MLB in trouble not NPB

The competitive balance problem in NPB is far, far worse than it is in MLB. The competitive balance problem in MLB is a figment of MLB's PR campaign from the owners' effort to get a salary cap. The problem in MLB is not competitive imbalance, it's unmotivated owner groups slashing payroll to keep costs down and then making an easy profit on shared revenue. And even with owners doing that, many "small market" teams continue to compete as long as they are smart about developing players, as the Oakland Athletics and Minnesota Twins are currently demonstrating.

I think it's unlikely that the players will actually strike, and I think it's even more unlikely that any strike will last long enough to cancel the post season. MLB has a lot of problems, one of which a horrible marketing strategy when faced with the top-notch marketing campaigns being waged by the NBA and NFL, but competitive balance is not one of them. I hope that once this round of labor negotiations is completed, the Lords of Baseball will start working on marketing their game right.

NPB, on the other hand, is in a much worse situation. Not because their best players will go to MLB, because they won't, but because right now no Central League team can consistently challenge the Giants (the Dragons put on a good show only because Hoshino is a savvier manager than Nagashima). And no team in NPB can challenge the Giants when it comes to money. No other team has the broadcasting clout the Giants have. There is a vicious circle wherein the Giants are broadcast nationally on network TV, people all over Japan grow up watching the Giants, they maintain a fanbase much larger than any other team, which provides them with more revenue, and (a problem MLB doesn't have) more players/draft picks who want to play for the Giants. The Giants didn't get Kiyohara because they made the best offer; they got him because he wanted to play for them. Same with Abe. That's why the Giants pushed the gyaku-shimei system through; they knew a lot of good players wanted to play for the Giants, even if at a lower salary than they might get elsewhere. It's why they want to extend gyaku-shimei rights to high schoolers. The Yankees only wish they were as big a gorilla in MLB as the Giants are in NPB.

Looks like you are on the player's side. I've been listening to the WFAN sport talk show in NY and almost every listener and all the hosts agrees that there is a terrible problem with competitive imbalance in baseball. It should be surprising to you because we are talking about New York!! The home of NY Yankees. It's also surprising to hear from a Minnesotan like you saying that there is no competitive imbalance in MLB. If this trend keeps going, your team, the Twins, will never win any more World Series in the future. They may even cease to exist.

Take for example the revenue sharing issue. The player's association is the one who is not agreeing to it. I believe owning a MLB team is a business. They need to make profit. At the present time, only the New York Yankees can do both winning and making profit.

Anyway, opinions are opinions and I do respect your view. But I am one of the majority of the fans who is on the owner's side this time around. Also, the nature of competitive imbalance in NPB is of a different nature than that of MLB. People want competitive imbalance in Japan. They want Yomiuri to be the dominant team. By the way, I happen to be one of those who despise Yomiuri. It seems to me that for NPB to be healthy, Giants needs to be dominant. It's a tradition.

Seiyu, with all due respect, I believe what I do because I have put special time and study into the business of baseball. Plus, I'm in Minnesota, where the Twins currently hold a 14 game lead over the Chicago White Sox.

Let me suggest some links to you:

First off, try Baseball Prospectus. They have a Business & Labor page. One of the contributors to BP is Doug Pappas, who is the chairman of the Business of Baseball committee of the Society of American Baseball Research.

The people writing these articles are informed, objective people. They believe, as do I, that MLB is not losing as much money as they claim, and that there is plenty of competitive balance in MLB. And where there isn't, where a team is stagnant like the Minnesota Twins were from 1994-2001, it is because of unmotivated ownership groups.

There's a reason why the players' union is not for revenue sharing, and as a Minnesotan I can give you the perfect example of it. Since 1994, Carl Polhad, the owner of the Minnesota Twins, slashed payroll as low as possible. By doing this, he was able to cover his expenses with the gate receipts and his broadcasting contracts. Then he took the revenue sharing money and simply pocketed it as profit. That is the problem with many baseball teams. Polhad could have made a profit if he attempted to put together a competitive team, but he chose to take a cheaper and easier route by fielding a team of minor leaguers and pocketing the shared revenue.

Despite that, the Twins are doing well. They will almost certainly get to the playoffs this year, and it is highly, highly unlikely they will be contracted. It is more likely that contraction was just a threat to try and get the people of Minnesota to build Polhad a new stadium.

As for your feelings about competitive imbalance in NPB...well, I can't say that you are wrong, there. My impression is that Americans prefer a contest where the outcome is always in doubt, but Japanese may prefer the result of a pre-determined outcome. Certainly the idea that "a Yokozuna should always win" would not come about in the U.S. Those are generalities, of course, and I wish to offend no one.

Anyway, please check out those links, Seiyu. Sometimes the English may be a bit dense, but they are truly informative and interesting articles.

I've been listening to the WFAN sport talk show in NY and almost every listener and all the hosts agrees that there is a terrible problem with competitive imbalance in baseball. It should be surprising to you because we are talking about New York!! The home of NY Yankees.

I'm originally from the New York are and would like to point out that WFAN is more of a Met favored station than Yankee. A majority of the hosts prefer the Mets to the Yankees, and also that they broadcast Mets game. Often times, Met fans are more negative towards the Yankees, than the regular baseball fan.

MLB has a lot of problems, one of which a horrible marketing strategy when faced with the top-notch marketing campaigns being waged by the NBA and NFL, but competitive balance is not one of them.

I have to disagree, CFiJ. There are gross inequities inherent to the current system. Teams in the lower half of revenues have won five postseason games in the past five years.

So while I agree that the Brewers, Tigers, Royals, Devil Rays and other teams are what they are for a reason -- bad management -- a well managed small market team (the A's) will never beat a well managed large market team (the Yankees) consistently unless some changes are made.

I heartily disagree. Postseason wins are a really poor standard of competitive balance. Anything can happen in a short series. The Yankees haven't won five of the last six AL pennants and 4 of the last five World Series because they have a huge payroll. They've won because they are built for the post-season, and play in an extremely weak division.

Check out the links, guys. This isn't some harebrained idea I have. Some fellows a lot smarter than me have looked at the situation from all angles, analyzed it objectively, and come to this conclusion. MLB's situation is not without its problems, but competitive balance is no worse now than it has ever been.

Anything can happen in a short series. The Yankees haven't won five of the last six AL pennants and 4 of the last five World Series because they have a huge payroll. They've won because they are built for the post-season, and play in an extremely weak division.

Built for the post-season? Is that another way of saying the Yankees have dominant starting pitching? Something the Bronx Bombers have been buying for years. There's no doubt the Yanks have been strategically engineered, but the organization can fill virtually any need by signing a free agent or making a block buster trade because they have the resources to do so. The Yankees are smart and very, very rich.

MLB's situation is not without its problems, but competitive balance is no worse now than it has ever been.

Funny you should say that. The Yankees have won 38 pennants and 26 World Series since their inception in 1901.

Exactly. The Yankees are dominant now, but no more dominant than back in the days of hard and fast salary restraint. The Yankees will always have that advantage, no matter what system they have. But do you know why the Yankees are winning? Motivated ownership. Steinbrenner really wants to win. He's hired Brian Cashman, one of the best GMs in baseball, a GM who uses sabermetrics to evaluate teams and players, and Steinbrenner's more or less left him alone to do as he would.

Free agency began back in 1976. From 1979 to 1996, the Yankees didn't win a pennant. Why? Mismanagement. High revenue is of course an advantage. It's always been that way and it always will be. But what is needed to truly win is proper management. Without it, all the money in the world can't help you (Yankees 1979-1996) and with it even a low payroll is managable (Athletics since 2000).

When I say that the Yankees are built for the post-season, I'm not just talking about their pitching. Since 1998, the Yankees have not led the league in wins, they have not led the league in hits or ERA nor in fielding pct. But they've had veterans with post-season experience. Guys with high OB% and good power numbers. A certain element of luck has been involved. Certainly, if the Red Sox hadn't been so woefully mismanaged (another team with lots of money that doesn't win very much), the Yankees wouldn't even have been in the post season in 2000.

What is very interesting is that when people want to talk about competitive imbalance, they always point to the Yankees. Well, that's just one team. One juggernaut of a team does not competitive imbalance make. What has been the second most dominant team? Atlanta. Is Atlanta in a large market? No. But Atlanta does have motivated an ownership group that seeks new sources of revenue in order to continue their winning ways. They find ways to maximize revenue, then they spend it right. Other NL teams? The Cardinals live in a metro area actually smaller than the Twin Cities! And yet they are perennial contenders in the NL Central. Some may even call them a large market team!

Other AL teams? Cleveland. Cleveland has been dismantling its team this year, and no doubt soon people will decry Cleveland as a small market. And it is; the population of its metro area is not significantly larger than the Twin Cities metro area. But they maximized revenue, spent it wisely and were a dominant team through the 90s.

In the AL now, Seattle is a dominant team. They've been to the post-season two straight years, and will probably make it a third. But 10 years ago, Seattle (along with Atlanta and Cleveland) would have been candidates for contraction. Now it's very successful. Why? Motivated ownership that tries to maximize revenue and spends it wisely.

All through history it's been the same story. Stretches wherein a particular team is dominant, and stretches wherein a particular team is the doormat of the league. The Yanks never won when they were owned by CBS. And the future is not promised them if Brian Cashman steps down. Minnesota Twins owner Carl Polhad is one of the richest owners in baseball, worth over a billion dollars. He could certainly contend with George when it comes to spending if he wanted to. He doesn't want to. Nevertheless, the Twins will win their division this year. Good management at the scouting and development level.

NBA? Just a series of dynasties. The list of conference champs is dominated by the names Lakers, Celtics, Bulls and Pistons. The Chicago Bulls won six championships in eight years, and no one talked about competitive imbalance there. In fact the game has grown. The Lakers have won the last three in a row, and no one talks about competitive imbalance. They say the game is healthier than ever before.

The NFL is always held up to be an example of competitive balance. Let's ignore for a moment that a season that's one-tenth the length of a baseball season, a single-elimination play-off system that allows nearly half the league into the postseason, and schedule finangling all play a large part in that. If you look at the list of Super Bowl teams since 1988 (just Super Bowl teams, mind you, not all the teams that have made it to the play-offs in that time), you see the same names over and over, and frequently in consecutive order.

Competitive imbalance in baseball is not the problem everyone makes it out to be. Baseball's grievous lack of marketing savvy in the face of competition that knows how to properly market itself is a much bigger problem than competitive balance. People think baseball is more imbalanced because it presents itself that way, while the NFL and NBA create marketing campaigns that gloss over or hide the imbalance that is there, that is, in fact, inherent in any competitive league system.

What is very interesting is that when people want to talk about competitive imbalance, they always point to the Yankees. Well, that's just one team. One juggernaut of a team does not competitive imbalance make.

I don't know; one team winning 25% of the championships over a 100-year span smacks of competitive imbalance to me. With the Giants dominating as they do, would you say NPB is competitively balanced or unbalanced?

What has been the second most dominant team? Atlanta. Is Atlanta in a large market? No. But Atlanta does have motivated an ownership group that seeks new sources of revenue in order to continue their winning ways.

I always through revenue, and not population, was the determining factor for market size. For instance, the Braves are considered a large market team because of their television revenue, and the White Sox are considered a small market team because they play in the Cubs' shadow. I could be wrong, though.

NBA? Just a series of dynasties. The list of conference champs is dominated by the names Lakers, Celtics, Bulls and Pistons. The Chicago Bulls won six championships in eight years, and no one talked about competitive imbalance there. In fact the game has grown. The Lakers have won the last three in a row, and no one talks about competitive imbalance. They say the game is healthier than ever before.

With its smaller roster sizes, basketball is a different animal that lends itself to dynasties. One great player (Michael Jordan, Shaq, etc.) can carry his team night in and night out, seemingly winning games on his own.

If you look at the list of Super Bowl teams since 1988 (just Super Bowl teams, mind you, not all the teams that have made it to the play-offs in that time), you see the same names over and over, and frequently in consecutive order.

Why 1988? The NFL salary cap was implemented in 1994. Since then, only two of the eighteen Super Bowl qualifiers have made the big game in back to back seasons.

We're obviously not going to convince each other. I really don't care which side wins at this point, as long as I get to use my tickets for the day-night double-header at Wrigley Field on August 31.

> What is very interesting is that when people want
> to talk about competitive imbalance, they always
> point to the Yankees. Well, that's just one team. One
> juggernaut of a team does not competitive imbalance
> make.
>
> I don't know; one team winning 25% of the
> championships over a 100-year span smacks of
> competitive imbalance to me. With the Giants
> dominating as they do, would you say NPB is
> competitively balanced or unbalanced?

It is competitively unbalanced as much as any sports league is. But the Giants aren't guaranteed a pennant every year. More teams could win, but I'm not sure many owners want to. I'm reminded of the story in "You Gotta Have Wa", where the owner of the Swallows told his team "It's okay to come in second," because he was afraid of Yakult sales going down for a while if they beat the Giants. It's the same story: unmotivated ownership groups create most of the imbalance. I think everyone here will more or less agree that many Japanese teams are not wisely nor vigorously managed.

> What has been the second most dominant team?
> Atlanta. Is Atlanta in a large market? No. But
> Atlanta does have motivated an ownership group that
> seeks new sources of revenue in order to continue
> their winning ways.
>
> I always through revenue, and not population, was the
> determining factor for market size. For instance, the
> Braves are considered a large market team because of
> their television revenue, and the White Sox are
> considered a small market team because they play in
> the Cubs' shadow. I could be wrong, though.

The Braves are a large revenue team, but they operate in a small market. The Braves' TV contract is below the league average, just like the Cubs contract with WGN. They do this for tax purposes. This is a key point: the Braves aren't in a good situation because they get a big local contract, because they are paying themselves to broadcast the games. What Atlanta has been effectively doing is building a large fan base, and using that increase revenues.

Terms like "small market" and "large market" get thrown around without people really realizing what they mean. Market size is less important than revenue streams. St. Louis is not in a major media market, nor in a large city, yet it's considered a large market. Why? Because they work to generate revenue. The Cardinals vigorously promote themselves, so they have a large fan base. This helps them bring in money.

There's no reason for the White Sox to be unable to generate revenue because of the Cubs just as the Mets don't have trouble generating revenue because of the Yankees. The problem with the Sox has been, again, bad management. Did you know the White Sox's contract with WGN is actually larger than the Cubs' is? But of course, by dealing with WGN, the Sox give up some of their marketing potential, since it's unlikely that WGN is going to promote the Sox more than the Cubs.

Check out this article. Not only does it suggest a good plan on revenue sharing, but it also delves into the nature of markets. According to the market research done by Mike Jones (there's a link in the article), the following contending teams are all small markets: Minnesota, Cincinnati, Arizona, Oakland, and St. Louis.

> NBA? Just a series of dynasties. The list of
> conference champs is dominated by the names Lakers,
> Celtics, Bulls and Pistons. The Chicago Bulls won six
> championships in eight years, and no one talked about
> competitive imbalance there. In fact the game has
> grown. The Lakers have won the last three in a row,
> and no one talks about competitive imbalance. They
> say the game is healthier than ever before.
>
> With its smaller roster sizes, basketball is a
> different animal that lends itself to dynasties. One
> great player (Michael Jordan, Shaq, etc.) can carry
> his team night in and night out, seemingly winning
> games on his own.

My point is, no one is crying out how basketball is in trouble because it doesn't have competitive balance. Yet no one thinks baseball has competitive balance, even though it is far more balanced than basketball. The reason is, basketball doesn't mention its imbalance. It markets itself well. Baseball exaggerates the perception of its imbalance. It does not market itself well.

> If you look at the list of Super Bowl teams since
> 1988 (just Super Bowl teams, mind you, not all the
> teams that have made it to the play-offs in that
> time), you see the same names over and over, and
> frequently in consecutive order.
>
> Why 1988?

Sample size.

> The NFL salary cap was implemented in 1994.
> Since then, only two of the eighteen Super Bowl
> qualifiers have made the big game in back to back
> seasons.

Why back-to-back? Because football uses a single-elimination system, teams can make the playoffs repeatedly, but not make it to the Super Bowl because of luck, rather than true competitive balance. The Rams, for example, made it to the playoffs in 1999, 2000, and 2001. They won the Super Bowl in 99, lost in the playoffs in 2000, and lost the Super Bowl in 01. But they easily made it to the playoffs every year, and look to do so again. This is competitive balance? I'll be the first to admit that the NFL has good turnover for its Champions, but that's because it has an extremely short season, and allows almost 40% of the league into its single elimination playoff system, rather than because of salary restraint.

> We're obviously not going to convince each other. I
> really don't care which side wins at this point, as
> long as I get to use my tickets for the day-night
> double-header at Wrigley Field on August 31.

I most certainly hope that you are able to do so. This Thursday I'll be flying out to Boston and meeting a bunch of fellow baseball fans. We'll be taking in a game at Fenway. We were terrified of the thought of an August 16 strike date. For what it's worth, I believe that they will more than likely come to a deal before the 30th. And I hope the Cubs take both games! Personally, I love Wrigley Field when the Cubs win, but hate Wrigley Field when the Cubs lose...

This Thursday I'll be flying out to Boston and meeting a bunch of fellow baseball fans. We'll be taking in a game at Fenway.

Have a great time in Boston. I made the Fenway Park pilgrimage back in 1999. If you've never been to the House that Ruth Broke, you won't be disappointed.

I hope the Cubs take both games!

That'd be sweet. The Redbirds will be in town.

Personally, I love Wrigley Field when the Cubs win, but hate Wrigley Field when the Cubs lose...

You must hate the ballpark a lot, then. I have part-time season tickets (nights, weekends and holidays). I usually make 40 or so games a season and the one thing I don't get tired of is the ballpark. The Cubs' hitting, fielding and bullpen pitching on the other hand... But there's no place I'd rather be to watch a baseball game.

CFiJ-san, Thanks for your reply. Your article by SABR was informative, but I'm still not convinced because the study by the so-called "blue ribbon panel" which consists of baseball outsiders like George Will and Sen. George Mitchell was the basis of the owner's current proposal to MLBPU. I think it is very easy to say that the smaller market team should manage to win, but the fact is that it is so painful to see players like Giambi, Jeff Weaver, Mondesi leaving Oakland for NY because they are the only team who can pay them. Oakland was on the verge of becoming a great team which can compete with the Yankees but why do they have to lose their main man? How can a team like Kansas City compete with a team with 130+ million dollar payroll? CFiJ-san, tell me about your idea of how to fix baseball. Do you have any good suggestions? I hope that you are not 100% on the player's side.

I do not trust the blue ribbon panel at all. That was a study commissioned by the MLB owners, and surprise, surprise George Mitchell is now part owner of the Red Sox. The work done by Doug Pappas and Baseball Prospectus is much more objective and reliable. Back in the eighties, MLB said they were losing money. They completely opened their books, which were then audited by Roger Noll, an independent economist. Noll found that MLB hid its money using a whole assortment of accounting tricks. Paul Beeston, a former Blue Jays VP of Business Operation, and later No. 2 man in MLB's front office once said, "Under generally accepted accounting principles, I can turn a $4 million profit into a $2 million loss, and I can get every national accounting firm to agree with me." So I don't believe it when owners say they don't have enough money.

Am I 100% for the players? I suppose you could say that. I don't believe the system is perfect, but I don't think it's broken either. I don't believe that there should be any kind of salary restraint because salary restraint won't provide any kind of competitive balance. It's a red herring. Owners want salary restraint so they can raise their profits. I believe in the free market. I believe baseball players, just like the rest of us, have the right to earn as much as the market will pay them for their services.

If I could change something about baseball, this is what I would do: first, I'd free all the players. Right now the players are under reserve for six years (9-10 years in NPB), and then they become free agents. That kind of system maximizes salaries. I don't think there should be a system that artificially suppresses salaries, nor do I think there should be a system that artificially raises salaries. A free market means a free market. It's very funny. The players would not like such a move because it would quickly lower salaries. But the owners never try it. I'm pretty confident they could win in court if the players protested. But the owners don't really want a free market; they want to depress salaries as much as they can for their own selfish gain. Anyway, next, I would outlaw trades. Trades are a relic of the old reserve system, when players had no rights. The idea of trades is silly, it's an inherent conflict of interest. Teams in competition with each other shouldn't be swapping players. For revenue sharing, I'd use this system. I would put another team in New York. That would bring some of the Yankees and Mets revenues' back to the pack without adversely affecting salaries. Then I would spend some of the billions MLB is getting from their national TV contracts and really promote the sport, like the NFL does and like the NBA does.

Seiyu, are you aware that as of tonight, Oakland is in a three-way tie for first in the AL West? How can Kansas City compete with a team with 130+ million dollar payroll? The same way the Athletics and the Minnesota Twins are. Kansas City right now is the poster child for bad management.

Fixing NPB seems a bit tougher, mainly because of the lack of regional ties to a team. First, I'd do away with gyaku-shimei, of course. I would probably use a version of the above revenue sharing plan. I'd free all the players. I'd say either no gaijin quotas or no gaijin period. Let's not do things halfway. If NPB wants to improve as a whole in terms of level of play, then no quotas. If all the Japanese people just want to see Japanese players, then no gaijin players. The current system only encourages team to throw good money after bad with the constant gaijin merry-go-round, and only the very rich Giants benefit from that. I think one thing that would have to be done is to make deals with a number of different network and satellite TV stations so that fans of a team can watch their favorite team. It's inexcusable that most of Japan didn't really get to see Ichiro play until he went to the Majors.

Fellows, what do you think? Any opinion?

Marty Kuehnert of the Japan Times has one. The article can be found here.

A point about the Soriano case...

"Slave" labor is a huge overstatement. Soriano never hit well with the Carp, and they offered him $40,000 a year, most likely with a housing subsidy (although I'm not 100% sure about that). You'll have to excuse me if I'm less than sympathetic. I was paid $26,000 a year in 1998 as an English teacher at an eikaiwa school. (That's before taxes, at a $1 = 115 yen exchange rate. That's being conservative, since the yen was at 120 yen to the dollar when I arrived, and climbed to 140 yen to the dollar during that year.) But you know what? I lived fine. I certainly didn't want for food, or clothing, or money to have fun with. And it's not like Soriano lived in Tokyo.

And so, from my perspective, $180,000 a year was an extremely generous offer. I would have loved to have made a third of that amount while I lived in Japan. Furthermore, why use foreign players' average as the standard? It would seem to me that Soriano had more in common with the young high school players the Carp had signed. How much were they making? What had Soriano done in Japanese baseball to deserve a six-figure salary?

From what I've read and heard, Soriano did not make the transition to a different culture very easily, and in that I can't blame him. It's not easy. And if he wanted to leave because he didn't like living in Japan, that's fine. But I'm not convinced that he was treated unfairly, and it seems to me more like Don Nomura saw another opportunity to make money bringing a Japanese league player to the Majors, where the signing bonuses are plenty and rich.

Boy, that was stupid. This is why you shouldn't make posts late, late at night.

Of course, the Carp didn't offer Soriano $180,000. I was suffering some kind of brain cramp when I wrote that.

Still, $40,000 a year was pretty good for a 18-19 year old kid who only hit .118 in 9 games.

Still, $40,000 a year was pretty good for a 18-19 year old kid who only hit .118 in 9 games.

Not in hindsight. Potential is the name of the game in young ballplayers and the Carp should've recognized what they had. $180,000 for Soriano's services would've been the steal of the century. And if the Carp knew what they had but were too cheap to pony up another $120,000 for it; well, then they got what they deserved -- nothing.

Can you imagine the numbers Soriano would've put up in Hiroshima Municipal Stadium?

> Still, $40,000 a year was pretty good for a 18-19
> year old kid who only hit .118 in 9 games.
>
> Not in hindsight. Potential is the name of the game
> in young ballplayers and the Carp should've
> recognized what they had. $180,000 for Soriano's
> services would've been the steal of the century. And
> if the Carp knew what they had but were too cheap to
> pony up another $120,000 for it; well, then they got
> what they deserved -- nothing.
>
> Can you imagine the numbers Soriano would've put up
> in Hiroshima Municipal Stadium?

Well, it doesn't seem like Soriano was happy in Japan, and if he wasn't happy, I'm not sure he would have eventually performed as he has in MLB. But I will not argue that losing Soriano doesn't look bad for the Carp. My only problem, really, is with Nomura's statement of the situation. Hiroshima gave Soriano more than enough to live on, and I'm sure they would have been happy to pay more if he had performed better on the parent team, or really took the minor league by storm. What's amazing is that Nomura doesn't mention that the Carp were paying Soriano much more than what an 18-19 year old player in rookie ball and A-ball is making in the American minor leagues.

All in all, I have doubts that Nomura really gave Hiroshima much consideration. I believe it's more likely he aimed to get Soriano into the Majors from the get-go. Hiroshima may have made a huge mistake in terms of player potential, but it doesn't seem to me that they treated Soriano unfairly at all, and certainly claims of "slave labor" are outrageous.

Japan just can't keep its baseball stars -- Part II
[Soriano] has a God-given, perfect baseball body. He was hitting balls into the street in batting practice. The figure they wanted to sign him was a little rich for us, and he eventually got double. I wish we had signed him. -- Dave Wilder, Cubs farm director at the time

Me too, Dave, me too.

I used to live in a gaijin house outside of Tokyo during the late 90's and we would always get The Japan Times. I was fortunate to watch a few Baystars & Swallows games during my days off from work.

The Japan Times sports writers, at least to me, seem to be overly critical of Japanese baseball; writing editorials & opinion columns filled with distain such as "Why Japanese Baseball Is Mickey Mouse" or "Ishii-mania is No Fernado-mania." Unfortunately, The Japan Times website does not have an "archive section" which I would research and site these exact articles online.

Regardless, those Japan Times articles left a very bitter lasting impression on me just like "Japan baseball so lame even imports leave" by Marty Kuehnert with his "the grass is greener on the other side (MLB)" mentality.

If I were a baseball fan in America having no prior knowledge of Japanese baseball and read Kuehnert's editorials, I would indeed think that Japanese baseball was inferior and thus perpetuating that misconception.

Personally, I think billion dollar owners vs. multi-million dollar players resulting in strikes and leaving local businesses so depended on baseball games without a source of income is far more detrimental than not keeping a star player for X-plus amt of yrs / giving "slave wages" to a top foreign prospect.

The MLB work stopages has "trickle down effect" and impacts everyone who's financially tied to baseball... from the local sports bars, souvenir/food venders and the stadium employees to ESPN Baseball Tonight commentators and the TV networks broadcasting baseball games including playoffs & World Series.

If I were a baseball fan in America having no prior knowledge of Japanese baseball and read Kuehnert's editorials, I would indeed think that Japanese baseball was inferior and thus perpetuat[e] that misconception.

I don't think Japanese baseball is inferior. I posted Kuehnert's articles because they seemed relevant to this thread, and not to "perpetuate a misconception."

Oh I know you dont think Japanese Baseball is inferior 1908. I was speaking in a Hypothetical sense

- The Japan Times sports writers, at least to me, seem to be overly critical of Japanese baseball

The Japan Times sports writers tend to talk too much about nothing in particular. I must confess, I've only read it on occasion quite a number of years ago, but all I ever saw were articles about having lunch with some former gaijin player, or the changing of staff on Fuji Telebi's Pro Yakyu News. I wanted to know scores, what happened in the games the night before, but there was no such information. (If they had scores, it was for two nights before.)

Now, I know it's not totally their fault. The Japan Times and other English language Japanese papers have to run through the same printing press as the main Japanese papers. That generally means an earlier printing - generally before games end for the day. So a staff of writers who report on what happens on the field will never get anything timely out. Since they can't be timely, they don't even bother with the kinds of stories I'd pick up the newspaper for.

There's another thing that the mainstream press has going against them: They have to sell newspapers. That means that they have to write about something that is going to catch peoples' interest. Reporting on games played two nights before isn't going to do that. Heart warming stories about old retired players or "overly critical" stories about Japanese baseball will cause contraversy. Contraversy gets people to write in. Letters tell the upper management that there are warm bodies out there reading a particular writer. It doesn't matter if the letters agree or disagree, just so long as there's life out there.

Look at this forum. Some topics like this one get a lot of reader response. Those in the News section don't. Does that make the "news" any less valuable? To me it doesn't. I get paid the same with no hits as I do with 1,000. (That is, zero.) That makes me free to write about the aspects of the game that interest me, and others write about what interests them (like rumors about who will cross over to the Majors).

The few times I've dealt with members of the English press in Japan, I was condenscended upon with an attitude of, "who do you think you are, writing about Japanese baseball?" It's this attitude which is alienating the press from their readers. It's the types of articles you mention that is the reason I won't buy an English newspaper in Japan.

Personally, I think billion dollar owners vs. multi-million dollar players resulting in strikes and leaving local businesses so depended on baseball games without a source of income is far more detrimental than not keeping a star player for X-plus amt of yrs / giving "slave wages" to a top foreign prospect.

Looks like this argument is moot. For the first time in baseball's labor history, there will be no work stoppage and the games will go on.

Marty Kuehnert asks:
Yes, yes, I know MLB figures are outrageous, but on the other hand, how could the Carp and Japanese baseball not see the diamond they had in hand?

Um, Marty, because he hit like crap in Japan?

You know, the more I read of him, the more I dislike Marty Kuehnert's articles...

Very true CFiJ,

I disliked Marty Kuehnert's articles from the beginning.

I mean hindsight IS 20/20 even in the world of baseball. It's like Kuehnert expected the Hiroshima Carp (Japanese Baseball in general) to be like Notradamus when it comes to the next player to breakout in baseball.