $ 17,500,000
Schilling, Curt $ 12,000,000
Garciaparra, Nomar $ 11,500,000
Damon, Johnny $ 8,000,000
Varitek, Jason $ 6,900,000
Ortiz, David $ 4,587,500
Total (Combined) $ 82,897,500

Seven players are equal to 28% of the 25-man roster. More importantly, the $82,897,500 was about $350,000 less than their opponent in the World Series' entire 25-man roster. In fact, the seven pitchers that the Red Sox used in the series (Tim Wakefield, Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, Derek Lowe, Mike Timlin, Bronson Arroyo, Keith Foulke) accounted for $44.68 million, or over half of the Cardinals' entire payroll. What's more, that's using Foulke's 2004 figure rather than the average of his backloaded contract.

So what does this all mean? Should Sox fans revel in the fact that they finally won the World Series after an 86 year drought? Sure, a title's a title. Yankee fans enjoyed championship after championship in the past decade, and I don't think I ever heard one of them say they'd give it back for just one title that was won without outspending every team in baseball to do it. There is something that absolutely has to be said, though.

When I was in Florida on my business trip last week and the Red Sox were receiving all of their praise for how well they played together as a team, it simply just struck me. This team wasn't the 2002 Angels or the 2003 Marlins, two squads that absolutely embodied the term team because everybody had played together through the system and worked together to add up to a bigger sum than its parts. For crying out loud, it wasn't even the 1996 Yankees, built primarily through the Yanks' farm system.

This was a team of mercenaries that was put together over about a three year period to get to this point. In fact, it was a team that developed less of its own players than the current Yankee squad has. In fact, there were only two members of the Red Sox' playoff roster that weren't bought: Bronson Arroyo and Trot Nixon.

For all of the Red Sox (and their fans) perrenial whining that they've always been like the Yankees' ugly stepchildren that would never win because the Yankees spend so much money, it's time to shove an old dirty sock in your mouth. You won the World Series, and you should take tremendous pride in that, but just remember whose blueprint you copied to do it.

So just remember that next year when you flip over to ESPN and see "The Sports Guy" whining about the Yankees. Just remember that the next time you turn on the TV and see Ben Affleck crying about just how much money the Yankees are outspending the Sox by this offseason. Just remember that when George Steinbrenner opens up his wallet to sign Carlos Beltran this offseason and Larry Lucchino starts crying about it.

This is what the Red Sox needed to do to finally reverse the curse. They had to become everything they claim to hate so much.... the New York Yankees!

Posted by James Meyerriecks: Nov 3 at 5:37 PM

Comments

[1] by (unregistered) on 11/03/2004 03:38 pm

Interesting take on the sox. However, can you blame them or the yankees for playing by the rules? Until MLB opens up it eyes and creates a salary floor and ceiling teams will do what they can to buy a winning team for a year or two. Be interested to hear what you propose to fix the situation.

[2] by Jim Meyerriecks on 11/03/2004 04:27 pm

That's a very good point, though this article was written not with the mindset of proposing any solution. This article wasn't necessarily meant to come off sounding so critical about the team (or even the system for that matter), but the treatment that they've received by the media and fans across America. While I wasn't at home and had only the brief glimpses from my hotel television to watch ESPN and their take on it, I've yet to see anything but praise for how this bunch rallied together like they were an amazing underdog story.

While the team that they put together did do a tremendous job of rallying around one another, they were anything but underdogs. They had the second highest payroll (by a landslide) in baseball.

Everyone made such a big deal about how the Sox hadn't won it all in 86 years as if it affected this team in any way, shape, or form. The only players with more than three years of a current tenure with this organization are Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, Derek Lowe, Jason Varitek, and Tim Wakefield. They're mercenaries plain and simple.

While I don't want to take anything away from the fact that they won the championship, I felt that it's only fair for someone to finally speak up and say that they had to do exactly what "The Nation" complains about other teams doing (well... the Yankees) to win. In short, the next time I hear a Sox fan complain, it will be like the pot calling the kettle black.

As for your question:

I can't (and don't, necessarily) blame the Sox for playing by the rules, and think that the only logical way to eliminate this problem is to add a hard salary cap with a ceiling and a floor that would level the playing field. Of course, seeing as how the MLBPA is arguably the strongest union in America, they'll never agree to this. Perhaps I'll come up with another article in the future with a proposed solution, but this was meant to stand alone.

[3] by (unregistered) on 11/05/2004 05:40 am

I'm not sure I understand the comment about Arroyo and Nixon being the only 2 players not "bought". How do Lowe and Varitek, traded for Heathcliff Slocum years ago (one of the very few good moves made by Duquette), qualify as bought? And was Ortiz really "bought" when the other 29 team didn't see fit to sign him? And 3 guys who contributed quite a bit after the trade deadline (Cabrera, Roberts and Mient) were not bought but traded for. A little clarification, please? And I believe there are other players, too, who were not "bought". To me, bought means being signed as a FA, especially for dollars that cannot be afforded by most teams. And though Manny clearly falls in this category, any team could have had him in the off season without sacrificing a single player.

[4] by (unregistered) on 11/07/2004 01:57 pm

I think it'd be interesting to compare the red sox payroll rank with other teams in the leagues for each year of the curse. I'm guessing there'd be other years where the red sox were near the top.

[5] by stlsportsfan on 11/07/2004 04:04 pm

Great article, Jim. I too was out of town recently, so I just got around to reading this. I think, however, it would've been interesting to compare the Cardinals offseason moves with those of the Red Sox (since you did a lot of comparisons between the two anyways)

-Signing Marlon Anderson, Mike Lincoln (though he got hurt), Julian Tavarez, Jeff Suppan, Reggie Sanders, et al. for their combined costs.
-Trading for Ray King, Jason Marquis, Roger Cedeno and Tony Womack, while taking very little of Cedeno's contract.

Just a little critique, but still very enjoyable.