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Forbes: Yanks worth $1.85 billion
Posted by: | CommentsWith Opening Day just a few weeks away, Forbes released its annual MLB valuations today, and once again, the Yankees are the game’s top dogs. According to the business mag, the Yanks are worth a cool $1.85 billion, up nine percent over 2011. Interestingly enough, Forbes guesses that the club itself turns a profit of only around $10 million a year with the money generated through live TV programming. In other words, the dollars are in the TV rights.
“The Rolls-Royce of the RSN model is the New York Yankees, who own 34% of the YES Network,” Mike Ozanian wrote. “The Bronx Bombers are the most valuable team in baseball, worth $1.85 billion, tying them with the National Football League’s Dallas Cowboys for the top spot among American sports teams and placing them second in the world to Manchester United, the English soccer team worth $1.9 billion. YES generated a staggering $224 million in operating income and paid the Yankees a $90 million rights fee in 2011.”
For what it’s worth, only two teams — the Mets and Rays — saw their values decline from 2011 as legal woes for the former and attendance woes for the latter were the main drivers there. Meanwhile, it’s somewhat incongruous to hear how the Yanks are eying “austerity” budgets of only $189 million for 2014 and 2015, but that’s how baseball economics work these days. The Dodgers, currently undergoing a sale and with their TV rights up for renewal, will set the market, but if the Steinbrenner family ever wanted to sell, they could command a pretty penny for the crown jewel of Major League Baseball.
Damon: It wasn’t about the money, but Yanks said no anyway
Posted by: | CommentsAs the Yanks’ off-season unfolded and their DH platoon needs came into view, Johnny Damon‘s name surfaced amongst the Yankee rumors. Damon, a free agent whose numbers likely suffered in the Trop last year, is shy of 3000 hits and still unemployed. I wasn’t too keen on his return to the Bronx and made a rather flimsy case for him. By the time I warmed to the thought of a Damon reunion, the Yanks had locked up Raul Ibañez.
On Tuesday, Damon, still unemployed and hoping for any job offer, took to the airwaves. On SiriusXM, he spoke with Casey Stern and Jim Bowden, and of course, the conversation came around to the Yanks. What happened with the Bombers, Stern asked.
“The only conversation was me reaching out to them because obviously at this point in my career, I would like to have some say on who I can and can’t play for it,” Damon said. “I just wanted to make sure Cashman knew it wasn’t about the money. Pay me whatever, and I’ll try to help you win a championship.”
According to Damon, Cashman basically said thanks, but no thanks. The Yanks’ GM told the free agent that he and his scouts believed Ibañez would be a better option in the outfield because Raul had the chance to play the field for a few years. Damon defended his defense, saying he didn’t have a spot patrolling the Tampa Bay turf because the rest of the Rays’ outfielders were among the best in the league. “I like to think that my legs are a bit fresher,” he said. His arm, of course, is another matter.
Furthermore, Damon claimed that since he hits left-handed pitching so well and the Yanks already have Andruw Jones, he wasn’t a great fit. Cashman, he says, didn’t want to take at-bats away from Jones. “They brought in Andruw Jones to hit left-handed pitching and I actually do that more than right-handed pitching,” he said. Last year, Damon hit southpaws better than he did righties, but historically, he has been a better offensive threat against right-handers.
I’m not sure if we should make much of this at all. It sounds to me as though the Yanks’ reasons for pursuing Ibañez over Damon were a bit flimsy. The club isn’t really expecting Ibañez to be more than fifth outfielder on the depth charts. Maybe he’ll hit; maybe, playing his age 40 season, he won’t. He’s 2 for 21 during Spring Training, but no one on the Yanks is doing much hitting so far.
In an ideal world, perhaps the Yanks would have Ibañez and Damon in camp together competing for one job. If Damon’s words are true, he may have been willing to do that. For now, though, that ship has sailed. Damon appears to be lobbying Detroit for a job, and the Yanks will cobble together a few hundred left-handed plate appearances from Ibañez and others. Damon’s was the reunion never meant to be.
Dynamic ticket pricing inching into the baseball market
Posted by: | CommentsThe concept of “face value” for a ticket to a baseball game is often an amorphous one. In our case, the Yankees price out their seats and sell tickets as part of a variety of packages at different place levels. Face value for one seat could be different for the face value of a seat in the same row or section by virtue of the associated season ticket package. By and large, though, face value as set by the Yanks is fairly constant.
Of course, as many fans recognize, face value isn’t the true value of the ticket. Baseball tickets are a finite resource, and only so many exist per game. If the tickets are priced at the right level and the team is good enough, the game will effectively sell out, and then the secondary market takes over. On the secondary market, people who buy tickets with an eye toward making a profit or those who can’t make it to the game are trying to find the true value of their seats.
Over the past few years, it’s been possible to buy many Yankee tickets at or even below face value on the secondary market. Demand isn’t high enough for all but the most sought-after games to warrant a high price, and discerning shoppers know that market value for a mid-week game against, say, the Royals or Orioles isn’t the same as a weekend affair against the Red Sox or Mets. Essentially, those of us who rely on the secondary market to feed our baseball needs have lived with dynamic pricing for years.
Despite innovation on the field, baseball teams have been slow to pick up on this dynamic pricing model. Some teams sell so-called premium games against good teams while others are content to price everything at the same level. That’s beginning to change though. As Kyle Stock wrote in The Daily this weekend, some baseball teams are set to embrace dynamic ticketing. The Brewers, for instance, will change prices on seats if it looks like Zack Greinke will face the Royals while the games in which he doesn’t pitch will see lower prices.
Stock reports on the way dynamic pricing came into being for baseball clubs:
In this case, the guy bucking the system was not a washed-up pro, but rather a 26-year-old fan finishing a Ph.D in economics at the University of Texas. In early 2009, Barry Kahn sneaked into a sports ticketing conference in Las Vegas. Armed with chutzpah and hand-cut business cards, he persuaded the San Francisco Giants to try dynamic pricing in about 2,000 of its worst bleacher seats.
“Basically, we saw that there was a huge price inefficiency here,” Kahn said. “Everyone was saying ‘StubHub is making all this money. How do I get a piece of that?’ My message was: ‘It’s your inventory. You have the ability to get the whole thing.’ ”
By the end of the 2009 season, San Francisco had a 20 percent attendance increase in its test seats and an extra $500,000 in ticket revenue. Three seasons later, Kahn is CEO of Qcue Inc., a profitable Texas-based company that will help 15 baseball teams set their prices this year.
As Stock notes, teams were hesitant to embrace this idea over fears of turning off fans. Some view it as institutional price gouging without realizing that it’s a lesson in Economics 101. Others are more willing to embrace it as it offers up a cheaper way to see more games at the expense of higher prices for the more generally desirable contests.
Here in New York, the Yankees haven’t yet embraced dynamic pricing. It may be slow in coming as the club would have to admit that their pricing models at the expensive new stadium haven’t been as rousing a success as they should have been. But they’ll get here. It’s unavoidable, and it’s a way for the team to tap into more revenue streams. After all, a cheaper ticket could lead to more people would should lead to more concession stands. The money somehow trickles up and into the Yanks’ pocket. For now, though, it’s the next great innovation in the business of baseball and one that should have made its debut years ago.
Link: Remembering the Yankees when they were bad
Posted by: | CommentsAs Yankee fans in the early 21st Century, we have it good. Anyone who grew up in the 1980s barely remembers the team when they were bad, and fans who came of age during the last 17 seasons know only the good. In fact, most Yankee fans alive today know only the good. In the team’s history there are only three distinct periods of bad: the Don Mattingly years, the New York Highlander years and that time from the end of the Mick’s playing days until 1976.
That second era of bad Yankee years started in around 1965 when my dad was a teenager. After losing the 1964 World Series, the Yanks finished 6th, 10th, 9th, 5th and 5th again, and they lost Mickey Mantle, a generation-defining great. For those who came of age, then, during that late 1960s/early 1970s period, this Dan Barry piece in The Times should ring true. He came of age during one of those rare moments in Yankee history when the team bad. When he was 8, the Yanks finished in last place; when I was 7 the 1990 Yankees accomplished the same feat.
Today, we forgot those eras when another team ruled New York. In the early 20th Century, the Giants captured the town while the 1969 Mets and 1986 Mets were the feel-good stories those years. Today and for most of the past two decades, it’s always been about the Yanks. Maybe one day, they’ll be a so-called second division team, but it’s tough to say when. They just keeping winning, and those of us who remember the mid-1960s or early 1990s think of those seasons, rightly so, as blips on the long-running Yankee radar of greatness.
2012 promotional dates include BBQ apron, Snoopy bobblehead
Posted by: | CommentsThe Yanks unveiled their preliminary promotional schedule today, and some new items join familiar giveaways in 2012. As always, the season starts with the popular calendar weekend (4/14-4/15). The following week, with the Twins in town, the Yanks will hand out tomato seed packets to the first 18,000 guests (4/18). The folks who come the day after get far more useful magnetic schedules.
In May, the Reds will enjoy the ever-popular cap and bat days (5/19, 5/20) while water bottle night (6/18) and a collectible pin day (6/20) are the highlights for June. The Yanks will host their traditional Old Timers’ Day on July 1 before they take on the White Sox that Sunday, and the first 18,000 fans on the 18th get a Mark Teixeira figurine.
The August dates are still to be announced, but September ushers in my personal favorite. The first 18,000 fans who attend the September 2 affair against the Orioles will receive a Yankees’ BBQ Apron, and those who make it to the game on the 19th can score a Snoopy Bobblehead doll. Who wouldn’t want a Yankee Snoopy? For the full slate of giveaways, check out the updated calendar.
The players we love to hate
Posted by: | CommentsThe New York/Boston rivalry lost a familiar face on Tuesday when Jason Varitek and his scarlet C announced his retirement. Varitek had been all but pushed out by Boston and couldn’t find or imagine finding another job with another club anywhere else. And so he’ll join the long list of players who have left the game but served as familiar faces during the halcyon days of the great Yankee/Red Sox games.
Varitek, before I get too nostalgic for a player I could barely stand to watch, was one of those guys who seemingly defined the great rivalry years from the mid 2000s. He was the player Yankee fans loved to hate, and hate him we did. Ironically, his defining moment came when he went after a Yankee whom Yankee fans love to hate. After an ill-timed beanball, Varitek and A-Rod started shoving each other in a 2004 fight. Varitek kept his mask on, and the rest, they say, was history. Yankee fans could never speak of the Sox’s catcher again without referencing his fight.
Of course, Varitek’s place in this dispute was more than just about that fight. He was supposedly the Red Sox’s answer to Jorge Posada, but the comparison never was a good one. Perhaps his pitchers liked him more, but Varitek’s bat paled in comparison to Jorge’s, and despite some unfortunately memorable home runs, Varitek’s offensive career against the Yankees was subpar. In 172 games, he hit .226/.308/.388 with just an 80 tOPS. In 2005, he battered around a bruised Yankee staff, but during most years, he didn’t do much hitting.
Yet, he was always there, a reminder of what exactly for Yankee fans? A team that would fight with its masks on? An undeservedly smug attitude? Something dirty about Boston that Yankee fans hated? Whatever it was, Jason Varitek seemed to embody that ethos, that thing that we couldn’t stand.
These days, Yankees/Red Sox games are rote affairs. We must go through the overly dramatic production of a FOX game or an ESPN special. We’re forced to pretend to be outraged when the new Red Sox manager says something strange about a thing that happened 11 years ago. We try to get worked up as though beating one team during a regular season contest is about glory, life, baseball. Plus, there are only a few guys worth even somewhat despising on the Red Sox of 2012.
So today, perhaps we lost a part of a history we can’t decide if we want to forget or remember. Varitek was around in 2003 when the Yanks dashed the Red Sox’s hopes, and Varitek was front and center when the Red Sox stormed back for an historic victory in 2004. Then he hung around for years as the Yanks and Red Sox squared off now and then in a series of sometimes-tense and sometimes-tedious regular season series. Now, with his mask still on, he’s joined the long list of players who had a starring role in during the heyday of the rivalry. I don’t think I’ll be missing him too much, but I may begrudgingly tip my cap to him on the eve of his retirement from the game we all love.
Scenes from Photo Day
Posted by: | CommentsAs you may have gathered from Mike’s camp notes, Monday was the long-awaited Photo Day down in Tampa. For a few hours, the Yankees posed in what apparently was the clubhouse bathroom at GMS Field as they tried their hardest to look serious. (A-Rod always fails.) As the photos hit the wire, I got a kick out of some of the poses.
Apparently, the photographers went for the faux-artsy look today as they snapped some shots via Instagram. We have hipster Joe Girardi, hipster Hiroki and the ever-intense hipster Frankie. Andy Pettitte showed up too, looking a few years older than when we last saw him.
With the filter off, Rafael Soriano looked as smiley as ever and so did Nick Swisher. He’s always just happy to be there. Voldemort apparently joined the team as one half of the club’s DH platoon, and Mo was beaming.
As always, we could probably run a full slide show of A-Rod making funny faces, but Michael Pineda might put an end to it. Derek looked a lot like Derek, but my favorite one of all was Eduardo Nunez. Enjoy.
Mariano’s last waltz
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Mariano winds up to throw one of the final pitches at old Yankee Stadium. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)
Once upon a time, there was a pitcher named Mariano. He was no ordinary pitcher, you see. Every night, when the Yankees had the lead, he and his cutter would arrive to the famous guitar strains of a famous song and save the day. In and out, the cutter would dart and dash as another Yankee game would end in favor of the good guys.
The pitcher named Mariano arrived one day in 1995, and no one quite knew what to make of him. He began his baseball journey as a starting pitcher and as a top prospect, was nearly traded a few times before he developed the ability to throw in the upper 90s. Flashing glimpses of brilliance during the Yanks’ first playoff run in a baseball generation, Mariano came of age in the 1995 ALDS as he threw some key innings under some tight pressure.
The next year, that pitcher named Mariano matured into his own. He was the game’s best setup man, and a year later, he became the Yanks’ closer. Despite a home run by Sandy Alomar in 1997, the pitcher named Mariano has held down that role since the days before AOL. He has outlasted closers around baseball, racking up more saves than anyone in baseball history and five World Series rings. With that illustrious résumé, we forgive him some games in 2001 and 2004 because even the best are sometimes mortal.
Over the years, Pinstriped personalities have come and gone. He played with Don Mattingly, with David Cone and Paul O’Neill, with Bernie and Tino and Giambi. He saved more games for Andy Pettitte than any other tandem in baseball history, and for his latest trick, he even outlasted A.J. Burnett in the Bronx.
But now it sounds as though the end is 162 regular season games and, hopefully, a playoff run away. While speaking with reporters in Tampa on Monday, Mariano waxed poetically about his career. This is his golden season — number 42 is 42 years old — and the end may be near. “I know now,” he said. “I just don’t want to tell you. I know now. I will let you guys know when I think I should tell you.”
He spoke about life this winter when vocal surgery had the Yanks’ closer and all of his fans worried about the C word. “It scared me,” he said of his surgery. “I thought it could be cancer. I was relieved when everything came back negative. But it tells you how quick everything could be gone.”
He spoke of the finality of his own personal decision. “Even if I save 90 games. Even if they want to pay as much money as they want to, any team. I know what I’m going to do,” he said as Jack Curry’s own reporting suggested retirement.
The pitcher named Mariano, a religious man devoted to his family, could pack it in soon. Yankee fans around the globe could watch an icon step away from the game when he’s still good enough to get out the toughest hitters. We could watch the teflon closer call it a career. We could watch the pitcher named Mariano, a favorite to generations of Yankee fans who have never seen anything quite like him or his prized cutter, take that final curtain call.
If the 2012 baseball season were a movie of Mariano’s life, it would fade to black with only one ending. The skinny balding guy with his cool and calm demeanor would fire one more strike past one more batter to record the final out of the World Series. It’s baseball’s equivalent of Hollywood’s ride into the sunset. But in baseball as in life, there are no guarantees of an easy championship, and so if this is indeed Mariano’s last season, we’ll treasure that pitch. One day, we’ll tell our grandchildren of how we grew up watching that pitcher named Mariano, and it was always a real treat.
Johnny Damon and the shadow of 3000
Posted by: | CommentsAs the Hot Stove League draws to a close and the Grapefruit League looms, the Yanks in a holding pattern of sorts. They haven’t yet traded A.J. Burnett, and they haven’t yet filled the left-handed part of their DH platoon. While Raul Ibanez‘s name has come up a few times and Vlad is a potential option, Johnny Damon seems to hover around these happenings.
In some combination or another, Damon either wants to rejoin the Yanks or the Yanks are interested in him. Either way, I made a lukewarm case for him back in January. As a left facing righties while playing his home games in Yankee Stadium, Damon could still show some pop in his bat, and the Yanks aren’t asking him to carry a lineup. He may fall off a cliff or he may just continue to push toward career milestones.
Damon, you see, is 277 hits away from 3000, and it seems to be on his mind. While with the Rays in 2011, he spoke about approaching the milestone and what it means to him. If he reaches 3000 hits, his would be an interesting case for the Hall of Fame as his longevity is his most compelling argument, but that’s neither here nor there. The 3000-hit plateau seems to be sustaining his career, but it could be threatening it too.
Over the past season or so, Damon has spoke about his desire to reach 3000. Now, Joel Sherman claims that desire may be impacting his game. According to Joel Sherman, “executives from three teams that had interest in Damon expressed concerns a fixation with 3,000 has diminished an attribute that greatly contributed to the perception of Damon as a winning player: patient, tough at-bats.”
Sherman goes on to analyze Damon’s swing and walk rates, but his analysis is suspect. Over at the Captain’s Blog, William took at skeptical look at Sherman’s statistical conclusions. Still, the rumblings are there. Damon may be a good teammate, but he also has his eye on personal milestones.
So with Spring Training a few days away, Damon remains jobless. Maybe the Yanks come calling. Maybe the two sides will find their relationship mutually beneficial. Damon can aim for 3000 while aiming for the right field seats. If not, the two sides will move on, and Damon, who wants to be everything for every team he’s on, will don yet another uniform in his never ending quest for baseball immortality.
An elegy for Allan James
Posted by: | CommentsIn 1999, before the Internet played a major role in driving baseball rumors, the Yanks sent David Wells packing on on the eve of Spring Training. In 2004, before Twitter created a world filled with anonymous sources driving our thirst for constant updates, Alex Rodriguez landed in Brian Cashman‘s lap. This year, it seems, A.J. Burnett will be the high-profile player dealt on the eve of Spring Training.
The Yankees haven’t yet wrapped up their A.J. maneuverings. According to Marc Carig’s latest, the main sticking point concerns the amount of money the Pirates will send back to New York. While many seem to think a deal will get done before pitchers and catchers report, the Yankees are not against bringing Burnett to Tampa with them. I have a feeling a trade will be consummated, but it’s a process.
We’ll get to the analysis of how a potential Burnett trade impacts the Yanks’ pitching situation in the morning. Tonight, though, I come with some musings on A.J. For a player who landed in the Yanks’ lap, albeit for the tidy sum of $82.5 million over five years, Burnett’s tenure has been anything but steady for the Yanks.
When the Yanks signed Burnett, the biggest questions surrounding the right-hander concerned his health. Prior to joining the Yanks, Burnett had made 30 or more starts in a Big League season just twice in his career, but he seemed to have found health in his years in Toronto. With the Blue Jays, he flashed the strike outs with a K/9 of 9.0 and kept his walk rate at a manageable 3.3 per 9 innings. He beat the Yanks, and he beat the Red Sox. As long as he stayed healthy, nearly everyone figured he would be just fine on the Yanks.
The health, of course, hasn’t been an issue. Burnett has made 98 starts for the Yankees, and he has lead the league in walks once, wild pitches twice and hit batters once. I saw Burnett throw Game 2 of the 2009 ALDS at Yankee Stadium, and for him that year, it was a typical game. He held the Twins to a run on three hits over six innings but walked five. He threw some clunkers in the ALCS, tossed a gem of a game in Game 2 of the World Series and was shelled in Game 5, not even escaping the third inning.
The next year in the ALCS, he folded against the Rangers. In his one playoff appearance that year, in a pivotal Game 4, he could not get past Bengie Molina. I was watching the game in a bar in California and basically started cursing the TV when Molina launched that home run. Burnett just turned in disgust.
For A.J., though, it was never a matter of accepting failure. In 2011, his struggles became a weekly story as he would grow visibly frustrated on the mound. I was in Minnesota for the infamous game this past August when the TV cameras caught him cursing at, well, someone before he stormed off into the clubhouse. Both Joe Girardi and Burnett denied an altercation had happened, and I had the chance to hear Burnett speak in the locker room. He truly wanted to pitch better, to be better than he had been. As much as it pained me to watch him throw every five days, I felt bad for the guy.
It is now looking likely that Burnett’s last pinstriped hurrah will be Game 4 of the 2011 ALDS. With rain impacting their pitching plans and Burnett’s riding a successful September, which included his first win as a Yankee at Fenway Park in three seasons, Girardi handed the ball to A.J., and he delivered only as A.J. could. With the bullpen active from the first inning and he defense supporting him, he lasted through 5.2 innings while giving up only one run on four hits and four walks. For a minute at least, we held our breaths and believed in A.J.
If A.J. has thrown his final pitch for the Yanks, I can’t say I’ll miss him. He was the age-old enigma wrapped in a mystery in which the cliched sayings held true. He once had electric stuff, but he’s now 35. His fastball has faded, and he never could control his breaking pitches. He’s also due $33 million over the next two years. Maybe he’ll still be here in a week, but I wouldn’t bet on it. And for the Yankees, that’s not bad news at all.
