Economy costs guys like Coco their jobs

The news itself hardly amounted to a footnote. The Royals announced it quietly a day or two after the World Series ended, the buzz that surrounded the Yankees-Phillies series still fresh in the baseball air.

But it wasn’t news I could ignore, because it centered on one of the most refreshing personalities baseball has had in recent years, a player with perhaps the catchiest name in the game's history: Coco Crisp.

The news: The Royals declined to pick up an $8 million option on Crisp for 2010, a decision that leaves him a few days away from free agency.

I can’t say the decision came as a surprise. His time in Kansas City was uneventful after coming there from the Red Sox in November 2008. He was supposed to energize the Royals with his daring play; he never did. Crisp spent more time on the disabled list than he did in manager Trey Hillman’s lineup. And at $8 mil, the Royals didn't see his as a good investment.

Now, he’s essentially on the jobless roles, if you can compare what happened to him as being jobless just yet. I’m guessing there’s a difference. I doubt he’d qualify for an unemployment check.

In this depressed economy, an economy that baseball isn’t insulated from, Crisp will have the same difficulty finding an $8 million job as a laid-off autoworker at the Ford plant in suburban Detroit would. I do hope Crisp has his baseball resume ready to send general managers.

The sad part of it is that he’ll not be the last high-paid Major Leaguer who will find his job eliminated this offseason. Jermaine Dye and Austin Kearn joined the list the other day, though both men walked away for $1 million get-lost checks in their pockets.

For men like Dye, Kearn and Crisp, the offseason will be hard to predict. They are players who, in other years, would find plenty of suitors. But only the Yankees -- always the Yankees -- will be keen on spending big.

The rest of the teams, the Royals, the White Sox, the Indians, the Pirates -- you pick the team -- will be window shopping for bargains: The Dollar Store over Neiman Marcus.

What does this mean for players? And for baseball fans?

For the former, they will have to take deep cuts in pay, if they can find work at all.

I don’t think that message will be lost on any of them. I can remember talking to Crisp after the 2005 season about his trade from Cleveland to Boston, he was circumspect about it all

"It's business," he told me.

That’s how baseball fans have to look at it as well. To expect their favorite teams to go spending wildly is to believe the Earth is flat or that you can buy a Rolex at Walmart.

To look at life to the contrary is to waste it, and fans need to keep on living life as they look realistically what this offseason won’t be.

Somewhere out there is a Major League team that will see Crisp, 30, as a useable, inexpensive part. It will see him for what he still has to give the game: enthusiasm, speed, charisma -- a Triple Crown of intangibles that seamlessly tie into his talent.

In a sport short on charismatic players, a sport peopled by dour souls like Arthur Rhodes, David Weathers and Milton Bradley, baseball needs a Coco Crisp perhaps more than he needs it.

Dollars must make sense in baseball's offseason

As I watched the World Series last night, I found myself thinking what 2010 might hold for baseball. While some people might say I’m looking too far into the future, I would remind them that, even in early November, Major League teams must have their eyes on the season ahead.

The smart front offices do. They are focusing now on revenue – specifically, on how to grow revenue in an economy that has shown faint signs of a recovery. That’s also an important area for fans to concentrate on, because revenue concerns will explain the timidity in which teams they follow will enter free agency.

The odds of seeing a mega-contract such as CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira signed last offseason are about as good as the NFL changing its mind about allowing Rush Limbaugh to buy a stake in the St. Louis Rams.

Unless you root for the Yankees, you likely won’t see money flowing on talent. What you will see is your team packaging all sorts of come-out-to-the-ballpark incentives to get butts in the bleachers.

That’s not just my belief here; Forbes.com raised the same issue with Bob DuPuy, the No. 2 man in the Commissioner’s Office, when it asked him last Wednesday to discuss the state of the game.

DuPuy sounded hopeful.

Conceding the revenue challenges, he offered what might be the only solution the sport has if it intends to return soon to the salad days of the mid-2000s. Nothing is better for baseball than a good ol’ pennant race.

The lack of good races – and the economy -- slowed the turnstiles as the dog days of August rolled into September this past season. Most of the divisional races were locked up by then, and who would want to shell out top dollar to see small-market teams like the Indians, Pirates, Nationals, Royals, Padres, Reds, Orioles and Athletics play?

They weren’t the only bad baseball teams. They were, however, teams with the most economic limitations. None can do what big-market teams like the Cubs, White Sox, Tigers and Mets can: spend their way into contention. So the small-market teams will have to show creativity to draw crowds. Those teams can’t sell championship baseball, because they would be peddling a lie.

You never know about sports, though. Strange things have been known to happen; one or two of those small-market teams might surprise. They could pull off what the Tampa Bay Rays did in ‘08 and wind up in the World Series.

If they do, they won’t do it because they brought in a high-price free agent. They will have to rely on what they have in their organizations, which is young, cheap and unproven talent.

Unproven talent is a hard sale to fans who want to see stars in the lineup, if they can’t see a winning ballclub. So if they can’t have either, they’ll need a reason to go to the game.

And that’s the dilemma baseball faces, one that is uncomfortable for the lords of the game to discuss. But if they can’t discuss tense pennant races, what else is left?

They know what pennant races will do. They know what $1 hotdogs, fireworks and $5 bleacher tickets will do when fans are watching lousy baseball. Those promotions might draw some people to the ballpark, but promotions won’t full the place.

That’s the challenge in 2010 for DuPuy, a fact he’s mindful of. As he told Forbes.com: “Holding our own would be a good objective.”

DuPuy is correct.

Yet even that might not be possible next season with a bad economy and no decent pennant races to keep fans interested in spending money at the ballpark.

Tribe needs to follow the Twins model

I watched Tuesday night as the Minnesota Twins celebrated another division championship, a routine occurrence for this small-market powerhouse. In Game 163 of the ’09 season, they wrote a sad ending to what had been a feel-good story about the Detroit Tigers, a team that had invigorated a city whose can-do spirit had been battered.

Yet as I looked at Joe Mauer, Nick Punto, Joe Nathan and manager Ron Gardenhire jump up and down inside the Metrodome like little boys, I was struck by how much a team run on a shoestring can accomplish if it makes wise decisions. Seeing what the Twins had just done, I was reminded of what a disappointment the Indians have been.

In a city with a fan base that had proved long ago it would support a competitive ballclub, the Indians and their front office have given their fans one season after another of mostly mediocrity.

For instead of playing for division titles like the Twins, the Tribe has been playing to stay ahead of the Royals for the Central Division cellar. Such lousy performances don’t pack a ballpark or engender pride in a team, which explains the empty seats in June, July, August and September.

But why have the Indians, a 65-97 team with more resources than the Twins, been consistently mediocre and boring?

I think that’s a question the Dolan family, which owns the franchise, needs to answer. No doubt, the Dolans made a smart move in ridding the team of manager Eric Wedge. While it would be a mistake to question his integrity or his knowledge of baseball, Wedge never came across as much of a teacher, and for an organization that banks its future on young talent, a manager who can teach is essential to success.

That’s one of the differences between the Indians and the Twins, who may well not advance beyond the first round of the playoffs. But in "Gardy," they have a manager who will ensure the team plays smartly. A man who enjoys the teaching part of baseball, he’s been able to take young talent and mold it into quality Major Leaguers. Go up and down the team’s roster, and you will find players that benefited from Gardenhire’s tutoring.

Wedge always talked about playing “the game the right way,” but nothing his teams did showed his players had a grasp of what “the right way” was. His players were woefully weak defensively, made blunders on the bases, never learned to bunt, lacked speed and, though they hustled, didn’t play with a carefree air. They were a passionless bunch, playing the game as uptight as the colorless Wedge often looked.

I can’t blame Wedge, however, for all that went wrong with the Indians this season, because he might have done a better job had general manager Mark Shapiro given him better talent to mold.

Under Shapiro, the Tribe hasn’t hit with one of its top draft picks, a fact that points to an inability to judge talent and not necessarily to a bad manager.

A team wins with talent, and except for a couple of trades and a handful of low-round draft picks who have done well, Shapiro hasn’t stocked the cupboard, which makes success problematic for whomever he hires to succeed Wedge.

The next manager will stand as a referendum on Shapiro and on the bold promises he made years ago about winning championships.

His promises seem so hollow when you examine what the Twins have done in the past decade. They compete year after year even though their revenue streams flow at a trickle compared with the money Shapiro has to work with.

I hope Shapiro watched the game Tuesday. He can learn lessons from what he saw. He should remember that it’s not about how much a small-market team like the Indians spend; it’s about their ability to get the max out of the minimum.

The Twins do that well, which is why they have found their way into contention for division titles throughout the decade. While they might not be the Yankees or the Red Sox, the Twins aren’t the Indians either, which fans in Twin Cities can be thankful for as baseball continues there deep into October.

Shut loophole on international free agents

Baseball is a crazy game. Or, some might argue, a stupid one.

I often find myself leaning toward the latter category. For stupidity is the only thing I can point to for why baseball officials refuse to seal a loophole as big as Alex Rodriguez’s ego.

This time the issue is talent, not the inequity in market profitability, though profits, I suspect, do weigh heavily in this situation as well. At the center of it, as with most things in baseball, is money, which Aroldis Chapman stands to make a pile of.

Who is Aroldis Chapman?

Unless you know baseball well, the 21-year-old Chapman isn’t on your Fantasy League radar. But for those unfamiliar with him, they should file his name away, because he’s a ballplayer who should someday be making headlines in the Majors. He’s the latest defector from Cuba, a country with a deep pool of baseball players.

Now, Chapman is on the open market. His handlers are pimping his talent to the baseball world. They should fetch a handsome return, as they rightly should.

People who have scouted Chapman, a 6-foot-4, 180 pounds of arms and legs, claim the man’s as good as any pitcher his age. He has a fastball that routinely hits 100 mph. It's the kind of velocity that should make him a top-of-the-rotation starter, a rare commodity in an era in which quality pitching has proved scarce. Teams never have too much of it.

A free agent like him comes at a high price. Already, the typical suspects have lined up to throw millions Chapman’s way.

The Yankees are interested; they’re interested in any player who can make them better. The Mets, the Angels and the Red Sox are interested, too. That means the paupers of baseball will be watching this auction of prime talent from the sidelines.

And here’s the loophole: Why isn’t Chapman in the June draft?

Baseball does its fans and its weaker franchises an injustice when it allows talent like Chapman to avoid the draft. But all players from Latin America and Cuba and Japan and Korea and Australia and China avoid it, which keeps clubs like the Royals, the Pirates, the Nationals, the Padres, the Indians, the Marlins, the Rays and the Indians, as well as a few others, from participating in high-stakes auctions.

The advantage goes to the Yankees and the Red Sox, who can afford to miss or overpay for a can’t-miss prospect no matter what he’s asking for his services.

No other sport gives rich teams such an advantage, and if you listen to what baseball officials say, the loophole can’t be closed. No way, they claim, can baseball hold a draft of international players. It would be too complicated, too costly and too unwieldy to work.

To believe what baseball officials and general managers say is to partner with the stupid. They have no more difficult a task in putting together a worldwide draft than hockey or basketball do. A good scout can find talent in the Arctic Circle, if boys are playing baseball there. If the player’s name is registered for the draft, someone will figure out if he can play -- or if he can’t.

The issue is: Should players like Chapman be free to peddle their talents without rules. If so, why? If they can, then why not let a Minor League player who can’t find his niche in one organization do likewise? Why keep him on a treadmill going nowhere?

A team with a deep farm system shouldn’t be allowed to hinder the progress of a ballplayer.

The concept of letting a franchise hold a player’s rights for more than a season might have outlived its purpose. In today’s world, a player in the Minor Leagues should be able to pursue free agency after each year. He should be allowed to do what Chapman will do: post a for-hire sign.

That will keep teams from stockpiling talent. It won’t, however, stop the Yankees and Red Sox from outbidding rivals for the CC Sabathias and the Manny Ramirezes, but even the Yankees and the Red Sox can’t find a place for all the young players in the game.

Those players will have to go elsewhere first, perhaps honing their baseball skills on the cheap in Kansas City or Pittsburgh or San Diego.

At least then, fans there will have a window for success, which is more than what they have now. For a talented player like Chapman, if he’s as good as people say he is, could give any of these teams hope, and I see hope as a good thing for people who have spent the past decade watching their favorite team dwell in the cellar.