As we all know by now, Joe Mauer signed a contract extension with the Minnesota Twins. The eight-year $184 million deal makes Mauer the highest paid player not on the New York Yankees. Mauer has solidified that he is the face of the Twins for years to come, more over he will not be a Yankee, Angel or Sock.
Joe Mauer, with the swipe of his pen, just saved baseball.
The lament of the mid-market teams, especially the Orioles, Rays and Jays, for the last decade has been the spending habits of the leagues big-city clubs. You could lump them all together but the team that everyone really looks at is the New York Yankees. With a payroll just over $0.2 BILLION the Yankees spend $60 million more a year than their nearest salary competitor, the Mets. To put that in perspective, if you subtract $60 million from the Mets you go all the way down to the Colorado Rockies, number 20 on the salary scale.
In baseball today, the difference between number 1 and number 2 is the same as the difference between 2 and 20.
For the last decade the cry has been that the big-time New Yorks and Bostons of the world just have to sit and wait for the league to develop talent then swoop in with a blank check laced with bright lights and big promises. Essentially the rest of MLB was little more than the farm system for Boston, New York and LA. The Twins had suffered through this once before having to trade Johan Santana away for a rather paltry return, it was certainly no Erik Bedard deal.
And this was the lot of the small to mid-market team. The prospect of having a small window of competition before your players get too expensive and then another five to six years of being a second class citizen. And in the AL East that is simply magnified beyond belief.
But Joe Mauer signed with the Twins.
Everyone was looking at this potential deal because what it represents, it represents the future of the game. Imagine the signal that would have been sent if Mauer had gone to the Yankees? Basically it would solidify the theory I stated above, but no longer. The Twins have set the precedent now all other mid-market teams need to follow it. If historically thrifty Minnesota can find the money to sign their homegrown superstar then there should be nothing stopping the Rays, Orioles, Reds, etc. If Matt Wieters becomes the next Joe Mauer the Orioles will not be able to cry poor and get away with it. The Rays better find a way to make it work – the Twins held on to Mauer, there are no more excuses.
Moreover, I think it signlas a fundamental change in the culture of the game. The big-market clubs can now no longer rely on the talent just appearing through free agency. I think we are going to start seeing these middle city teams lock up their young talent younger and buying the first few years of free agency, thus if these players do leave for free agency they will be leaving a few years older and with more time for organizations to smartly groom replacements.
Combine this with the rapidly aging elite class I think we are going to see some changes in MLB. Which brings us to the next topic: Realignment.
I have been hearing some fundamentally stupid things regarding this topic recently; the idea of “floating divisions” is simply ludicrous. Still, something needs to happen. I shall bring your attention to this section from Fangraphs’ 2010 ranking of the Orioles organization:
In any other division, the Orioles are an interesting sleeper for 2010 and a potential giant going forward, but in the AL East, they’re an afterthought. They would need monstrous career years from multiple players at the same time just to get in the discussion, and then they’d still have to hope that the Yankees or Red Sox didn’t react to having another contender by just trading for the best player available at the deadline.
It’s sad, in a way. This roster should offer O’s fans a lot of hope, but due to factors beyond their control, that hope is significantly diminished. Even if Jones, Wieters, and Matusz all develop into stars, it still probably won’t be enough. MacPhail needs to continue to hit home runs on trades, have every draft pick pan out, and they need to stay completely healthy – if all those things happen, they could challenge for the AL East crown in a year or two, until their core gets so expensive that they’ll struggle to surround them with enough quality players to keep up.
It’s the crappiest situation in baseball, outside of Toronto, anyway. The O’s front office has done yeoman’s work in building a good young roster, yet there’s still a pretty decent chance it won’t result in anything besides a few better than .500 finishes and frustration at the size of the mountain they’re trying to climb. If anyone ever deserved a medal for finishing fourth, it’s these guys.
Now, after reading that I must ask this question: If that assessment is true then doesn’t that mean there is something fundamentally wrong with the divisonal set-up in baseball? If a team can do everything right; have everything go perfectly; have everyone perform at expected levels or better and still have almost non chance of winning their division then shouldn’t something change? The Rays had a magical season, but are now relegated back to also-ran status and are likely going to lose both Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena after this year. The Orioles, of course, have a much greater ability to hold on to their players but what does that say about the structure of the game right now?
What should be done? It doesn’t need to be very complex, teams don’t need to move leagues and no twisted calculus needs to be brought in. It is simple really. Two things: Balance the schedule and get rid of inter-league. Giving the Jays, Rays and Orioles a break from the seemingly never-ending parade of Red Sox and Yankees games would do wonders for them. It is also rather unfair that the AL central and west don’t get the pleasure of facing the toughest division in the game more than a small handful of times a year.
Inter-league is also a complete joke at this point. Yes, I do enjoy beating the Nationals but there is no rivalry there. And I am sure that Mets and Yankees fans enjoy reliving that subway series but it is not equal. While the teams with “natural rivals” have to but heads the Jays end up playing eight games against the Astros for no apparent reason while everyone else is playing “significant games”.
By balancing the schedule you encorage parity. Every team plays everyother team an equal amount of times. Think about this, the Orioles right now this year will play twelve (12!) straight games against the Yankees and Sox at the end of April in to May. That is ridiculous. A balanced schedule would go a long way to making the league more equitable and fair for EVERYONE.
Did you get your shirt yet? No? Well, they just got delivered today, they will be in the mail out to all you happy consumers this weekend. Still have supplies left but they are going fast – click the link to the right!
