6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

Sigh:

The Dodgers could seek to keep their player payroll below last year's level through 2018 while the average ticket price and club revenue could nearly double, according to confidential financial documents included in a court filing last week.

The documents, submitted by former Dodgers chief executive Jamie McCourt in divorce proceedings against owner Frank McCourt, offer a rare glimpse into the finances of a major league club.

The documents -- prepared by the McCourt management team in May to solicit Chinese investors for a partnership that could have included the Dodgers, a soccer club in Beijing and another in the English Premier League -- show that the Dodgers spent $128 million in player compensation for their 40-man roster in 2007, then spent $123 million in 2008.

They spent $132 million last season, according to figures from the commissioner's office, which included in its accounting deferred payments to Manny Ramirez and Andruw Jones.

The projections show the Dodgers planning to cut it to $107 million this year, with slight annual increases thereafter. In 2018, player compensation is estimated at $125 million.

1. And you thought Fox was bad. At least Fox had people who knew what baseball even was. Did McCourt think this was gonna be like Treasuries, where the owners would just let him run the team as a general partner?
2. Over a long period of time, this is not as bad as it sounds, because of the strong possibility of heightened inflation. A doubling of ticket prices might, in fact, even be conservative.

Joshua Fisher at Dodger Divorce notes that Jamie was spending $800,000 annually, some fraction (most?) of which came from the Dodgers; that's almost as much as Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw combined ($871,000).

Labels: biz, dodgers, mccourts

At Reason:

This year the Yankees moved into a new stadium. According to baseball economist Neil deMause of the excellent Field of Schemes website, the facility cost a stunning $1.56 billion, and the total project (including replacing 22-acres of parkland that had been destroyed by the construction) totaled $2.31 billion [pdf]. Both figures are all-time records in the history of sports stadia. "Of that," deMause estimates, "the public—city, state, and federal taxpayers—are now covering just shy of $1.2 billion, by far the largest stadium subsidy ever."

The biggest three categories of government contribution were the following:

• $417 million in property tax waivers from the City of New York.

• $327 million in federal tax-exempt bond subsidies.

• $232 million worth of land giveaways from the city.

A little late but still very worth reading.

Labels: biz, yankees

• First, the Cubs sale to the Ricketts family was unanimously approved by MLB owners.
• Secondly, Maury digests the attendance numbers (PDF) now that the regular season is final. The Angels are down 2.84% versus last year, while the Dodgers are up 0.85% versus 2008 attendance. Oakland (-17.39%) and Seattle (-5.81%) both suffered substantial declines, while Texas posted a sizeable 13.74% increase. Arizona (-15.19%), Colorado (0.79%), San Diego (-20.85%), and San Francisco (-0.12%) all saw declines in attendance. Overall, the majors saw a 6.65% decrease in attendance, with the two new, smaller parks in New York accounting for 30% of the decrease.

Labels: angels, biz, dodgers

Charter Cable Customers Frozen Out Of Angels Games

Reports at Halos Heaven and The Fabulous Forum indicate that Charter Cable customers aren't getting to see 25 of the Angels games, mainly because these were sold outside of the main agreement and so need to be purchased separately by individual cable companies. Or something.

There are 25 games this season that, because of contractual details, needed to be purchased separately by area cable and satellite companies and Charter, as of now, has not purchased those games. According to Mead, Charter is the only local company that has not purchased the 25 games.

Bad as Time-Warner has sometimes been, at least they don't pull stunts like that.

Dodgers Fourth, Angels Sixth In Forbes Team Valuations

Forbes has its annual team valuations out, and the Dodgers pull in at fourth overall with a net value of $722M, back of the Yankees ($1.5 billion), Mets ($912M), and Red Sox ($833M). The Angels rank sixth ($509M), just back of the fifth-ranked Cubs. The Cubs are valued at $700M, quite a bit under the $900M the team actually sold for; Mark Cuban must feel like he dodged a bullet on that one.

Maury Brown notes that ten clubs have decreased in valuation from 2008, and one of them is the Florida Marlins. With the current cash flow situation derived from welfare payments revenue sharing, the Marlins have now been given to Jeffrey Loria by the league for free.

Belisario Loses It: Astros 6, Dodgers 5

I came into this game in about the sixth, and by the time I was headed home from the office, Charley Steiner was describing how Ronald Belisario was sitting glumly in the bullpen with his head in his hands. He should be:

The offense picked up a bit from yesterday's game, but Randy Wolf is what he is, and that left not a lot of margin for the bullpen.

Yahoo box • Dodgers recap

Angels Cited As "Preferred" Option For Paul Byrd

No surprise; he wants to pitch for a contender, but you have to wonder whether the Angels qualify this year. On the other hand, both the Angels and A's, the top two teams in the division according to many analysts, presently have losing records.

Darren O'Day Now A Ranger

He was picked up on waivers before he had a chance to go back to the Angels. Too bad — he was one of my favorite stories from 2008 even though he kinda fell apart at the end.

Vlad's Return Date A Fantasy?

Jayson Stark thinks so:

The official prognosis on Vladimir Guerrero's torn pectoral muscle is that he could be back in a month. But Guerrero's mounting physical issues have people around the sport wondering now about his long-term prognosis.

For one thing, said one baseball man, "How's he coming back in a month from a torn pec? When those offensive linemen get that injury in the NFL, they're out for the year."

Meanwhile, a front-office man was asking: "He may come back, but what's he going to be like the rest of the year? That's a tough injury -- especially for a guy who lets it fly the way he does."

Guerrero, 33, was supposed to be one of the biggest names on the 2009-10 free-agent marquee. But add this issue to his offseason knee surgery, and he's making potential bidders very nervous.

"He could be a $1 million player in a year, with $4 million in incentives," said an official of one team. "He's a tough guy to commit to."

The offensive lineman also has to shove his way through a bunch of other guys; Vlad could be useful as a DH-only type, but it's a severe penalty to place on a team that really has been built around the DH as a rest stop for its significantly large roster of aging players. My suspicion is that his torn pec was hurting him more than he cared to let on when he was in the batter's box, and that the hope was that he could be well enough if he let it rest for a month that he could return to the DH.

Cole Hamels Takes A Line Drive On His Pitching Shoulder

He got pulled in the fourth. That's probably not gonna help the Phillies.

Lackey, Santana To Pitch In Extended Spring Training; Escobar Out Until June

Help is just around the corner, but as I discovered in Boy Scouts, when someone says something is "just around the corner", it pays to ask "which one?"

Labels: angels, astros, biz, injuries, phillies, rangers, recaps, rumors, transactions, tv

Forbes released its MLB franchise valuations, and the Angels came in at $500M, sixth overall, and the Dodgers were estimated to be worth $694M, fourth overall, ahead of the Cubs but back of the Yankees, Red Sox, and Mets.

Update: A much better list via the AP.

Labels: angels, biz, dodgers

I don't have time to go over this right now, but it looks tremendously interesting: via the east-coast-based Crank comes a piece from LA Weekly about Scott Boras. Boras really, really wants you to believe he's good for baseball, and just so, he keeps repeating that lie, in much the same manner as certain infamous practitioners of antiquity did, and their more recent devotees. It's a long article which I plan on reading in full later.

Labels: biz, players