Average Opening Day Salary Drops 17%

[mindbodyspirit]

<!--quoteo(post=86600:date=Apr 6 2010, 06:31 PM:name=jstraw)-->QUOTE (jstraw @ Apr 6 2010, 06:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=86597:date=Apr 6 2010, 06:30 PM:name=Lance)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Lance @ Apr 6 2010, 06:30 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=86533:date=Apr 6 2010, 02:59 PM:name=BackyardLegend)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (BackyardLegend @ Apr 6 2010, 02:59 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec-->I'm still trying to figure out how baseball salaries have anything to do with the liberal/conservative argument.

Athletes get paid based on the economy of their business. It's a free market—for the most part—where wages are dictated by one's value to the organization.

If you are such a bleeding heart conservative Anna, then you should embrace this idea. And likewise, you should take issue with minimum wage laws that force places like Jewel to pay a 16 year old grocery bagger more than 8.00/hr.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->


What the hell does that have to do with anything?
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I think the point was, if someone is a traditional, fiscal, free-market conservative (which frankly, I haven't paid any attention to whether Anna is or not), it's weird to suggest that anyone selling their services for the value that market places upon said services, is overpaid.

This is quite separate from whether we, as a society overvalue the ballplayers compared to say, schoolteachers.

Professional sports shits money. If you think ballplayers (and owners) are overpaid, stop buying tickets and t-shirts and Budweiser and Gillette.
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The ownership of a news organization, with rare exception, has minimal day-to-day influence over it's copy and its writers. There are glaring exceptions, of course, with MSNBC being leftie-leaning news and FOX being right-wing (often broadcasting these days as a Tea Party commercial). The Moonies owning controlling interest in the Washington Post didn't help or hurt the paper's ability to break open the Watergate Scandal, for example. Anyway, that's all very tangent to the topic at hand, being player salaries.

While I am not a fan of players making ridiculous money as role players or as bullpen filler, I think a quite valid argument can be made for collusion, should the Players' Association chose to go that route. I can't remember in my lifetime players like Jermaine Dye (25+ HR) or Hank Blalock (20+ HR), for 2 examples, not finding a roster spot SOMEWHERE. I can't remember an off-season where a relatively small group of players got FA pay increases, while the majority either took decreases or had to sign minor league deals. I'm not going to argue supply-side economics, just saying that I find it peculiar that 30 teams, without a notable exception, all followed this pattern. Even Boston, who did sign Lackey, Beltre, Cameron, and Scutaro, still did so below the cost of their combined 2009 salaries. If it happens again after this season, I think we'll be seeing a major suit brought up by the Players' Association, and there is clearly grounds for legal investigation (recession or no). The "market corrections" argument may be valid to a point, but if one looks at the Yankees (coming off of a profitable WS title season) replacing Damon with Winn/Gardner and Matsui with Johnson, clearly there is more going on than just market corrections there.