This is one of the most interesting things I’ve read about baseball this offseason. I have no idea who to believe — smart money says no one here is entirely accurate with his figures — but it’s certainly an important and concerning topic.
Friend of TedQuarters Eric Simon weighs in on inefficiencies in the pitching market, and saves me a lot of legwork the post I was planning on Jon Garland. Garland’s not great, mind you, but he stays healthy enough to pitch 200-some passable innings every year, and that’s a valuable thing.
The debate over whether steroid users belong in the Hall of Fame continues. My stance? Consider their achievements in context of the era’s offensive outburst, but let the deserving guys in. I outlined this here, in a column that got very few eyeballs because it came the morning of the Jeff Francoeur deal:
There’s talk that four of the very best players of this or any era — Manny, Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds — should be excluded from the Hall of Fame. I like the Hall of Fame, and I fear if those men don’t make it in, the honor will someday seem like the Gold Glove Award or something, like some sort of pageant that bears little correlation to actual accomplishments within the game.
Frank Isola says Donnie Walsh might just be waiting on James Dolan’s go-ahead to sign Allen Iverson. Do it.
Tedquarters 
Maybe the PEDs are just a convenient excuse, and we will end up seeing something along the lines of Bonds, McGwire and Clemens left out because they were surly and/or private people who weren’t always nice to the writers AND they used PEDs, but A-Rod getting in because he was generally an affable dope with PR issues but not really ever mean to the press.
Just a theory.
After reading the Fox sports reports I tend to think Scott Boras is the one thats full of sh*t there. For one he gets his information from ‘documented sources’, which turn out to be newspaper reports from the daily news and boston globe, which are based on unidentified sources. Yea thats concrete right there.
Also I think he grossly underestimates the admin and operating costs for a major league baseball team. He states $30M in expenses for the Braves, to cover all front office employees, administration, minor leagues etc. Thats kind of obsurd when you think about it.
I work for a very small financial firm, with 8 employees, none of whom even make close to what a high ranking front office official would make, we have one small office space, and a few guys travel, and we have operating expenses of almost $2.5M a year. No chance and organization like the Atlanta Braves could operate on $30M a year. Its obsurd when you think about adding all the salaries of front office people, finance, accounting, tickets, PR, marketing, etc. Then add benefits for those people, health care, 401K’s/pensions, stedium employees, charter planes, hotels…. I’m just scratching the surface hear. No chance on earth a teams can operate for $30M a year.