Category Archives: San Jose

11.15.10
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Five degrees of separation

Here at the ballpark blog, we’ve been very upfront about one particular issue when it comes to Cisco Field: We don’t like bandboxes. From the initial look, that’s exactly what it appears to be. We were even concerned enough to consult a noted expert about the ramifications of implementing the ballpark using the speculated dimensions, and the results only made us more fearful. We’ve been conditioned, as good A’s (and baseball) fans, to love the occasional 1-0 shutout that runs only 2:15. While the Diridon site creates limitations as to the layout, there’s still plenty of room to put in a neutral field.

To refresh your memory, here’s what the existing plan looks like.

In hopes of effecting some kind of change, I took the projected layout and revised it slightly. The changes are as follows:

  • Field orientation is rotated 5 degrees north (counterclockwise).
  • Home plate is moved roughly 10 feet east.  This may seem strange considering the space constraints on the east side of the lot, it’ll make sense later.
  • The seating bowl, which is at a 75 degree angle, is made more acute to end up at 65 degrees.
  • The outfield wall is redrawn to keep the the left field grandstands parallel to streets and existing lot lines.

Now here’s what the revised layout looks like.

The outfield dimensions are now 328-375-402-376-314.

A lot better, no?

Rotating the field makes an incredible difference, even a 5 degree change. It opens up the outfield a ton and makes for a much deeper transition from the right field corner to the power alley. Now that extra set of seats/bleachers in right field isn’t so bad, as the 36-foot high wall goes from 314′ to 370′ and then drops to a 12′ high wall at 356′. Left field is a pretty standard set of dimensions, with the quirk being a pitcher-friendly jump from 328′ to 370′. Center field’s 402′ is pretty blah.

There are some compromises and penalties that come with rotating the field. The LF line cuts into the grandstand more, so much that I was forced to move home plate 10 feet east to compensate. By doing this, the LF corner can be fairly standard and not many seats are lost. To keep the simple contour of the seating bowl, the angle of the bowl had to be brought in 10 degrees. If that hadn’t been done, a kink or bend along the first base line would’ve been required. The resulting angle is 65 degrees, which should create for better sight lines than the original concept (75 degrees).

As with the original analysis, I’ve projected two capacities, one in which there are a minimal number of rows and another where there are four additional rows for both the lower and upper decks. All else stays the same. One change is the inclusion of a service tunnel near the LF corner. An outline of seating sections is shown where the affected seats would be taken out.

Additional notes:

  • ADA locations refers to wheelchair locations and companion chairs. It is assumed that some accessible seats within the seating bowl will have flip-up armrests.
  • Temporary seating refers to rows of seats at the back of available sections. It’s a simple way to add seats for a nominal cost, and can be easily adjusted on an as needed basis. Unused ADA rows can be replaced by rows of temporary seats if space is available. The Giants have employed this method of adding seats extensively.
  • The third deck (club) has been omitted to reduce clutter. The suite level (tucked underneath the upper deck) is obscured.
  • After some discussion, I’m going with 36-foot high wall in right, which is closer to what Jeffrey and gojohn10 have suggested. (The Green Monster is 37′ 3″ high)
  • Bullpens are still in center.

Questions? Fire away.

11.12.10
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Wolff/AN Interview Observations

There’s no need to rehash all three parts of Blez’s fantastic Lew Wolff interview (Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3). Doing so would repeat a lot of material that we’ve already written about, so I won’t do that. I also won’t get into a gotcha-fest as some other blogs have, and I won’t dig into Lew’s usual smattering of interview flubs. I’ve gotten used to it by now.

The lie

Instead, I’ll focus on some of the new information we’ve gotten from the series, and read between the lines on it. First, I’ll frame the discussion with one declarative statement:

I know specifically that Lew has lied about one thing in public all these years.

The lie? When Fremont started to go south, Lew said that was he didn’t know what he was going to do, that there was no Plan B. San Jose was always Plan B, or C if you choose to make it part of the longer history. That’s not to say that he hasn’t lied about other things, far from it. It’s just that what some people consider lies or damned lies others think are realities borne of statistics.

Back to the lie. San Jose was continuing to perform its due diligence and that, frankly, Wolff would’ve been a fool to not explore it – at least to the constraints placed upon him. Of course, this was pretty obvious to anyone watching this for any serious length of time. Yet from that lie, I’ve picked up a behavioral pattern that shows how this whole process is moving, at least from the owner’s perspective.

Simply put, Lew tends to only use certain terms and couches his language until he feels he has the leeway and confidence to move forward. While the Coliseum North project was in play, he never mentioned Fremont by name, even though he met with Cisco a few months after the Oakland unveiling. While Fremont was in play and even after it unofficially died, he never talked about either San Jose or Oakland. When the San Jose EIR was certified, he started talking about San Jose in real terms and advocated for it. He started sending players and Stomper to South Bay events. And now he feels confident enough to proclaim that there’s

“…absolutely no reason any of us can come up with that either the Giants or the baseball Commissioner should not approve us to move 50/60 miles away to San Jose so A’s can get a new ballpark.”

He’s couched this newfound confidence by saying he doesn’t know when the decision will be made, but we all know what the timetable is. At this point, over 5 years into Wolff’s tenure as managing partner and 7 into his search for a new home for the A’s, both the A’s and Raiders are running into a hard limit. That limit is the end of both teams’ leases in 2013. A fairly significant revelation from the interview is that he has asked the Coliseum Authority for lease extensions and the requests weren’t granted. Part of this is perhaps due to the Authority feeling duped the last time the team got its extension from 2010 to 2013. Now it’s a matter of the Authority choosing to deal with the Raiders on a new football stadium which would replace the Coliseum. There isn’t room to work on two new venues simultaneously at the Coliseum. By buying the Home Base lot on Hegenberger and incorporating that into the study area, the City made its choice – at least for the Coliseum grounds. Frankly, that’s the right choice. A football stadium makes much more sense in a location with an ocean of parking, not a locale that would be mutually beneficial for a ballpark and downtown.

Wolff’s language has even gotten to the point where we’re not really talking about T-rights compensation. We don’t have a baseline from MLB, a demand from the Giants, or an offer from the A’s. In fact, the only people that are actually talking about it are the media and blogs. Ever wonder why that is? I’m starting to think that T-rights are like Fight Club or a internal political third rail within the lodge. T-rights have much more power if they aren’t enumerated. Once you name a cash price, T-rights start on the slippery slope towards being commoditized. The last thing the lodge wants is actual free market principles working within their antitrust-protected economic structure. They don’t even want the public to know what their finances are other than an annual December press release exhorting record league-wide revenues. (They don’t believe in full revenue sharing either, but that’s another story.)

Bird in hand

In Part 3, Wolff sneaks in a little comment about Oakland’s and San Jose’s relative populations. He starts off talking about the history of Bay Area T-rights and then dives into the population discussion:

LW: OK, I don’t want to bore you with it.  In Oakland, from the 70’s to 2007, the demographics from Oakland have changed, through no one’s fault – it just changed, and that’s a big problem.  For example, they grew from 362,000 to 372,000 or something like that, a very low compounded rate.  San Jose went to a million people in the same period.  We’re not suggesting that’s the reason to go there but that’s the reason we’re not doing well here.

TB: There are more fans to draw from.

LW: Right.  San Jose hit a million a couple of years ago and that is just within the city limits.

In March I wrote about population density and the myth of Oakland being more truly urban than San Jose. My conclusion was that there was only one truly urban center here, SF, and the others are just pretenders. I did a variation of the standard population survey, based on the home ZIP codes of ballpark sites. While the Diridon, Victory Court, and Coliseum sites were fairly close if the circle were drawn only 3 miles from the ZIP, distinctions are made once you go farther out.

Population/Business counts per ZIP code radius. Source: 2000 Census

The numbers are now 10 years old and aren’t reflective of housing booms in both Downtown San Jose and Oakland in the early part of the decade. I doubt that either city’s downtown received more than 10,000 new residents each due to this rise in the housing stock, but it’s possible. Either way, it doesn’t change the 5-mile number more than 3-5%. I’m looking forward to the 2010 numbers coming out in the near future.

I buttressed the argument in March with the notion that at its size, San Jose is capable of doing large projects alone, without county or state help. SJ is actually rather adversarial with Santa Clara County, and tends to throw its weight around frequently and in a rather crude manner. That’s not really the case with Oakland and Alameda County, where partnerships are more necessary. With the Coliseum Authority tied up with the Raiders project, Oakland will be doing the ballpark project solo. And that, given Oakland’s recent political history, has to give MLB’s commission and Bud Selig pause.

I am a ballpark. Hear me roar!

For a stadium geek like me, the most intriguing news was the admission that there would be no stadium club (Part 3). gojohn10 and I expounded upon that in the comments thread, and I’m glad to say that the speculation was – based on what we know so far – correct. The club seats are in the small third deck, with no indoor concourse behind them.

One of my favorite things about the Coliseum pre-Mt. Davis was the openness of the Plaza concourse. There were no concrete walls in back of the seats, and you could see the setting sun between the decks, through the portals, as if the Sun itself had its own knothole to watch the game before it had to go to bed. You know where else you see this? Fenway. Wrigley. At Fenway, you can stand at the back of the lower deck along the first base line and all that’s there is a chain-link fence. The air circulates better, the place feels less claustrophobic, it just feels more like baseball. As the new ballparks stuffed more, well, stuff into their bodies (suite levels, club concourses), from within the ballparks started to look more monolithic. In the last 5-7 years designers have tried to break things up by breaking up the seating decks, which is simply not the same thing as what I described earlier. There’s still a mall on the concourse. Nowadays, all you’ll see behind the plate are seats, then windows, then more windows, then maybe some seats way up top. It looks more like a high-rise office building than a ballpark. Exterior façades have brick or stone glued to concrete, highly reflective glass curtainwall, and in very few cases a look inside the ballpark for passersby.

The new Cisco Field design may be the most “retro” ballpark design of all because it looks to eschew all of these new conventions. Do we really need three club levels, each more exclusive than the last? I don’t think so. How about a massive wall of suites? Don’t need that either. What about just making the sight lines the best, the closest? That sounds good. As I write this I’m shaking my head because I’m wondering how future revenues will be affected. The baseball fan in me completely buys into it, while the number cruncher doesn’t.

What about integrating the ballpark into the neighborhood as just another piece, instead of making it a centerpiece? Neither Wrigley nor Fenway make much of an attempt to scream, “I AM A STADIUM AND YOU MUST PAY ATTENTION TO ME.” The Green Monster, so imposing inside Fenway, doesn’t look like much from the outside. Wrigley is clad with simple fences and is colored light gray, with accents in the form of neon and signs.

When revealed, Cisco Field’s colonnade was met with a great deal of unease. Readers here didn’t know what to make of it. It didn’t look substantial enough. It didn’t look complete. And maybe that’s the point. At the best, most classic ballparks, there are few barriers for the sounds and smells to leave, enticing more people to come in. It’s supposed to be transparent. It’s supposed to allow people to feel that there are no barriers between them and the team they love.

What will Wolff do to make up for the lack of indoors at the ballpark? Service. People who have club seats and suites will get the best service (yes, that sucks given the state of service at the Coliseum). And some heaters overhead to keep the April nights a little warmer. Me? It looks like I might not get the restaurant/bar in the RF wall that I’ve wanted all of my adult life. But if I can walk the dog by there every day and see it from multiple angles, different perspectives – I’ll be fulfilled beyond earthly belief. Because when it’s 5 PM in December and the sun is setting through the decks in left field, I’ll walk by and remember how good it was when I was nine. How good it can be when it’s done right.

Quick note: The Quakes have a date for their stadium! 2012, no later than 2013, according to Wolff (thanks, Elliott Almond). That would seem to tie in with the idea that both A’s and Quakes venues are to be built in sequence, if not concurrently, to take advantage of package deal lower costs for materials and labor. Congrats Quakes fans. Few can relate to the hell you’ve been through, and you deserve your new Epicenter.

Also: Justin Morneau wants the fences at Target Field pulled in.

11.10.10
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New Wolff Interview on AN

If you haven’t seen it already, go to Athletics Nation (Happy 7th Birthday) and read Blez’s interview with Lew Wolff, Part 1. It brings us up-to-date on where we stand and may answer a few – but obviously not all – questions you may have about the process. I prefer to leave the discussion there as it’s already quitely lively, but if you have any questions that I may be able to provide some clarification, shoot here and I’ll give it a shot. Jeffrey’s been in the comments thread there, so have at it.

Speaking of Jeffrey, he recorded a take on the Giants’ WS win for KQED Perspectives. I can safely say that we’re in the same boat, even the Giants fan Uncle Larry part.

Part 2 of the AN-Wolff Interview is up. In it, Wolff addresses whether or not Fremont was merely a ruse, his own performance as owner, and several other topics. Part 3 is tomorrow.

I’m planning on writing a response post tomorrow after Part 3.

11.05.10
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High Speed Rail Town Hall

(Watch about halfway through for a treat.)

I’ve commented in the past on the tenor of the San Jose Good Neighbor sessions. When talking about the ballpark, opposition was present albeit mild. When it comes to the high speed rail project, well, it’s practically Katy bar the door. The largely critical attendees at tonight’s session had plenty of questions about the project’s impact on adjacent residential neighborhoods, including Cahill Park, St. Leo’s, and Gardner. The story, at least when it comes to HSR, is a sadly familiar tale. To conserve costs and get the project built as quickly as possible, the High Speed Rail Authority wants to build several stretches of aerial or elevated tracks down the Peninsula down to and through San Jose. The new Diridon station platform, which would be only a few hundred feet from Cisco Field, would be 60 feet above the ground, with a roof perhaps 30 feet or more above that. Last week, Palo Alto chose to get out of consideration for its own HSR station, leaving Redwood City and Mountain View as possible locations.

Possible tunnel alignments for high speed rail at Diridon Station

In San Jose, residents fought the rubber-stamping of an aerial alignment, which led the Authority to consider several underground options. All have pros and cons, and all are more expensive than an aerial.

  • Light blue: Deep Tunnel option. Tracks would be bored or “mined” 140 feet underground. Existing light rail and future BART would run between the tunnel and the surface. Cost: $3 billion. Option was dismissed because it was considered impractical (though not infeasible).
  • Purple: Shallow Tunnel. A massive cut-and-cover operation would occur between The Alameda and Park Avenue, disrupting the area’s light rail line and the ballpark because the alignment cuts right through the northeast block of the ballpark site. BART tunnel would also have to run deeper than originally planned. Construction time would be 5-7 years, which means that the affected area couldn’t be developed until perhaps 2020 or thereabouts. Option was considered too disruptive, City won’t go for it.
  • Yellow (5100′) and White (Thread the Needle). Both of these options were floated by a residents’ group interested in locating the new HSR platforms underneath the existing Diridon station and platforms. Both would run underneath the southwestern corner of the ballpark site. These were dismissed because they were considered dangerous for existing rail services (Caltrain, ACE, Amtrak, UPRR Freight, VTA Light Rail), particularly the danger of collapse.

To the attendees’ collective chagrin, the Authority’s project principals told the crowd that the best option moving forward would be the aerial alternative. Look at the risk assessment table below and you’ll see why.

The subject of compensation for lost property values came up, and the discussion wasn’t pretty. I doubt that the Authority is budgeting for a massive amount of cash payouts to homeowners in every affected city statewide, as the combined value of the settlements would absolutely kill the already astronomical budget while providing no actual value for the project. HSR has a difficult battle on its hands, given that several Peninsula cities have banded together in the same cause. The funny thing is that there’s an argument along the Peninsula that HSR would be best if it terminated somewhere in San Jose instead San Francisco, and I heard at least one argument tonight that HSR should terminate in some undeveloped land in South San Jose or even Gilroy. Either sounds great, as long as you don’t want people actually riding the thing.

Speaking of people not riding, the Authority chose Feds mandated that the Authority take the first $4.3 billion in federal and state funds and build the initial segment in the Central Valley, between Merced and Bakersfield via Fresno. That section will be the cheapest to build in the entire system and have the highest attainable speeds. In addition, maintenance and testing facilities are expected to be built in the area. Beyond those funds, additional money will have to come from the 112th Congress, whose House of Representatives will have a Republican majority that is normally transportation funding averse.

If they ever get these alignment questions and NIMBY issues settled, there’s a chance that the train could look like that animation at the top. Kind of strange, though, that San Jose would get a distinctive, skyline-worthy bridge within city limits; a bridge that could only be used by trains.

Some other notes:

  • The animation is the first I’ve seen that shows both the Plant 51 and Cahill Park developments as they are. Previous images and videos showed generic buildings.
  • The ballpark shown is also generic, as it doesn’t appear to have the same seating bowl shape as new Cisco Field renderings.
  • Again, I don’t know what the buildings are between HP Pavilion and Cisco Field. For all we know, it’s a blank slate.
  • San Jose Economic Development head Paul Krutko, a noted power-behind-the-throne for the ballpark project among others, abruptly resigned earlier today. I’m not an insider, so I have no idea what happened. What I do know about Krutko is that he wasn’t always the easiest guy to work with. The article hints at different kinds of scandal that could be catching up with him. Whatever the case, his services in terms of keeping the ballpark project alive and on the radar haven’t been needed in at least a year.
  • After a lackluster home playoff game versus the New York Red Bulls, the Earthquakes staged a furious rally and beat the NY 3-1, including the series clincher – a beautiful header by MLS leading scorer and Danville native Chris Wondolowski. That combined with the 1-0 loss over the weekend gives the Quakes an aggregate lead in goals scored, and thus a series victory (I can see eyes rolling as I write this). Next up: either Columbus or Colorado a week from now. Hey Lew – Build them the damned stadium already.
11.02.10
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Experts: Giants winning good for A’s to SJ

Saturday’s post on the Diridon tour included a quick note from me about the Giants:

I’ve given this some thought the last few days, and I think that if the Giants win the boost in ticket and merchandise sales could provide enough economic ballast to make arguments about economic hardship somewhat moot, at least for a few years.

The Merc’s Tracy Seipel reports that premier sports economics experts Andrew Zimbalist and Roger Noll (co-editors of Sports Jobs & Taxes) think that the Giants’ success will actually be good for the A’s, insofar as Lew Wolff’s designs on moving them to San Jose.

“To the extent that the commissioner’s office would be concerned about the Giants’ financial well-being if the A’s were allowed to move to San Jose,” said Andrew Zimbalist, a Smith College economist and baseball expert, “that concern would by allayed given the success the Giants have had.”

Zimbalist estimates the Giants will net between $13 million to $16 million from their share of ticket sales and concessions for the postseason and World Series.

“The owners want it (a team) to be as economically successful as it can be,” said Zimbalist of the A’s proposed move. “And I think fundamentally that is what Selig is looking at — if he think’s it’s a plus economically.”

There are also quotes from Noll, CSUEB professor Paul Staudohar, and South Bay cheerleader Larry Stone. From the inception of the blog, I’ve driven home the point over and over again that it is always about the big picture. How does MLB benefit best? And if the answer to that question means breaking thousands of Oaklanders’ hearts, they’re not too concerned about it. That’s the sad part of it all. People demonize these billionaires for hating Oakland or wanting to destroy it. It’s much worse. They simply don’t care one way or another. It would be one thing if they cared enough to hate Oakland, but they are in fact completely indifferent. That’s not to say that they (other than Wolff) love San Jose. They don’t. It’s just a better economic opportunity there.

Last week I posted that I felt the Giants’ success is a blip, not something that should shift MLB’s long-term thinking towards the A’s and Giants. If the indicators point to a South Bay move, and Noll and Zimbalist are right about the World Series boosting and stabilizing the Giants, then yes, the Giants’ arguments are moot. Down the road, I wonder what this means for compensation. If the Giants are sufficiently covered in the short-term by revenue hikes from this WS win, is long-term compensation for territorial rights valued more or less?

P.S. Despite not participating in this year’s playoffs, A’s players will get something out of it. Since they finished 2nd in the AL West, the players are entitled to a whopping 1% share of the annual players’ pool. That should boil down to $9,000-10,000 per roster spot.

11.01.10
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Have You Heard the One About…

Way back, all those eons ago, when Baseball San Jose released the renderings of the potential Cisco Field, I noted that there were two questions that seemed to be on every A’s fan’s mind. The first was, would the park be hitter, or pitcher, friendly. The second was, What the heck is that thing in Right Field?

While we know (thanks to ML) that the answer to the second question is a “colonnade,” the first question has yet to be answered in any sort of educated way. Until now.

A fellow named Greg Rybarczyk runs a very cool website called Hit Tracker. On the site, he tracks things like the actual distances of Home Runs across the league, the atmospheric conditions when the home runs are hit, the angle that the ball left the bat and the speed at which it traveled. The best part of all of this is that he can take this data and, through a highly scientific method, derive a HRPF (Home Run Park Factor) for each of the Major League stadiums.

Long time reader, gojohn10, reached out to Mr. Rybarczyk and he graciously agreed to build a model for the potential Cisco Field using some assumptions about field dimensions and fence heights combined with actual data based on the positioning of the field and it’s geographical coordinates. Using this model, we can safely say the answer to the first question can be phrased something like this, “Did you hear the one about the ballpark in San Jose?”

The punch line would then be, “150/101/100/168/142.”

HRPF works a lot like BPF (Batting Park Factor). The Park Factor is calculated such that 100 means “MLB average.” A number below 100 indicates a park where home runs are less likely. A park with numbers above 100 indicates “Band Box” designation. The further a number is from 100, above or below, the more/less likely it is that bombs will be droppin’ like rain in Seattle. The aggregate HRPF for Cisco Field, as rendered, would likely be something around 132. The highest HRPF presently is Coors Field with a whopping 118.

What’s worse? The easiest Left Field HR, presently, is at the erstwhile Enron Field, 132. The easiest Right Center Field is at Coors Field, 145. The easiest Right Field is at Miller Park, 137. Cisco Field would best all of them. Today, only one park is the most easiest place to hit a Home Run to more than one field, Coors Field is the easiest to CF and RCF. Cisco Field wouldn’t only be the easiest, it’d be the easiest by a landslide and to 3 different parts of the park.

The numbers in the punchline are the projected HRPF at the potential Cisco Field starting in the Left Field corner and moving around the outfield to the Right Field corner. Left Center and Center Field would play fair… Everywhere else would resemble Slow Pitch Softball. Greg theorizes that Bay Area weather conditions could bring that number down by about 10 points. Even so, Cisco Field would still be an easier place go yard than Coors Field. Start signing sinker ballers, and guys who fly out to the warning track 20 times a year, now Billy!

Some important things to note:

  • The Right Field line fence height in the model is 24 ft. There was some debate amongst the three of us (ML, gj10, me) as to what the real height would be. I estimated 35 ft. gj10 estimated 30 ft. ML, the brains of the operation, estimated 24ft. So this is sort of a worst case scenario in the Right Field corner.
  • Similarly, we all had different guesses for the rest of the fences. Though, the differences in our estimates were pretty insignificant. The model is based on 9 ft. fences in Left and 12 ft. fences in Center and Right Center.
  • The upshot is, while the Right Field corner could be moved considerably closer to the magic “100” with a fence as much as 10 ft. taller, Left Field and Right Center would need to be moved back quite a bit to be closer to average.

Uncle Lew, if you are reading this… Please consider changes similar to what ML suggested here. Thank you!

10.30.10
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Notes from 10/30 Diridon Site Tour

gojohn10 was good enough to go on today’s Diridon site walking tour. He’s also shown up at some of the Fremont and San Jose functions. Here are his notes (edited ever so slightly) and some pictures, which include an update on how things are going in SJ.

SJRA Program Manager Dennis Korabiak (light shirt with jacket) leads the tour

  • Tour led by Dennis Korabiak again
  • Only about 10-15 people this time
  • We went to a room at HP Pavilion for a Q&A presentation
  • Korabiak said he met with baseball officials this week. Wouldn’t comment when someone asked if it was the BRC. He said it was a matter of public record and could be found on his boss’ (Harry Mavrogenes’ calender on the net). I checked and only saw a regular meeting with the two on Wed the 20th
  • No timetable for response but baseball seems impressed
  • If territorial rights are changed by December or early January, OK for March election
  • If ballot approved active negotiations begin with A’s to sell or lease the land [Ed.: City/Redev are on hold until that happens.]
  • Current estimate is $460 million for facility only
  • Officially need to have a vote, though theoretically not necessary if A’s buy land [Ed.: Only if holdouts are willing to sell, else eminent domain needed.]
  • Someone asked if SJ has $ for remaining parcels. He rambled a bit then said they are selling other assests and “getting good deals.” He thinks the answer is yes, they will have the money. As for Wolff buying the land he said “show me the $” [Ed.: Indeed. SJRA does have $140 million in assets, BTW.]
  • Substation is there to stay. Not required to move even for high speed rail. I asked if there would be any effort to make it look nicer. He said the A’s facility design should take care of that. [Ed.: I hope people like cinder blocks. Or freeway sound walls.]
  • Someone asked if MLB has approved park dimensions (right with ya, buddy). Korabiak said we’re not there yet.
  • Someone asked if the park will be at ground level. Korabiak said it might make sense to sink the field 10-25′ the the expensive seats on top are easier to get to (reaffirms ML’s take that the club seats are up high) [Ed.: Yep, figured as much]
  • If no vote on stadium the city will still buy land for BART and HSR
  • AT&T building eligible to be designated historical landmark (unfortunately I kinda missed this part). As for negotiations he says there is much more to it than AT&T being a Giants sponsor. Eminent Domain is on the table, but last resort and something they would like to avoid for tax reasons. [Ed.: AT&T can be designated a landmark, but it is still going to be demolished if the ballpark moves forward. Efforts will be made to document its history and value, including possible salvage. The same goes for the old KNTV studio next door, which has already been bought by City.]
  • I asked whether the Giants success has any effect. He said he didn’t know. [Ed.: I’ve given this some thought the last few days, and I think that if the Giants win the boost in ticket and merchandise sales could provide enough economic ballast to make arguments about economic hardship somewhat moot, at least for a few years.]

Korabiak answers questions about Diridon site plan at HP Pavilion

Much thanks to gojohn10 for taking the tour and reporting in. He’s also working with Jeffrey on another interesting feature we should have up soon. That and the usually post-World Series, post-election flurry of activity should make things interesting around here soon.

10.25.10
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What A New Stadium Means for Payroll

I read here, and in other places like the sfgate.com Drumbeat Blog, opinions on what would happen if the A’s suddenly had a Target Field like infusion of revenue. Opinions vary from “Lew Wolff is cheap and won’t spend anymore” to “The A’s will spend more money than the Angels!” The real answer, they will spend more but won’t be a West Coast version of the Yankees or Red Sox, is much more interesting. While I will never be a GM for any self-respecting MLB franchise, I have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. Which means, I have ideas for what a future A’s roster/dynasty might look like.

First things first, how do we set a projected payroll? First, we have to have an idea of what revenues might look like (thanks ML). Second we have to have an understanding of how revenues impact Major League payrolls. Forbes has an answer:

Data Provided by Forbes

A few interesting factoids from this table. First, if we are to believe Forbes, only two MLB teams took a loss in order to fund their on the field product this season. Only one of those teams took a “significant” loss. Neither of those teams factored much into the playoff picture. Do you smell what I am cooking? As much as you can’t blame the Yankees for their $200M payroll, you can’t harp on A’s ownership for their smallish payroll. The days of teams spending way more than they have, in order to be competitive, are history. Revenue matters.

The second factoid, that MLB teams spend an average of 55% of their revenue on payroll, sets the stage for what could be. In ML’s piece, he split the difference between Wolff’s number and that of Forbes. Here, I am just gonna run with the numbers provided by Forbes to keep it simple. So, a new stadium should provide, roughly, a 14% increase (that was ML’s number, $149M plus 14% is $170M) for this article we will assume that number is $177M ($155M*1.14). That SWAG number puts the A’s in the neighborhood of the Rangers and their $95M payroll. Heck, if the A’s wanted to “go for it” they could actually have a payroll of $106M and be within the range of Operating Income makers on the Forbes chart ($177*.6).

That gives us a range of $95M to $106M…. Oh, how I salivate. What’s better? As ML pointed out, the A’s have huge payroll flexibility in the coming seasons, if we assume they have this new revenue stream. To keep the core together, the A’s would need to have an $80M payroll in 2013. If they are in limbo, forget about it. If they are in construction… $80M is great… That would give them up to $26M to spend on players in the first year (assuming a 2014 opening). So who could they add?

Assuming the A’s have locked up the new Big Three, Anderson, Cahill and Gonzalez.  Max Stassi has taken over for Suzuki and is a second year player. Grant Green is manning Short Stop and in his second year at the big league level. Adrian Cardenas, or Eric Sogard, is Green’s double play partner and relatively cost controlled. Daric Barton, Chris Carter and Michael Taylor are rocking 1B, LF and RF collectively. Bullpen roles are what they are. That leaves the A’s with a definite need for a Center Fielder, a 3B and a couple of starting pitchers.

Zack Grienke anyone? Tim Lincecum anyone? Certainly not both, but would the A’s really need both? The new Big Three, the New Jack Bash Brothers and the developed youngsters make it so that only one would be required.

Or, Ian Krol and Clay Mortenson have developed into a fine back of the rotation. Matt Kemp in center?

The more I think about it, the more I realize the possibilities are infinite. I am just highlighting shock and awe type moves. Silver bullets, if you will. Reality, if Billy Beane’s past is an indication of his future, is that the money would be spread around and the sum of multiple parts would be greater than the any single player. The point is that Wolff could keep payroll right in alignment with what is normal now, add in the new revenue, and we would all be really happy with the result. Here is my wishful glance at a 2014 roster/payroll with a lot of crystal ball gazing (and rose colored performance projecting) mixed in:

10.15.10
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Purdy interview on KNBR

Merc columnist and all-around San Jose booster Mark Purdy was on the Fitz and Brooks show today (podcast MP3). After a few minutes of figuring out where the Niners’ season went wrong, Bob Fitzgerald asked Purdy about the ballpark situation. At no point was there a mention of yesterday’s news about the Redevelopment Agency’s funding shortage. What Purdy revealed was no less interesting, and I can provide a small amount of additional back story.

Asked about the state of the MLB panel’s report, Purdy said this:

What I know is that Lew Wolff did have a meeting a couple, three weeks ago. (He) came out of that meeting feeling optimistic that the report was gonna be issued soon, and optimistic that it was gonna come down in favor of the A’s at least being able to explore the ballpark in San Jose. I know that.

I also know that another source close to that… they are proceeding down only one track at the moment… they’re proceeding down the San Jose track… at the moment. That’s what I know.

As I understand it, Wolff met with Selig twice in September, once in LA during an A’s road trip and again in Milwaukee, Selig’s home turf. Some time after that, I started hearing that South Bay advocates were feeling pretty good about things. I didn’t get any info then about what they were feeling good about. Apparently Purdy did get it.

If true, there are some major takeaways, which combined with some info we know about the Giants, makes the picture much, much clearer.

  • Oakland is not under consideration at this stage, only San Jose is. Note that Purdy did not say that Oakland was completely eliminated, only that it isn’t in the running “at the moment.” If San Jose fails, Oakland becomes a factor again. But only if San Jose fails.
  • Something will happen at the owners meetings. Sure, but which owners meetings? The first set is November 17-18 in Orlando. The next set will be December 6-9 at Lake Buena Vista, which is just outside Orlando. As much as the A’s situation continues to linger, the owners will also spend a good deal of time on the lingering fate of the Tampa Bay Rays, who are based only two hours southwest of Orlando.
  • Ruling that the A’s will be able to explore building a ballpark in San Jose. This is the one I’m most curious about, because if it’s true, it represents a sort of softening on MLB’s part. MLB generally won’t allow a city to get a team unless there is a signed deal in place. They even left DC hanging while lawsuits and eminent domain proceedings threatened the prospects of what would eventually become Nationals Park. This news indicates that San Jose will have a chance, but will need to get the rest of its pieces in place (land, referendum). That could give San Jose no more than a 6-9 month window – 6 months if land proceedings go smoothly or 9+ if eminent domain is required. Plus you can never tell what will happen on the legal front (Giants or surrogates).

Purdy spends the rest of the segment theorizing what might be happening behind the scenes. As much as it sucks to be kept in suspense, I’d much rather the panel take this time to work out all of the details, than to have Selig and the owners make a decision and then clean up the mess afterward. Even then, it’s uncertain what the Giants will do, since they are maintaining a “no-negotiation” stance. I guess when it comes to dealing with any Halloween-colored team owned by a lawyer, things tend to get messy.

10.14.10
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SJ Redevelopment low on funds, Wolff ready to step up

Despite assurances from SJRA officials last month that the agency would have enough funds to take care of the remaining land buys for the Diridon site, it now appears that they are running short. However, even if they do Lew Wolff may be ready to buy the rest of the land, or even the entire site if need be.

“There isn’t a redevelopment agency or city or federal or state government that isn’t in some form of disarray at this point,” Wolff said Thursday of the agency’s struggles.

While he and agency officials both said no details of a possible land purchase by Wolff had been discussed, the team owner pledged: “Whatever issues we run into, we will figure out how to get them done. We will not let anything stand in the way of getting the ballpark done.”

This sets up a number of land acquisition/swap possibilities:

  • It’s possible the A’s could buy the land and give it back to the city. That would set up a situation in which the A’s could pay a discounted lease on the land until the City reimbursed the team.
  • They could also try to buy the existing public parcels and the remaining ones, making the entire thing privately held. There would be a snag if the landowners were unwilling to sell, because a private interest can’t exercise eminent domain as a city can. If the A’s managed to pull this off, it would probably be the biggest political winner, since the perception of a handout by the city, such as it were, would vanish. $20+24 million for a guaranteed electoral victory in March? It’s worth a cost-benefit analysis at the very least.
  • The team could also buy the public parcels, giving SJRA enough cash to buy the remaining parcels and fund the Autumn Parkway project. The land could be given or sold to the agency, with the cash transaction part happening sometime in the distance.

As mayor Chuck Reed said, “There are half a dozen different ways to put together a deal.” The ones listed above are just off the top of my head.

Even with the low funds situation, City officials are putting on a brave face.

“We’re committed as a city to move forward with the stadium, because it’s the most promising economic development project we’ve seen in the last decade,” Councilman Sam Liccardo said.

“I don’t expect the redevelopment agency’s fiscal problems will prevent us from finding a creative solution.”

Offering to help a municipality is not a foreign concept to Wolff. He offered to pay for upgrades to Phoenix Muni, only to get a collective shrug from the city. The Quakes also paid for upgrades to Buck Shaw Stadium in order to make it a (not so) temporary MLS facility.