Mariner's budget a mystery by design
With teams exclusive 10-day window about to expire, we can finally begin to decipher what players Bavasi is planning on targeting. What we will have a harder time figuring out is how much money the M's have to spend on free agents. There are a couple of reasons for this.
One, Bavasi doesn't want to paint himself into a corner. He knows the bullseye will be squarely on him next season, and he wants to get the players he needs now, and worry about how to pay for it later. We can be assured that Bavasi and Lincoln have discussed money, and I doubt Bill likes what he sees.
When you add all the bad contracts on this team, player benefits and other garbage, and then subtract some rumored budget number like $93 million, you simply don't get much left. We have all played this game, and we all end up with less than $20 million. Tha't simply not enough for Bill to turn this around. I'm certain Bavasi has already spoken with Lincoln and been quite candid. He is privately telling him they are a couple of years away, and this next year is to turn it around.
So Bill is going to hear a number from Lincoln, but he's not going to want to worry himself too much about it right now. He's going to target players and then turn to Lincoln for help in figuring out budget impact.
Second, Lincoln doesn't want to quote a particular number either, simply because of all the bad press it will generate. There are no secrets in baseball- we are all going to know EXACTLY what the M's starting day payroll will be next spring when the season starts. We also are going to get a report from the stewards of Safeco telling us how much money the M's pocketed this year.
As I've been saying all year, the M's will turn a healthy profit despite their terrible season. It will look bad if the M's announce their $80 million '04 team turned in a profit of $15 million, and then try to get everyone excited about a $92 million budget for next year. Even Steve Kelley will get around to bashing the M's if this happens.
I think it is simply in the teams best interests if they don't make a big deal about their "budget" this next season.
The past few years the team has acted like there is a salary cap in baseball. Until this team quits talking about hard caps, you can forget about major free agent signings.
So no talk about a budget this year is actually a very good sign for M's fans.
With teams exclusive 10-day window about to expire, we can finally begin to decipher what players Bavasi is planning on targeting. What we will have a harder time figuring out is how much money the M's have to spend on free agents. There are a couple of reasons for this.
One, Bavasi doesn't want to paint himself into a corner. He knows the bullseye will be squarely on him next season, and he wants to get the players he needs now, and worry about how to pay for it later. We can be assured that Bavasi and Lincoln have discussed money, and I doubt Bill likes what he sees.
When you add all the bad contracts on this team, player benefits and other garbage, and then subtract some rumored budget number like $93 million, you simply don't get much left. We have all played this game, and we all end up with less than $20 million. Tha't simply not enough for Bill to turn this around. I'm certain Bavasi has already spoken with Lincoln and been quite candid. He is privately telling him they are a couple of years away, and this next year is to turn it around.
So Bill is going to hear a number from Lincoln, but he's not going to want to worry himself too much about it right now. He's going to target players and then turn to Lincoln for help in figuring out budget impact.
Second, Lincoln doesn't want to quote a particular number either, simply because of all the bad press it will generate. There are no secrets in baseball- we are all going to know EXACTLY what the M's starting day payroll will be next spring when the season starts. We also are going to get a report from the stewards of Safeco telling us how much money the M's pocketed this year.
As I've been saying all year, the M's will turn a healthy profit despite their terrible season. It will look bad if the M's announce their $80 million '04 team turned in a profit of $15 million, and then try to get everyone excited about a $92 million budget for next year. Even Steve Kelley will get around to bashing the M's if this happens.
I think it is simply in the teams best interests if they don't make a big deal about their "budget" this next season.
The past few years the team has acted like there is a salary cap in baseball. Until this team quits talking about hard caps, you can forget about major free agent signings.
So no talk about a budget this year is actually a very good sign for M's fans.
posted by Tom at
4:26 PM
