Picked up an interesting read from Bill James. What caught my attention was his answer the question about baseballs worst problem, and it was tanking. So does that mean tankers are really just making HBD more realistic?

He also was asked about solutions and made a moneyball league answer by stating MLB should remove owners that aren't successful. Of course though he gives them 15 years which is a tad more generous than moneyball does.

Here is part of an interview that is posted: Bill James interview


What are the biggest issues facing baseball right now?

We’re making a lot of progress on the income disparity between the teams. We haven’t wiped that out but we have made significant progress on that. It could be that the biggest issue now is getting the -- well, I’m between a rock and a hard place here. I’ve got to make news to sell books, but not make too much news to avoid being fired. We have some franchises now that are happy to make money and don’t care whether they win. That destroys the enterprise if you get too much of it. If you get too many franchises that are just counting the cash and are not committed to the effort to win, that seriously undermines the game. At some point, we have to get a hold of that. There may be perverse economic incentives in the game that need to be restructured in order to prevent that from happening.

What are some ideas? I’ve heard people say teams that don’t reinvest their revenue-sharing money shouldn’t be allowed to turn a profit.

I don’t know, but that sounds like an invitation to creative accounting. I imagine they might find a way for some other corporation with which they have a relationship to turn a nice profit.

Salary floor? Ceiling?

It could be that the time has come to incentivize winning by the players. The players might -- I’m not sure if you’d get resistance from that, but that would be one approach. The problem with the game being too well off is that teams can make money in ways that aren’t generally intended. John Henry had a proposal about it. Another proposal was the teams that are non-competitive over a period of years could be required to sell the team. The owners of, say, the Salt Lake City Cellar Dwellers. You haven’t competed for 15 years, it’s time to sell the team. That might be one way to approach it.

Nothing new here.

MLB budgets - $201M to $37M

HBD budgets - $185M to $185M

MLB has self-imposed budgets.

Of course, it should be noted that the tankers in MLB win 65-75 games while HBD tankers might win 40.

The motivation for tanking in MLB is to turn a profit via an extremely low payroll. If they can field a competitive team, all the better because that will increase profits via ticket sales, concessions, merchandising, etc. There is a positive incentive towards winning within a small payroll.

The motivation for tanking in HBD is twofold: (1) hoard prospect budget to spend on big-ticket IFA's, and (2) bettering their draft position. Winning games works against #2, so there is a negative incentive towards winning with a small payroll.

I've been around mid pack in the draft numerous times, and I think the worst I ever got was my 4th rated pick.

If people want to spend $25 to get the #1 pick instead of the #14 pick, I'll spend my $25 to pick up wins against them.

That would carry more clout if not for this:

Hardball Dynasty

Total Seasons: 15
Record: 1085-1345

You know where a lot of that is from. I don't use aliases to fix teams. Unlike some, right poiuyt?

Now granted, 684-677 isn't exactly worship worthy once you pull out the fixes, but still.

My Orioles have been tanking for years now!

My alias is well over .500. And I used it because I had unused credits. Plus you've never taken a mid-season replacement. You're just a tanker.

Say what? Bastard! There's 6 mid replacement seasons in there!

Damn yer monkey poking eyes!

Since we're on the subject of MLB and tanking, I'd just like to say that you should all fear the Rangers this season and for years to come. More pitching on the Rangers' farm than in some entire divisions. And, with regards to the above conversation, they collected that talent by not signing a BL Free Agent for 2 full seasons (while having a top-3 budget for scouting/signing Internationals and paying over-slot for draft picks). You could make an argument that they tanked their way into the best farm I've seen in 20 years. Now it's time for the rest of MLB to be afraid.

You should probably throw 100 pitches twice a week in Arlington this June. Then you'll know why they need all those arms.