Brewers Score First Round Competitive Balance Lottery Pick

[splitterpfj]

The Competitive Balance Lottery was held by MLB today, I don't have the full results yet, but I do know the Brewers were awarded the 4th Competitive Balance Pick, following round one, in next year's draft.

 

This is good for the obvious reason - it gives the team an extra high pick to grab a player with, but it also increases the amount of money the Brewers will be allotted to sign picks with next year. That came into play big this year, when the Brewers had three of the top 50 overall picks - they were essentially able to grab three first-round talents, because "signability" was not a concern.

[bjkrautk]

How exactly do the Cardinals get a competitive balance pick (right before Milwaukee)?

 

 

1. @marlins

2. @Rockies

3. @Cardinals

4. @Brewers

5. @Padres

6. @Indians

[yfinn6]

How exactly do the Cardinals get a competitive balance pick (right before Milwaukee)?

 

 

1. @marlins

2. @Rockies

3. @Cardinals

4. @Brewers

5. @Padres

6. @Indians

 

One of these things is not like the other..

[gregmag]

Doesn't market size factor in pretty heavily? I would think StL is in the medium-small market range.

 

Great news for the draft next year, especially since we hopefully won't be picking very high.

[SRB]

Miami gets a pick even though they are in a huge market just because the team is mismanaged and as a result they have no fans? Ok...

 

Excited for the Brewers pick though!

[stoutdude04]

Ten lowest markets and ten lowest revenue earning teams are entered.

[TURBO]

How exactly do the Cardinals get a competitive balance pick (right before Milwaukee)?

 

 

1. @marlins

2. @Rockies

3. @Cardinals

4. @Brewers

5. @Padres

6. @Indians

 

It's just the right thing to do...

[splitterpfj]

"There's nothing to see here, folks, move along..."

 

No conspiracy, it's a lottery system, St L just wound up with that pick, they could just as easily have gotten no pick at all. I wrote this in 2012, before the first one of these...

 

The ten smallest-market teams will be in the lottery, and the ten lowest-revenue teams will be there too. There is plenty of crossover on the two lists, and a team can only be counted once, so this year, there will be 13 teams in the lottery.

 

All you have to be is small market or small money, this has nothing to do with how a team did the year before, etc.

[Patrick425]

Could be worse. Could be the Pirates, Rays, or Royals. They got nothing out of this.

[fondybrewfan]

It boggles my mind that STL is one of the 10 smallest markets in baseball though. That doesn't seem possible. They certainly aren't in the 10 lowest revenue.

 

They have to literally be the 10th smallest market and are just barely sneaking in the lottery.

 

Hopefully the Brewers will have two picks less than 6 spots from each other next year.

[trwi7]

It boggles my mind that STL is one of the 10 smallest markets in baseball though. That doesn't seem possible. They certainly aren't in the 10 lowest revenue.

 

They have to literally be the 10th smallest market and are just barely sneaking in the lottery.

 

Hopefully the Brewers will have two picks less than 6 spots from each other next year.

 

2 New York teams

2 Los Angeles teams

2 Chicago teams

Dallas

Houston

Philadelphia

Washington

Miami

Atlanta

Toronto

Boston

San Francisco/Oakland

Phoenix

Detroit

Seattle

Twin Cities

San Diego

Tampa

 

So they're the 23rd largest market.

[SRB]

It boggles my mind that STL is one of the 10 smallest markets in baseball though. That doesn't seem possible. They certainly aren't in the 10 lowest revenue.

 

They have to literally be the 10th smallest market and are just barely sneaking in the lottery.

 

Hopefully the Brewers will have two picks less than 6 spots from each other next year.

 

St. Louis proper is actually surprisingly small. It is a lot smaller than Milwaukee, although the St. Louis metro area is slightly larger than the Milwaukee metro area. But yeah, the are definitely like top 5 in revenue.

[bjkrautk]

St. Louis proper is actually surprisingly small. It is a lot smaller than Milwaukee, although the St. Louis metro area is slightly larger than the Milwaukee metro area. But yeah, the are definitely like top 5 in revenue.

 

I guess where I take issue with the classification of St. Louis as a 'small market' team is that their regional base extends well beyond the city limits...especially the historical range of their broadcast affiliate (KMOX), which covers most of the central US and is the source of a lot of their generational fan base.

[Patrick425]

Seems like this system rewards teams for either "overachieving" compared to market size or "underachieving" compared to market size. One could argue that if you are in a small market but are still one of the top 10 teams in terms of revenue, then you don't need the competitive balance pick. One could also argue that if you are in one of the top 10 markets but also one of the bottom 10 in revenue, then you should not be rewarded for running your team in such a poor manner.

[trwi7]

St. Louis proper is actually surprisingly small. It is a lot smaller than Milwaukee, although the St. Louis metro area is slightly larger than the Milwaukee metro area. But yeah, the are definitely like top 5 in revenue.

 

I guess where I take issue with the classification of St. Louis as a 'small market' team is that their regional base extends well beyond the city limits...especially the historical range of their broadcast affiliate (KMOX), which covers most of the central US and is the source of a lot of their generational fan base.

 

KMOX's fringe range doesn't make it to Columbia, MO, Davenport, IA or Bloomington, IN. And that's during the day. Their nighttime range barely makes it to Cape Girardeau, Champagne and Peoria. WTMJ basically has the same range as KMOX and we have the whole state of Wisconsin to draw from. Kansas City limits St. Louis to the West.

[DoubleSwitch]

St. Louis is definitely one of the smaller markets, and they have one of the crappiest TV deals in all of baseball that's even worse than ours. It's not like they spend tons and tons of money, so I don't see why that's so hard to believe.

[SRB]

I think the issue is that St. Louis has a national fan base due to their history/success, and thus already are one of the top revenue-earning teams. It would be like the Packers getting some kind of competitive balance advantage in the NFL simply because Green Bay is so tiny.

[davego]

I get KMOX many nights in western Wisconsin.

[DoubleSwitch]

They have fans spread over a large territory, but it isn't like that does that much good for their financials. They get 14 million a year from TV money, which is less than Milwaukeee. They don't have a huge payroll, they don't spend a lot in free agency. There is no evidence they're among the top revenue earning teams. Considering how big of a driving factor TV money is, I would seriously doubt it.

[SRB]

They have fans spread over a large territory, but it isn't like that does that much good for their financials. They get 14 million a year from TV money, which is less than Milwaukeee. They don't have a huge payroll, they don't spend a lot in free agency. There is no evidence they're among the top revenue earning teams. Considering how big of a driving factor TV money is, I would seriously doubt it.

 

According to the annual Forbes data, the Cardinals were the 8th most valuable franchise and generated the 5th highest revenue among all major league teams last year: http://www.forbes.com/mlb-valuations/list/

 

Their $283 million in revenue was just behind the Dodgers, and far ahead of Milwaukee ($197 million, ninth lowest in baseball). The fact that their payroll isn't higher is presumably why they had the highest operating income of any team last year.

[Fear The Chorizo]

STL's market size is below average only by how markets are drawn up on a map.

 

before MLB expanded to the west, that is further west of the Mississippi, the Cardinals were essentially the default home team for most all of the plain states, even reaching beyond the Rocky Mountains. They were the westernmost team for decades in the early-mid 1900's. it's because of this that their scouting/development infrastructure was able to get established throughout the country.

 

The Cardinals were the Yankees of the National League because they had the widest reach of all baseball organizations. Hell, much of WI was Cardinals territory before the Braves came to Milwaukee.

[lcbj68c]

How exactly do the Cardinals get a competitive balance pick (right before Milwaukee)?

 

 

1. @marlins

2. @Rockies

3. @Cardinals

4. @Brewers

5. @Padres

6. @Indians

 

One of these things is not like the other..

 

 

One AL team?

[WV Brew]

Theo Epstein weighs in and he's not happy:

 

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/07/23/theo-epstein-on-cardinals-competitive-balance-pick-last-organization-that-needs-an-annual-gift/

 

This is obviously a flaw in the rule. Teams with high revenues should not be included regardless of technical metro area size.

[And That]

before MLB expanded to the west, that is further west of the Mississippi, the Cardinals were essentially the default home team for most all of the plain states, even reaching beyond the Rocky Mountains. They were the westernmost team for decades in the early-mid 1900's. it's because of this that their scouting/development infrastructure was able to get established throughout the country.

This is what I was coming to post. There are a ton of people well outside of the St. Louis metro who have been life long Cardinals fans.

 

Anecdotally, I have family in southern Illinois/Indiana and northern Kentucky and in my experience, pretty much clear over to Lexington it's difficult to find someone that isn't a Cardinals fan. Areas that you'd think would be Cubs and Reds market share really isn't.

[Invader3K]

KMOX's fringe range doesn't make it to Columbia, MO, Davenport, IA or Bloomington, IN. And that's during the day. Their nighttime range barely makes it to Cape Girardeau, Champagne and Peoria. WTMJ basically has the same range as KMOX and we have the whole state of Wisconsin to draw from. Kansas City limits St. Louis to the West.

 

Maybe in theory, but due to realities of nighttime AM signal propagation, their coverage is much larger than that. The KMOX wikipedia page talks about how their signal can sometimes be heard as far away as Scotland and South Africa. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KMOX