This Week in (Dumb) Baseball: Let’s stop crying about salaries – CBSSports.com

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Though we’re here for the MLB Winter Meetings, it’s also a Monday, which means our regularly scheduled programming of This Week in (Dumb) Baseball will not be interrupted.

Let’s get to it.

For all This Week in (Dumb) Baseball columns, click here.

1. Misguided salary talk

Major League Baseball is flush with cash and doesn’t have a salary cap. This means that players in free agency these days are getting paid astronomical salaries. With that comes complaining about players being “overpaid” with every single signing. Just this past week I saw variations of players being “mercenaries” and salaries being “out of control.”

Expect this to continue here at the Winter Meetings this week.

It’s times like these that we are in desperate need of perspective.

On Friday, Maury Brown released his annual report on Forbes of MLB’s revenues and you have to keep these numbers in mind when it comes to player salaries.

Per the report, MLB’s revenue in 2015 increased for the 13th straight season and approached $9.5 billion. Apparel sales were more than $3 billion and attendance was the seventh best in history.

The TV deals are what’s driving the ship, though, with many teams signing deals worth hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars.

Further, Forbes reported back in March that if MLB was publicly traded it would be worth $36 billion.

If you think salaries are inflating at a staggering pace, you’re right. In the past 12 years, they’ve gone up by 60 percent. That’s enormous. Of course, team revenues have increased by 120 percent in that time (via Marketplace). If anything, the player salaries haven’t kept up with the massive growth of team revenues.

And yet we kick and scream about player salaries and call Zack Greinke “greedy” for daring to accept what a billion-dollar industry offers him.

This is very dumb.

What is it about sports that does this to us? People flocking to the movies don’t simultaneously scream about how awful it is that the actors make so much money, just as they don’t yell at the musicians while en route to concerts.

Is it jealousy? Like maybe we feel like we weren’t that far away from being a baseball player, and since we didn’t make it, it sucks to see those guys making so much more money than we could ever dream?

I suspect that’s part of it. Though jealousy is an ugly emotion, it’s hard to not think about manning the outfield for millions of dollars a year. Man, what a dream.

Past that, though, I think it’s just a misunderstanding of the economic situation.

The teams have more than enough money to spend massively on these players, otherwise they wouldn’t do it. If they don’t spend, the owners keep it. Is that what we want? Lining the pockets of the owners while the actual on-field talent doesn’t get its piece of the pie?

Keep in mind, this isn’t an ordinary business. The players are the talent. They are the ones bringing record crowds and drawing the ratings that drive the ridiculous TV contracts. On merit, they deserve more than what they are getting right now. So why are they greedy while the owners get a pass?

On the “mercenary” front, it’s pretty maddening. A player is a free agent and has every right to do what he wants. Unless you’ve turned down a massive pay cut to stay with a company instead of leaving for a better offer, please don’t be a hypocrite and claim players should “stay loyal” when teams would dump them the second they stopped performing well. It’s a two-way street here, this “loyalty” game. To treat it otherwise is contradictory.

Inevitably, we’ll hear something about ticket prices, but that is, again, a fundamental misunderstanding of the economics. Teams can’t just jack up ticket prices in order to pay for players, because fans might not pay it. Ticket prices are set based upon demand. If the demand goes down, prices go down. If it goes up, prices go up. That’s how things are priced, not based upon how much owners decide to pay the players.

Talking about how games are too expensive for average families to regularly attend is the next topic and while finding great bargains in every stadium is a different topic for a different day, this is simply a reality of capitalism. Not everyone gets to drive an expensive car or sit in first class or sit front row at a concert. Attending sporting events live isn’t a right, it’s a luxury. Teams aren’t required to cater to fans when setting the price point, as they are running a business.

And it’s a business driven by the other-worldly talent possessed by players. They are remunerated as such. Let’s stop crying about it.

1a. Shut up, anonymous complainers

Hearing lots of consternation from other clubs about the Greinke deal. Sources say the Dbacks got almost $80M in revenue sharing last 3 yrs

— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) December 5, 2015

This is precisely what revenue sharing is for. Teams are supposed to use it to put back into the on-field product. If they pocketed the money, then there would be a problem.

In fact, I remember stories complaining about the Marlins not spending their revenue sharing on players from a few years ago. So what it is, baseball execs? Are they supposed to spend it on the product or just pocket it and not invest in the product the fans pay to see? Get your story straight.

2. Oops, Blue Jays calendar …

@BlueJays 2016 calendar on sale for holidays. “Priced” to go?? pic.twitter.com/eV3gv1EVYf

— Tom Harrington (@cbctom) December 3, 2015

Very curious decision there. David Price was a free agent while incumbent stars Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion were already locked up. Oh, and there’s this guy named Josh Donaldson who won MVP. Those are three very good options for the cover, eh?

And now, let us wash away the dumb with fun!

Baseball card of the week

It’s Johnny Bench’s birthday, so let’s go with this beauty:

Leaderboard of the week

We’ll stick with Bench, who was enshrined into the Hall of Fame on his first try at 96.42 percent of the vote. Here are the players who had a higher percentage:

1. Tom Seaver, 98.84
2. Nolan Ryan, 98.79
3. Cal Ripken, 98.53
4. Ty Cobb, 98.23
5. George Brett, 98.19
6. Hank Aaron, 97.83
7. Tony Gwynn, 97.61
8. Randy Johnson, 97.27
9. Greg Maddux, 97.20
10. Mike Schmidt, 96.52

Might Ken Griffey Jr. break that crowd this season? I’ll guess no, but that he does get north of 95 percent.

Throwback photo of the week

This is pretty great.

Throwback to October 13, 1960: fans atop the Cathedral of Learning cheering on the @Pirates in the World Series pic.twitter.com/X8LaFqGfgL

— Katelyn Allison (@katelynfallison) October 13, 2015

On that note, let’s get outta here and enjoy some Hot Stove. Have a good one, friends.

Suggestions (dumb stuff, random videos, baseball cards, pop culture rankings topics, etc.) or hate mail? Feel free to hit me up: matt.snyder@cbs.com or you could always go to Twitter (@MattSnyderCBS).