The franchises with the highest value are perennial contenders. It doesn't help anyone trying to sell a team to not win for a decade. Think through this stuff, man. The entire reason they stopped going the Bavasi route was it was entirely obvious that trying to build a contender through free agency is quite possibly the stupidest thing you can attempt.

"Smoak has talent ? yeah right, thats pretty funny."

Wanna give the major leagues a shot sometime? See how well you do?

Stop being an obstinate fool. Smoak is not performing well, that doesn't mean he's talentless.

"right. stupid us to care about winning sometime before 2017."

Right, because we stated repeatedly that any contending before 2017 would be just terrible.

Again, you and your sidekick (or maybe your his sidekick, either way), confusing poor execution with bad strategy.

We? Your a spokesperson for a group of people now? That's funny. Okay, self appointed genius, tell us all when this low budget strategy you've bit on will deliver a winner.

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To:urbanman 12:26 AM 41769.179Reply to 41769.176

NotABaseballGuy
Posts:3957
"right. stupid us to care about winning sometime before 2017."

Right, because we stated repeatedly that any contending before 2017 would be just terrible.

So, the LA Dodgers are worth $2 billion, cuz they've been such a consistent perennial contender as of late. Nothing to do with the team being located in LA, which makes the TV contract worth a bundle, and provides plenty of people to buy tix at nice juicy prices. Nothing to do with Operating Income, or future Gross Revenue potential.

Forbes ranked the Mariners to be the 12th most valuable MLB franchise. Worth almost twice as much as Tampa, who last time I checked have been winning quite a bit lately.

And the Cubs are ranked as 4th most valuable.

Winning and losing plays a relatively small part in the value of a franchise. Losing doesn't hurt you that much, as long as you can generate an Operating Income, and your market area has the right characteristics.

Apparently, you and your amigo don't get the above. I now understand why your having such trouble grasping Baker's article.

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To:urbanman 11:29 PM 41769.177Reply to 41769.176

Chris88
Posts:8484
The franchises with the highest value are perennial contenders.

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"Okay, self appointed genius, tell us all when this low budget strategy you've bit on will deliver a winner."

If we were actually running on a low budget strategy, I would give you an answer. And since I already told you before that running out young players to develop the core is what is leading to the low budget, and you didn't listen, you deserve nothing but derision anyway.

"Apparently, you and your amigo don't get the above."

I never said anything about franchise values. I do find them irrelevant, and Baker relies on them too heavily to make his point. As you said, franchise value has a lot less to do with winning and more to do with other factors, such as location and market area. The Mariners enjoy a rather large market area (all of Washington and Idaho, most of Oregon, some Montana, Alaska, and Canada), and the only franchise even close to their border is the Colorado Rockies.

Winning does also raise value, though. The amount of revenue generated from playoff games is huge, so teams that are expected to contend are given a boost. Other assets such as the aforementioned TV deals or the presence of a team owned network (Yankees, Red Sox) also increase the value, since that's guaranteed revenue every year. Stadium values also help, including numbers of box seats, capacity, newness, etc. For the Mariners, the value of Ichiro can also not be ignored, as this brings in international interest and revenue from Japan (in actuality, the Mariners could easily pay for Ichiro's annual salary just with this revenue alone).

If the Mariners do get a new lucrative TV deal when (not if) they opt out in the next couple of years, they're a winning season away from being a top 10 valued franchise. Considering what the team was purchased for, if a sale was impending, and there's no evidence anywhere that it is (despite Baker's speculation), then they could have already sold the team for a huge profit. Waiting isn't going to benefit the current owners that much. Anybody who would want to buy the team would want to negotiate their own TV deal, rather than buy someone else's.

Please, name a single team that managed long term success through free agent signings.

New York is the closest, and even then, people who say that completely ignore their long lasting home grown core.