Author Archives: Ted Berg

Regarding payrolls

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Joe Posnanski did a typically tremendous job discussing the Yankees’ payroll and why, even though the Bombers may not win every year, the current system in Major League Baseball is patently unfair.

You’ll get no arguments out of me, but I’ll reiterate: It is not the Yankees’ fault they spend so much money. The Yankees are doing precisely what they should do. They have by far the largest budget for payroll because they gross by far the most money.

The onus is on Major League Baseball to fix the system, something that, as Posnanski points out, the league hasn’t appeared all that eager to do.

There have been billions of proposed solutions to baseball’s payroll disparity. Revenue sharing from online assets and the luxury tax may slightly even the score, but clearly do not do enough to let the Royals and Pirates compete for free agents with the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox and the like.

So the simplest conclusion is that baseball needs a salary cap, either a soft one like the NBA’s or a hard one like the NFL’s.

Both are problematic, though. The NBA’s system creates situations like the Knicks’ current dilemma, wherein it will take them several years to get out from under the weight of past mistakes. The NFL’s cap relies on a weak players’ union, as players under contract can be cut without penalty to the club.

They’re a bit more complex than that, of course, but it’s immaterial: The MLBPA is strong enough that even the hint of a salary cap would likely spell a strike, and no one wants that.

You’ll find few answers here. Back when I was in college and I thought I knew a whole lot about everything, I thought the answer was a true free-market system. (Oh, me at 21. What a beautiful fool.)

I recognize now that’s not a perfect solution, because I realize cable revenues and ad sales are inflated in large markets like this one, and concentrating a greater number of teams in the large markets would probably choke off interest in the rest of the country and ultimately hurt the sport.

Still, it strikes me that in some ways, the Yankees have the most money to spend because they must have the most fans. The largest fanbases then get rewarded most frequently, and so, from a purely utilitarian standpoint, the system is working.

So I wonder if the best way to mitigate the Yankees’ financial dominance would be to add another team to the market. Instead of punishing the Yankees for having the most fans, perhaps the league should do something to diminish the size of their fanbase.

As fans, of course, we say: No way that affects anything! I’m a (insert team here) fan for life, and no new team in my area would ever change that.

But cable ratings for the Mets and Yankees tell a different story. There are likely as many bandwagoneers in the area as there are die-hards, and a winning team will always prompt people to tune in or show up. A third team in the market would create more competition for fan and advertising revenue, even if there would still be plenty of both to go around.

There’s a reason a Google Maps search for McDonald’s in New York, NY looks like this and the same search in Pittsburgh looks like this. More mouths to feed necessitates more franchises.

I don’t know. I assume people much smarter than me have thought about this a lot harder than I have and done a lot more research and everything else. I’m just thinking out loud is all.

All I’m sure of is that it’s silly to fault the Yankees for taking advantage of their situation. We should only fault the situation.

From the Wikipedia: Stop-motion animation

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Today’s From the Wikipedia entry is dedicated to A.J., the reader who yesterday provided a suitable mascot for the Nippon Ham Fighters.

A.J., it turns out, does not just traffic in still images, but also in Web video, which you should check out at his YouTube page.

From the Wikipedia: Stop-motion animation

This filmmaking technique is somewhat self-explanatory. A filmmaker manipulates an on-screen object between frames, creating the illusion of motion.

The most commonly recognized form of stop-motion animation is claymation, the familiar realm of Gumby and the classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. But the technique is nearly as old as film itself and was first employed by pioneers like J. Stuart Blackton and Georges Méliès around the turn of the 20th century.

More recent stop-motion animators include Tool guitarist Adam Jones, who normally includes elements of stop motion in his band’s videos, and South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who initially crafted that show’s characters out of construction paper for a video Christmas card.

Many have suggested that computer graphics render stop motion obsolete, because they allow for smoother and more realistic animation. But realism does not always trump style, and more likely, stop-motion artists will merely be challenged to re-envision their medium, much in the way portrait and landscape artists were at the advent of photography.

My former roommate Mike Carlo, himself a talented 2-D animator, often pointed out that with every new form comes concern among artists that old ones will vanish, yet somehow they never really do. Technologies may develop to make a medium inefficient, but unless they can perfectly mimic that medium’s aesthetic, they will never replace it.

So though stop-motion animation may be something of a dinosaur, it is unlikely to go entirely extinct, and for that we should be thankful. Because no matter how stunning we may find Shrek or The Incredibles, this will always look cool:

“Maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us.”

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William Rhoden weighed in on A-Rod in today’s New York Times. He writes:

We began reading and hearing that A-Rod was a changed man. How did that happen?

Some speculated that it was the finality of his divorce, others that it was the tearful February news conference in Tampa with teammates looking on. Still others said the author of Rodriguez’s renaissance was Kate Hudson.

But A-Rod is not the one who has changed. He is the same guy.

There it is. So many columnists and bloggers and fans weighed in on the new, relaxed A-Rod this year that it essentially became fact. The perception even seeped its way into news articles that read like a bad comedian at open-mic night.

“Women are like this; men are like this. Last year’s A-Rod was like this, this year’s A-Rod is like this.”

Nonsense.

Did A-Rod really spend less time worrying about reporters, or did reporters spend less time worrying about A-Rod?

So many have suggested that he cast away the distractions and focused on baseball in 2009. Then in the next breath, they mention how clearly happy he is with his new Hollywood starlet girlfriend.

If A-Rod had failed in the postseason, would Kate Hudson still be the magic charm of relaxation, or would she be another cursed complication?

Of course we see signs that A-Rod is different now and somehow better. You know why? Because we’re looking for them. Because we want to find them. Because now he had a bunch of clutch hits, and we’re looking for an explanation better than randomness.

But there isn’t one. A-Rod is a great hitter who happened to struggle in a few consecutive postseasons. This year, he performed as a great hitter, because that’s what great hitters usually do.

Slumps and streaks are part of baseball. They’re not indicative of some massive psychological overhaul, just baseball.

The good news is that now a three-time MVP and 12-time All-Star, the owner of 583 Major League home runs, can finally lose some labels he never deserved.

He’ll keep others, of course, like “juicer” and “adulterer” and “centaur.” But regardless of how we choose to judge those, they’re ones he earned.

Just A-Rod being A-Rod, really.

Items of note

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That’s it for the 2009 baseball season, and good riddance. Good for the Yanks and the good people at Bronx Banter and Was Watching.

Maybe my favorite non-New York baseball blog is Drunk Jays fans. The language is rarely even remotely safe for work, but I enjoyed their quick World Series recap.

The Mariners picked up former Met farmhand Yusmeiro Petit off waivers, and Lookout Landing provides a nice writeup on the right-hander. Petit’s Minor League numbers, short stuff and all, are simply too good to ignore. The home run has been his bugaboo, but maybe pitching at Safeco Field will help him.

James at Amazin’ Avenue explains what would be on the cover of Duh! Magazine if it weren’t so hard for some people to grasp: “The goal is to score more runs than you allow.” It doesn’t really matter how you do that, so long as you do it frequently and convincingly.

Now the nonsense begins.

SNY promos you’ll never see on air

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The guys in our promos department here are some creative and funny people, but sometimes their ideas get rejected for being a little too far out. This is my favorite SNY promo ever. It was meant to air in advance of the 2009 season, but never did:

There’s also this, featuring me channeling my inner Joe Benigno:


For that spot, I was instructed to sit at the desk and just say things that would make for good soundbytes. It was predictably surreal, and I couldn’t come up with anything to say, so I just started repeating all the soundbytes from the existing SNY promos.

I wanted my soundbyte to be, “I don’t speak in soundbytes!” but that was clearly too postmodern to make the air.

Ultimately, I was unable to record even one reasonable soundbyte while keeping a straight face, and they ended up using something else entirely.

Ham fighting for ham with ham

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Every time I’m close to entirely losing faith in humanity, someone comes out of the woodwork to restore hope.

In this case, that someone was reader A.J., who created this new proposed mascot for the Nippon Ham Fighters, the Japanese baseball team that recently celebrated Tsuyoshi Shinjo.

Ham, fighting on behalf of ham, with ham.

I’m not even entirely certain what’s going on here, but I know that it’s awesome. As I mentioned yesterday, I was disappointed to learn that the Nippon Ham Fighters were the “Nippon Ham” Fighters and not actual fighting hams.

What A.J. has heroically done here depicts an actual ham — our familiar friend Porky — prepared to fight. And he fights using a sword laden with ham, and, I assume, he fights on behalf of ham. It’s really quite remarkable, and rather meta, and very hammy all around.

Oh, and the ham is made of baseball. I think A.J. just blew my mind.

And speaking of mind-blowing, that Shinjo video from yesterday wasn’t nearly the only Tsuyoshi Shinjo commercial available on YouTube:

And also this:

And this:

Calling all lugers

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There are a lot of Olympic events that seem silly or unnecessary, but perhaps none so much as the luge.

Maybe it’s just that I don’t really fully understand the sport, but it’s basically just sledding, right? I mean, what is the skill set necessary for being a good luger? I understand that there’s steering involved; is that all?

I know that the U.S. Luge team has been doing a ton of outreach lately to recruit more lugers, including an event on Rockefeller Plaza today allowing kids to try out a luge on a tiny little luge track. It looked like this:

Kid enters life of lugerdom.

Whoopee! Now if that thrilling four-foot drop isn’t going to get them interested, I don’t know what will. Maybe all those commercials that the U.S. Luge team airs showing kids sledding, and basically asking, “Hey, you ever think about sledding… IN THE OLYMPICS?”

And what’s most baffling about the luge is the two-man luge. I just can’t understand what, at all, the second guy laying on top of the first guy can add to luging other than — depending on the lugers’ orientations — to make things way more awkward or way more interesting.

How do you even meet your luge partner? Do you practice by spooning? Is there a mixer? I mean, that’s someone you better have damn good chemistry with, because he’s going to be spending a lot of time speeding down an icy path while laying on top of you wearing a skin-tight unitard.

Items of note

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Good buddy Scott writes a perfect recap of Game 5 at Rockiescast.com.

Other good buddy Jake Rake explains why things keep getting worse for the Mets in a post to The Nooner’s blog.

Storming the floor lists the early favorites for the God Shammgod award.

Sam Page at Amazin’ Avenue joins me on the Mike Fontenot Express. I’ve been riding it for three years, so it’s nice to finally have some company.

This won’t earn Manu Ginobli any points with PETA, but holy awesome:

The thing about Murph

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Yesterday I promised to provide more thoughts about Daniel Murphy and his role with the Mets moving forward, but I got busy with actual work.

My apologies.

Murphy may have been trumped by Jeff Francoeur as the most divisive Met, but the young first baseman still inspires tons of debate among the Shea Faithful.

Here’s what we know: Murphy did not hit well enough in 2009 to be an everyday first baseman for a competitive Major League team. His .741 OPS was more than 100 points below the National League average, and even as his numbers surged in the second half, his walk rate declined.

Despite a few embarrassing blunders, he acquitted himself nicely at first base after switching positions. At times he appeared a bit lost in the new spot, but he demonstrated good range by both objective and subjective measures.

It seemed, to my eye at least, like Murphy mastered the rhythm of the infield, even if he wasn’t always playing the right notes.

But that’s 2009. That’s gone. What matters is what Murphy can do in 2010 and beyond.

Because that’s the thing about Murph. Whether he’s a blue-collar stud or an overhyped dud, he’s under the Mets’ control and inexpensive for the next several years.

If you’re in the camp that says the Mets are only a piece or two away from a World Series berth in 2010, then you don’t — and probably shouldn’t — care what Murphy is earning. If the Mets are only a piece or two away from contending, they shouldn’t bank on Murphy’s improvement in 2010 and he should be traded away or relegated to a bench role, where he’ll be just some guy earning the Major League minimum.

But if you’re in the camp that says the Mets have many, many question marks beyond the ones surrounding their young first baseman, then you’re in the same camp as me. (We can be camp friends!)

And if that’s the case, then you must recognize that the Mets should stick with Murphy, at least for now.

Sure, there’s plenty to suggest he won’t ever be the player the Mets need him to be. If Murphy doesn’t markedly improve from his 2009 campaign, he will not be an adequate first baseman for a team that aspires to postseason play.

On the other hand, Murphy is 24, and before this season had precisely 135 at-bats above Double-A. It can take a long time for a young player to fully adjust to Major League pitching, and plenty of good hitters have had Age-24 seasons far worse than the one Murph just endured.

If Murphy can become a good hitter, even good enough to be an average first baseman — and that’s a pretty darn good hitter, mind you — he’ll be something immensely valuable: A low-cost everyday player who can free up spending cash for the Mets to use elsewhere.

In short, he could be a guy. Not an Hall of Famer or an All-Star, but also not a value-sapping below-replacement-level scrub like the ones the Mets too frequently trot out. Just a guy, a deserving Major Leaguer.

This has been my whole thing for a while: The Mets need guys. Inexpensive guys. And Murphy can be one of them.

He should be given that opportunity this season. There’s not that much to lose and there’s a ton to gain. At worst, he can hold down the fort until Ike Davis is ready. At best, he can force the oft-rumored move of Davis to right field when Francoeur inevitably regresses to his mean.

It’s about patience. The Mets need to take their time assessing Murphy, Murphy needs to take more pitches at the plate, and Mets fans need to stop taking for granted that the team can piece together a winner without making efforts toward sustainability.