The Big Market/ Small Market Scam
Typically labor disputes in MLB are characterized as players vs. owners, MLB vs. MLBPA or unfortunately often with the mind numbingly uninformed “millionaires vs. billionaires” trope. The reality is that it’s (and always has been) more about owners versus owners than owners versus players. As long as there’s been baseball, there have been owners that were OK with investing money in their teams which put them in disfavor with owners who did not want to invest in their teams. Those groups being at odds with each other and having difficulty coming to an agreement on rules of engagement has as large, if not larger effect on labor stoppages in baseball as any other factor.
In today’s terms this is commonly characterized as big market teams versus small market teams, or rich teams versus poor teams. Yet prior to 1992, those characterizations didn’t exist. In fact, in 1976 free agency for players with six years of MLB experience who didn’t have contracts was born, and with it, the potential for unfettered spending on players by the highest bidders. I.e., a capitalistic game at its finest, to be played among immensely wealthy people who were enormous fans of capitalism in every other aspect of society.
Then after 16 years of what is likely the most competitively balanced 16 year stretch in MLB history, Bud Selig along with his cohorts ousted then Commissioner Fay Vincent, with Selig taking over the position in September of 1992. Bud immediately began his preaching about how the poor, small market teams couldn’t compete with the big boys and inexorably managed to convince a good chunk of the media and fans that this was true. The fact that there was zero evidence to support the theory that only rich teams could win didn’t stop a plurality of media and fans from believing the drivel. Thirty years later, it’s still a central part of the “discussions” among the powers that be that are preventing us from watching baseball today.
Just so we’re clear about this, let’s do a quick history review to see exactly why Bud took such a risky stance and what the realities were – and still are – about big market teams versus small market teams.
Despite some earlier, impactful cases with Curt Flood and Catfish Hunter, free agency officially started in 1976. That season played out with Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine taking on the New York Yankees with their relatively new, big spending owner. Obviously, both great rosters had been set long before 1976 so checkbooks and free agency weren’t factors yet.
Then in both 1977 and 1978, teams from the two biggest markets met in the World Series. The New York Yankees beat the Los Angeles Dodgers both years, so it appeared the rich teams were in fact taking over. The problem, is that although everyone remembers free agent star Reggie Jackson’s postseason performances, the Yankees success was overwhelmingly due to player heists disguised as trades and players taken in the draft.
The Dodgers, for their part, boasted lefty reliever Terry Forster as their big splash into the free agent pool. With the exception of Forster’s 1.9 bWAR in 1978, the top 12 players on both Dodgers pennant winners were either drafted by the Dodgers or acquired via trades. (Since we’re talking about market size, it’s also worth noting that the Yankees squeaked past Kansas City in the ALCS in both ’77 and ’78.)
After the 1979 season when the not so big market Pirates and Orioles met in the World Series, the small market Royals finally made it to the big dance in 1980. Regrettably, the little engine that could Kansas City squad couldn’t compete with the big spending Phillies, they of the big market northeast corridor teams. Except once again, market disparity had nothing to do with it as none of the Phillies’ best eight players by bWAR were acquired via free agency. Furthermore, the two Phillies who were acquired via free agency – Marty Bystrom and Del Unser – combined for only 2.6 bWAR on the season.
The big market rich team poster children Yankees and Dodgers would meet again in the 1981 World Series, this time with the Dodgers taking home the Commissioner’s Trophy. Although the Dodgers had new faces Fernando Valenzuela, Jerry Reuss and Pedro Guerrero joining the old guard from the ’77-’78 pennant winners, none were acquired via free agency. The Yankees did breakout the chips to sign Dave Winfield who certainly produced for them, but their biggest ally in 1981 was the strike shortened, two halves season. The Yankees overall record of 59 wins and 48 losses was only good for 11th best in MLB that year, while the little town teams from Oakland and Cincinnati had the best two records in baseball.
The stretch from 1982 through 1985 saw a good mix of teams and a heck of a lot of parity, as seven different teams – St. Louis, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Detroit, San Diego, and Kansas City – reached the World Series. Then in 1986, it was back to the big bullies, this time from New York and Boston, facing off in the Fall Classic. At this point you’re likely sure where I’m headed with this, but again just for clarity’s sake, absolutely none of the top 12 players on either the Mets or the Red Sox was acquired by free agency.
1987 saw the small town Twins beat the Cardinals in the World Series, then Los Angeles was back again in 1988 to face the poor franchise from Oakland. The Dodgers did prevail, and unlike the previous winners we’ve discussed today, did get a big boost from players who were acquired with the Dodgers organization’s checkbook. NL MVP Kirk Gibson posted 6.5 bWAR on the year while both Mike Marshall and Brian Holton chipped in with solid years as well, combining for 4.5 bWAR. Then after the Dodgers win, the league reverted to form once again with a good mix of teams reaching the fall classic over the next three years, as teams from Oakland, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Minnesota and Atlanta all would make Series appearances.
When the stretch that began with the advent of free agency (what we’re now led to believe is a nightmare scenario for fair competition) in 1976 and ran through 1991 was over, the six teams in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Kansas City, Minnesota, and Oakland had won eight championships. Meanwhile, the six teams in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago had won five. Furthermore, the small markets franchises were on a roll having won five of the previous seven World Series and the last three in a row.
Let’s get back to Bud Selig for a minute: When the spoils of his commissioner’s coup were finalized with Fay Vincent’s resignation on September 7th, 1992, the best five records in the American League were held by Oakland, Toronto, Baltimore, Minnesota, and Milwaukee. In the National League, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Montreal, Cincinnati and San Diego held the best five records. And in the slight chance you thought irony was dead, the six teams from New York, Los Angeles and Chicago had a combined .472 winning percentage at that point in the almost completed season.
Yet Bud, never one to let facts get in the way of his performative victimhood, began his crusade of seeking fair play for the billionaire little guys. You may ask why would he be so driven to outright lie about the state of the game and create problems that didn’t exist just to serve his purposes?
Quite simply, over two decades Bud had proven beyond any reasonable doubt that he wasn’t very good at running a baseball team. In the Brewers first 20 seasons with Bud at the helm, the team posted a .484 winning percentage or the equivalent of a 78-84 record per 162 games. Under Bud’s leadership starting in 1970, the Brewers would manage to win the AL East a grand total of one time (not counting the 31-22 record that won them the second half title in the shortened ’82 season). I don’t want to speak for you, but I think you’d agree with me that most people in that situation would either find a way to improve, or would simply find another line of work.
Not Bud. His solution was to figure out a scheme in which a baseball owner didn’t need to be good at his job in order to turn a profit. Heck, his scheme was to make it that an owner didn’t even need to try to be good in order to turn a profit. That’s when and why he decided this thing called revenue sharing, i.e., socialism for the wealthy, was the only path that would keep him in baseball.
That’s when terms like “big market” and “small market” were bandied about. The “haves” against the “have nots and the “rich” teams versus the “poor” teams slowly but surely started to become regular parts of baseball lexicon. The reason they had never been part of the lexicon previously is that there was no need for it because teams in small markets were as successful on the field as teams in big markets, despite playing in a no salary restrictions era. Yet 30 years later, it’s still a topic front and center in the current lockout.
If it were just words, that would be one thing, but it hasn’t been only words. Bud canceled a World Series and started another season late to get his way. Since the advent of revenue sharing, fans have seen less parity and competition in baseball. (This is especially ironic when we consider the owner’s logic is that after extensively sharing revenue for two decades, a competitive balance problem still exists, so the answer is still revenue sharing.) Lest we forget, even prior to becoming Commissioner, Bud was a lynchpin in the owners colluding with each other to not sign free agents in the 1980s.
Finally, when and if the current lockout ends, a majority of baseball fans will be rooting for teams that not only aren’t even trying, they openly admit they won’t even try. Other teams will make halfhearted attempts at winning, investing some money on players but preferring to operate within a budget that’s a tiny fraction of their team’s revenue.
If you want to point out that money matters aren’t all about free agency, and that a team’s financial resources come into play with trades and keeping their own star players, that’s a conversation for another day. I will say that it’s not nearly as big a factor in those cases as you might think, and that referring to a player as the team’s “own” is telling in and of itself – players aren’t property.
None of the revenue sharing, luxury tax, competitive balance problems we still hear about today were problems before Bud Selig told us they were. What’s maddening about it, is that not only do so many media members still parrot MLB’s nonsense and therefore many fans believe it, it’s still all based on easily disprovable claims. Yet Bud’s replacement Rob Manfred, continues to get in front of cameras and lie about all of it even though he knows he’s lying, and most of the people he’s addressing know it too.
Bud certainly wasn’t the first owner to lie to everyone, but he brought it to a different level, and we’re all still paying the price today because there are no baseball games. It’s not an exaggeration to say that no one has done more to hurt baseball fans more than he has – not the Eight Men Out, not Pete Rose, and not the steroid gang – nobody.
(*Author’s note: I used “Lords of the Realm” by John Heylar, “The Game” by Jon Pessah and “Uppity” by Bill White for much of the background in this article. A Tweet from baseball writer Joe Sheehan planted the seed in my brain for this article – if you’re not following him, you should @joe_sheehan)
