Fans shouldn't be angry over players' multimillion-dollar salaries, CBS Sports' Dayn Perry writes. That Albert Pujols is paid hundreds of millions of dollars to hit a baseball might seem frivolous, but exorbitant salaries for ballplayers and entertainers have been part of our culture for some time. "You might as well lament the tides of the ocean," Perry writes. Also, ticket prices aren't caused by high player salaries, but by demand. Fans are willing to pay high ticket prices (as they do even to college sporting events, where players are unpaid), so teams charge high ticket prices. Here's more from around the big leagues.
- Given the tone of the Tigers' press release on the Max Scherzer negotiations, it might not be a good time for Scott Boras to bring up Stephen Drew with the Tigers, tweets Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com. The Tigers have been mentioned as a possible landing spot for the free agent shortstop but the club's unusual step of issuing a press release on the end of talks with their star pitcher might indicate some soured relations between them and the top agent.
- Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski says his offer for Scherzer was the most he has ever offered a player that has been turned down, tweets Tom Gage of the Detroit News. For his part, Scherzer says he wants to stay in Detroit long term (link).
- Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports (on Twitter) notes that one of the big talking points on the Prince Fielder trade was that it freed up money for the Tigers to sign Scherzer. With a new deal for Scherzer currently off the table, Passan wonders if Detroit might shift their attention to Miguel Cabrera.
- After winning 94 games and advancing to the NL Division Series last season, Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review wonders if the Pirates are candidates for regression this season. Despite losing free agents A.J. Burnett, Marlon Byrd and Justin Morneau, the Pirates didn't make any splasy moves to replace them this winter.
- Left-hander Rich Hill can opt out of his deal with the Red Sox on May 15th, according to Rob Bradford of WEEI.com.
- Agent Jon Fetterolf has left Williams & Connolly and is now running sports practice for the Zuckerman Spaeder firm, tweets Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com.
- Right-hander Chris Young, ostensibly in the competition for the Nationals’ fifth starter spot, can opt out of his minor league contract if the Nationals do not add him to the 25-man roster by Thursday, a person familiar with the contract told Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post.
Charlie Wilmoth contributed to this post.
I believe the Pirates will win about 83 games this year and miss out on the playoffs which is a huge disappointment considering the momentum they built up last season with the fans. However, I think the next several years will be promising with Polanco playing regularly in right field and several other top prospects finally making an impact at the major league level. This season, however, is going to be irritating. There will be far too many games lost due to the presence of Gaby Sanchez and Travis Snider.
Wouldn’t it be great if every franchise was non-profit and bound to a certain set of spending rules? Maybe a team would get $50 million total and have to figure out how to distribute it (major and minor league players/coaches, scouts, etc), or each category could have its own individual spending limit. Then dump whatever would have been profit into some useful endeavors.
In the meantime, you aren’t allowed to complain about how much players make if you buy a jersey, tickets, or beer at the game.
Universities are non-profits… why not try that?
Try getting a seat to Michigan/Ohio State football game for under $200/ticket. Its much higher cost than a Indians, Reds or Tigers game, despite the fact that both schools are “non profit”.
Most college football schools don’t make any money. I went to NIU, and tickets were free.
At a few dozen schools, people are still making money, just not the athletes. That’s more of a travesty in my opinion; if anyone deserves the money, it’s the players.
That’s where spending caps come in. The head of the NCAA makes over $20 mill a year, and who knows what the other members are making or how many are employed. Coaches make a lot of money and there are large staffs. They also spend big bucks on facilities.
I thought Cabrera was loved in Detroit, then I heard some fans bad mouthing him…now there might be an extension. Is this good or bad, Tigers fans?
Tiger fans bad mouthing Cabrera? Where did that come from? There is a lot of discussion about how long the extension should be. That’s it. Nothing else.
This Tigers fan hasn’t heard anyone bad mouth Cabrera. The universal sense I get among Tigers fans is we’re seeing a once in a lifetime player and we all hope the team can keep him around until he retires.
Teams may be maximizing profits with their high ticket prices, but they certainly aren’t maximizing attendance. Most games I watch seem to be half empty, if not worse. Even Braves games last year were half empty, and they were a first place playoff team. I don’t trust or care about the figures teams publicly release and announce during the course of the season, you can watch the games and see most of these stadiums have a lot of empty seats all over the place. Sometimes entire sections are empty. I saw one photo from last season where there was exactly one person sitting in the entire promenade section of a stadium, I think it was in Citi Field. That’s just embarrassing.
If he really likes Detroit I think he should have taken it. Sure Scherzer is coming off a brilliant year, but it was the first time he topped 200 innings, and the first time he actually was ace-like. Honestly I would have been really hesitant to offer him $150M, when I could sign Ervin, Garza, and Ubaldo all for that price, and he wants more?
I think Boras has really gotten to him. There is good odds that he could get injured, and he pretty much needs to repeat this year to top that contract.
Pity the billionaire owners.
Fans are willing to pay high ticket prices? No………..fans are forced to pay high ticket prices. Time to wake up, Dayn.
Wake up Suffer, you don’t HAVE to go to games. Therefor you are not forced to do anything. They charge what they think they can get, which is called capitalism.
I never said that I HAVE to go to games. Try reading a little closer next time. I said if I WANT to go see my Indians play. Now………….do you have an issue with that comment?
“fans are forced to pay high ticket prices”. How else is one supposed to interpret that statement? If you don’t want people to point out the flaws in your logic, please write more clearly. The way you write, it seems you have resigned yourself to attending baseball games and are still extremely angry about the prices.
How else is one to interpret my statement? How about with a little common sense. Your responses border on negativity-mine lean towards reality. And don’t even assume that you know how I feel about this subject—That’s just your opinion. And you know what they say about opinions, right? You know absolutely zero about how I feel. And you act like you know all and see all. Do you read palms, too?
Well I won’t take the time to point out that TWO people read your statement the same way, but ok, you’re really angry. I’ll leave you alone. Have a good night.
No one ever forced me to buy tickets. If there was no demand for expensive tickets, the price would go down.
You can get into a Tigers game for $6 (StubHub), the second game of the season (April 2). That same seat on Opening day (March 31) would be well over $100.
Are you forced to pay high prices even though you can go to game 2 for 94% less than game 1? I have an idea, why not go to game 2 instead of game 1? In the standings, both games count the same.
No one ever forced me to buy tickets, either. But if I want to see my Indians play, it’s not cheap. That’s because I live in SoCal. Have you seen the prices for tickets to Angels and Dodgers games? Add in parking, concessions, etc., and it’s like a mini-vacation. And when the big boys like the Yankees or Red Sox come to town, they jack up their prices even higher. I’m thankful that I live close to a single A ballpark–that I can afford.
“Prince Fielder trade was that it reed up money for the Tigers to sign Scherzer”??!!
Are you kidding me? All Detroit saves on this trade was $3M/yr. It had nothing to do with signing Scherzer to a long term contract. Scott Boras is seeing major dollar signs for Scherzer next offseason, now that all the rest of the top FA SPs signed extensions.
By next offseason, and all the MLB money flooding in, Cabrera is going to land $30m/yr $250M contract you watch! Detroit better lock him up, because it’s gonna huge. He’s hit 2 consecutive AL MVP, something Arod hasn’t even come close to. Wouldn’t surprise me if Yankees even went to $35-40m on Cabrera.
They saved $76 million on the trade after all is said and done.
Quick thoughts on Tigers:
1. Offer Drew $8MM right now and see what happens. If he says no, be willing to offer $8MM again in June (prorated, that would only be 2/3rd of a season… so it would be equivalent of $12MM for a full year… no draft pick penalty). No rush at all.
2. Cabrera will likely sign with a home town discount in the next week. He has a chance to be the most popular Detroit Sports figure ever if he does that and they win a championship.
He is linked to Dave Dombrowski and looks at him and Al Avila as father figures. Avila signed him and DD literally bailed him out of jail when he was at his low point. He owes them a lot.
Signing on the heels of Scherzer’s rejection makes a lot of sense.
3. Better to think about extending Porcello NOW before he has a great year. Think about how good DD would look if he had locked up Scherzer before he surged his last 18 months.
$70MM for 5 years AFTER his last two arbitration years makes sense (would give them 7 total years of control). That might even be a bit high. He is not represented by Boras.
Typo alert to Zach Links: “… the Pirates didn’t make any SPLASHY moves to replace them this winter.”
Typo alert to Zach Links: “… the Pirates didn’t make any SPLASHY moves to replace them this winter.”