Category Archives: Owners

10.20.11
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Crane names his price and it’s a discount

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Perhaps MLB should put the Astros out on Priceline. Wait, wrong Crane?

The New York Post is reporting that Jim Crane’s price for moving the Astros to the American League is not, as I speculated, a future franchise sale price guarantee. Instead, Crane wants the value upfront, asking for a $50 million discount off the $680 million sale price. Assuming that MLB and Crane meet somewhere in the middle, we’ll see how desperate Drayton McLane is to finally unload the franchise. Based on previous reports, McLane is quite desperate. (Additional coverage available from The Biz of Baseball.)

Crane may be trying to deflate the valuation bubble a little. **Astros sale is not final.

Crane’s argument is that moving to the AL West will cause more games to be broadcast at 9 PM Central time because of frequent trips to the West Coast. Let’s do some math on this. Setting aside the interleague rotation, the ‘Stros currently play 4 NL West opponents roughly 6 times apiece. Cut that in half and it translates to 12 road games against the West Coast, then take away a third of those games as daytime games for a total of 8 games at the 9 PM start time. If they play in a 5-team AL West, they’ll play 3 West Coast opponents 18 times (assuming the format stays unbalanced). Half of those games will be at home, translating to 27 total games on the West Coast, or 15 more than before. Roughly a third of these games will be either weekend daytime or weekday getaway day games, reducing actual number affected by the two-hour shift to 18, or 10 more 9 PM starts than before. Is a 10-game delta worth a $50 million discount?

Crane is actually coming into a very good situation with the Astros. $12 million was spent last year to upgrade the big scoreboard. Renovations to club areas have also been completed. The Astros will be moving to CSN Houston, of which they’ll own 40%, in 2013. They’ll be partnering with the NBA Rockets, who will move starting with the 2012-13 season. With the ‘Stros in full rebuild mode, it would make sense for Crane to keep payroll low until the team sniffs contention again.

Moreover, Crane’s request seems to fall in line with the thinking that, when it comes to dealings between teams and owners on the business side, money generally does not change hands. If Lew Wolff gets territorial rights and the Giants are awarded compensation, it’ll be interesting to see what form that compensation takes. Based on this news and the historical pattern of how franchises work out deals (other than player trades), cash payments are not the likely form of compensation.

10.17.11
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Houston, we have a problem

After a lengthy delay and a lot of questions, Jim Crane may be on his way to becoming the next owner of the Houston Astros. Word out of Houston tonight is that Crane met with his board after another meeting with MLB. It’s hard to think that any information about Crane’s bid isn’t already out there for Selig and the higher-ups to review, so this looks like a matter of prepping the transition (which McLane desperately wants). The change would have to be approved at the upcoming owners meetings, along with the CBA and perhaps the A’s territorial rights matter.

Houston realignment to the American League

A key item in that blog link is that Crane is willing to accept compensation in exchange for moving the team to the American League, where it would be part of the West division. My wild guess at this point is that the compensation would be a franchise sale price guarantee as long as Crane’s group owned the team for a significant enough tenure – say five years or so. That would provide some protection for the heavily leveraged Crane group as they “endured” the transition. I’m sure the hardship of trading the Cubs and Cards (25k per game x 15 games) for the Red Sox and Yankees (35k per game x 12 games) will make the other owners highly sympathetic.

The preliminary 2012 schedule was released a couple weeks ago (more on that later this week), and it appears that MLB wants to bake it in ASAP, which would render a 2012 realignment impractical. In theory, it should be easier to make changes to the schedule since starting next year, there will be only one team who has to share a multipurpose facility with another franchise (I’ll give you one guess as to who that is). Another thing to consider is the schedule format, which could continue in the unbalanced method MLB now employs (15-19 games in division, 6-9 outside), or move more towards a balanced format. Some examples are listed in the table below.

Comparison of existing scheduling format vs. three potential realignment formats

Option A mostly retains the spirit of the existing schedule. Option B sacrifices interleague series for more interdivision games. Option C nearly achieves a balanced format, whereas Option D again reduces interleague matchups. Key to this is the question of how many interleague games are truly necessary, especially now that the games will be played throughout the entire season. Another thing to consider is that by starting the season with an interleague series, it gives MLB an excuse to always have an opening series in Japan, Korea, etc.

Astros fans aren’t taking this threat lying down, though one has to wonder how strong the opposition truly is. As of tonight, a petition at SaveOurStros.org has 633 signees. The Keep the Astros in the National League Facebook group has only 50 members. Not that MLB cares about what a few fans think. I’d feel bad for them, but they’re going to have a very strong rivalry with the Rangers in short order, which should be great for both franchises. As for the effect on the A’s, there isn’t much of one. They’d just be trading two opponents in the AL Central/East for one in the Central time zone. No big deal.

There’s also talk of adding another wildcard team for a one-game playoff prior to the divisional series. I didn’t have strong feelings one way or another on the subject until the final day of the 2011 season, in which the action was so riveting that it would be highly anticlimactic to eliminate it by creating game 163.

What are your thoughts on this? Personally, I’m glad MLB is creating an equal amount of interleague games for every team, which IMHO is far more important from a competition standpoint than confining interleague play to May and June. It’s something that has been impossible to address because of the 16-team National League. Now it can be fixed, and baseball will be better off for it.

10.14.11
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Wolff, SJ ready to roll on remaining Diridon land purchases

We’re almost exactly one month from what could be a very pivotal owners meetings in Milwaukee. And while Commissioner Bud Selig may not end up feting his colleagues over a Brewers’ World Series, it may be that Selig’s frat bro Lew Wolff will be the one celebrating. Merc scribe Tracy Seipel reports that the recently formed San Jose Diridon Development Authority (a.k.a. SJ City Council) will meet in closed session to arrange an option from which Wolff could buy the remaining ballpark site parcels.

As discussed previously, Wolff would in all likelihood have to pay for both land and moving costs for the affected landowners/business, since SJDDA/SJRA is tapped out now and for some time to come. One thing that may help is that Maritz Wolff, Wolff’s real estate investment firm, sold a series of hotels in August for $570 million. Some portion of that could easily offset the estimated $24+ million of the remaining land buys. Now that I think about it, I wonder if the timing is set up for a 1031 exchange, which would limit tax exposure for Wolff (in-depth knowledge on this subject is above my pay grade).

Seipel also reports that the purchase may be part of a final push to convince Selig and the other owners:

Mayor Chuck Reed explained it another way:

“It’s so that Lew can go to the commissioner of baseball and say, ‘I control the dirt.’ ”

Reed characterized the plan as taking away “one more little reason the commissioner can’t make up his mind.”

Because of the black cloud over redevelopment and the lawsuit against the state, it’s possible that much of the money may have to be reclaimed by SJRA for its extortion payment to the state, the big bond payment that’s due next month (which could cause a default), or other issues that the agency has to address. It’s not just a matter of SJRA being broke. They also can’t enter into any new agreements, which is probably what caused City to in a moment of prescience create SJDDA. It’ll be interesting to see how the option agreement is structured. The Airport West agreement went through some major changes before arriving in its current form.

Seipel ends the piece with a note from City Attorney John Doyle, who said that a referendum will be required for the ballpark/land transaction.

There are a number of follow-up questions that can only be answered by the actions of SJDDA and affected parties in the coming weeks:

  • What will be the final price for the transaction(s)?
  • Does this lead to Wolff buying all of the land, or giving the purchased part back to the City/SJDDA?
  • Unlike Airport West, the purchase of Diridon has a much earlier deadline. What is that deadline?
  • Is Wolff in effect bailing out SJRA by doing this?
  • While Reed openly cheers on the influence that this move may have, Doyle (as you would expect) tamps down expectations on MLB’s decision-making. What’s the story here?

The road ahead promises to be scenic, and a little bumpy.

10.13.11
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News for 10/14/11

It’s been a somewhat contentious week in the comments. Let’s cool it down a bit.

  • The City of Industry NFL stadium’s financing plan is a little too 90’s optimistic for this era. (ESPNLA/Arash Markazi) Choice quote:

    “You would probably be more likely to see Eric Dickerson suit back up for L.A. than see a stadium pay for itself solely with PSLs, naming rights and the NFL $150 million payment,” (sports economist Victor) Matheson said.

  • A little further towards downtown, Frank McCourt is up to his eyes in debt – $550-600 million, not including the Dodgers’ recently approved $150 emergency bridge loan. After the Dodgers are sold and McCourt’s divorce is final, he could be left with very little. (LA Times/Bill Shaikin)
  • Mark Davis, son of the late Al Davis, reportedly met with AEG about Farmers Field six months ago, but balked at selling a large percentage of the team in exchange for first dibs on the downtown LA stadium. (Yahoo! Sports/Mike Silver)
  • On the other hand, given the Davis family’s cash position and the potential for estate taxes, the least expensive and most feasible option may be to go to Santa Clara. (Yahoo! Sports/Jason Cole)
  • NBA commissioner David Stern is really putting the screws to the players, saying that if there isn’t a deal by Tuesday, games through this Christmas will be cancelled. I don’t understand the proportionality of these threats. That’s what makes him the Godfather. (NY Times/Ken Belson)
  • Apparently it’s not just California cities that are under the gun regarding redevelopment. Reno’s agency faces a default if it can’t make a $2.7 million bond payment next summer. Property tax receipts are in the gutter, so the agency is looking to Washoe County for help. (Reno Gazette Journal/Brian Duggan)
  • Peter Gammons tweeted on Wednesday that the Astros sale to Jim Crane will go through no later than the owners meetings, which are scheduled for November 15-16. Included in the ownership change would be the ‘Stros switch to the American League, which, given the release of the preliminary schedule, probably wouldn’t occur until the 2013 season (concurrent with a playoff format change if approved). Those owners meetings are shaping up to be a doozy, aren’t they?
  • Come on Cal, you can’t be 0-for-AT&T Park (Presbyterian doesn’t count, does it?).

I’m working on a post or two for the weekend, so watch this space.

10.10.11
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$230,000,000

After the defeats of both the Yankees and Phillies in the divisional round, the most oft-tweeted fact was that all of the payrolls of the remaining four teams (Detroit, Texas, Milwaukee, St. Louis) were less than $107 million. All four teams can be considered midrange in terms of revenue and payroll, which makes it incredibly refreshing that those are the four left standing, not the mega-money teams of the biggest markets. We can only hope that this continues, if only to start a trend of “right-sizing” payrolls all over baseball in order to optimize efficiency. (Yeah right.)

That culling of the playoff herd was preceded by Lew Wolff’s observation (during the Tuesday interview with Carl Guardino) that should the A’s make the move to the South Bay, the team’s annual revenue could jump to $230-240 million. At first that seemed improbable and to me, perhaps a bit of a lark. Over the weekend I started to dig into the numbers to try to understand if it was possible. Not only is it possible, by the time the A’s finish their first year at Cisco Field, $230 million may be mandatory.

To get a better sense of this, it’s best to look at how MLB’s revenue has grown over the last decade, especially since the first revenue sharing CBA year in 2003. Back then, baseball’s total revenue was a shade under $3.9 billion. Last year was a cool $7 billion. During the last decade, the average annual revenue growth has been 6-7% year over year. That growth slowed with the recession, but it’s realistic to see growth rebounding to at least 4%, which would at least outpace inflation. To that end, I’ve run some projections over the next few years with a 5% growth rate (conservative, I expect Commissioner Selig and the owners to be satisfied with no less than 6% if the corporate customer base is considered healthy enough).

Mean and median revenue figures differ because of the distribution of big market teams with very high payrolls.

It gets even more interesting when the numbers are broken down per team.

Growth will be largely dictated by new media/broadcast deals, as well as additional gate revenue from new venues in Florida and California.

By 2015, the average revenue should be $250-260 million, an amount that would support a payroll of $125 million, almost twice what the A’s payroll was this past season. In effect, projecting to $230 million is merely trying to keep up with the Joneses. It’s what will be required for the A’s to truly minimize their revenue sharing “welfare” status. If the A’s can’t hit the median or mean revenue mark on a somewhat regular basis, it’s probably worth asking if it makes sense for the Bay Area to host two teams.

Rough revenue projections. Figures are for illustration purposes only and are not meant to be exact. Model assumes a continuation of the current 34% straight pool revenue sharing plan.

To get to $230 million in 2015, the A’s ownership group will have to sell the hell out of Cisco Field, including a 50% jump from 2014 to 2015 across the board in terms of local revenue sources. Given the meager results they’re getting while at the Coliseum, this is not an impossible task. (The Twins experienced a similar jump when Target Field opened.) Season sellouts for the first year or two would go a long way towards hitting the target. In 2015, the difference between 24,000 per game and 32,000 per game is over $26 million, let alone whatever additional money they get if the ballpark is larger than 32,000 seats.

When Lew Wolff and Billy Beane talk about planning for the next three years, the reasons for doing so start to crystallize when the numbers are laid out like this. Already, the Earthquakes’ $60 million stadium appears to be moving forward without significant upfront sponsorship commitments, indicating that Wolff is willing to make the cash calls necessary to get the ball rolling there. I’ve heard rumblings of private equity firms perhaps being involved, though it’s hard to see any heavy investment there when the return may not be as great as what such firms may be looking for. After all, it was only two months ago when Wolff said:

(Baseball’s) not an internal rate of return 20% or something like that. You shouldn’t be in this business if you want that.

Getting commitments for Cisco Field should not as difficult as for the Earthquakes stadium; in fact it should be a highly competitive situation. Still, ownership has to be looking at trying to reduce debt service as much as humanly possible, so they must have an internal target of upfront money they’ll need to push forward. Maybe it’s $200 million, maybe more (roughly 40% of the total cost). This is incredibly important because the private stadium loan market could be a complete wildcard over the next couple of years. Keeping debt service manageable doesn’t just help the bottom line, it will surely raise the franchise’s valuation due to its favorable debt position. Keep in mind that Cisco’s $120 million naming rights deal has a present value of $60 million, so the A’s will need much more than that to truly get going.

If Wolff gets a “no” decision from MLB, that leaves Beane with the regular revenue streams to fund the next several seasons’ payroll. It’s easy to see the A’s consistently hovering in that 74-86 win range depending on the team’s health. The team may be good enough to go for the division crown with some luck, and without luck the team would not be bad enough to score a top five first round draft pick. On the other hand, if San Jose is a go the controversial full rebuild could occur, with a key focus being another top ten pick to go along with Michael Choice (2010 #10). Jeffrey’s post from Friday explains the need for any money-challenged team to have a stable of developed top ten picks to serve as franchise cornerstones. This also highlights the importance of reining in debt, as it may be expected that the team run lean should a more aggressively enforced debt rule come into play.

In light of the lessons of Moneyball, it’s crazy to think that the A’s payroll in future seasons could frequently eclipse $100 million. Thanks to a little inflation and a lot of revenue sharing, the A’s are coming along for the ride. That will only take them so far, however. If the A’s are unable to significantly grow their own locally-sourced revenue on a regular basis, they be left behind competitively. With the future threat of multiple teams having $200+ million payrolls, the A’s have no choice. As Brad Pitt’s Beane flippantly says to a defiant Grady Fuson in the film, “Adapt or die.”

10.04.11
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Wolff on KLIV’s CEO show tonight at 7

Lew Wolff makes the rounds on the radio again, appearing on KLIV-1590 AM’s The CEO Show tonight at 7. He’ll probably talk A’s, Quakes, and Moneyball. I don’t think I’ll be able to listen to it live, but the podcast is usually available shortly after the interview is recorded. The host of The CEO Show is SVLG head Carl Guardino, a notable A’s-to-San Jose supporter and general Valley booster.

09.30.11
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What We Know About Oakland…

Ken Korach is awesome. He is professional. He is erudite. He is classy. As my Quasiuncle Lester always says, “Ken Korach just sounds like summer.” It was nice to start the off season with some good news for us A’s fans, Ken Korach is staying put. It was good news because the move brought some semblance of continuity to a fan ecosphere that has become increasingly chaotic and unstable. It was also good news because Ken Korach is among the best in the business. One of my favorite aspects of the Ken Korach broadcast, just behind “The lights are on but not yet taking effect,” is when, at a critical juncture, he brings total clarity by “resetting” the game. He explains the situation, gives the count, and explains how the game got to whatever critical juncture it had arrived at.

With all the speculation in the media lately, it seems it is time to reset the stadium game a bit. No?

What do we know? I was reading through the comments in a recent thread (one that had devolved into another San Jose v. Oakland steel cage scaffold match) and this question came to me. In particular, “What do we know about Oakland, still the A’s home city of record, and it’s efforts to keep the team?” So, what has Oakland done? The answer is, more than San Jose boosters will admit and less than Oakland boosters believe. There is nuance here.

Let’s start with the stuff we know for certain:

Nine months ago the Oakland City Council authorized up to $750k for an EIR to support the potential development of a MLB stadium just south of Jack London Square (depicted below and outlined in green and red):
Photobucket

Prior to the authorization of the EIR, Oakland met with Bud Selig’s committee and the City was asked to provide potential ballpark sites. They listed four potential sites for the committee. The Coliseum, Howard Terminal and JLS West as well as the Victory Court site depicted above.

Additionally, the City was asked to provide a plan for acquiring the site, relocating businesses and making necessary upgrades to the surrounding infrastructure. Oakland’s plan was to tap RDA funds to carry out this task.

Let’s Go Oakland, without prompting from MLB’s committee, collected $500k from around 30 potential suite owners.

Publicly, that is all we know. MLB asked for some specific things, Oakland delivered (at least a concept in the case of financing site acquisition while RDA works its way through the legal system). Oakland boosters also took an extra step to show there is a premium ticket market in Oakland and the East Bay. These things above have been confirmed by Doug Boxer, co-chair of Let’s Go Oakland.

What else have we heard? Well, we heard Bryan Grunwald’s 980 Ballpark concept had been tabbed as an alternative to be studied in the EIR. We have heard that maybe MLB had floated a potential loan of $150M for a ballpark in Oakland. We heard that Clorox might be interested in naming rights. We know that Jean Quan and Lew Wolff met recently and we heard they talked about the Coliseum and Victory Court.

None of these things are verifiable. Therefore, we don’t know these things.

This leaves us waiting for one thing: the completion of the aforementioned EIR. What’s troubling about this is that when the EIR process was being discussed, it was mentioned by Oakland Boosters that the whole process could be done within a year. As ML outlined at the time, it could have been done in a year, provided the Draft EIR was completed within 3, or so, months. This week we heard rumblings that the EIR hasn’t even begun because of ongoing negotiations between the City and the firm doing the work.

To be clear, we don’t know anything about the EIR at this point. We don’t know when it will be delivered. We don’t know that it has started. The Draft EIR could almost be done.

Just like we don’t know anything about stadium construction financing in Oakland. There could be a neatly sewn up package of naming rights, sponsorship deals, a loan and charter seat sales just waiting for Larry Ellison, of Mark Cuban, to pry the team from Lew Wolff. There could be back room discussions with the local State legislators to work out bonds backed by the income taxes of the Athletics players to help finance construction, as was pitched in Portland when they were trying to get the Expos to come to town.

And this is the challenge with Oakland’s strategy of saying nothing and waiting out Lew Wolff’s time as an owner… It leaves all kinds of room for wild speculation and wrong assumptions. The question for me, which admittedly leads to more speculation, is “Why isn’t Oakland sharing the path they see to a new stadium being built in their fine City?”

I have heard and read many different versions of why they aren’t being open. They don’t want Wolff to know the plan so that he can’t poke holes in it. They are working around Wolff with MLB and MLB wants them to be quiet. The sponsors they have lined up don’t want Wolff to know they support an Oakland plan because they want to have sponsorship opportunities in San Jose should that be the eventual choice.

Here’s another potential reason for the strategy: they are hiding the fact that there are no answers to the tough questions everyone wants to hear answers to.

There could be any number of reasons for the tight lipped approach. Until someone speaks up, we will all be left guessing.

09.26.11
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Adventures in re-signing

If you weren’t convinced the A’s “stadium or die” stance regarding re-signing Josh Willingham was real, get ready for confirmation. Now it’s Coco Crisp’s agent, Steve Comte, who’s breaking the bad news thanks to tonight’s Susan Slusser article:

Comte… said he also believes the A’s spending will depend on the speed and the outcome of a stadium decision. Last week, Josh Willingham’s agent, Matt Sosnick, told The Chronicle that he’d gone to the A’s with proposals for a multi-year deal but was told the team is in wait-and-see mode while Major League Baseball continues to examine territorial rights issues that affect where a potential new stadium would be built – currently two and a half years of deliberations and counting.

Comte said that he hasn’t spoken to Oakland general manager Billy Beane recently, but he said, “The reality is that we knew in spring training that the situation with the stadium could impact their long-term spending.”

Slusser goes on to describe the Giants as Crisp’s #1 suitor. Crisp projects as a Type B free agent, meaning he’s worth a supplemental first round pick (a.k.a. “sandwich pick”) if he is offered arbitration, declines (as would be expected), and signs elsewhere.

Again, I have to say that I think we’re talking about the difference between a $50 million payroll and a $70 million payroll, not a gutting of the young talent (at least not right away). I can’t say that it’s a good idea to involve players and agents in this stadium business, but as long as everyone’s aware of the factor(s), I suppose it’s better to be above board than to couch everything in euphemisms.

At least the A’s made one key re-signing today: Ken Korach has been extended through the 2014 season.

Update 9/27 12:00 AM – Another down note – the deal between the A’s and the City of Phoenix for improvements to Phoenix Municipal Stadium is apparently dead, with the A’s probably on the move after their lease expires in 2014. That is, unless something miraculous happens to bring the A’s and City back to the table. The A’s aren’t alone in abandoning Phoenix, as the Brewers are prepared to leave Maryvale even sooner (2012). 

09.25.11
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Eminent domain the last hurdle for San Jose

I want to point out something before we begin. Whether it’s this story or the quotes from Susan Slusser’s articles, let’s remember that none of it are statements from the A’s, MLB, or San Jose. As close as they seem to the situation, there’s a lot of conflicting information out there so take all of this with multiple grains of salt.

It’s always been there, lingering in the background. I even wrote about it only six weeks ago. It’s the boogeyman. It’s eminent domain. A frequent commenter has the gory details:

I was at a bachelor party in San Diego this past weekend. A San Jose city council member was part of the group and we discussed the A’s in detail.

What he told me was this:

1. ATT is being a “pain in the ass” and will not move unless forced to by eminent domain. Even re-zoning the land for ATT in West San Jose did not help the cause at all. In fact the city council in hindsight would have never agreed to it had they known ATT would still refuse to leave.

2. The city will not use eminent domain on ATT unless MLB gives the OK that the A’s can move to San Jose. Therefore this is not a “race” between OAK and SJ. San Jose like Oakland is in a holding pattern waiting for MLB to make a decision…..Two cities, same boat.
He told me that they cannot “justify” using eminent domain on ATT without MLB approval to move forward.

3. He stated to me their RDA is pretty much done and he “implied” to me Wolff will have to buy the last 2 parcels himself but would not out right say it when I tried to question him more on it. The city council knows full well that Wolff will pay for it because everyone knows it is a “drop in the ocean” of the overall cost of the stadium. He also mentioned SJ unlike most cities did not misuse their RDA funds and used it for several successful developments across the city.

4. He agrees with me Lew Wolff has some kind of “backdoor” deal with Selig as being a former lawyer he does not understand Wolff’s patience with the situation. The city has brought up an anti-trust lawsuit to Wolff and he has told the city “not to sue” and to let the process play out despite San Jose having an excellent case in anti-trust court, which he agreed with me is “solid”.

5. Without Wolff supporting an anti-trust lawsuit San Jose is stuck in mud and he is very pessimistic the A’s to San Jose will ever occur. Although he is still holding out some hope.

6. He also agreed San Jose is getting the “best ballpark deal” of any city in history of MLB. The city is not paying for anything outside of what they have so far. Diridon will be re-developed regardless of the ball park but not for several years to come. BART or High Speed rail would have to be within 3-5 years of being in San Jose.

I wanted to share this info with everyone as this is first hand info from a SJ city council member that is as recent as yesterday.

AT&T owns the largest remaining property within the Diridon site. Its reluctance to sell will force San Jose to use eminent domain to acquire AT&T’s land (and possibly one other piece) in order to complete the site. There is no way to build a ballpark without the AT&T land.

AT&T land is in blue. Most of the rest has either been acquired or is no longer part of the planned site.

Even though Lew Wolff has expressed a willingness and confidence in the ability to acquire all of the ballpark site, not having a willing seller creates a big time hitch. San Jose can’t force AT&T and the A’s to negotiate on land. Instead, San Jose can acquire the land, then negotiate on the relocation and replacement land costs, then have the A’s reimburse the City. Making things more complicated is the fact that public-to-private exchanges tend to be politically unpopular. That may cause a final step in which the A’s buy the land, then convey it back to San Jose for free so that the site (and maybe the ballpark) are publicly owned. The Quakes stadium site is a publicly owned “island” surrounded by Quakes-owned land. Wolff indicated there are numerous ways this could play out, and these are just a couple different permutations.

Adding to the complications is the still lingering fate of redevelopment, which won’t be decided until January. Right now no agency is allowed to buy anything even though the state Supreme Court granted RDAs a six month stay to operate. San Jose is trying to bypass this roadblock by moving assets to its San Jose Diridon Development Authority, a redevelopment wing thinly disguised as a joint powers body. Keep in mind that San Jose has not made its ransom payment to keep its barebones redevelopment group running, choosing instead to sue Governor Jerry Brown over the new redevelopment laws. For that matter neither has Oakland, and Oakland could require eminent domain on multiple landowners to clear Victory Court.

Despite this major hurdle, all we’ve heard over the last week is a growing confidence in public statements by both Wolff and Billy Beane, indicating Sid’s item #4 may well be in play. If that’s the case, here’s how I see this playing out:

  1. Wolff gets green light during November owners meetings.
  2. San Jose seizes upon this and makes one last offer to AT&T before the end of the year. If AT&T continues to holdout, City notifies that it will start the eminent domain process via SJDDA.
  3. City can’t actually start eminent domain without a referendum, so if it’s required a special election will be held during the early spring (with MLB picking up part of the tab).
  4. City procedes to acquire the land and begin relocation, which should take 3-6 months to complete.
  5. Demolition and site clearing would have to be done throughout the summer and fall of 2012.
  6. Groundbreaking happens in November or December 2012.

It’s important to note that there’s always that final offer. Eminent domain is every bit as much a threat as it is a tool and may be used simply to bring parties to the table. AT&T knows that San Jose is hamstrung by the referendum requirement and other political realities, so it may be playing its own special brand of hardball. A supposed quid pro quo deal between City and AT&T over rezoning an old work site near Santana Row may have been AT&T playing City like a fiddle. The Death Star of telecom is no stranger to strongarm tactics. This is the company that thinks eliminating a wireless carrier by acquiring it will actually bring more competition to the industry.

FWIW, I’ve been consistent in my feeling that no one in the South Bay camp has the stomach for a lengthy antitrust challenge to MLB. As for the “best ballpark deal”, with the A’s on track to pay for everything ($450 million ballpark and up to $100 million in land and improvements), yes, it would be better than the deal for AT&T Park and any other MLB ballpark deal in the last century.

09.25.11
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Willingham signing hinges on stadium resolution

Susan Slusser’s report on Josh Willingham’s status makes my last post look downright prophetic (I swear I had no idea). According to Willingham’s agent, Matt Sosnick, any kind of multiyear deal is completely dependent on whether or not the A’s get the green light to move to San Jose.

“We gave the A’s an idea of where we were, and we were told they have interest in bringing Josh back, but before they did anything, they want to see what happens with the stadium,” Sosnick said. “Josh and I both made it clear he’d like to stay, but at this point, I’m pretty sure he’ll test the free-agent market.

“We talked about a time frame, given that Billy would like Josh back, but it seems like Billy is sort of hamstrung right now.”

Now if you haven’t read the last post on the Moneyball script, read it now. And enjoy the symmetry.

Slusser also notes that if the A’s get that green light, they’ll reduce payroll and go into a full rebuilding mode. That would make sense, since Beane and Wolff/Fisher would probably want to time the opening of Cisco Field with a fully resurgent team, one that could maximize revenue. That probably means trading any or all of the cost-controlled young starters, Kurt Suzuki if he has any value left, and maybe even *gulp* Jemile Weeks. The moves wouldn’t have to happen right away, though I figure that Beane will spend some time trying to find a sucker to take Brian Fuentes’ $5 million for 2012. The moves are one more reason for the pro-Oakland folks to hate ownership, though I have to point out that if they were to build in Oakland they’d go through the same phase. If they were to stay in the Coliseum indefinitely, they’d have to keep payroll at the $70 million level in hopes of attracting more fans at the gate, though $70 million doesn’t get you more than scraps as we’ve seen over the last few years. Want to see how Taylor and Carter look with 500+ PAs? We might finally find out.

Thing is, such a hardline stance may not be necessary since several players may not be expected to re-sign with the A’s, and will have their money come off the books in the offseason. That includes $5.75 million for David DeJesus (despite the strange love affair with the guy) and $4.25 million for Hideki Matsui. Plus there’s the dead money of Kevin Kouzmanoff ($4.75 million) and Conor Jackson ($3.2 million). So even if they re-sign both Willingham and Coco Crisp, they can keep their payroll under $55 million while giving the kids precious playing time.

Without Willingham and Crisp, the payroll would be around $40 million, roughly the same amount as the 2002 Moneyball A’s. It would seem that signing both of those players might make sense in that both of them might yield something better in trade near next season’s trading deadline than the first round/sandwich picks the team would get for letting them walk. Beane’s argument is that without a resolution of the stadium situation, there can be no effective long-range planning, since there would be an endless cycle of building up and selling off. As more of the youngsters hit arbitration eligible years, Beane has to keep that in mind and plan accordingly. It’s a tough spot to be in.