FG on Fox: The Royals’ Coming Windfall
It was following a half-decent season in 2013 that Royals general manager Dayton Moore said he felt a little like he’d won the World Series. The remark didn’t go over very well locally or nationally, and Moore conceded later he could’ve chosen better words, but at the core of a poorly-worded sentence was a legitimate message. Moore sensed that people were getting into the Royals again. Even though the team that season had fallen a little short of the playoffs, the roster was at least competitive, and the fans at least had a product to watch. What Moore meant to say was that the franchise was restoring its bonds with the city around it, after too many years of two-way neglect.
The bonds are restored now. They maybe have never been stronger. After a year of no playoffs, Moore felt like he’d won a title, so I can’t imagine how he feels after a year of coming one win away. The fans are in love again. Many of the fans, they were always in love, but they’re once again willing to act on it. And new fans have been gained, as well, fans who previously never gave baseball a second thought. Consider one anecdote, to represent many:
People are wearing blue proudly again. People filled Kauffman Stadium proudly again. People are chanting proudly again. Last year put the Royals back on the map; this year circled the Royals with dark ink and arrows. The fans sense an opening window of contention, and as heartbreaking as it is to lose in a seventh game, this doesn’t have to have been the last chance. The Royals could be back, and they could be powered in no small part by gains from having made so deep a run.
All that success, all that restored loyalty and enthusiasm — that’s money. What’s more, that’s money the Royals weren’t even budgeting for. I’ve never been confused for a financial wizard, or for any kind of wizard, but what the Royals have been gaining is pure profit, and the gains aren’t going to end with the playoff run. As a matter of fact, the Royals will be benefiting from this past month for a good while yet.
Read the rest on Just a Bit Outside
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
How ya like me now, bitches?
You screw up this offseason, the honeymoon will be short.
Way to go Dayton. I’m gonna borrow your speed idea and bring the Phils back to the top next year.
Not to brag, but we have the inside track to land Pierre, Podsednik AND Figgins this off season. Look out NL East!
Doing workouts in Jan Ruben feel free to drop by Dayton has expressed interest.
Not any better.
The only problem is the royals have so many arbitration players due for big raises, even if you take the salaries of both Shields and Butler off the books, your payroll is already almost as high for next year.
Other then Holland and Cain I dont think there will be many “big” raises through arbitration. Davis, Gordon, Escobar and Sal are all under contract IIRC and Hosmer wasnt really *that* good during the season. Same with Moose. Pretty sure Ventura or Herrera are eligible yet (could be wrong on that)
Also dont forget that Hochevar’s 5 million is off the books too.
MLBTradeRumors hasn’t released their arbitration estimates for the Royals yet, so these are just guesses.
2014 Opening Day payroll: $92.186m
Players Leaving
-0.574 (Emilio Bonifacio)
-12.0 (James Shields)
-7.0 (Billy Butler)
-5.21 (Luke Hochevar)
-1.5 (Nori Aoki)
Contract changes from 2014 to 2015
-2.0 (Jeremy Guthrie)
+2.5 (Alex Gordon)
+1.5 (Jason Vargas)
+2.5 (Omar Infante)
+2.2 (Wade Davis)
+0.25 (Salvador Perez)
Arbitration Eligible
+20.0 for arbitration raises. The following players are all eligible
Greg Holland, Eric Hosmer, Danny Duffy, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, Jarrod Dyson, Kelvin Herrera, Aaron Crow, Tim Collins, Louis Coleman
Players leaving not included in opening day payroll, yearly salary
Jason Frasor (1.75, trade from Rangers)
Raul Ibanez (minimum, release from Angels)
Scott Downs (minimum, release from White Sox)
Josh Willingham (7.0, trade from Twins)
Jayson Nix (0.95, release from Pirates)
After everything is said and done, the Royals payroll next year is starting at almost the exact same as this year, and that’s before you replace 3 starters (Shields, Butler, Aoki).
Given these numbers (pretty apt research, Yosted), we can identify some achievable expectations that could help maintain this level of success:
*Yordano Ventura, who may be KC’s opening day starter in 2015, building on his rookie success, plus Brandon Finnegan emerging as a starting candidate, plus Kyle Zimmer arriving midseason could offset the loss of Shields.
*Christian Colon and Lane Adams forming the core of the bench would be huge; this way, KC would not have to use any of that “windfall” money for veteran gap fills. It’s reasonable to expect that a club that won the PCL championship could provide a decent quality bench with the big league club (that’s painting with a broad brush, I know). This would allow GMDM to use that windfall to bolster the already formidable bullpen.
*And yet again, here we are talking about Hosmer and Moustakas finally breaking through. Hopefully, the postseason gave them the motivation to taste success again. Honestly, it’s hard to see this same formula of success working a second time for the Royals, but imagine largely the same components in place – fearsome bullpen, incredible defense – with the addition of at least one or two hitters that put fear into opposing pitchers, or even said hitters matching their peak production thus far.
Jeff certainly was correct: what great hope we Royals fans now have, and it’s nothing like the usual spring training pipe dream. To me, KC finally got to turn an attitude corner – no longer simply watching and simmering while high-revenue teams attempt to spend their way to championships; smart player development leaves no room for that kind of jealousy, and finally, Royals fans can see it working, and better yet, it is sustainable! If GMDM sticks to the ideals of international scouting, minor leage development and rewarding good young players with still-affordable contracts, there’s every reason to believe that this success can keep going. The Royals came up just a bit short this time to the San Antonio Spurs of baseball, but now their fans can smile when they say “Wait till next year!”
Nice post. I forgot about Duffy, he will likely get a decent raise as well. +20 still seems pretty high to me though. There has to be a couple pretty massive raises in there to get to that number and other then Holland I’m not sure I see any of those coming.
You have to remember a lot of these players are eligible for the first time (Duffy, Moose, Cain, Dyson, Herrara, Coleman), so even for a player like Moose that had a subpar year, he is still going to get a raise from MLB minimum.
Everyone already knows that no matter how much extra money they made, they certainly won’t be re-investing it in the team.
Nobody knows that, actually.
The last time they won a WS they were in the top 10 in the league in payroll. That ranking has gone down almost every year even as revenues and revenue sharing have increased. They continually invest a smaller percentage of their revenue on the team every year.
So yeah… everyone basically knows they won’t be making any leaps in payroll because of this extra playoff money… because they have already shown that they would rather pocket their revenue sharing dollars than invest them on the field.
So what? The business of baseball today is nothing like it was in 1985.
Are you suggesting that KC is a top 10 market in MLB today? Seems more like a bottom 10 market to me. Maybe bottom 5.
*are not eligible yet*
Stupid lack of an edit button!
I wonder if any research has been done quantifying in broad terms the amount of money (i.e., the windfall as Jeff calls it) that a team receives directly and indirectly for:
(1) making the playoffs (even if just a wild card entrant and loses in the wild card game);
(2) reaching the divisional series;
(3) reaching the ALCS / NLCS;
(4) reaching the World Series; and
(5) winning the World Series.
Of course it would be difficult to detail this due to the variance in how exciting the games were, what else was going on in the sports world and indeed the world generally, but again in solely broad terms it would be interesting to read about what a team might be willing to expect to generate because then you could extrapolate potential effects on upcoming years’ payroll if the team re-invested some of those revenues (a big “if” with some teams like the Marlins).
40000 seats X average of $1000 per ticket during world series
= 40,000,000 $ per game in revenue.
1/2 to visiting team X 7 games is what, 140 million in revenue for this world series run? That’s not including TV revenue, jersey sales, consession stands etc.
Where did you get $1 million per game number from.
“Every night the Royals host a playoff game, they make a little more than a million dollars. That’s pure profit, money the team did not put into its 2014 budget.
They made seven figures for the American League Wild Card Game at Kauffman Stadium and seven figures for the American League Division Series game, according to club sources, and they will make another seven figures for Monday’s game three of the American League Championship Series. More ALCS games, possibly World Series games, would mean even more money.”
http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/sam-mellinger/article2693814.html
But if I understand this correctly the last three games of the series there’s no player’s share being taken off the top. Every playoff game prior to game 5 of the series got 60% taken off the top for the bonus pools, the final 3 games should be roughly 2.5 times as lucrative just from that.
Those last two games in Kaufman gave them at least 5 times as much from tickets as any other home game.
Those prices were resale, the most expensive ticket the Royals box office sold was ~$600, and that was in the world series.
On top of that, most of the revenue doesn’t go to the team:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/who-gets-what-from-postseason-ticket-revenue/
This reminds me of MVP baseball ’05 dynasty mode fantasy drafts back in the day…going to the playoffs was really the only way to make money, which you (obviously) invested into building a gigantic home ballpark, and a kick-*ss firework show!
My theory about Dayton Moore being David Glass’s excuse for losing might have to be abridged if they decide to keep this up. Maybe they become the Cardinals of the AL: small market, big payroll, very profitable.
Cardinals aren’t small market. Maybe if you look at the population of St. Louis itself. That’s no their market though. Their revenue-producing market is huge. Their TV touches something like 10 states and they draw attendance from nearby cities like Memphis (and have the highest market share of sports in the city of St. Louis) to consistently sell out. Mid/Large-Mid is what I’d call the Cards market.