It was an interesting week for the Fish. First, they got a symbolic tongue-lashing from MLB and the Player’s Union for failing to fulfill obligations laid out in the Basic Agreement. Whether or not the Florida franchise is being thrown under the bus in order to dissuade further and more wide-reaching accusations of collusion remains to be seen, but the Marlins took little time announcing their first concession, signing Josh Johnson to a $39 Million deal, which will take him through his arbitration years and beyond, in 2013.
What’s interesting about this revelation is that although Florida’s ownership, led by Jeffrey Loria, is certainly guilty of stinginess (in 2006 they fielded a team that made less than $15 Million), they are hardly the only franchise for whom that’s the case, and they are among the few that have fielded consistently competitive teams, even with a miniscule payroll. The Pirates spent only about $6 Million more than the Marlins in ’09 and at least ten teams cut there overall expenditures, citing the tough economy, despite no evidence that their specific industry was suffering. Tampa Bay, Washington, Oakland, Minnesota, San Diego, and Kansas City are all among the teams which are consistently among baseball’s most thrifty franchises.
In a practice typical of the antitrust-exempted MLB, the league has withheld revenue-sharing figures since 2005, perhaps to dissuade widespread rumors that some teams weren’t even spending all of the money they took in as their share of the profits from MLB.com, DirecTV, and the new MLB Network. Bud Selig, of course, would point out that such accusations are without basis, which is convenient, since he’s the only one with access to the data, which he refuses to share. Florida is probably being scapegoated here in order to ameliorate the Union, which is showing the first signs of life since Donald Fehr stepped down last June. Hopefully they won’t be the only ones…
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