I know the A’s played these guys tough throughout the year. Whatever happens in the World Series, and whatever form the Rangers take next season, our team will have something to shoot for. These Rangers are talented and are good stories individually and as a team. Wash may be the best story of all. Collectively, they have proven themselves every step of their journey. Good luck to them the rest of the way, and we’ll see them next year.
Congrats are also in order for the NL Champion Giants. They may be baseball’s version of the Island of Misfit Toys, and that’s just how Giants fans love them. Somehow this playoff run feels more special than 2002, at least to this outsider. Good luck to them, and while I can’t exactly root in a full-throated manner for the G-men, I can at least support them just so that my long suffering uncle Larry can be happy.
Category Archives: Giants
Giants play ballpark politics from coast to coast
In light of the San Francisco Giants’ efforts to tighten control over its San Jose affiliate, it’s interesting to look at how they interact with their other minor league partners. The picture that comes from that survey shows that the Giants don’t play by the same rules based on location, especially when one travels further out from the Giants’ local sphere of control.
The most stable affiliates are in Fresno (AAA) and San Jose (High-A). Fresno was for years a Cal League city. With MLB’s expansion into Phoenix in 1998, the Giants’ long time AAA team, the Phoenix Firebirds, had to be relocated to Tucson, but only briefly before settling in Fresno. Chukchansi Park has done well reasonably well at the gate, though the recession may have claimed a large number of walk-up and advance sales in 2010. In all likelihood, the Grizzlies will once again ask the City of Fresno for rent concessions, citing operating losses. The big club hasn’t yet gotten involved in this saga. Should it drag on for another year or two, expect them to start making suggestions.
In San Jose, the Giants have been in place for 22 years, easily the longest continuous tenure of any one team in San Jose’s history. During that time, the team has won more Cal League titles than the parent club has won NL Division crowns. Yet there’s always a sense that the SJ Giants are this almost forgotten club in a lonely part of a large city, playing in a quaint but decrepit facility. Honestly, how can you define a place that is forced to empty out thirty minutes after the last out to allow for the players and coaches to have some breathing room anything but quaint? Even though the SJ team has always been a lackluster attendance performer (less than 200,000 per season), its owners have been able to make a small amount of money, and the strategic advantage of having a satellite so close for marketing and baseball operations (rehab stints) has surely been worth it. Now, the big club is considering spending more money on capital improvements on venerable San Jose Municipal Stadium, which sounds great, except that it’s not their normal M.O.
Augusta, GA is known most for The Masters golf tournament, one of the PGA’s majors held every April. Since 2005, it’s also the home to the Giants’ other Class A affiliate, the Augusta GreenJackets, who play at 15 year old Lake Olmstead Stadium. Even though the ballpark is only 15 years old, at this point it’s considered a temporary facility. Owner Ripken Baseball (yes, that Ripken) owns the team, but they and the Giants are holding the threat of moving over the city as of now, with a recently signed extension set to run only through 2012. The big idea now is a downtown ballpark, which would – wait for it – boost the local economy. Naturally, some local folks are skeptical. While the Giants have thrown a whopping $50K at a new laundry facility and weight room for the stadium, additional improvements are wanted, including a boost from the scant 500 on-site parking spaces.
Up I-95 in Richmond, the Giants just had their AA franchise move from Norwich, CT to The Diamond, which was vacated by the Braves’ AAA affiliate when the team bolted for suburban Gwinnett County, GA in 2009. The Diamond is considered a temporary facility, and it’s a given that a new ballpark will be necessary for the city to keep the franchise, now known as the Richmond Flying Squirrels. Again, the Giants are playing a factor here, as it’s quite possible that the team could be moved again if something doesn’t happen on the ballpark front (Richmond is the southernmost city in the Eastern League, and unlike Augusta is not guaranteed a minor league team).
Why would the Giants hold the threat of moving over two cities yet act with altruism with San Jose, a city with worse attendance and less interest among its citizens in a minor league team than Richmond and Augusta? It’s becoming more obvious with each passing day that the big club intends to use the little club as a wedge against the A’s, whether it’s politically or economically. The cash to buy the controlling interest (an additional 30%) was probably less than $3 million, based on the going rates for Class A franchises. $3 million for an ongoing PR effort against a city that clearly wants something else, vs. $50,000 for a new laundry room and weight room. Makes a ton of sense.
Note: I had promised something else today, but it’ll have to wait until next week. See y’all on the other side of GABF.
SF Giants buy controlling stake of SJ Giants
The SF Giants bought a 25% share of the SJ Giants just as the 2009 regular season started. Now they are upping the ante by buying another 30% of the junior club, thus giving them a controlling stake in the High-A team. From Andrew Baggarly:
Baer said the Giants completed the transaction in June, adding a 30 percent stake to the 25 percent they agreed to buy in April 2009. He said little would change in the day-to-day management of the club, but the Giants would seize the opportunity to use the affiliate as a “testing ground for pilot projects” related to marketing as well as player development.
Baer denied that the investment is a reaction to efforts by the A’s to challenge their territorial rights to Santa Clara County. But if Major League Baseball’s ownership overturns those rights and allows the A’s to relocate there, the Giants’ interest in the San Jose club would provide an additional legal barrier. Minor league clubs must be compensated when they are forced to move.
Sure, Larry, it has absolutely nothing to do with the A’s. Looks like the folks at Progress Sports Management have decided to cash out, while the big club is readying itself for an even feistier defense of T-rights, or an even bigger payoff of its own.
A “testing ground for pilot projects” related to marketing? What would those pilot projects be? Expanded merchant nights? Radio and TV ads? Players going door-to-door? Keep in mind that the planned March election, if it occurs, would happen just prior to the start of the 2011 season – but also in the midst of spring training. That could give the Giants plenty of time to assert their “San Jose-ness,” whatever that means. Regionality strikes again.
As for further capital improvements to Muni, the question has to be asked, What were the SF Giants doing the last decade while Muni was going to hell? Do they honestly think they can broker some kind of deal? Or is it perhaps a consolation if T-rights are upheld? No matter what, San Jose is beyond settling for a consolation prize. I’ll paraphrase what they’re saying:
Baer/Neukom: We’re so sorry that you’re not allowed to have a major league team in your city. Really, it’s not our fault, we just have a “contract” and we need to uphold it. But while we’re talking, let me give you this watch, see it’s a real Rolex set of improvements to your tiny little Single-A ballpark. It’s a token of our appreciation. There now. Happy? Okay, gotta go.
I’m getting a beer.
Update 9:57 PM – In the comments, Sam S. points out that his household was pushpolled tonight. Lovely.
Question 1: Do you support an initiative for a new A’s stadium?
Question 2: Would you still support it if you knew that public money was being used for it at a time where there isn’t enough money for schools and public utilities.
I love this game?
Regionality II: Verticals
Last week I speculated that perhaps MLB teams were changing the way they thought about their Territories. Specifically, I was referencing the San Diego Padres push to have a Triple A team in their territory. The Braves recent move of their Triple A franchise to within 30ish miles also serves as evidence. In a more generic sense, I was talking about Verticals.
I reasoned that minor league franchises could become a revenue stream for big league clubs by allowing them to stretch their TV viewership in outlying areas of their territory and/or extended media markets. The minor league teams also could help the bottom line by reducing the cost of minor league operations. But a recent development has me thinking of another potential revenue stream and verticals.
All of these new stadiums cost a lot of money. To go to any number of games, you have to have a bit of a bigger bank account than I do, at least if you are paying your own way. So what do I do? How do I expose my family to the kind of memory building experiences that I want them to have? I mean, now that we built a snowman and all, baseball is all that’s left. It’s a question everyone keeps hitting on here at New A’s Ballpark, just packaged differently. If the new stadiums are mostly for rich folk… then we ask:
“Who will serve the common man?!?!?!?”
I see an answer! Well, an answer for Sonoma County fans, that is.
The Town of Windsor, a suburb of Santa Rosa (just north on 101), is conducting a feasibility study to evaluate the potential economic impact of a privately financed Single A type baseball stadium. While there is no team identified as a potential tenant, any number of teams could be potential targets. The Town Council only seems to be specifying that any minor league team that plays in the hamlet, on land purchased with RDA funds, have a major league affiliate (excluding the Golden Baseball League, thanks for coming!).There was no mention of where a stadium site might be, though I can imagine some very cool looking possibilites adjacent to the Town Green.
Just to paint a picture, let’s pretend the A’s are in the market for a Single A team and they decide that they want their new investment to play in Wine Country. There are several ways this could work to enhance the fan experience for the average suburbanite, but the team will be thinking about ways to increase ticket sales.
How would minor league teams, seemingly competition for the ticket dollar, benefit big league team’s ticket sales? It seems kind of counterintuitive, I admit.
An example of how this might work in the not so distant future: You live in Santa Rosa and you love the A’s. You’d love to have season tickets, but they are way too steep and you live far enough away that going to the game is an undertaking and expensive (especially since by now they are either in JLS or at Diridon, we hope). What if you could get a cheap package where you could go and watch a game (on the cheap) on weeknights, close to home , and a few times in the season, off in the big city?
The adventurous could even mix in a weekend or two in Sacramento. Mix the idea of consumer choice with demand based pricing and there are any number of ticket packages that can be thrown together for numerous types of budgets up and down the ticket buying market. Now imagine the minor league teams are much closer to the parent club than Windsor is to Sacramento or either is to Oakland. What if the team is in Walnut Creek, Pleasanton, Concord, Livemore, Fremont, Milpitas, or anywhere else in the metro area? How would time and distance from the parent club impact the effectiveness of this approach? What is too close? Should the team be on the edge of the metro, or more towards the centers of population? These are questions without answers, but I am sure someone is trying to answer them in at least one of 30 MLB team’s front office.
With the right ticket packages in place, there is a real opportunity to expand the market. There would need to be a few more dominoes to fall (starting with the TR decision from Bud) before this scenario could really play out.
Assuming Bud’s decision doesn’t rip a gaping gash in the fabric of the space time continuum (highly unlikely), and MLB’s teams are mostly unaffected by the A’s v Giants settlement (or lack of a…) of 2010 the next step would be more MLB teams investing in the business side of minor league teams. The MLB teams could pull the Gap model and own each of the brands targeted at specific demographics. For each and every A’s/Banana Republic full season ticket holder/khaki pant buyer, you find 10 Windsor Ausprey/Old Navy partial ticket buyers/khaki pant buyers.
Or teams could choose to establish separate ownership groups, like the Padres have done in their pursuit of the Portland Beavers, and create a partnership. Or, they could just sign joint marketing agreements, or invest in a small portion (around 10%) of the minor league team, sort of like Daimler Chrysler once did with Hyundai, in the early part of this decade, so they could both profit from the top to the bottom of the market. For every Benz driving full season ticket holding Padres fan you have 5 Elantra driving Solana Beach Sharks partial season ticket holders, or so the analogy goes. Again, any number of combinations could be worked based on supply and demand across the entire market, top to bottom.
However they get into the minor league game, I don’t doubt that the trend will continue. Not when you consider that Windsor is looking into buying land to lease to have a Single A stadium and selling it as a stimulus like plan. If you consider MLB owners sharks (which I don’t), then you can consider this sort of development as blood in the water. No longer do they have to build mega stadiums with $500 Million. No more pushing hard for huge public checks. Instead, pushing small governments for smaller checks. Sure there is less upside, but with less upside comes less volatility. Think of the minor leagues as the twisted equivalent of bonds to the big leagues stocks.
The teams already own the players rights and have a fixed payroll. They already run the baseball side of the operation. How much larger of an investment would it take to make the minor league system, at least partially, a profit center instead of money drain? I am pretty sure several teams are crunching the numbers on this as the stadium boom, media explosion and league expansion money making programs are less of a boon and more of “been there, done that.”
Regionality: The New Revenue Stream
Is it possible that the A’s v. Giants rumble for the South Bay is a lot more complex than we even imagined? I mean, Bud Selig keeps saying so. Should we not believe him? Is it possible that the concept of MLB territory is evolving and this dispute is less about right now and more about an emerging revenue stream?
I caught myself pondering this question last week as the All Star Game was struggling to keep my attention. Honestly, my pondering began with a question like “When was the last time I cared about an All Star Game?” Oddly enough, I thought of the 1988 Triple A All Star Game in Buffalo, New York. It was the first Triple A All Star Game to feature all 26 Triple A affiliates and it was televised on ESPN. I remember waiting for the game to start as I sat in a 1950’s era ranch style San Lorenzo home staring at my grandparents 20 inch TV. Jim Kaat and Gary Thorne were waxing poetic about the beautiful new Pilot Field in Downtown Buffalo and the future stars about to take the field.
At the time, my main reason for being so excited was that I would get to see the player I thought would be the 4th Rookie of the Year (after Canseco, McGwire and Weiss) in a row for our Green and Gold heroes, Lance Blankenship. As a baseball card collector, I was also interested in seeing one Gregg Jefferies, a player I had heard about in card shops as a rookie card one needed to possess. They didn’t disappoint! Blankenship was 1 for 3 with a stolen base, while Jefferies was 1 for 2 with a Home Run. Other notable names that participated in the game? Bob Geren, Geronimo Berroa, Mike Devereaux, Joey Cora and Sandy Alomar.
Thinking about the game reminded me how much minor league baseball has changed. It seemed that, back then, MLB teams didn’t think much about how the distance between the parent club and it’s top affiliate impacted business. The A’s Triple A team was 772 miles away in Tacoma, WA, for example. While that seems like quite a distance, it was nothing when compared with the over 3000 miles that separated the Chicago White Sox and their top affiliate in Vancouver, BC. I threw a quick spreadsheet together and discovered that in 1988, the median distance between a Major League team and it’s Triple A affiliate was 559 miles. (ed. note- This number is based on Google maps and is hardly precise, but close enough to illustrate the point)
If we juxtapose the conditions in 1988 with the conditions in 2009, it is easy to see a trend towards greater regionalization. Consider these things:
- The median distance between MLB teams and their top affiliate is now only 315 miles.
- In 1988, there were 2 Triple A affiliates that played within 200 miles of their parent club. Today there are 12.
- Today there are 3 teams with their top affiliate over 1000 miles away, the greatest distance being the 3600 miles that are between Toronto and Las Vegas. In 1988, there were 6 teams that were separated from their top affiliate by more than 1000 miles, 2 well over 2000 miles.
- The Braves moved their Triple A affiliate from Richmond, VA after 43 years. The Gwinnett County Braves are just over 30 miles from the parent club
- The San Diego Padres (or at least some members of the teams ownership group) are actively working to bring the current Portland Beavers (next season Tuscon?) closer to the mothership. Possibly as close as San Marcos (36 mi.) or Escondido (31 mi.).
With MLB Advanced Media generating profits from the web, Fox Sports paying big bucks to broadcast national games, the advent of MLB Network, Regional Sports Networks extending the reach and frequency of each teams broadcasts, and most teams having a newish piggy bank for a stadium… Are minor league affiliates the next money maker for the MLB clubs? Or could there be a different reason for the decline in median distance? Is the shrinking distance between the clubs and their affiliates about efficiency or marketing or both? Or could it be simply that expansion in the 90’s brought big league baseball closer to existing Triple A cities?
It seems to be all three. Teams are investing in minor league affiliates to make money, closer affiliates help the baseball operations staff by allowing for things like more efficient use of scouts or potentially quicker player call ups and the MLB expansion of the 90’s created the opportunity for MLB Clubs and their Triple A affiliates to move closer together.
Minor League Investments
The Padres are just one of a growing number of ownership groups that are finding it beneficial to invest in the minor leagues. The Braves, Giants, and Red Sox have all made investments in minor league teams at some point in the last decade. While I don’t expect that every team will be out buying up the 150 or so major league affiliated minor league teams across the country, I imagine most are kicking the tires on limited investments.
I find this particular quote from the above linked article to be telling:
“We’re on the record and excited about operating a Triple-A franchise in Padres’ territory,” Moorad said. “And we want to break ground, start turning shovels of dirt within four to six months.
“To be clear, though, our ownership group — not the Padres — will make the deal that makes sense to all parties.”
Is it possible that this view of expanding the reach within their territory by collocating a Triple A franchise is one of the issues that the Selig Panel is reporting on? It seems so.
Efficiency of Baseball Operations
Picture this hypothetical situation that a GM might face. The trade deadline is fast approaching and you are not sure yet if you are a buyer or seller so you need to get good scouting reports on potential targets as well as understand the recent performance of your minor league assets. Your top free agent acquisition is about to go on the shelf with elbow trouble and you aren’t sure who to bring up to take his roster spot. You want to send your most trusted scout to report on both scenarios. If your Triple A team is 80 miles away, and playing at home, and your High A affiliate is even closer, and playing a potential trading partner… It suddenly becomes a few days of driving around the adjacent Metro Area to get an on the ground report rather than a series of plane flights all over the country and back, assuming the two affiliates are playing nearby.
It’s less expensive, your scout is presumably more alert and when you call him on a whim and say, “Ben Sheets elbow is barking, should we call up Bowers, Mortenson, or someone else?” You can expect to get a better answer.
In a scenario that probably more applies to our A’s… Rehab assignments can be monitored by the GM himself if he wants, for crying out loud.
The Changes Since Expansion
Of the markets that hosted Triple A teams in 1988, 2 (Phoenix and Denver) were “promoted” to the bigs and 6 (Calgary, Edmonton, Richmond, Old Orchard Beach Maine, Tuscon and Vancouver) were “demoted” on out of Triple A baseball.
With 4 new Major League teams creating a need for 4 additional Triple A markets, the total new Triple A cities in the past two decades is 12. The new cities, since 1988, are Charlotte, Durham, Fresno, Lawrenceville (Gwinnett County, GA), Allentown (Lehigh Valley, PA), Memphis, New Orleans, Reno, Round Rock (TX), Sacramento, Salt Lake City and Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre.
With Triple A teams dropping below the Canadian border, and closer to existing MLB franchises, all while new MLB teams were being established closer to existing Triple A cities (Colorado Springs/Denver), it seems only natural that teams would look to realign their minor league affiliations to take advantage of the opportunity to expand their reach into adjacent metropolitan areas. With the growth of Regional Sports Networks, minor league affiliates outside of traditional MLB territory, but inside an expanded TV market, became of greater strategic value.
In conclusion, it is all speculation as to what role this evolving view of the value of minor league affiliates in an extended metro area may hold for big league clubs. That said, it is clear that even small market teams are looking to the minor leagues as potential sources of future revenue. While I am not sure this is something that Selig’s panel is looking into, thinking about it (and mentally squinting really hard) definitely makes me understand some of the delay.
The day has come… for a proxy fight
It’s too bad that per the ML Constitution, teams and owners aren’t allowed to sue each other. They’re not even allowed to have open sniping in the local papers or even a Lincoln-Douglas style debate. Instead, we have Bill Neukom sending lawyers down to San Jose to fight for the Giants (big and little). For the A’s, it’s County Assessor Larry Stone penning an op-ed in today’s edition of San Francisco’s paper.
In Stone’s plea to Neukom to call the dogs off, he mentions that the A’s have proposed their own solution for determining compensation for South Bay territorial rights.
As I understand it, the A’s have agreed that following the opening of a San Jose ballpark, the Giants would have the right to ask Major League Baseball to arbitrate any damages to their fan base or revenue that were caused by the new stadium. Neukom has apparently rejected this fair and simple approach, most likely because projections conducted in a fair manner just might show that the San Jose ballpark would have a positive impact on the orange and black.
Obviously, Neukom would reject such a deal as it doesn’t involve a massive upfront payoff, the kind many believe it would take for the move to happen. However, by continuing to take such an intransigent stance, Neukom risks allowing Bud Selig and his committee to dictate compensation terms. Here’s are the four main tenets I expect to be the framework regarding the committee’s report:
- The A’s hurt the Giants when they moved to Oakland in 1968 because it split the market in two.
- The Giants hurt the A’s when they moved to a downtown SF ballpark in 2000 because they suddenly had a new venue that was more accessible to everyone in the Bay Area.
- Trading the higher population of the East Bay and access to the North Bay for the South Bay’s corporate money and lower population is essentially a wash.
- San Jose’s progress in terms of getting pieces of a stadium deal in place put it in advantageous position.
That last part is not to say that Oakland isn’t making its own progress as it formally acquired the OFDT site from CEDA, but as long as there’s no EIR or negotiations with private landowners it’s well behind. That said, what would you consider fair compensation given the four points above? Is it at all clear cut?
Not revisionist history
Many like to give credit to Peter Magowan for keeping the Giants in SF. With the death of mega-developer Walter Shorenstein, let’s remember whose true legacy this was:
For some San Franciscans, Mr. Shorenstein’s most notable civic contribution was helping to stop the Giants baseball team’s planned move to Florida in 1993. He was sought out by then-Mayor Frank Jordan, and the two men joined other business people committed to saving the team. Many have said that before Mr. Shorenstein came into the fold, it looked like a lost cause. At the time, Larry Baer, then a CBS executive who had grown up in the city, was working with Safeway CEO Peter Magowan to drum up investors. Baer is now the Giants’ president.
“Walter played a pivotal role because he was at the center of a lot of planning and strategy, and we held most of our meetings at his office at 555 California St.,” Baer said in an interview Thursday. “Having a person of his stature made a statement about the importance of keeping the team in San Francisco and sent a message to everyone – including Major League Baseball – that we were serious.”
Mr. Shorenstein put up $6.6 million of his own money to help buy the franchise, but subsequently sold his share after disagreeing with the direction the club was taking under managing general partner Magowan. It also is widely believed that Mr. Shorenstein felt he had not received sufficient public recognition for the role he played in keeping the Giants in town.
Let’s also remember that Shorenstein wasn’t exactly a nice guy either:
While Mr. Shorenstein generally has been praised in the public arena, he also has felt the lash of adverse publicity. He came under heavy criticism for his role in a nine-year battle that ended with the 1979 destruction of the International Hotel on Kearny Street, which had housed many elderly Filipino residents.
As a Filipino, I’d love to piss on Shorenstein’s grave, but there’s a bit of karma in knowing that the garage that Shorenstein wanted on the I Hotel site never got built, and that he was forced to sit on the land for years.
Cal football to play 2011 season at AT&T Park
Look whose field is going to be trampled by 300-lb. linemen soon?
Pic from Wikipedia Commons/Eric Chan
AT&T Park, one of those baseball-only-first facilities. As part of renovations to Cal’s Memorial Stadium, Cal’s football team will temporarily play their six home games of the 2011 season at China Basin. The schedule is as follows so far:
- Oregon State, 9/24
- Washington State, 10/15
- Arizona, 10/29
- USC, 11/12
Two other dates are to be filled, probably two early September non-conference games. The Big Game is scheduled for Stanford in 2011. Interesting quote from head coach Jeff Tedford:
“I’m very, very happy about coming to a place that’s so familiar to us after playing here,” Tedford said. “Such a classy place. I think our kids are going to get jacked up about playing here. It felt like home.”
Tedford said the only negative about the bowl game was having both teams on the same side of the field. That won’t be the case in 2011, as teams will be on opposite sidelines.
I never understood having the teams on the same sideline in the first place. Good to see that this is being addressed.
As for playing football games on a pristine baseball field during the regular season: I hope the revenue is worth it.
newballpark.org 