Tim Benz: Pirates not alone when it comes to creating lack of competition

Pirates fans, at least you aren’t alone when it comes to your team’s place within the ecosystem of baseball economics.

Along with how your team is operating within that world.

Meet the Colorado Rockies. They decided to pay the St. Louis Cardinals to accept All-Star third baseman Nolan Arenado in a trade, rather than pay him themselves.

In short, the franchise made the deal to ship Arenado to St. Louis for five prospects. The Rockies are also sending $51 million to their National League competition, which will be spread out in the coming years.

Potentially, even beyond when Arenado has the right to opt out.

In other words, the Rockies would rather give away $51 million than be on the hook for what would’ve been $199 million over the last six years of his existing deal.

On Tuesday, the payment structure was revealed.

Here is the Colorado #Rockies' $51 million payment schedule to the #STLCards in the Nolan Arenado trade:
2021: $14,429,500
2022: $5,570,500
2023: $21 million
2024: $5 million
2025: $5 million

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) March 9, 2021

Can you imagine knowing that — four years from now — you are going to write a $5 million check to a rival because you still owe them millions of dollars for taking a player that may have already left for a third team a year or two prior?

Or, more to the point, bankrolling $14 million to someone else now, just so you get off the hook for $150 million later?

So not only are teams such as the Rockies and Pirates now paying players who aren’t competitive, they are paying for the competitive ones to play elsewhere.

Boy, the economics of baseball are fun, aren’t they?

As of March 1, William Hill Sportsbook projects the Pirates, Rockies, Orioles, Rangers and Tigers as all being teams who will lose at least 94 games.

Of that batch, according to Spotrac, the Pirates, Orioles, Rangers and Tigers are also in a larger group of eight teams (including the Indians, Marlins, Rays and Mariners) with total 2021 payrolls of $75 million or less.

Meanwhile, the league average is almost $120 million. The Pirates, Marlins, Indians and Orioles are all below $50 million.

So last month, Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole popped off about MLB teams not caring about competing. He can point to that evidence.

“We have clubs that aren’t competing. That aren’t doing right by their fan base” Cole said via Forbes on Feb. 18. “I worry that we’re losing (a) generation (of) fans. I worry that we’re doing fans in those cities a disservice.”

Hmmm. A former Pirate sounding off about a franchise not willing to spend to be competitive. I wonder who Gerrit might be talking about?

Can you envision me mimicking the sarcastic, scratching-chin emoji while I’m typing? Because I am.

But let’s be clear, Cole doesn’t give one Bronx nickel of his $324 million salary about a disservice to the fans. He’s part of the executive leadership of the players’ union. And he’s worried about payrolls being suppressed and roster spots for veterans being soaked up by young players on teams who — when it comes to winning — don’t give a rat’s … um … I mean … teams who are “building for the future.”

Yeah. That’s what I meant.

“We have a lot of great veterans who offer great entertainment — a quality style of baseball — that continuously are getting pushed out because the surplus value on younger players is too high,” Cole said. “The analytics are driving the game in that direction. We want to have an open field for clubs to be able to find talent.”

Well, Gerrit, there’s one way to avoid tanking payrolls — institute a salary floor. But then that would mean a salary cap, too. And perhaps Cole wouldn’t have been able to make $324 million and would’ve been stuck with a lousy $300 million or so.

And with New York’s cost of living? My lord, he might have starved!

Salary-capped sports are the ultimate nexus of capitalism and communism. Baseball has never wanted to go in that direction. Revenue sharing and luxury taxes be damned, MLB franchises are always going to have a right to maximize profit margins.

They have a right to do so.

Players are always going to get every last dollar possible. They have a right to do so as well. And so long as the small market teams allow themselves to operate in a system that favors bigger markets this much, they can’t complain.

Well, they do complain. But we as fans — particularly those in Pittsburgh — don’t have to feel sorry for them. Nor do we have to feel sorry for out-of-work mid-level veterans who aren’t getting what they deem to be fair market value.

Because just like the market produced $324 million for Cole (and $260 million for Arenado when he first signed his deal), if Yasiel Puig and Shane Greene aren’t getting what they think is a fair deal, well, that’s what the market says about them, too.

The players are screwing themselves over. The owners are screwing themselves over. And whether Cole meant it or not, he was right about one thing — fans in many cities are getting a raw deal.

In those towns, especially Pittsburgh, the fan bases sure do know how to feel sorry for at least one group.

Themselves.