I Have No Idea What The Braves' Budget Is
by Bronn on Dec 25, 2011 4:03 PM EST
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PrintPer DOB, and discussed in several places, we shouldn't have more than $3-$4 million in salary to spend next season, and that's including what's expected to be a small payroll increase. Honestly, though, Liberty Media's money management really bugs me. A year after they said payroll would not be cut, it was seemingly cut by almost $10 million (At the time it was defended by saying insurance payouts for injured players accounted for much of the difference). We don't always know what kind of incentives deals are loaded with, or how the team accounts for costs like draft pick signings or international signings.
Still, something just doesn't seem to add up. After letting people walk, cutting costs, we still seem to be a little short, especially if our payroll is going to increase. If we're at the point that we can't sign a $5 million free agent (that's worth about 1 WAR on the market) for a team where the marginal value of a win is very high (that is, we're a fringe playoff team, and one win just might be the difference between making the playoffs and not). But here's my attempt to rundown just what we're spending on the team in 2012.
(Notes: The rookie minimum next year is said to be $480K. Some guys will make slightly more than the minimum, others get pre-arb raises prior to actually getting arbitration, so I'm rounding up all rookies to $500K and assuming it more than covers other discrepancies in my estimates)
Chipper Jones: $13 million
Dan Uggla: $13 million
Brian McCann: $11.5 million, per DOB
Derek Lowe: $10 million (the get-out-of-town special)
Tim Hudson: $9 million
Michael Bourn: $7.5 million (That's a high end estimate, closer to $7, I think)
Jair Jurrjens: $4.75 million (Again, perhaps high end, considering injuries)
Martin Prado: $4.5 million
Eric O'Flaherty: $2 million (Very much high end, since it's more than double what he made last year)
Matt Diaz: $2 million (Seems like a waste, considering how strapped for cash we are)
David Ross: $1.62 million
Eric Hinske: $1.5 million
Nate McLouth buyout: $1.25 million
Jason Heyward: $525K
Tommy Hanson: $525K
Kris Medlen: $500K
Jonny Venters: $500K
Craig Kimbrel: $515K
Freddie Freeman: $500K
Cristhian Martinez: $500K
Brandon Beachy: $500K
Mike Minor: $500K
Julio Teheran: $500K
Tyler Pastornicky: $500K
(5 more minor leaguers to fill out the bench and bullpen): $2.5 million
I have it at $89.685 million. Again, that SHOULD be high end, since I'm estimating high end on several things I am not sure about. I did leave out Peter Moylan, though, because DOB seems to think he'd get $2 million, and I think that can't be right-it's too much for a middle relief pitcher that could miss half the season. Braves' payroll has hovered around $93 million for 10 years. That seems to be what we're aiming at once again, if the Braves aren't able to add anyone making even as much as $5 million per year. So it doesn't seem like we're actually spending any more than we have the past several years. (Point of reference: Cot's estimated we paid $86.2 million last year)
If anyone notices anything else I'm leaving out, or learns anything else, please post here. We can hopefully use this as reference material to go with our rosterbation. Learning about the $3 million raise that McCann got was useful, and it definitely ruled out signing anybody to an 8 figure contract. The main thing I've taken from this is that I want to hurry up and extend Heyward to buy out his arbitration years as soon as possible.
This FanPost does not express the views or opinions of Talking Chop.
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(sorry … continuing)
I hate LM and John Malone, the CEO/ChairmanofBorad, a legit multi-Billionaire, who hold the Braves as a corporate hostage, caring nothing about the team, the sport, the fans.
An extra $10 or 20 M / year in payroll would be absolutely a small, inconsequential drop in the bucket. But is there any serious possibility, any modicum of a chance of that actually happening? I think not.
by fandave on Dec 25, 2011 7:03 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Stupid rich people doing what they want with their own money. Outta be some sort of law against that type of behavior.
We should be happy to have Liberty as an owner. It could be much, much worse.
You'd think I was Travis Tritt struttin my FINE ASS on down to Florida
And it could be much, much better.
And we have MLB to thank for the fact it is not worse. At the time of the massive financial transaction in question, with the Braves being only a small piece, the conditions imposed by MLB required LM to maintain existing management and payroll.
by fandave on Dec 26, 2011 1:45 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Or maybe they're just looking to break even
And our payrolls have been and continue to be where they are because the Braves don’t draw all that well.
They don’t give a s*** about the Braves and took on the Braves only in order to gain control of other assets related to their core ventures and, of course, achieve giant tax benefits at the expense of actual tax paying citizens. The Braves’ attendance has very little or more likely nothing whatsoever to do with anything related to LM.
by fandave on Dec 26, 2011 9:44 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Here's the plan....
Convince Delta, Ted Turner, and Coca-Cola to pitch in $100M each and get 25,000 die-hard Braves fans to throw in $10,000 a piece and we’ll buy the Braves from Liberty and have an all-Atlanta-and-fans-owned team.
The team’s ownership will care deeply about the Braves’ and Atlanta’s success. Problem solved!
by crimsonqueen9 on Dec 26, 2011 10:43 PM EST up reply actions
I'm in...
This will be the platform for my re-election as TC President… Thanks for the thought. I promise to give you credit when I win. :-)
In the body of other posts, I am often admittedly high and tend to not want to edit a lot.
by willlinn on Dec 2, 2011 12:01 PM PST
if Wren gets Arenado from Colorado, I’ll give him a BJ.
by Scott Coleman on Dec 19, 2011 9:45 PM PST
by Klemson Krash on Dec 27, 2011 9:58 AM EST up reply actions
I do have a list of demands though... If I am to be in on this 10K deal...
I want a box at every home and away game. I want tickets to every WWE event in the local area (regardless of venue). I want a lifetime pass to the CNN Center, Coca Cola factory and I also want Chick-fil-a for life…. or at least a fist full of vouchers.
Lastly, I want free parking and a hotel (Hilton preferred), close to the stadium.
Is that too much?
In the body of other posts, I am often admittedly high and tend to not want to edit a lot.
by willlinn on Dec 2, 2011 12:01 PM PST
if Wren gets Arenado from Colorado, I’ll give him a BJ.
by Scott Coleman on Dec 19, 2011 9:45 PM PST
by Klemson Krash on Dec 27, 2011 10:51 AM EST up reply actions
I’d be in for $10k.
If we can land [Stephen Drew], I will give FW a bj.
~justincredubil02
by king of games on Dec 27, 2011 10:21 AM EST up reply actions
Are all the fans going to continue to throw money every year to cover losses?
Because that’s what’s going to happen if payroll is raised substantially. The Braves are roughly equal in terms of attendance and payroll when compared to the rest of the league.
Occupy Liberty Media!
Braves.
Falcons.
Gamecocks.
No they took over the Braves as part of a sale of their TimeWarner shares
All they received was cash, the Braves, and a magazine or two, so it certainly wasn’t to gain control of other assets related to their core ventures. Why do people think that all owners should be willing to throw money away every year just so that they have a better team to watch. If people want the Braves to spend more, they need to find a way to help them raise their annual revenues.
Fielding a better caliber team with a greater opportunity to make the playoffs and progress to the World Series is not throwing money away. To suggest otherwise is foolish.
Also, short-term losses are perfectly fine in the corporate world if you are building your brand, increasing your market share, expanding your operations, etc.
In the corporate world of professional sports franchise ownership, particularly when the franchise in question is to be sold off as soon as possible, increasing the relative stature and prestige of the franchise by vaulting it in to the top echelon of true championship level teams could be and, I believe, would probably be a very smart move, even if it might led to short-term operating losses. Although if winning did indeed follow, that would also probably significantly boost revenues and profitability.
Winning has not increased profitability the past few years
And generally people taking on sports franchises want to buy ones that don’t already have large financial commitments, contrary to what you’re trying to argue. People don’t want to spend 500 million to buy a team, only to have to pay 150 million on payroll while taking a large loss on an annual basis. People are at times willing to do it because they want to own a team that bad, but its not for business reasons.
Actually, it was about restructuring Liberty Media’s holdings and gaining control of active media assets, as well as getting tons of cash and giant tax benefits. Deals were made more or less back to back with Times Warner and News Corp (Rupert Murdock’s empire). LM gained control of DirecTV Group, the world’s largest satellite television provider, from News Corp.
The important point for Braves fans is that the team was a throw-in, a very minor piece of giant puzzle. See articles here and here.
They're a corportation
They would have to explain to shareholders why it made sense to take a 10-20 million dollar loss on a completely non-core business. I know if I wasn’t a Braves fan and I was a shareholder I wouldn’t exactly be happy about something like that.
I really think not. The John Malones of the world don’t worry about explaining $10 or 20 M to anybody or pretty much justifying explaining or even elaborating on any decision they make.
by fandave on Dec 26, 2011 9:51 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
That is completely false.
If we can land [Stephen Drew], I will give FW a bj.
~justincredubil02
by king of games on Dec 27, 2011 10:22 AM EST up reply actions
The SEC would beg to differ...
(and of course I’m talkIng about the Federal SEC…not the oversigning football conference)
"Reach down in there...TURN THAT DAMN THING UP!" - Coach Paul Johnson
by TBuzz on Dec 27, 2011 11:22 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
You obviously don’t spend much time reading and trying to translate required corporate filings in any understandable information; or attending stockholders meetings and trying to ask really tough questions of executive decision makers and expecting to have some meaningful impact on how they choose to do business.
by fandave on Dec 28, 2011 1:33 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
His entire job is based around increasing the corporations value for shareholders. Current and potential investors who see him take loss such as this with no type of quality return expected in the future will notice that his focus is not entirely on increasing the firm’s value.
Malone owns a very large number of shares, runs the show as he sees fit, and would be greatly amused at the suggestion that he would second-guessed or have any significant blow back exposure from a small $10-20 M decision.
by fandave on Dec 28, 2011 1:42 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Easy to say when it isn't your money...
I imagine if we saw a 10% bump in revenue we would be able to increase payroll accordingly…but we don’t. Terry McGuirk and John Schuerholtz are to blame on that one, since revenues from the TV deals (primarily) and the Gate drive income.
If all of LM’s companies were allowed to run $10MM-$20MM in the red then IMHO that would be a sign of terrible ownership. Looking at the nearly combined $30MM the Braves spent on Derek Lowe, Kenshin Kawakami, and Nate McLouth in 2011 I would argue there is plenty of payroll capacity that better decision-making would allow us to tap.
"Reach down in there...TURN THAT DAMN THING UP!" - Coach Paul Johnson
I don't know if its LM or if it was all the Braves sales staff
But after LM took over, I noticed a large difference in the amount of cheaper ticket offers and multigame packages that the Braves offered. It seems as if they are making a conscious effort to raise attendance, it just doesn’t seem to be working at all.
TV is where the money's at...
Having a shared TV contract between FSS and Peachtree TV severely limit maximizing the Regional viewership (especially versus the YES and MASN’s of the world). If the Braves had TV coverage that spanned out as far as its Radio coverage…this would be a huge first step.
But since all TV revenues from all teams should be split amongst the teams…so we can have a salary cap in MLB…this is all just a moot point anyway.
/be like the NFL
"Reach down in there...TURN THAT DAMN THING UP!" - Coach Paul Johnson
Yes, it is easy to say, but it is also apparently very accurate.
In the first place, there is no reason (to my knowldge) to think the Braves are losing money or would be losing money if the payroll was moderately increased. Second, the best way to increase profitability would be to field a true championship level team which would in turn help to generate the type of "fan"atical excitement not seen since the roaring ‘90s. Third, there can be no doubt that the Braves are competitively disadvantaged by a capped payroll and being hugely outspent by the other franchises who routinely seek to maintain true championship level teams. Finally, Liberty Media Corp has ample and sufficient resources to easily infuse an additional $10-20 M of pump priming payroll into the Braves if there was any legitimate interest in enhancing the team’s competitive status.
On the final point, I would point that LM is obviously maintaining a very strong and profitable financial position – with excellent “outperform” consensus analyst ratings, a stable stock price, and on-going major merger and acquistion wheeling and dealing to include (among other things) in the last 18 or so months: a bold “flier” (Mr. Malone’s term) of $1.02 B 70% buyout offer of Barnes & Noble, representing a 20 percent premium above its stock price and a new direction for LM into bricks-and-mortar retail operations; settling for a $204 M 16.6% investment/acquistion in B&N after haggling it around for 4 or 5 months; disengaging from a long and frequently contentious relationship with Barry Diller, another billionaire media mogul, in a small little transaction involving a $220 M cash payment and transfer of two little business units, gifts.com and Evite; selling off its stake in Jupiter Telecommunications of Japan for $4 B; and a $13 B merger of DirecTV with a subsidiary of the LM conglomerate . Oh, and here is Forbes magazine’s most recent profile on Malone, which puts his net worth at a cool $4.5 BILLION, which the last time I checked is plenty of smack to do pretty much literally whatever one might decide to do.
Not that I may actually know anything about WTF I’m talking about, of course.
The problem is there is no evidence a better team would add that much revenue
The Braves were finally competitive again the past few seasons and its done absolutely nothing to increase attendance. So you’re asking a company to invest 10s of millions of dollars on the chance that they could possibly increase revenues even though more recent evidence suggests that it won’t actually lead to a large increase? These people are business men. Business men don’t take on risks like you’re talking about for logical reasons.
Not sure what you think all the information about Liberty Media’s acquisitions says about the Braves. They’re more related to Liberty’s core businesses, and as far as I can tell, they’re not planning on pumping in a ton of extra cash on the off chance that it might increase revenues.
From ‘06-’08 Braves averaged 78 wins, averaged 32,416 per game.
From ‘09-’11 Braves averaged 89 wins, averaged 29,863 per game.
The crash of the economy plays a big factor, there
I mean, if the Braves hadn’t been competitive at all, I expect attendance would have dropped even farther. As it is, their attendance has gone down, but it’s gone UP relative to the league average. Having a good team is definitely the best way to draw more fans, but only assuming that your target audience has a disposable income.
Braves will be fine. I'm not worried.
by Bronn on Sep 18, 2011 4:26 PM EDT
Since we're having this debate
It would be awesome if someone knew where to find the values of each team’s TV deals.
Braves will be fine. I'm not worried.
by Bronn on Sep 18, 2011 4:26 PM EDT
What I think it says it says is exacting what I’ve been elaborating upon: LM acquired and are holding the Braves as an incidental and unwanted piece of merchandise; the Braves would likely not even be funded at the existing level except for MLB insisting on a required funding level as a condition of approval of the original acquisition; and the decision makers at LM could easily increase payroll and justify to any stockholders would bothered to be bothered in the slightest about it, but will not because they could not care less.
by fandave on Dec 28, 2011 1:27 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
You are basing all of this on nothing but personal opinion
Do you have any reason to think that Liberty’s ownership is causing attendance to fall off despite a better product on the field? Because that’s pretty out there.
Do you have any evidence that Liberty would cut payroll if MLB hadn’t gotten assurances before approving the sale? If putting another 10-20 million into the team is nothing, as you suggest, then why in the world would they pinch pennies just to make an extra couple million? Perhaps its simply that this is the payroll the Braves current revenue stream supports. What reason do you have to doubt that?
And where are you getting this idea that Liberty could easily bump up payroll and easily justify it? How would they justify it? This is completely foreign territory to them, so why would they put assets at risk there instead of something they’re actually good at? And why does it make any sense for them to do it? Braves fans have shown themselves to be a fickle bunch that doesn’t even turn out well when the team is doing well. What sort of good business man is going to dump 10 of millions into a huge risk like that when all indications are that there is basically no upside?
I haven’t linked LM to attendance or suggested that anything LM does or does not do has anything at all to do with attendance, and insofar as you may be suggesting anything to the contrary, I seriously wonder what you base that on … other just your opinion which you are certainly entitled to.
At the time of the Time Warner sale to LB, the well-documented simple fact of the matter is MLB held up the deal and insisted on what they obviously believed were necessary and proper conditions, to include maintaining payroll levels. It thus seems perfectly obvious that MLB believed contractual safeguards had to be put in place to prevent Malone from running the team into the ground. This was addressed in numerous media accounts at the time, which should be easy for you to look it up, if you don’t wish to believe me.
As for no upside, that is just ridiculous. Again, in professional sports, at each stage of winning big (i.e., for baseball, making the playoffs, winning playoff rounds, progressing to the World Series, winning the WS) exponentially larger revenues are generated and the franchise’s value for resale or valuation of future TV deals, merchandising opportunities, etc., increase.
I think the idea of any LM stockholders being irate, waving pitchforks, etc., about $10-20 M extra being spent to try to put an obviously playoff quality team into a better competitive position to win the a championship, is way overblown, if not just silly; but what they would say in justification is obvious: The professional managers of our baseball operations in Atlanta asked for and needed the extra money for competitive purposes and on balance, based on all relevant considerations, it was determined to be the right call. We are in the business of making decisions. We made the decision. Period. End of Story.
Just enough to sign our power hitting LF Yoennis Cespades. I’m not understanding why we’re not in on him or Jorge Soler. Both guys fit what we need.
Bronn..
you’re so useful. Like a bag of potato chips.
I get the feeling Wren knows what he’s doing here.
I hope I’m right.
Wren knows what he’s doing here.
until the winter’s over, the jury’s still out on that one.
by JoelGuzman'sScout on Dec 26, 2011 1:02 PM EST up reply actions
I get the feeling Wren knows what he’s doing here.
I have the opinion that he is more good than bad but he’s not even close to being the perfect “never made a bad decision” guy a lot of fans think he is. However, not wanting to digress but I think that Wren has, let me politely say, “personality flaws” that I believe are a big handicap to his ability to do his job.
The Braves have been on a hard budget since 1997 folks. David Justice was traded specifically to dump his salary and that was the beginning of the financial handcuffs. The Braves have a more generous budget than quite a few teams but it is clear that they cannot spend their way into solutions to their problems given their budget. It sucks, but it’s been like that for a long time now. I counted 18 teams that spent less last season. I know nobody wants to hear this, but when you have won ZERO playoff series under your current GM and you are an owner who doesn’t really care a lot about the sport, I can understand how that owner might be skeptical that spending MORE money is the answer, especially when your current World Series winner underspent you by almost $20 million.
If Cots has us at $86 MM last season (our opening day payroll was reported as $87 MM last year and $83 MM the year before), and we’re currently around $89 MM with possibly $2-4 MM left to spend, then we’re probably already getting that celebrated payroll bump that was told of in the prophecies.
Q: If not us, who? If not now, when? A: The Batman. And "when you least expect it."
That's incredibly sad,
but I also think that’s incredibly true.
Liberty would never take a loss on the Braves. They also aren’t “holding the team hostage”, because the payroll is obviously reflective of a mid-market team, as it should be.
The thing is, though, that a genuinely interested owner might be willing to take a bit of a loss, or just attempt to break even, giving the Braves that little bit of a cash influx we’re all begging for.
I don’t think Liberty is doing anything wrong. It’s just that any passionate sports fan is going to want the ideal situation in terms of ownership of their favorite team. If the Braves had that, we’d be able to do stuff like sign Carlos Beltran (just one example), without trading anybody in order to clear up payroll, and that type of signing would put our team over the top.
Anyway, while I agree that it would be nice to get a legitimate owner that values winning above making sound business decisions, but I don’t think that means we should be hating on Liberty Media. Now, if you want to talk about how ridiculous it is for a system to be in place that allows Time Warner and Liberty Media to make the deal they made and avoid paying a dime of taxes because they included business (the Braves) in the transaction, well then you’ve got something to gripe about.
This is my corn. You people are guests in my corn.
I don't have a problem with LM
They let the Braves spend what they make. They aren’t going to put more money into something that isn’t going to get them more money in return, and the Braves have not struggled due to their payroll limitations. Free agency is a poor market to acquire players, and the Braves have seen that first hand over the past several seasons.
In fact, I see it as somewhat of an advantage that the Braves do not compete for these high priced free agents looking for lengthy contracts, as the albatross they will later become would limit the team’s ability to extend deserving players.
by BenDuronio on Dec 28, 2011 10:18 AM EST reply actions 3 recs
You sir get a Rec for logic and sense.
If we can land [Stephen Drew], I will give FW a bj.
~justincredubil02
by king of games on Dec 28, 2011 10:23 AM EST up reply actions
last time you checked the corporate balance sheet, are they spending less, more or exactly what they make? and also can you comment on any creative accounting games played in the calculations of how exactly they arrived at that final number?
I seem to remember hearing the Braves were one of only a few teams that were profitable last season, but I’m too lazy to look it up.
If we can land [Stephen Drew], I will give FW a bj.
~justincredubil02
by king of games on Dec 28, 2011 10:52 AM EST up reply actions
Frank Wren: They’re confident in the leadership situation in Atlanta, to make decisions in those situations. I think [criticism of ownership] is misdirected — the budget is set internally, not by Liberty Media.
Frank Wren: The economics are really a function of our market size and the revenues that are coming in. It’s not because there’s an owner saying ‘You’re not going to do this.’ It’s just a function or our market. And like I said, I can reel off half a dozen other markets very similar to us that do have local owners, who are doing it the same way we’re doing it. So that’s a bit of a red herring when you always want to throw it on Liberty.
Frank Wren: But primarily they have given us the ability to run this franchise, especially Terry, to put together the budget and basically just keep them informed. It’s an ideal situation for a baseball operation, to be able to make decisions internally.
I have no reason to think Wren is lying when he says anything like this, and judging by how consistent the Payroll has been as well as the attendance, you do not have to look in depth at the financials to understand that the team is not out to make a huge profit or out to spend a ton in order to win.
Its not lying. Its making statements of the corporate position for public consumption. Its maintaining harmony and doing the best job he can do under the circumstances.
Its also trying to put the situation in the most favorable possible light without digging himself deeper into a hole.
He does after all have to deal with 29 other GMs who can read whatever statements he makes to the AJC (or any other media outlet), and he really does need to have his personal credibility intact and be considered a straight shooter if he is going to maximize his deal-making capacity.
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