Baseball Toaster: The Griddle : Now they realize it?

Rank	Team	W	L	PCT	Division
1	Chicago Cubs	69	46	.6	C1
2	Philadelphia	62	51	.549	E1
3	Arizona	59	55	.518	W1
4	Milwaukee	64	51	.557	C2
5	St. Louis	64	52	.552	C3
6	Florida	60	54	.526	E2
7	New York Mets	59	54	.522	E3
8	Los Angeles Dodgers	56	57	.496	W2
9	Houston	54	59	.478	C4
10T	Pittsburgh	52	62	.456	C5
10T	Atlanta	52	62	.456	E4
12T	Colorado	52	63	.452	W3
12T	Cincinnati	52	63	.452	C6
14	San Francisco	48	65	.425	W4
15	San Diego	44	70	.386	W5
16	Washington	42	71	.372	E5

American League

Rank	Team	W	L	PCT	Division
1	Los Angeles Angels	71	43	.623	W1
2	Tampa Bay	68	45	.602	E1
3	Chicago White Sox	63	49	.563	C1
4	Boston	66	49	.574	E2
5	Minnesota	63	51	.553	C2
6	New York Yankees	62	52	.544	E3
7	Texas	60	55	.522	W2
8	Toronto	58	56	.509	E4
9	Detroit	55	58	.487	C3
10	Baltimore	54	59	.478	E5
11	Oakland	53	60	.469	W3
12	Kansas City	53	62	.461	C4
13	Cleveland	49	64	.434	C5
14	Seattle	44	70	.386	W4

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Now they realize it?

2007-01-25 07:39

by Bob Timmermann

After the recent of exodus of Daisuke Matsuzaka for Boston, the owners in Japanese Baseball (NPB), have realized that many of their best players are leaving. It only took about 10 years for them to figure this out.

Jim Allen of the Daily Yomiuri along with Chiba manager Bobby Valentine thinks that more minor leagues will help. Some people in NPB think that they need better stadiums, ones that are more amenable to families. And everyone realizes that TV coverage (which is negotiated by each team individually) needs to be centralized.

One team executive stated that NPB's total revenue was the same in 2006 as it was in 1996. And Japan has not had zero inflation.

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Comments

2007-01-25 07:48:58

1. Penarol1916

They haven't, it's been pretty close to zero for the last 10 years, especially when you throw in the deflation that occured during a couple of these years.

2007-01-25 08:19:33

2. Ali Nagib

Let the macroeconomic battle begin!

2007-01-25 08:23:03

3. joejoejoe

I like the posting system.

I think MLB should adopt it internally so that a team could just sell a player to the highest bidder. Wouldn't just about everybody in MLB have been better served by the Kansas City Royals posting Carlos Beltran instead of trading him for Astros for prospects? KC would have gotten tens of millions of dollars to spend on other players and Beltran would have gone to a major market club like the Mets where he ended up eventually.

Mark Teahen and John Buck have done well for the Royals but most players for prospects deals are a crapshoot. Instead of teams trying to find a 'match' of talent why not just post the player for $$$ and use the $$$ to buy the exact talent you need?

Trading talent is like the barter system. It's just easier to pay cash. There will always teams that don't spend the cash on new talent but there there are many salary dumps and bad trades in the existing system.

2007-01-25 08:23:32

4. Penarol1916

I wouldn't think that there needs to be a battle, I'm sure that it would be pretty easy for someone with the right databases to look up and give the right figure, I was just curious is all.

2007-01-25 08:47:36

5. Bob Timmermann

So $1 billion in 1996 in Japan is worth $1 billion now?

2007-01-25 09:03:44

6. Penarol1916

Honestly, I have no clue, but I do remember for a time, $1BN in Japan was actually in 1999 was actually worth more than $1BN in Japan in 1998 and the equivalent of the fed funds rate was 0 for a long time, I think that even now it is only 0.25%, but again, I was asking because I don't know what the cumulative inflation rate was for the last 10 years.

2007-01-25 09:10:24

7. Ali Nagib

4 - Bah! Databases are for the economically weak. Use the power of mental thinking!

2007-01-25 09:42:58

8. Hythloday

8 - Physical thinking does seem less effective.

2007-01-25 09:43:17

9. Hythloday

Make that 7

2007-01-25 10:16:54

10. El Lay Dave

9 Were you physically thinking with your fingers?

2007-01-25 10:33:11

11. El Lay Dave

Japanese inflation rates
(source: http://www.worldwide-tax.com/japan/jap_infl.asp)

1998 0.6
1999 -0.3
2000 -0.7
2001 -0.7
2002 -0.9
2003 -0.3

From money.cnn.co (http://tinyurl.com/2npdnq) this week:
"As Japan emerged last year from seven years of debilitating deflation..."

So I guess 1 Billion yen from 1996 are worth approximately 1 Billion yen now.

2007-01-25 10:39:19

12. Bob Timmermann

But if NPB's revenues were not increasing anyway doesn't that make the franchises there less valuable anyway? Who wants to buy into something that has no growth?

MLB franchises are all growing their revenue. Even the Royals and Pirates seem to be doing OK. You will find a lot more people enjoying their games or watching those teams on TV than you will see someone wanting to watch the Hiroshima Carp or Orix Buffaloes on TV.

2007-01-25 10:56:42

13. Penarol1916

12. Staying constant when growth is actually negative is the same thing as growth. You want your revenues to be growing faster than inflation, taking those numbers into account, no nominal growth will get you a real annual growth rate of 0.45%.
It's just like if you are in Bolivia and inflation is growing at 1,000%, 500% revenue growth is actually really bad.

2007-01-25 11:51:21

14. apsio

Hope this displays correctly...

Year Inflation Rate (CPI)
1997 1.7%
1998 0.6
1999 -0.3
2000 -0.7
2001 -0.7
2002 -0.9
2003 -0.3
2004 -0.3
2005 0.0
2006 0.6

So yes, a billion in 1996 is worth roughly the same in 2006. These are weighted with CPI, rather than industrial measures, as I wouldn't use those for something like baseball franchise values after some thought.

If revenues were static, even in the face of a stagnant economy (less consumer spending and deflation) as well as fleeing star players (i.e. poorer product), then that implies that there was structural growth. Just read post 13, he says it very well.

2007-01-25 11:51:56

15. apsio

And that 0.0 figure in 2005 is a crock of horse manure in my opinion, but who's going to argue with official statistics.

2007-01-25 12:27:03

16. Sliced Bread

What are the Japanese owners complaining about? MLB just exported Aaron Guiel.

Who's feeling the talent drain now, Japan?

2007-01-25 14:13:57

17. Bob Timmermann

The Japanese also have access to Lance Carter, but they have sent Jose Macias back.

2007-01-25 17:45:09

18. Sandus

Let them play against MLB teams. You could strengthen Japanese baseball by making it similar to the way soccer works. Let the leagues be independent, but allow them to compete with each other.

It would work in the way that the Spanish League is better than the German League, but in Champions League, any team can beat any other. That way you can have larger followings in both markets (people would have favorite teams in both leagues) and fewer players would depart to "prove themselves" in the higher leagues.

I'm not sure if this makes any sense at all, but it makes sense in my head.

2007-01-25 19:42:17

19. Bob Timmermann

Late last year, I posted a story from Forbes.com where someone suggested that MLB just buy NPB outright. It would probably benefit both sides.

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