Which system is better: NFL or Baseball

And there's your answer.

It has nothing to do with MLB's "inferior" system. It has everything to do with lousy management.

 

You make some good points here, EN. Just weighing in with some thoughts of my own.

1. Completely agree with you on this. I think the popularity of a sport always comes down to the on-field product and the marketability of superstars. I don't think competitive balance plays a big part in a sport's popularity, it just makes it more enjoyable for fans of mediocre teams. I mean, look at the Cubs, they've been pooping the bed for nearly 100 years and drawing fans like flies to... well... poop.

2. Disagree on this point. Superstars remain with NFL teams much more than MLB teams. Of course players get traded or switch teams in free agency, but it happens a lot more often in basbeall. For the past month I've heard baseball analysts go on and on about Maddux being traded to a title contender. Those type of things don't ever happen in the NFL, and the league is better off because of it.

3. Agree with you here. Signing bonuses and luxury taxes mean there is no such thing as equal money.

4. Every time the Yankees acquire someone (Randy Johnson, Bobby Abreu, A-Rod, Gary Sheffield, Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano) they do so with hardly any risk because of their limitless budget.

5. Oakland, Miami and KC only lose players because they want to lose players. The Yankees don't ever show up in the middle of the night and steal these players away.

6. The DRays had an amazing record against the Yankees last year. However, while the Yankees start every season aiming to win the World Series, the DRays start every season aiming to beat the Yankees in head-to-head meetings.

 

The Indians didn't keep Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez or Jim Thome after they reached free agency. But as an organization, they were able to develop talent, fuse some of it together at the Major League level, then compete for World Series when they had combinations of these players available. Winning (and Jacobs Field) created enough of a revenue stream that allowed them to sign some of the guys to extensions, and bring in some more pricey talent. Then, when it players were on the decline, nearing free agency and the team wouldn't have had a shot to win, Shapiro dealt guys for prospects. Now, even with the step back this season, they're building towards something really good again, just like in the 90s.

 

That stops whatever argument you're trying to make dead in its tracks.

As a small-market fan myself, its taken small-market fans a decade or so to realize the emperor has no clothes. The diversionary tactics don't fool anyone anymore. They shout from the mountain top, "We need a new financial system!" or "If you finance a new stadium, it will cure all of your competitive woes!"

And many small-market fans, including myself for many years, bought it like a bunch of suckers. In 1997, I would have been screaming for a cap.

Since then, there's been too many examples of small-market teams succeeding, and the pattern of the ones that don't have the common bond of shitty ownership, either by mismangement or stinginess. In the unfortunate case of my Brewers for most of the 90s, it was both.

The diversionary panaceas haven't worked, new stadiums don't mean shit if the management inside them is rotten.

So blame your owners, don't blame the financial system.

To be blunt, it's a weak-ass fucking cop out for fans to run to which the inept owners of some teams love to hear because it takes the heat off of them.

There's just too many examples of teams with limited finances doing just fine with this system.

 

Thing is, he loved KC. He wanted to stay in KC, and he the team wouldn't have had to break the bank to make that happen. The Royals simply decided it wasn't worth it.

Keep in mind, Dye made only $260,000 in 1999, when he hit 27 homers and batted .294. In 2000, he made $2.3 million when he hit .321 and finished with 33 home runs, 193 hits (7th in AL), 337 total bases (5th in AL) and 132 runs created (10th in AL).

Dye kept on going in 2001, when he made $3.8 million, before the Royals traded him about a week before the deadline for Neifi Perez in a three-way trade with the A's and Rockies.

But yeah, KC couldn't afford to him, right?

 

Liriano bears down and blows away the NFL!

Final score -- MLB 29, NFL 22.

 

And what a pity: Pubic Lice's reinforcement nuked himself.....I was enjoying the honor of debating a boy who found a way to add a Z to Celtics

 

Shhh.... The moron thinks he's smarter than you. Let him joyously lick where his balls (and brain) once were.

 

In a sane sports league, you do not have to let Beltran, Damon or Dye go ONLY because of a budgetary constraint that does not exist with other teams in your league.

 

Glass doesn't have to. He only has to because he's a penny-pinching tightwad shithead.

 

Oh... realllly? Keep making decisions like a Pavano fiasco and the Yankees won't win the World Series (but they WILL still make the playoffs, right... you left that little one out)? Yahoo arguments such as this and Neutered's LOVE quoting the Marlins WS title as the be all evidence that small-market teams have it just as good as large... as if it just comes down to management.... So, answer this: HOW many Pavano debacles can a Florida, Minnesota, Oakland afford to have and still make the playoffs? Oh, that's right NONE. If you have such a disastrous expenditure.... buh-bye!

Again, the question isn't whether large markets CAN screw up in baseball. The matter is how resources allow a margin of error. Yeah... Management is absolutely paramount to have a chance to win, though in the Yankees' case, Joe Torre was a nobody until he went there, and I would love to see Cashman try working his "magic" in Toronto or Milwaukee.

Yes, they got Get-out-of-Florida-in-a-year-or-two performances from their homegrown youngsters Beckett and Penny, especially in the postseason.
But they don't sniff the postseason without a) Ivan Rodriguez, who had averaged 103 games the previous three seasons, playing in 144, allowing him to vault from SoFla the minute the bubbly dried (leaving behind a 10-foot-tall statue of himself at his home in Miami... weirdo). Great management... sure. Beinfest may be the best in baseball.... but that is pure, fucking luck. and b) Carl Pavano pulling a Ivan Rodriguez. Pavano, who had averaged 103 innings in his five-year MLB career before 2003, fucked Alyssa Milano all the way to a Charmed 201-inning season, raising his career win total by 45 percent. L-U-C-K meets great management. That's the ONLY way it works for small-market teams.

Beltran, Damon, Dye and MacDougal would be a nice core for them to have this year. No reason they should have had to toss them like so much Yates bathwater.

Let's run this one by you. In my earlier breakdown, where I showed that MLB has had five teams not even make the playoffs the past dozen years, I did not include the Expos, who led by a good margin in 1994. But, alas, they never made the playoffs.
And that is ONLY because they could not keep: Vladimir Guerrero, Pedro Martinez, Larry Walker, Delino DeShields, Marquis Grissom, John Wetteland, Cliff Floyd, Ugueth Urbina, Javier Vazquez, Rondell White, Moises Alou... among others.
Yeah... their management SUCKED!!!!!!!!!!!! Zero playoff appearances.

 

Poorly run organizations pretty much categorically fail.
How about the Rams from 1990-1998. No playoff games. Last place most years.
How about the Bengals from 1991-2004? Zero.
How about the Cardinals from 1999-2005? Nada.

In the NFL, you know if you have a poorly run organization.

If you have a 1990s Expos-like run of procuring talent in the NFL... you know what that team is called? The 1970s Steelers.

As has been broken down over and over, Neutered uses flimsy examples, most powered by a pure exceptional occurrence... or comment out of context.

NFL results are random?

Hmmm.... when's the last time I bet a baseball game with a line wider than 1 1/2 runs? Oh... NEVER, you say?

Baseball is the game of random chance (the best winning percentage for a season nudges to around a mere 65 percent)

Finally, something I can agree with.