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?I'm pretty sure the Cardinals are at the top every year with attendance per capita.? Local Cardinals fans are very supportive but they still benefit from having earned fans in a number of states in earlier decades while the Brewers are pretty much limited to Wisconsin. On the other hand large metro area teams like the A's and White Sox have limited fan bases because most metro residents are loyal to the other baseball franchise. The White Sox, unilke the Brewers, seem to be incapable of drawing 3 million. Here is interesting an article on baseball economics by a part-owner of a Padres minor league team who also sits on the Padres Board and teaches Sports and the Law at UCSD Law School. It centers on why a cap will not work. http://tinyurl.com/ycsmjyy [Open in new window] ?I challenge you to come up with a salary cap structure that will work in a league where the Yankees have revenues of $375 million (not including their revenues from owning the YES Network) while the Marlins have revenues of $139 million. How much should they spend on players??

Financially I think you would have to choose signing a star, if you have a chance, over a group of players you would project to win the same number of games because the star will add more value to the entertainment product in gate receipts, merchandise sales and tv viewers.

Teahen will be overpaid with his $5 mil option next year. Teahen's versatility could help the Sox in their plan to go without a full-time DH. Fields may not be a major league player and there is not much difference in value between Getz and Nix, the subpar young second basemen they still have.

If the fans had supported teams winning over 90 games in recent years the Indians would be in a better position to retain players.

Those franchises get more choices and options . . . whereas for teams like ours, it feels like there is a gun to your head and you have to give up players you really don't want to. I just can't stand it. The interchangability of NFL teams can be unappealing. A New York team in football is a generic team subject to maximized league control like all the other generic teams while in the less authoritarian structure of baseball the New York teams and all the others have some real life characteristics of their homes. Baseball was never about competitive balance. It will probably always offer the opportunity to root for fat cats or underdogs.

Season attendance is driven to a large degree by the previous season record. Both of your cases involve previous losing seasons. Cleveland had 3 million for 6 straight seasons. They were 1st in the AL for 2 years. They definitely support winning baseball. No, Cleveland fans appear to be a bit spoiled. They were great when the team was a big winner every year from '95 through '01, but they did not support the 93 and 96 game winning teams in '05 or '07 either during those seasons or in the 26,700 and 27,800 attendance seasons following the winning seasons. Milwaukee would obviously draw a lot more than that if they traded Fielder and still won 90 games, but fans here have not gotten used to winning.

Good points about Cleveland. You would think Selig would look at a once successful baseball market like that and realize what is so wrong about the current economic system in "his" sport. Cleveland doesn't necessarily support winning baseball. They averaged 28,500 for a 96 win team in 2007 and 25,000 for a 93 win team in 2005. Bud would seem to be one of those in favor of changing the system in that he was known as one of the ringleaders of collusion in the '80's and as commissioner claimed that most of the teams were losing money when few believed him.

There was never any question whether money was an advantage. I think the issue is whether it is so difficult for many teams to win the championship that baseball's free market should be exchanged for Marx-Rozelle absolute parity. World Series appearances have to be considered because that is the point of playing the season, the crux of the discussion and because you have to be good as well as lucky to get there. A team that gets to the playoffs primarily by burning out its ace isn't good enough to advance. The article points out that the Brewers were one of the most efficient spenders from 2006-2008, going to the playoffs the first year they spent competitively. So the current Brewers management has already demonstrated itself capable of getting to the World Series, having required only the luck of a healthy Ben Sheets (in addition to CC's career year) to have been a serious threat.

2008: Phillies vs Rays 2007: Red Sox vs Rockies 2006: Cardinals vs Detroit 2005: White Sox vs Astros The Brewers are a small market team but they are also in the middle for salaries. The last four years teams with medium or low salaries have been in the World Series. The White Sox and Cardinals usually pay more than they did in '05 and '06 respectively, but they won spending similarly to how the Brewers are spending now. The Brewers have only been spending in the middle for two seasons but if they can stay competitive in payroll and do not advance in the playoffs it will probably be because they were outsmarted by someone spending about the same. Also, there seems to be a misconception that there is something new about domination of MLB by the fat cat teams . It has been the rule from the beginning with parity being the exception. The Brewers have not been one of the best managed teams in baseball since thay had Harry Dalton. They will not get back to the World Series until they are one of the best managed teams again. No amout of scapegoating will change that. http://content.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/totalpayroll.aspx?year=2005

No one is guaranteed work in the real world, especially if you arent performing up to expectations. People who make the kind of money baseball players do get guaranteed money for doing a bad job.Top business executives and securities traders receive golden parachutes for putting their employers out of business. Entertainment industry talent can negotiate albatross contracts. Most employees don't offer unique services worth paying high salaries and making concessions for. MLB is just so stacked against teams like the Brewers it is basically a joke. The Brewers and other franchises shouldn't exist just to be extended feeder teams for other markets, but that is basically how it is at this point. Middlle salary teams like the Brewers go to the World Series on a regular basis. Didn't baseball have the same big market small market issues when it was the national pastime and players had no rights? There is an old movie called "Damn Yankees" about it. If a supermajority of franchises feel strongly enough about revenue disparity they can change it internally.

The Curt Flood case recognized that players, not just the owners, have economic rights in MLB. The players are free to seek the best salary available in the market as the owners are free to make and spend as much money as they want. MLB players got to their strong position by having their rights recognized in court and by not bargainig them away as the sports with weaker unions did. They didn't get their rights by being tough. They just had the fact that they had the right to seek the value of their service in the free market recognized, the same as anyone else. There needs to be more recognition that free market principles don't apply to the business of sports leagues, especially considering that the nature of the product is intended to be good competition rather than trying to drive each other out of business and stealing each other's customers. Baseball already has the most extensive exemption from the antitrust laws of any business. MLB teams only pretend to be going out of business to get concessions from the union and taxpayers. Competition has been an issue for fans of poorly run small market teams throughout baseball history. The only thing Congress would have any interest in would be keeping cities from losing teams. W-L records are not their job. The Brewers would be have been bad under any system of baseball economics with or without a union when management was by nepotism instead of ability. Do fans of the Twins feel such futility? Middle and small salary teams St.L., Col., CHW and Tampa have all been to the WS recently.

For me, it has been nothing but 17 years of very strong bitterness towards baseball economics and the players union. Bud choosing his daughter instead of someone qualified to run the team didn't help. Well run teams do something with small to medium salaries, including win championships. Until recently the Brewers were run on the Pirates model. The players earned their right to see what their services are worth in the free market. Maybe there could be a cap if the sport were in NHL type trouble. That would require the players working with owners to share revenues but the players would have to get over the owners history of deceit. MLB has been prospering with competitive imbalance. I don't think the players or owners want to break a money machine to give some teams a better chance of winning. Championships may be more of a fan issue while profits may be more of an ownership issue. If the owners care about competitiveness they can do things that do not detract from a players freedom to earn what someone is willing to pay him, like a salary floor and adjustments to the draft and revenue sharing.

It might be because they had Branch Rickey, the father of the minor league system as their GM from 1920-1942. IIRC the Cardinals continued to spend more on the minor leagues than other teams except the Yankess after Rickey left. Their large fan base comes from being the team farthest south and west, except the Browns who they eclipsed. If the Browns had hired Branch Rickey it might be the Baltimore Cardinals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Cardinals.

Maybe some return to Milwaukee versions with retro Milwaukee Braves in a limited edition run. Spahn and Matthews bobbleheads could become valuable. They played they longest and best parts of their HOF careers here. Milwaukee shouldn't keep itself from honoring them beause the Braves left town.

Counting up to twenty days and knowing whether 20 days in the minors constitutes a lost year of MLB service is not a gray area. It is easy enough for those who do it on a regular basis. Tom H. may not be familiar with the rule and the Brewers may not have decided on a callup date though.

2010 should be fun. The Brewers do not usually have the best 3-4 hitters in the league. A couple of fortunate SP acquisitions could turn into a good staff. It doesn't take great pitching to produce an eighty-some win playoff team. If Mark A goes cutthroat and hires a new GM that would be interesting too. If all else fails there will be good seat selection.

According to Articles 19e and 21b of Major League Baseball's Basic Agreement, "If a player is optionally assigned for a total of less than 20 days in one championship season, the player shall be credited with Major League service during the period of such optional assignment(s)." August 12th through August 31st would be 19 days. The first day has not been completed in counting days (not just MLB) until the next day, August 13th. If he's back in the majors on September 1st he will not have been in the minors for 20 days.

There does seem to be some evidence of "meddling" by Mark A, he seemed to be hot to get Suppan... Attanasio waged a charm offensive to get Suppan to sign the first big FA deal of his new ownership but if the talent evaluators had told him to convince Gil Meche or someone else to sign he might have done the same for them.

If people think we will walk into 2010 with a rotation that screams 'this is a playoff team' they are going to be disappointed. That just is not going to happen and not because Melvin is the GM but because it just isn't realistic. It is because Melvin is the GM. Danks, Floyd and others were available on the trade market and as FA's. It takes a GM with imagination to acquire soon to be good pitchers for declining assets. Williams has had a weak farm system to use as trade bait but has made the most of it. He has signed fewer bad contracts. Williams has had more money to work with but Melvin might be given more money if ownership had more confidence it would not be misspent. After seven years Melvin is responsible for his results, good and bad. Melvin has had enough success compared to Brewers history to be given another year. But just as Jack Z and Mike Maddux seemed to be the best at their jobs in the Brewers organization in the past, Mark A. might be the Brewers most talented executive now. For Mark A. to make the most of his ability he would have to hire his own GM.

Look at the teams in the playoff race. The White Sox traded for all their starters or signed them as FA's except Buehrle. Danks, Floyd, Contreras, Colon, Garcia, Peavy soon. They have used a spot starter from their system, traded one for Peavy and hope to have one in next year's rotation.

From WhiteSoxInteractive it sounds like they got him at the risk of two high upside prospects (Carter and Poreda) and lots of money for a pitcher who may never be completely healthy, but kept their top pitching prospect (Hudson) who was part of the rejected deal. Edit: According to Ken Rosenthal it was the same four pitchers.

Individual injuries aren't, but over a career a team's injuries are. If the team does not get back to the playoffs over a number of year it will not matter how big of a factor injuries were in the GM's firing.

I hope Melvin has a solid imaginary playoff appearance to compensate for his borderline useless real one. There was no reason Sabathia should not have played at his unprecedented peak for 3 months for the Brewers. That is one of the possibilities Melvin was forced to make a decision on. He was in his prime and defending a Cy Young. Melvin also had to make decisions on the possibilities of the surprising peaks of Branyan and Nelson Cruz. GM's can depend on most players failing to perform according to models. They have to make decisions about performances that will fall like a splotchy Jackson Pollock painting instead of fit within color by numbers expectations.

Sure that makes sense on the prospect side of the equation since there really are no sure things. On the Holliday side of the equation they are getting less than half a season out of him so what kind of stats he actually puts up is largely going to be random. I think you are mistaking the fan's fantasy world with the reality of a GM's job. There are definite, not random, results with consequences that affect all the other components of the team. If a GM acheives something over a number of years the luck involved is heavily outweighed by constant exercises of judgemt. C.C.'s career half season was within the range of possibiliities Melvin could consider for someone regarded as perhaps the best pitcher in baseball; as was his collapse from overuse. Melvin deserves the blame for the unsatisfactory pitching we have now, too. He's making the decisions and contingency plans.

If you can't give GM's credit for what they achieve because the results don't match models I think you're putting too much faith in the models. If you buy a stock thats trading at $50 for $100 you overpaid no matter if that stock soard up to $125 or crashes to $12 in 3 years. Stocks trade at a definite price while observers are only guessing at the trade value of players.