From an article discussing the possible new austerity in Hollywood as a result of the settlement of the writers' strike comes this gem:Will the studios stick to their new vows of restraint? Perhaps there's an instructive comparison with another business run by big egos in search of talent, Major League Baseball.
Every few years, the baseball owners announce that there's a new austerity in the air and that they won't overspend on players. But just before spring training starts, they get nervous and suddenly a pitcher like Ted Lilly — the baseball equivalent of an assistant gag writer on "Two and a Half Men" — gets something like $10 million.
In his defense, Lilly has been slightly above average for his career. I don't watch "Two and a Half Men," but I'm guessing it's closer to, I dunno, Sterling Hitchcock quality.
8 comments:
What the heck? As a supporter of Mr. Lilly since his days as a Yankee, I must protest to using him as the example of a pitcher to whom it is crazy to give $10,000,000.
When he's healthy, he's a lock for an above average ERA and has a chance to be much better than that. By VORP, he was the 10th best pitcher in the NL last year. I think that's easily worth $10 mil.
There are other pitchers that are much better examples of this phenomenon on baseball that Ted Lilly (and, yes, I know it was someone else making the analogy).
Probably also worth mentioning that, to the best I can tell, Lilly has never made $10M, either in a single season or over the life of a specific contract.
Ted Lilly was probably the Cubs best pitcher last year....
J'accuse, Shyster! You leave Sterling Hitchcock out of this! He's my all-time favorite solid, lefty No. 3 starter who was once traded for Brett Jodie and a bag of balls.
It's all the damn anti-Padres bias on this blog, I tell ya.
Great. ANOTHER Sterling Hitchcock apologist. When you gonna wake up, man? That 1998 NLCS MVP award is about as natural as Pam Anderson's boobs, and still stands as a black mark on the game a decade later. I don't even want to think of the lesson the kids learned from it all.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go see if there's a way I can ban your ilk from this forum. It's a family fuckin' blog, after all.
Lilly is a steal @ $10 million per.
According to Jeff Passan, in 07 the players got about 40% of revenue. The lowest that figure has been in a while.
I don't really care how they split it up, 40 / 60, 60 / 40, it fluctuates...
Many have said it, but nobody gripes about the similarly absurd amounts of money earned by pop stars and movie stars. I think it's simple male jealousy that makes us armchair folk kvetch about the $$$ the players earn.
Don't like it? Turn off the TV, don't surf the baseball websites ( especially ones who partner with MLB - Craig's is ok ), don't attend games, don't buy merchandise...THE MONEY COMES FROM US! WE'RE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GROTESQUE AMOUNTS OF MONEY!!
You can ban me, Shyster, but you can never dampen the spirit of me and the tens of Hitchcock loyalists! Don't make us pepper the Shyster Manse with erratic curveballs!
No justice, no peace.
Yeah seriously as a Sox fan I was happy the Lilly went to the cubs- he always killed the sox when he was on the jays and i actually thought the yanks should pick him up last year but pettite came back.
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