As I said, I’m going to try to keep an organizational depth chart and payroll analysis updated whenever the Phillies make a big move. This is probably the last until the winter.
The point of this is to try to think more like a GM. Not just look at a trade or a signing from a now perspective, but from every perspective, and have data to guide that perspective.
The depth chart does have some rules, which I laid out in the first one, which you can read here.
The payroll stuff is pretty straight forward, but not exact. I add $10 mill extra for players on 40-man roster, draft pick bonuses, etc…
Organizational Depth Chart
Payroll Analysis
So how did the trade affect these two items?
- It means Carlos Ruiz will be our starting catcher for the next couple years, not Lou Marson. It also means that don’t have anyone coming up behind Pedro Feliz, as many thought that is where Donald would end up.
- Without adding anyone, our payroll next year is already as high as this year.
- Had we given up Happ and Drabek, we would have had 1 sure-thing starter lined up for 2011, Cole Hamels. Filing 4 spots with minor leaguers and free agents would have been possible, but not easy.
- I would have to assume that the team will extend Rollins and Victorino at some point, and let Howard walk. 1B and 3B seem like the most likely places for us to make a big free agent signing in the next couple years.
- We need to stockpile pitching prospects like crazy. In 2012, I suspect our offense will be decent with d’Arnaud, Utley, Rollins, Victorino, Taylor, D. Brown and a couple free agents thrown in there, but none of those prospects are sure things, even Drabek.
- Knapp might end up awesome, but will only be 21 in 2012, so he probably wouldn’t have even made it on this chart.
- Ben Francisco is under our control until 2013, but like John Mayberry, I’m not sure he pushes his way into a starting spot given our outfield depth. Have to watch him play a bit first.
In case anyone is interested, here is a rundown of the trades that have been made over the last week, from espn.com.
A few others that did not make this list:
Apparently Jake Peavy has been traded to the White Sox AGAIN! Supposedly he has agreed this time. Why the White Sox would make this deal now, with Peavy still out due to an ankle injury and having not thrown off a mound in two months is beyond me.
Scott Rolen has been traded to the reds for Edwin Encarnacion.
The Rockies picked up Joe Beimel.
The Marlins got Nick Johnson.
The Braves aquired Adam LaRoche for Casey Kotchman.
Also, the Dodgers are supposedly making a run at Adrian Gonzalez, and possibly Heath Bell, with James Loney thought to be going to San Diego in the deal.
Conspicuoulsly absent from the list is Roy Halladay, who, along with his ever-shrinking trade value will be staying in Toronto for the forseeable future.
That’s all I’ve got for now.
I have not followed baseball and the Phillies as closely as a lot of you. Can you give me your impression for managements spending framework going forward?
Gate should be excellent for the next 2 years. Will they up their team payroll each year? And in 2-3 years if the team drops off a bit will they look to contract the payroll again, or will they be willing o do what it takes financially to stay near the top?
Basically, are they looking to compete with the big boys from here on out, or is this just a few year anomaly where revenue from a new ballpark coincides with a rare blossoming of homegrown talent? Are they going to be the Red Sox or the Jays (who had their run under Gillick?)
tk76…….I don’t proclaim to be an expert or to have any special insight, but I’ll give you my impression.
The Phils have always claimed that they’ve done what they could (i.e. their payroll reflects their revenue).
When they were in Veterans Stadium, they said that the poor lease deal they had with the city (and the fact that they got very little money, if any, from concessions, parking, luxury boxes, etc…) forced them to maintain a lower payroll, even though Philly was (and I believe still may be) the 5th largest market in the league.
Ed Wade was allowed to overspend for the 2003 season in an effort to build a winner in anticipation of moving into CBP in 2004 and realizing greater revenue.
Once the Phils moved into CBP, attendance climbed and, true to their word, the Phils payroll went along with it. Not to the level of the Yanks, Red Sox, Dodgers, etc, but a significant increase nonetheless.
This past offseason, Amaro received high praise for locking up all of our arbitration eligible players in short order and keeping the world series championship team intact (and for eating the contracts of Adam Eaton and Geoff Jenkins). However, Amaro openly stated that, were it not for the extra revenue generated by the world series run, he would not have been able to accomplish this.
Attendance has climbed higher still in 2009, enabling us to aquire Lee now and be able to pick up his option for next year, as well as most likely being able to keep Blanton (whatever his arbitration award may be or the contract he may sign in lieu of that).
My sense of it all is that we are in a positive cycle where we won the division in 2007, attendance climbed, we made more money, and it was put back into the team for 2008. We then proceeded to continue winning (all the way to the world series), attendance climbed again (plus the extra postseason attendance), we made more money again, and now that has been put back into the team for 2009. We are winning again even more, and attendance is still climbing, which will give us more revenue to put back into the team for 2010.
Eventually we will reach the max attendance possible for CBP. It seems like we will be pretty close to that this year. This tells me that the payroll will not be able to climb indefinitely. I’d say next year for sure and then maybe again in 2011, depending on what happens on the field.
I don’t get the sense that payroll will go down unless attendance goes down, and attendance will only go down if we stop winning so much (optimistic)/start losing more (pessimistic).
So, as easy as it is, all Amaro has to do is to keep putting a winner on the field. This is where the farm system comes in, and why the trade for Lee (instead of Halladay) could really be a godsend. Keeping the farm system stocked with talent gives us a great shot at putting a winner on the field year after year because 1) we will have a lot of talent working it’s way up to the bigs and 2) that talent will be cheap and under our control for 6 years. Also, continuing to play “Gillickball” and picking up a future Dobbs or Werth (finding middle of the road guys or guys that other teams have given up on like Gillick did) will go a long way too. This should allow us to keep payroll under control and free up money for us to make some big pickups and/or keep some of our big guns along the way as well. In this way we can keep winning under the constraints of our budget and not have to worry about spending like the Yanks and Red Sox.
You mentioned the possibility of a 10-year window a few days ago and I brought up the Braves. I guess that would be the idea. They kept it together for a long time (mostly due to Maddux, Smoltz, and Glavine, but their farm system really helped too—Chipper, Andruw, etc…)
Sorry if this got a bit long. Just wanted to get the whole idea out there for you.
Thanks for filling in the blanks. I figure might as well use the Phils as distraction from the Sixers. I sort of gave up on the Phils a while ago when it looked like they lacked the financial muscle to ever really compete short of a few lucky years.
I’ve been surprised seeing how Montgomery and management have shed their image as dumb and cheap… but from how you describe it sounds like they have really done everything they can within financial constraints.
Credit to Pete for making it easy to get up to speed with the team, from top to bottom. Great to see how players are working their way up the system.
Good idea about getting off the Sixers for a bit (I think I might be wishing the Phils played through the winter, at least this year anyway). This has a chance at being the best era of winning baseball in the history of the franchise. Better enjoy it while it lasts.
I never really believed that the Phils did all they could, payroll-wise, to put a winner on the field, but seeing what they’ve done over the last few years has changed my mind and made me accept that they probably hamstrung by poor revenue.
Pete does a fantastic job and I love having intelligent, well-informed, passionate discussions with everyone he attracts to the site as a result of his diligence.
Looks like Pedro might need a couple more starts before he can even think about breaking into our rotation. Here is a recap of his start today:
Pedro Martinez allowed five runs on three hits over five innings for the Triple-A Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs in his second rehab start, leaving after 84 pitches and a rough fifth inning Friday night.
The three-time Cy Young Award winner threw 53 strikes, with most of his pitches coming in the fifth, when he surrendered four runs on 35 pitches. He left the game with the Iron Pigs trailing the Columbus Clippers, 5-2.
Martinez got off to a rocky start when Columbus’ Michael Brantley hit the 37-year-old’s second pitch over the right-field wall. Martinez shrugged it off and retired Josh Barfield, Jordan Brown and Tony Graffanino in order, then settling down for the next few frames.
The right-hander’s fastball remained consistent all evening — between 89-91 mph — and was clocked as high as 93 early on. His changeup helped him strike out four.
Things fell apart in the fifth when Martinez allowed four runs and nearly doubled his pitch count. He gave up a leadoff ground-rule double to Stephen Head, walked Jason Donald with one out and served up a two-run triple to Niuman Romero to deep center. Brantley walked and Barfield later followed with a sacrifice fly to right, scoring Brantley for the fifth run.
Martinez struck out Brown with an 80 mph changeup to end his night.
Looks like we won’t need to do much shuffling of the rotation right away. Just let Lee take Lopez’ spot for now and see whether or not Pedro gets himself together enough to get a shot. He’s got to earn his chance though, otherwise he goes to the pen at best. I don’t want to see Happ moved to the pen just to see if Pedro can give us anything. We’ve got to have a really good idea that we will be getting something before we give him a shot, otherwise it’s not worth it, IMO.
Wow, what an impressive way to start. No doubt about that game. Showing some serious leadership by stepping up with the CG to end the 2 game skid.
That will earn the respect of his teammates real fast.
3CG in his last 4 starts… I’d say they ave acquired the hottest pitcher in the majors, except there is that guy playing near where I live in Chicago.
tk76: Lee was so precise and sharp, its ridiculous. didnt expect his first start to be so smooth. i agree, we do have the hottest pitcher now. forget Buerhle.
Lee’s CG looked a lot like Hamels last outing.
So what was the last time the Phils had a front end of the rotation as good as Lee/Hamels/Blanton?
Schilling/Green combined for 32 and 11 in ’93…
bski-
thanks for the props. I’m glad everyone enjoys this, as I would probably be doing it for myself anyway!
one thing I would add to your analysis of our payroll is that the Phillies can (and will) continue to raise ticket prices. In terms of average ticket prices, we are actually middle of the pack.
I wouldn’t expect a huge jump in payroll though unless we win another pennant. And honestly, if we do win the pennant this year (or have extra revenue for whatever reason) the smart thing to do would be to pour that extra revenue into the draft and international market to get us more prepared for 2012 and beyond.
I agree with Pete, opening up the borders and getting top-end scouting internationally (especially with the possibility of Cuban nationals being allowed to come play by their gov’t on the horizon) is where that money would be well spent. Seems like the Phils are just starting to figure that out as we were always one step behind the Yanks, Sox, etc.
I feel like that is going to be a major competitive edge for the teams that are consistently drafting in later stages of the amateur draft and need to devise ways to compensate for those shortfalls. Pete, do you have any intelligence about the Phillies latin american presence? I feel like a lot of those deals are shady as hell and the “agents” for those dominican guys can be seedy and tough to negotiate with (or the players are way older than they claim to be).
That story about the Nationals earlier this year with Jose Rijo and Bowden resigning was WAY under the radar and deserved more than just some “outside the lines” piece. The problem is that all of those latin american deals are just so shady, its difficult to cover them compared to say sending Rachel Nichols to Hattiesburg, MS for 3 months to monitor Brett Favre’s daily activities.
One pf the obvious holes as we move forward is 3B. WHile 1B is easlity filled (You can imagine Ibanez staying if his bat still works, or moving Utley over) we have no answer to 3B in the minors. DOnals wasn’t an option as he wasn’t even playing there in LV this year. Hewitt hasn’t been impressive in any season of his so far.
While we are set in the OF and C for the long term and Utley is signed through 2013, we have shortages in the inf. Expect more trades over the of season sending pitching prosepects (low level guys) for low-middle level inf help
Pete…….Hard to believe I forgot something in that payroll analysis but you’re right, I did neglect to include an increase in ticket prices. Two things about that though:
1) While it certainly will generate extra revenue, inflation will take a chunk out of it each year. Therefore, it will be incremental——not anywhere near the bump we would get if we were able to increase attendance by 10,000 per game, for example.
2) We would need a huge increase in ticket prices in order to get our payroll into the high rent district. I doubt we’ll see that, lest we have the same problem filling our park that the Yanks and Mets are having (with new stadiums no less).
Taken together, this tells me that our payroll will also only increase incrementally.
I absolutely agree with you that the Phils should “pour that extra revenue into the draft and international market”. I spoke about keeping the farm system well stocked, but I did not mention those things specifically.
Finally, just in case you think I’ve gone soft, even though I’ve come around and accepted that the Phils payroll equates pretty well to, and has increased right along with, their revenue, I still say that they, along with every other team, under report their revenue, but then what big company doesn’t do that, right?
Bski & Pete
Love the talk between you two, keep it up.
Do either of you think that with this success, the Phillies might find a way into a better local media deal which can also produce more revenue. Maybe if they strongly encourage CSN to become distributable via Satelite, then the additional subscription revenues generated via the Phillies rapidly increasing national profile and popularity could help them in the future. What do you think?
Sean…….You’ve brought up another area that I’ve neglected to include in our discussion (Apparently there are more holes than I realized. I hate posting at work, too distracting and I can’t organize my thought very well.). Great point and thanks for mentioning it.
Having a corporation that has various interrelated entities (a tv network, a concessions company, etc….) under it’s umbrella, of which the baseball team is but one component, that work together synergistically is really where the big money comes from.
With each ancillary entity they own and control, (if the Phils could get their own version of the YES Network, for example), they would generate another stream of revenue that could then be infused into the ballclub.
BSKI
Yeah, that is what I was thinking. Both of the “big market” big spenders(Yanks and Sox) each have their own networks with a national fanbase. One thing this year has shown is Phillies fans across the country crawling out of the woodwork, which could be a potent subscriber base for a YES type channel, or perhaps an internet broadcasting venture off Phillies.com
i duuno guys, turning into the Yanks/BoSox is a one way road. no going back. maybe we shouldnt mess with things.
Maybe so, jkay.
Although the way the game is financed will most likely change, regardless of whether or not we agree with it. Unless we find a way to change with it we might very well get left behind. Don’t want that either.
Besides, just because we head in a new direction doesn’t necessarily mean that we will turn into another “evil empire” in the game. After all, there’s more than one way to go about it.
Good blog all! Really enjoyed everyone’s thoughts. CSN is owned by Comcast and the Phillies as a joint venture from what I can tell online. It was stated that Comcast and Phils came together to form CSNPhilly in 1996.