Ratto CSN article

[sfgdood]

"Giants Rich Enough To Spend Like Dodgers or Yankees, But Won't"

Giants cheap

[Islandboagie]

If Ratto thinks the Giants ownership has as much money as the Guggenheim partners or the Steibrenners his head is farther up his ass than even I thought, and let me tell you, that's pretty far up there.

Just as an example....the orginal bid on the Dodgers was 1 billion. The Guggenheim partners answered that bid by doubling it. They basically paid 1 billion dollars extra because they just wanted to get the deal done. Their net worth is said to be roughly 220 Billion. Let me say that again, Randy, $220 billion! The Guggenheim partners could buy every team in baseball, Randy. There is ZERO comparison here. The Giants make pretty good money from revenue, but its miniscule compared to what they're up against.

[sfgdood]

The difference in team value, as reported by Forbes Magazine, is the basis for Ratto's assertions here. The question then becomes do the Guggenheims use personal assets to construct or augment team payroll structure or do they stick with actual team assets. If they DO comingle funds, then nobody could expect the Giants to be able to compete. But if they go strictly with team assets, then, according to Forbes, the Giants team value would allow them to compete on payroll if they chose to do so.

[Rog]

Now THAT puts some quality in your argument. Still a couple of things to consider though:

First, while the 100% increase in the Giants' value is indeed fabulous, it isn't quite as unimaginable as it might seem, given that the average franchise increase appears to be close to 50%.

Second, the increase in value doesn't automatically lead to an increase in cash flow. Think of it this way: If you own a stock and it doubles in a year, are you suddenly able pay all your expenses without a big raise and buy a new house with double the mortgage -- or even buy a Ferrari and make the payments?

Third, with all the other teams also showing huge increases in value (although not as much as the Giants), do we see them making huge additions to their payroll? In reality, we see it mostly from two sources:

. The teams whose media contracts have suddenly exploded and

. The teams that were grossly under spending before and are more or less trying to catch up.

Your point is a good one, and you have backed it up nicely. But it is cash flow, not growth in value or even growth profits, that allow a company to spend more. The importance of cash flow is shown by the fact that the #1 cause of business failure is a lack of cash flow. Clearly the Giants aren't in any danger of going under, but the principle is still the same.

As a side note, when you pointed out a year ago that the Giants had the most revenue of any team, we mentioned that would change because of the huge media contracts being signed by other teams. As expected, two teams have already passed them. The future looks even tougher.

A question: If payroll is the way to cure a franchise's ills, why aren't the other teams outspending the Giants? 26 of the other 29 teams aren't. With the Giants' having won three World Series in five years AND with their spending the 4th-most of any team on payroll, why are we criticizing them?

I realize the past doesn't predict the future, but I believe the Giants rank even HIGHER on the payroll ladder than at any time in recent memory.

Anyway, congratulations on quoting Ray Ratto's column, even if you don't like him. You and he make good points. But as was the case last year, it makes sense to go beyond the highlights and charts to see what is really going on. Those of us who didn't do so last year missed the part about the huge media contracts being signed. To me, that was the most important feature of last year's article, since it spoke to the future.

And on the field, isn't it the future you are worried about?

Still, one of your better efforts, and I commend you on it.

[Rog]

Incidentally, perhaps there is some symmetry to the article. The Giants have the 4th-highest franchise value, and they have the 4th-highest payroll. And sure enough, the three teams ahead of them in payroll are the same three teams that have more value than they.

[Rog]

As it turns out, there is in fact a very significant correlation between team values and team payrolls -- especially at the top and bottom ends.

In other words, one can come closer than we might think to predicting where a team will fall on the payroll scale by looking at where it falls on the franchise value scale.

This would seem to indicate that in general, teams are spending what they should be. The suddenly valuable Giants included.

[rxmeister]

The problem with this is that Ratto is asking the Giants to spend like the Dodgers and Yankees, but the Giants are winning World Series and the Dodgers and Yankees aren't. Until the highest payroll team starts winning every World Series, there's really no incentive for teams to have the highest payroll, is there? The Dodgers just blew a load on the latest Cuban, a six year deal to Hector Olivera who is 30 years old, and there's no guarantee that he'll be better than Juan Uribe, who hit .311 last year. You want the Giants to spend with the Dodgers, it will take a few Dodgers WS victories, and who wants that?

[Rog]

The Dodgers have the best media contract in baseball. I think one would EXPECT them to spend the most.

The top team that is doing REALLY well with their spending is the Nationals, who rank 7th in spending but are considered to have the best team in baseball for 2015. The Cardinals have long been a good team as well, and their spending is in the middle of the pack.

One very positive factor for the Nationals is that they had a lot of high picks through 2010, including the first overall pick in 2009 (Stephen Strasburg) and 2010 (Bryce Harper). In 2011, they picked Anthony Rendon with the 6th overall pick.

[sfgdood]

The problem with this is that Ratto is asking the Giants to spend like the Dodgers and Yankees, but the Giants are winning World Series and the Dodgers and Yankees aren't. Until the highest payroll team starts winning every World Series, there's really no incentive for teams to have the highest payroll, is there?

Dood - I don't think teams use this as a reason not to spend money. I can't imagine offseason strategy meetings in which teams say "lets go with the cheapest roster we can build because THAT is what gets it done!" It's not like the Giants aren't outspending most teams, as our resident stats geek loves to remind us. I think if most teams had their druthers, they would be able to spend like the Yankees and Dodgers. The important thing is to get the players you need within the constraints of your monetary limits. If you do it wisely, spending money is usually a better way to go than not doing so. Not every team has the means to spend big...if they did, their payrolls would be high. The Giants, at least according to Forbes, do have the means to spend more on payroll than they do but they choose not to. This jibes with what Boly and me have been saying for months. Maybe the Giants' approach will continue to bring success...but if it doesn't, they open themselves up to deserved criticism for not equally replacing the pieces they lost from last year's team.

As a side note...when I say "spend money wisely" I don't mean get the biggest bargain out there...I mean get production in relation to what your team needs to win. That doesn't necessarily mean you pay a guy what the rest of the market would dictate. Sometimes it means spending more because your GM is so abrasive that most FAs don't want to be around him.

[sfgdood]

The Dodgers just blew a load on the latest Cuban, a six year deal to Hector Olivera who is 30 years old, and there's no guarantee that he'll be better than Juan Uribe, who hit .311 last year.

Dood - The Dodgers also got 2011 and 2012 Uribe at $15 Mil per year...Juan hit right around the Mendoza line both of those years. Last year's .311 mark would have been more impressive if Juan had done it over say 600 ABs instead of just 386. I'm pretty sure Olivera will be able to provide more than Juan has over his career or over the last 4 years in LA. Getting a 30 year old from overseas is good and bad...good that he's usually more of a known commodity and bad because he might be more of a risk to get injured than a younger, less proven guy.




You want the Giants to spend with the Dodgers, it will take a few Dodgers WS victories, and who wants that?

Dood - what I want is for the Giants to finish ahead of the Dodgers in the standings, not needing to sweat out the last few days of the regular season...or worse, play out the string out of the hunt like in '11 and '13. If the FO is as infallible as you say, giving them more money to spend should help, not hurt, don't you think?

[Islandboagie]

Rog- The Dodgers have the best media contract in baseball. I think one would EXPECT them to spend the most.

Boagie- I'm not an expert on this topic, I doubt many fans around baseball fully understand what the media contracts mean for each teams. What I do know is the Yankees own their own network, which I believe is the only team to have that luxury. To me, that puts them ahead of everyone else. The Giants signed a contract at a poor time, right before those contracts blew up, to not get lost in the mix, they purchased 30% of the network, which puts them in a decent, but not great spot.

The Dodgers signed at the perfect time, which is why the Guggenheim partners bought them when they did. I said when it happened that the Dodgers would be big spenders soon.

The Padres also signed at a good time, which I mentioned back when they signed that they would become fairly big players in the market as well.

The Giants are not in a position to spend big money, not like the Yankees and Dodgers, but they could soon if those contracts keep increasing, that 30% ownership will start paying off. Let's just hope that happens.

[Rog]

Dood - what I want is for the Giants to finish ahead of the Dodgers in the standings, not needing to sweat out the last few days of the regular season

Rog -- The Dodgers are a lot better regular season team than the Giants. The Giants wouldn't have to spend as much as the Dodgers to have a good chance of winning more games in the regular season, but they would have to spend well into the luxury tax. Do you really want to be spending $2 for every $1 worth of talent?

If the Giants had re-signed Pablo and signed James Shields, do you think they would have a better than average shot of winning the NL West? To be honest, I don't think so. And if the Giants had signed Pablo and James instead of McGehee and Peavy, they would have increased their average payroll by at least $23 million.

That would have put them into the luxury, and I still would have liked the Dodgers' chances better. The one thing that does favor the Giants is that injuries will apparently test the Dodgers' rotation depth. Even so, do we really think the Giants have the better rotation? Would they have the better rotation if they had Shields instead of Peavy?

Last season the Dodgers starters' ERA was more than half a run lower than the Giants. I don't think James Shields was going to fix that.

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[Rog]

Rog- The Dodgers have the best media contract in baseball. I think one would EXPECT them to spend the most.

Boagie- I'm not an expert on this topic, I doubt many fans around baseball fully understand what the media contracts mean for each teams. What I do know is the Yankees own their own network, which I believe is the only team to have that luxury. To me, that puts them ahead of everyone else. The Giants signed a contract at a poor time, right before those contracts blew up, to not get lost in the mix, they purchased 30% of the network, which puts them in a decent, but not great spot.

Boagie -- The Dodgers signed at the perfect time, which is why the Guggenheim partners bought them when they did. I said when it happened that the Dodgers would be big spenders soon.

The Padres also signed at a good time, which I mentioned back when they signed that they would become fairly big players in the market as well.

The Giants are not in a position to spend big money, not like the Yankees and Dodgers, but they could soon if those contracts keep increasing, that 30% ownership will start paying off. Let's just hope that happens.

Rog -- Excellent summary and outstanding predictions, Boagie. For those who haven't paid attention the half dozen or so times this has been mentioned, the media contract the Dodgers signed is for $8 BILLION. That's with a "B!"

I asked this question before, but does anyone think that re-signing Pablo and signing James Shields would have given the Giants an above-average shot at the NL West? Maybe, but probably not.

The over/under on Dodgers wins this season is 91. The over/under on Giants wins is 85. That's a difference of six wins. According to Baseball Reference, Pablo and Shields were worth 3.5 more wins last season than Peavy and McGehee. According to Baseball Prospectus, the former pair are projected to win 3.3 more games this season than the pair the Giants actually signed.

In other words, signing Pablo and Shields instead of McGehee and Peavy would likely have left the Giants' not only spending into the luxury tax area (which only the Dodgers and Yankees are doing right now), it would leave them two or three wins short of the likely wins by the Dodgers.

The Giants would be in the luxury tax, would have committed about $150 more dollars than they have and likely still would be behind the Dodgers. That's a fools' game.

One could of course argue that the formulas used above are faulty, but they consist of projected wins backed up by millions or billions of dollars. They are based on objective win values for players that are both objective and considered to be among the best player projections available.

So if one thinks Pablo and Shields would be likely to put the Giants over the Dodgers in the regular season, they are guessing and going against the best and most objective information available. Not a good way to make money in Las Vegas.

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[rxmeister]

"Fifteen million a year for Juan Uribe," Dood? Better check your math, he was making 7 million per year in the years you mentioned.
"Get the players you need within the constraints of your payroll." You can make the case that with 3 championships in 5 years, that the Giants are doing exactly that. I read so many complaints about the Giants, and repeating the 3 in 5 answer gets boring after awhile, but really it's the only thing worth talking about! Reading the criticisms on this board you would think it's still over 50 years since the last championship and even a fan like Rog, who readily acknowledges the success, will then shoot out a quick dozen posts about how much better the Dodgers are than the Giants. Let's keep complaining through all the ring ceremonies.

[Rog]

Think how discouraging the 60's were. The Giants were continually close to the best, but they could make the postseason in only 1962.

I'm like Randy in that I wish the Giants were better. I've mentioned that the Dodgers are better than the Giants, and the Nationals are considerably better yet than the Dodgers. But while the Nationals have likely been the best team in the NL the last couple of years, they haven't yet come close to the World Series.

The postseason magic could end at any time, but the Giants have certainly had it. As long as that continues, all they have to do is make the postseason -- and that could possibly happen even if the Dodgers AND Padres finished ahead of them. I surely wouldn't want to count on it though!

[klaiggeb]

As to the 60's "Near Misses," Rog, go back and read some of the player quotes from then, and they ALL have one common thread: "We didn't do the little things we needed to, to win. The Dodgers did."

Meaning, we were inefficient bunting, moving runners along, throwing to the right base, etc. I've read those types of comments from Mays, Perry, Cepeda and others.

THIS recent Giant squad DOES the little things. Yeah, we have stretches where we break down, but over the long haul, as Krukow would say, "these guys continually pick each other other up. When one guy screws up, another is there to make up for it."

boly

[Rog]

Boly -- THIS recent Giant squad DOES the little things. Yeah, we have stretches where we break down, but over the long haul, as Krukow would say, "these guys continually pick each other other up. When one guy screws up, another is there to make up for it."

Rog -- I'm not sure that's really true. If it were, I don't think the Giants would have been the 2nd-worst team in baseball from June 9th through August 12th last season.

There were four things they did well last season that allowed them to make the playoffs.

First, they hit better with runners on base (.727 OPS) and with RISP (.734) than they did with no one on (.678). This allowed them to outscore the average team by just under a tenth of a run per game.

Second, they had very good relief pitching. This allowed them to come back frequently and hold on to leads late in games.

Third, only five NL teams won more than 82 games, turning the Giants' 88 wins into an easy playoff reach because:

Fourth, baseball added a fifth playoff team for each league. Without it, the Giants might not have made the playoffs at all.

What that doesn't explain though is how if what Mike Krukow says is true, they went from being the 2nd-worst team for over two months to being the best team in baseball for a little over half a month's games in the postseason. Want to know that explanation?

In the postseason, Madison Bumgarner pitched by far the best of his life, and the back of the Giants' bullpen was almost impregnable.

In the regular season, each one of the 10 playoff teams had a record as good or better than the Giants. Seven of the 10 had better records.

It was in the postseason the Giants turned into supermen -- because of Bumgarner and the bullpen, with a nice assist from Pablo Sandoval and Hunter Pence.

The postseason wasn't exactly a team effort. It was Bumgarner, Casilla, Romo, Affeldt, Lopez, Petit, Sandoval and Pence. That's one starter, two position players and five relievers.

The World Series wasn't won because the players picked each other up. The World Series was won by Bumgarner and five relievers, with help from two position players.

And without that added playoff team for each league, the Giants might not have been there at all.




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[Rog]

By the way, ever noticed that Krukow -- God bless him -- tends to talk in platitudes? "And in the SQUAT ..." As in, "I don't care that the Giants left 13 on base yesterday. They picked each other up when it counted." (He didn't actually say the first sentence of the latter.)

[Rog]

How well did the Giants pick each other up from June 9th through August 12th?

If we want to see how accurate the comments of the players and announcers are, think back to Pablo Sandoval after the World Series and during the parade. They speak from emotion, not from fact.

[klaiggeb]

Boly -- THIS recent Giant squad DOES the little things. Yeah, we have stretches where we break down, but over the long haul, as Krukow would say, "these guys continually pick each other other up. When one guy screws up, another is there to make up for it."

Rog -- I'm not sure that's really true. If it were, I don't think the Giants would have been the 2nd-worst team in baseball from June 9th through August 12th last season.

****boly says***

rog? Seriously?

You're going to pick that ONE aspect of the season where we did everything wrong? Every team has ups and downs... this "down" just went on too long.

For the season as a whole, we DID the little things needed to win... most of the time.

But aside from that, I was talking about all 3 world series winners; Mostly, they did the little things to win.

Those old Giant teams, by their own admission, did not.

A composite of their words: We didn't bunt well, we didn't execute the hit and run well, we didn't always throw to the right base, or move runners along as we should have.

boly

[Rog]

Every team does have its ups and downs. Even the 1954 Indians, who went 111-43 in the regular season, somehow lost the World Series in four straight games.

But last year's Giants had a HORRENDOUS stretch of over TWO MONTHS. Let me give you an idea just how bad that period was.

From June 9th through August 12th last season the Giants went a horrible 20-36, which was the 2nd-worst in the majors over that time. By comparison, here were the worst two consecutive months from the 2012 and 2010 Giants:

2012 27-24

2010 27-28

Those are two straight calendar months of the season, while the 20-36 occurred mid-month to mid-month. But notice the extreme difference. Heck, the 20-36 Giants record over a two month plus period precisely equaled their worst two straight calendar months in the only 100 loss season (1985) in franchise history.

In 2014 the Giants weren't merely going through the inevitable ups and downs of a season. They were just awful. So the questions are, did the Giants suddenly stop doing all the little things for two months plus, or are the little things truly not that important?

One or the other -- or some combination of both -- just about have to be true. Either the Giants just stopped doing the little things for over a third of the season, or the little things aren't really that important.

That is the reason I chose the time period I did -- not to indicate how good or bad the Giants were over the full season. At their best, they opened the season 43-21 for two months plus.

In other words, we're looking at a 43-21 streak followed immediately by a 20-36 streak. That's not an indication of normal ups and downs.

Did the Giants just stop doing the little things, or are the little things not that important?

The little things are more controllable than the big things. It wasn't the little things that swung the Giants from 43-21 to 20-36. It wasn't moving runners. It wasn't throwing to the wrong base or missing the cutoff man. It wasn't bunting the runner over. It wasn't the hit-and-run play.

It was being able to hit, pitch and field well or not being able to do so.

I'm not saying the little things aren't important. I'm saying that if they were REALLY important, they would by definition become the big things.

[Rog]

Perhaps we could look at the little things we are discussing here as the icing on the cake. Without the cake of the big things, we don't have much to eat.

The little things are important. They are a little important. The big things are also important. Their importance is big.

It is easy to look at a 9th-inning sacrifice followed by a game-winning base hit and say, "Without that sacrifice, the Giants don't score the winning run and win that game." But there are a couple of flaws in over-emphasizing the bunt as that statement does.

First, doesn't a lot of credit go to the game-winning runner for getting on base -- and to the guy who drove in the winning run for creating the game-winning RBI?

Second, with an extra out to work with, how do we know that the Giants wouldn't have scored anyway with two base runners?

I'm not saying the bunt is a bad play in that circumstance (especially if it's the bottom of the 9th). What I am saying is that the hitting and pitching that allowed the game to be tied entering the 9th and to put at least two runners on base in the 9th were far more important than getting the potential winning run to second.

The icing doesn't stand very tall without the cake.

[Rog]

Although it might be a bit overstated, I believe the primary reason the Giants fell just short in the 60's was its lack of pitching. Remember, it's not that these Giants teams weren't good. I'm guessing they had the best overall record of any team in the 60's. It was just that they had a habit of falling JUST short of being the top team each season.

The one season they made the World Series was 1962. Did they suddenly start doing the little things, or did they score 96 more runs than in any other season during the decade?

Again, doing the little things is important -- a little bit important. Without doing the big things, the little things don't matter all that much.

[Islandboagie]

Boly- rog? Seriously?

You're going to pick that ONE aspect of the season where we did everything wrong? Every team has ups and downs... this "down" just went on too long.


Boagie- Rog is correct about last summer, the Giants were terrible for a while there, but they were great during the post-season. One he likes to focus on, the other he likes to ignore. This is the nature of the stats geek, focus on the points that help your argument, ignore the rest. The Giants were bad during a stretch in the regular season and lucky in the post-season, makes perfect sense, right?

Wrong.

It only makes sense to the stat geeks who would rather save their geek credibility, rather than admit they were wrong. They all do it, from Bill James, Brian Kenny, the mainstream sports media all the way down to Rog.

I agree with your point, Boly. The Giants win because they got heart, and they do all the little things, and they play their best under extreme pressure. They have what previous Giants teams didn't.

[rxmeister]

Giants were the best team in baseball the first sixty or so games of the season, and that's a pretty sizable sample size. We shouldn't have been surprised by what happened in October, and it certainly can't be construed as luck.

[Rog]

Boagie- Rog is correct about last summer, the Giants were terrible for a while there, but they were great during the post-season. One he likes to focus on, the other he likes to ignore. This is the nature of the stats geek, focus on the points that help your argument, ignore the rest. The Giants were bad during a stretch in the regular season and lucky in the post-season, makes perfect sense, right?

Wrong.

It only makes sense to the stat geeks who would rather save their geek credibility, rather than admit they were wrong. They all do it, from Bill James, Brian Kenny, the mainstream sports media all the way down to Rog.

Rog -- That's really unfair, Boagie. In just about every way.

By the way, Bill James is considered to be one of the top minds in baseball and has long been employed by the Boston Red Sox. It was mostly coincidence that a year after Bill was hired, the Red Sox broke the second-longest World Championship drought in the majors. Bill does have three rings now.

In 2010 (kind of an important year for Giants fans), James was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2006, Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential men in the world.




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[Islandboagie]

It might be a tad harsh, but it's true. Everyone focuses on the Giants getting lucky, or hot at the right time. Anything to take away from their accomplishments over the last 5 years.

Your two major points about last season is them being bad when they were bad and lucky when they were good.

2012 is summed up by the "experts" as the Giants getting hot at the right time. Same as 2010, even though they won their division both seasons.

If it were a team that you or the other great baseball minds predicted to win, would luck or getting hot at the right time still be a focused topic? No.

I'm tired of hearing about luck and getting hot at the right time, you guys don't even watch half the games.

[rxmeister]

My point actually got shortened because I was getting off a train! I was going to say that the Giants were the best team in baseball for 60 games, then sprung a leak. The front office identified the leaks and fixed them, which is what they're supposed to do, and it made them the best team again. That's basically the Giants formula these days and 3 in 5 speaks to its success.

[Rog]

Mark -- Giants were the best team in baseball the first sixty or so games of the season, and that's a pretty sizable sample size. We shouldn't have been surprised by what happened in October, and it certainly can't be construed as luck.

Rog -- The first 64, to be exact. And that's NOT a small sample. In fact, it's a little bigger than their horrendous 20-36 slump that followed, which kept them above .500.

Over the course of the season, the Giants were pretty much right there with the several teams inhabiting the middle of the 2nd quartile. Then they entered the postseason without Angel Pagan and Matt Cain, and without being able to use Mike Morse in the field.

Of course we should have been surprised by what happened in October. That said, the Giants have now surprised us in each of their past three postseasons.

It's NOT all luck. But there has been some luck involved. An example? In 2012 the Giants closed out the postseason with seven straight wins against very good competition. Know how many times they won seven in a row during the 162-game regular season?

We can count them with our arms in a straight jacket.

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[Rog]

Boagie -- It might be a tad harsh, but it's true. Everyone focuses on the Giants getting lucky, or hot at the right time. Anything to take away from their accomplishments over the last 5 years.

Rog -- It might actually make their accomplishments all the more amazing. Over the past five seasons, the Giants have gone 436-374 in the regular season (.540), while going 34-14 in the postseason (.708).



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