Winning is everything.

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"Unless Frank McCourt was visiting my home and trying to kill my cat, I doubt I would ever base my decision on attending a game on what the ownership does."


That comment, from Bob Timmerman, represents the majority of respondents to my little experiment of two days ago. Winning, affordability, and the gameday experience all outweighed personal feelings toward ownership, though the anti-Frank contingent was well-represented and admirably passionate. Still, the consensus was that people, generally, do not much care how sausage is made.


That's certainly in line with my own feelings on the subject. I'm a relatively unemotional consumer; I can count on one hand the number of stores I avoid based on non-business factors. I don't care a whole lot about which political party a company (or its management) supports, and, with a couple exceptions, I'm not particularly won over by a company's charitable efforts. Long story short, I'm a results sort of guy.


And, so, it seems, are most of you. I'd guess that my readers tend to be among the organization's most critical, so for a majority of the commenters to focus on the field rather than the owner's box is telling. This isn't to say people don't care who owns the team. Just that they separate their personal feelings from their rooting interests. 


Frank McCourt and team management would be wise to consider this dynamic carefully. I'd guess that Dodger fans would be relatively quick to find other ways to spend a few summer hours should the team enter a down cycle. If ownership is serious about keeping payroll at or near its modest-for-the-market level, management needs to spend much more efficiently than it does now. The Dodgers are remarkably lucky to have so much young talent--Kemp, Kershaw, Ethier, Billingsley, Broxton--under control so cheaply. But they'll start to get expensive pretty quickly.


The bottom line is that winning on $100 million per year is hard, let alone the club's rumored intent to operate a little bit under that. It can certainly be done, but the club must be much more committed to acquiring and developing top-end young talent than it has been in recent years. It has drafted too low to snag premium players without going over slot in the draft, and the system has suffered for it. There is no wave of talent in the minors ready to form a major league core like the team features now. If the dollars aren't there for premium free agent acquisitions, this team could struggle to compete as soon as 2012. 


I don't want to find out what attendance looks like when fans don't trust ownership and the team is losing. Neither, I'm sure, does Frank McCourt. But the reality is that if payroll stays where it is and management does not drastically alter its approach to the draft and amateur free agency, we'll all find out soon enough. 


Winning means a lot to Frank McCourt. It will put butts in the seats, which he needs. It will also heal the fractured relationship with the fans, which he wants.  The wins will begin to dry up soon, though, unless the Dodgers spend more or spend smarter. And, as a lifelong fan, I sure hope at least one of those things happens. 
---


Thank you all for responding so eagerly and thoughtfully to my call for opinions. I'm going to leave anonymous commenting enabled unless it turns out to cause problems. Judging by the comments left to the last post, I don't anticipate that becoming the case.
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On Chicago, and assorted thoughts.

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Had a terrific time yesterday on my first trip to Wrigley Field. I don't know about you, but I love 1-0 games. I was floored by Ely's approach, but was less happy about only getting to see one Manny at-bat. Special thanks to Tom and Dominic Volini for hosting my brother, Chris, and I. 


When looking around for divorce news upon my return, I found this Bomani Jones item on ESPN. Discussing Jon Lovitz' and others' debts to the Dodgers, Jones writes:

And these guys thought they weren't going to have to pay up? Not even Richard Pryor in his prime -- let alone the 2010 model of Jon Lovitz -- was funny enough to joke his way out of this one. You'd have an easier time borrowing $100 from Eddy Curry than skipping out on a debt to McCourt at this point.

[...]

Even Mike Tyson thinks McCourt has a cash flow problem.

First of all, I dislike the premise; don't we want Frank (and the club) aggressively pursuing its accounts receivable? Isn't that a good thing? And what's more, if cash flow was ever an issue here, it would have happened in the offseason. You know, when people aren't buying walk-up tickets, food, beer, and merchandise.


I also disagree with the hyperbole; while we've spent a lot of time discussing the impact the divorce is having on team spending, there's been no suggestion Frank or the Dodgers have had any trouble paying bills as they come due. Indeed, if the rumors about silent partners with convertible bonds are true, Frank's been paying those guys as scheduled at the peril of losing some interest in the team.


I believe the divorce may be affecting spending, at least in the short term. I don't believe Frank (or the Dodgers) to be insolvent, however, and we're not at the point that characterizing them as such brings anything to the table. 


While the piece, which ran on ESPN's irreverent 'Page 2', might have been meant mostly in satire, I think the joke is too close to the truth to be all that funny. Many probably do think Frank and the Dodgers are indeed in serious financial trouble as a result of his obligations to Jamie and the debt-heavy way the team funds its operations. I'm not one of them. While the long-term future of the team is surely up in the air due to the divorce, I don't think the team is in any sort of immediate jeopardy. 


Taking on salary in a trade, though, would go a long way toward assuaging concerns. I'm just not sure this guy is the answer. And, of course, I would certainly not advocate making a move for the sake of making a move. That never ends well. Everything must be about advancing the cause of the team. All other concerns are secondary.
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What's best is not always what's easy.

---
A few days ago, ESPN's Jerry Crasnick wrote about several overdone storylines for his weekly feature 'The Starting 9." His chief gripe? The ongoing McCourt divorce saga. Crasnick wrote:

No celebrity enjoys seeing his or her personal life played out for the world to see, and Frank and Jamie McCourt are pushing the envelope big-time. There's a Web site devoted to their split, with links to newspaper stories and court documents about "slush funds'' and money spent on hairstylists and vacation trips. Everything in Dodgerland -- from the Matt Kemp-Ned Colletti spat to Joe Torre's future -- inevitably seems to come back to Frank versus Jamie.

Dodgers fans are entitled to ask some hard questions when the team payroll drops from $100 million to $95 million and the big offseason pickups are Vicente Padilla, Jamey Carroll and Reed Johnson, but the McCourts' marital squabbling is a better fit for TMZ than ESPN. This movie has played out already, and it ended with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner hanging from a chandelier before crashing to the floor.

There are lots more sordid details to come, with a trial scheduled for Aug. 30 to determine custody of the team. On second thought, the McCourt divorce is a baseball hybrid of "War of the Roses'' and "Kramer vs. Kramer.''

I couldn't agree more with Crasnick that much of the divorce news is better-suited for TMZ than ESPN. We spend very little time here talking about the more sordid items, and that is by choice. To me, it's not an issue of fair or unfair, private or public. Simply, I'm just a ton more interested in this unprecedented look into how a professional sports team is run. As has been ably noted, fans and media, generally, would be naive to think that many (if not most) teams engage in the complex, intricate processes in play here.

Silent partners, sleeper equity, slush funds, minimization of tax liabilities, funneling money through several entities...that's just how it works. And I find it all fascinating. So, while Crasnick's point concerning the cratering of the McCourt marriage is well taken, this stopped being about Frank and Jamie, the couple, a long time ago. More than anything else, the issue at the heart of things is the erosion (some might say evaporation) of the relationship between the Dodgers and the team's large, devoted fanbase.

This is a test case for what really matters in sports today. As I type, the Dodgers are the hottest team in baseball, nearly fully recovered from an extended season-opening slump. Despite myriad injuries resulting in the inexplicable presence of Garret Anderson, the club is performing at a high level. And the acrimony between the organization and its fans hasn't kept the denizens of Chavez Ravine from supporting their Dodgers; the club is third in average home attendance despite the dismal start. Really, the club is right where we expected: headed toward a meaningful September on the field.

September, of course, has meaning in a courtroom as well. And that is why the divorce still matters. The outcome of September's litigation will shape the direction of the franchise in the short, medium, and long term. The ownership of the club is the most important issue facing the Dodgers today. I'm tremendously excited watching Clayton Kershaw (the player) become Clayton Kershaw (the idea). And I'm anxious for baseball's best offensive outfield to, you know, play together at some point. And Lord knows I have a lot of my own feelings invested in Chad Billingsley's don’t-call-it-a-comeback.

But in the absence of clarity concerning ownership, what happens on the field has a depressing tinge: we don't know if any of it really matters. And that's where this is still a little about Frank and Jamie. Not pools, or bodyguards, or drivers, or Project Jamie, or Frank's aloofness. No, this is about figuring out just who (or what) is going to own this team when the dust settles.

Many of us have a pretty clear notion of how the future should look. Mark Cuban has long been a popular choice, and I've heard calls for Eli Broad, Jerry Buss, and even (jokingly) David Glass and Al Davis. Still, many fans' leader in the clubhouse is the always-popular Anyone Else, famous also for his exploits as a backup NFL quarterback and opponent of incumbent political candidates.

And that makes sense. The McCourts had some credibility issues early on--just who are these people, and what are they doing in Los Angeles?--and it was rumored they didn't have the money to make this work. Toss in a healthy amount of public awkwardness, a pinch of financial short-sightedness, and a couple dashes of postseason failure and you've got some problems on your hands. The secret ingredient, of course, is an ugly divorce pulling back the curtains on team finances, and exposing ownership's long-term goals for the franchise--goals which probably don't match fans' expectations.

So rises the cry for Anyone Else. There's a problem, though: not so long ago, the McCourts were Anyone Else. The previous ownership was so eager to be rid of the Dodgers that it sold the club at a bargain basement price, encouraging the sort of leveraged transaction enabling the McCourts to buy (and then operate) the club. And, in a masterstroke, Fox ownership justified the price (and hamstrung the McCourts) by cutting a sweetheart deal for TV rights. Gate receipts and merchandise sales are neat and all, but control of the media rights is what separates baseball’s minor deities from its titans. Because Fox held the TV rights, the McCourts had to turn to the sort of financial sorcery so loathed by the fans today.

It goes without saying that the ownership situation is messy now. Even as a happy, intact family unit, selling the Dodgers would require the McCourts to untangle a string of affiliated companies and debt facilities so complicated it's taken several months of expensive discovery just to unveil them. Should Jamie win half the team or a cash award so great the team must be sold, it's going to happen at a discount, and an entity which might not have the wherewithal to operate the Dodgers would be encouraged to bid. Sound familiar?

The impassioned cries for Anyone Else are understandable, reasonable, and entirely defensible. But I'd urge everyone to consider just what that means: several likely years of turmoil. The sale itself would be an arduous, difficult process, and the new owner would likely experience significant growing pains. What's more, there are just fewer folks out there right now who can afford a baseball team than there were three years ago. A fresh start has its advantages, to be sure--especially if whoever's next is a true Southern Californian. But it's likely to be a long, painful slog.

There is a significant possibility that the right answer for the long term is Frank McCourt. It's hard to argue with the team's success during his regime, and all indications are that he has moved past the perilously-thin margins characterizing the early days of McCourt ownership. The team is profitable, the fans are still engaged, and there is room to grow. Perhaps, with the financial strictures of the divorce behind him, he'll be able to invest in the future of the organization, addressing shortcomings of the last few years. The TV rights come back in-house after the 2014 season, which will make the Dodgers all the more valuable. And, if things don't work, a sale several years down the line will be without the urgency that would dramatically devalue the club in a sale this winter.

I'm not ready to throw my full support behind Frank just yet. Emotionally, it's difficult to embrace a figure who has brought so much negativity to the Dodgers. But maybe that's my point: there is no panacea here, no cure-all. Clamoring for Anyone Else is emotionally and philosophically justified, but we should be careful to remember that Anyone Else comes with problems, too. And this is where we come back to the divorce as a test case for fans' attitudes towards their teams: what do we want? 

If we want a fresh face we can relate to, an owner for whom the Dodgers are the reason to exist, an owner who truly understands what the Dodgers mean to Los Angeles, then yes: Anyone Else could be that owner. But Anyone Else could also be a relatively faceless group of investors that sees the Dodgers as a vehicle for growing and accumulating wealth. The team might be available for a song this winter, and those TV rights are so close you can taste them. Anyone Else might be everything we've grown to distaste about Frank McCourt, but at least he's cut his teeth as an owner. 

If we want to win above all else, Frank McCourt could be the answer. He’s got more money than even his wife knew, he’s had some experience in figuring out what works and what doesn’t, and he’s learning how to stay out of the way. And there’s another factor at work, here, too: should he come out of this mess with the team intact, he’ll need to win. It’s the only way back into the fans hearts (and wallets). I know it, you know it, Frank knows it. Say it along with me, Frank, “The difficult events of the last several months have made me reconsider my priorities, and after my sons, the Dodgers are the most important thing in my life.” And so begins the rest of the McCourt era. If, over the course of several years, Frank’s actions match his words, everything is forgiven.

It’s with a great deal of reluctance I sing the praises of Frank McCourt, Potential Long-Term Solution. And, obviously, whatever degree I support Frank is based only on what we know; yet more skeletons may lurk. But my interest in the entire fiasco has never been about Frank or Jamie, pools or jets, stadiums or campaigns. It’s always been about the Dodgers.

So, for the moment, I’m not going to write Frank off. However these next few months play out, my end-game is the same: I will support the candidate best able to sustain an organization I can be proud to call my own. As it is with analysis, the past only matters to the extent it colors the future. And, for everything that’s happened, I’m not sure the future is better left to Anyone Else than Frank McCourt. Not quite yet, anyway. Lord knows we've got plenty of time to sort it out.

---

Doing the math.

---
My high school teachers always badgered me about not showing my work, so here it is:

$637,159
X          5
-----------
$3,185,895

That's how much Frank owes Jamie in a lump sum, assuming the payments must date back to the beginning of December (and don't factor in May).

$637,159
X          5
-----------
$3,185,895


That's how much Frank owes Jamie from May through September, when the litigation is scheduled to conclude.

$3,185,895
X             2
-------------
$6,371,590


That's how much spousal support is going to cost Frank McCourt, owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, from December through the conclusion of the divorce. This figure doesn't include professional fees, estimated to run about $10 million for each divorcing spouse.

It'd sure be a lot easier to accept these kind of numbers if the Dodgers were, you know, good at the moment. They aren't, so you can bet that what it's costing to get through the divorce--never mind the outcome--is going to be a lightning rod for critics of the team's roster construction.
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I wasn't expecting this.

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So, as I've referenced several times, I don't live in Los Angeles. Not anymore. I grew up in the South Bay, though, starting with pre-school and kindergarten in Palos Verdes. There I met Patrick, who would be my "best friend" for as long as such things really mattered. As things turned out, one side of his family is from Minnesota, where I live now. They have a lake home a few miles outside St. Cloud, Minnesota, a town about half the size of Torrance, which makes it very large for central Minnesota. Patrick and I manage to spend a couple weeks a year up there, and it's largely how we've been able to stay close.

All this is a roundabout way to express my surprise that the Saint Cloud Times ran an article by Mike LoPresti discussing the divorce. Crystallizing an analogy I'd heard used loosely before, LoPresti writes,

The stakes are high, and the other team is powerful. To win, you're going to have to spend money to bring in enough talent.

The Dodgers building their pitching staff to win the National League pennant? Nah. Frank and Jamie McCourt stockpiling attorneys for their divorce battle.

The Dodgers are in last place, and while injuries and a fat earned run average have been factors, a persistent question is what the cost has been for one of the sport's blue chip franchises by marital war in the owner's box.

If only they spent this much money on their rotation.

As the club continues to scuffle along, the club's shortcomings are inevitably pinned on the McCourts' personal drama. Frank and Jamie were really in a no-win situation here. If the team succeeded, it would be in spite of the McCourt saga. Should the team lose, the failures would be because of the divorce. Fair or not, this was bound to happen.

And folks are reacting with various thoughts and feelings on the poor start. Jon Weisman runs through the rotation's struggles, the bullpen's issues, the defense's problems, and the roster's injury-fueled turnover. He closes with an important reminder that there is still time for this to work out. Or get uglier. Eric Stephen has run out of regular words to address the situation, so he turns to pig Latin. Everyone else is pretty down, too.

Yes, at some point it's no longer "early." And maybe that point is sooner than we'd like. Still, the Dodgers are closer to the division lead than either the Red or White Sox, both of which are looking up at much fiercer competition than the general dreck above the Dodgers. Should the Dodgers' 5.5 game deficit turn into 10 by the end of the month, yeah--the team will start looking to sell. But I'm not convinced that this team is anything close to buried yet.
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Logan White is out of character.

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So I've discovered this delightful journalist named Bill Shaikin. No, I had never heard of him either. But here he comes out of the woodwork with an interesting piece on the machinations of the Los Angeles Dodgers' front office. How does this happen? How does someone I've never heard of, who hasn't written about this sort of thing before, get this kind of access? Well, I suppose only the fates know. Anyhow, Bill Shaikin--who I think has a future in this business--brings us to the mind of one Logan White, the man in charge of the team's scouting operations. Proceed, Mr. Shaikin:

The Dodgers no longer spend big bucks on free agents, so White and his staff must sign enough prospects to replenish the major league roster and provide General Manager Ned Colletti with a stash of trade chips as well. Yet the Dodgers also have stopped spending big bucks in the draft and abroad, effectively restricting White from signing some premium amateur talent.

Well now just wait right there. I'm sorry, Bill. I'm quite interested in how the rest of this goes, but: really? The Los Angeles Dodgers can't spend on free agents, draft picks, or amateur international free agents? I'd go on here, but it's just tres de Mayo (el tercero de Mayo? I've never really understood this) and I ought not spend my entire month's allotment of indignation at once. Going on:

"I don't want people to think that because we're not spending the money the way some teams are, we're not getting players," [White] said. "That is so far from the truth."

Well, for that to be the case, White and his pals simply need to be better than their competition. Growing into something of a fan of White over the years, I'll see where he's going with this. After making the valid--but stale--point that the Dodgers' Baseball America farm system ranking--23rd and 24th the last two years--has a great deal to do with graduating talent to the majors, the piece continues:

The Dodgers don't put too much stock into how much money they spent in the draft, since the teams with the worst records draft the highest and, generally, pay the most.

"For Pittsburgh and Kansas City and all those teams that have outspent us, what do their fans have to be happy about?" White said. "They're still going to have 18 or 19 losing seasons in a row. We're not."

Well, that's sort of silly, isn't it? I mean--the Dodgers would gladly trade farm systems with the Royals right now. There's some great pitching there. And the 'recommended' slot system actually favors large-market teams in the draft to an extent. What's that you say? Mystery scribe Shaikin covered this? Oh. Indeed:

Yet the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox spend freely in the draft, stocking up by selecting players whose demands for high bonuses have scared off poorer teams and aggravated Commissioner Bud Selig. The Dodgers, with rare exceptions, refuse to pay above the bonus recommended by the commissioner's office.

"We've tried to be a team player within MLB and address the unreasonable bonuses," White said, "and stay within what we feel is fair money for a pick.

Oh good grief. We've been over this together, so I'm not going to tear open old wounds, but: give me a break. The Dodgers need to be looking out for the Dodgers. Putting a consistently-excellent product on the field via sustainable processes is how this works. The Dodgers need to be taking advantage of their spot in the market, not apologizing for it! And besides...what in the world is "unreasonable" about going over slot in the draft? For all the market correction that's been taking place the last couple years, spending an extra $5 million on the draft is still much more efficient than spending it on, say, I don't know...Vicente Padilla.


White goes on to discuss the club's philosophy regarding the premium amateur free agents, which can be summed up as "we're not even going to try." And, you know what, that's fine with me. A bad plan is probably better than well-intentioned haphazard spending. And the plan might not even be bad; White cites internal studies showing that the expensive commitments to 16-year-olds are not efficient uses of resources. Whether that's true or not, who knows. White has a reason for his actions, and he's committed to following a plan. I can live with that.

It is not that the Dodgers cannot contend without pouring money into major league free agents, draft picks and international signings. However, given the prices they charge for tickets and parking, and given that they led the major leagues in attendance last season, it is unconscionable that ownership won't pour money into at least one of those areas, to leverage the advantage of playing in Los Angeles into the best possible chance to dominate the National League West.

On that score, White sounds almost defiant.

"We've made some mistakes on our own, but it's not been for lack of money. Since I've been here, I've always had the amount of money I need to spend," he said. "If I spent another $10 million, could I produce any more? It's near impossible. It's certainly not a money thing."

(explodes)


I said I was going to keep my indignation in check here, and I will. Suffice it to say that it is both wrongheaded and professionally foolish for White to say he wouldn't be able to improve prospect quality and quantity with more money. Telling your boss you wouldn't be able to do better with increased resources is just asking to have some of the resources you've got reallocated. And, judging by the current state of the Dodger farm system, further cutbacks could be disastrous.


As I said earlier, I like Logan White. I think he's been a big positive for the organization over the years, and I'm happy he hasn't been lured elsewhere. For everyone's sake, I hope he's just playing company man here. I hope he really doesn't think the organization would not benefit from increased spending on young players. And I certainly hope he doesn't truly believe in the slotting system. Scouting directors should be salesmen as much as decisonmakers; if I'm running a baseball team, I want my scouting director always championing the young player as the most efficient tool of organizational stability and growth. Let the next guy up the ladder make--and be accountable for--the decisions on how to allocate limited resources.


Hearing White espouse the virtues of frugal spending on player development is like listening to a too-old-for-his-years child from a struggling family make too-old-for-his-years decisions on what he wants to eat, play with, and wear. You admire the restraint, but there's something awfully sad about it. Even where there's not much to go around, the burden of those decisions should fall on someone higher up the ladder. This shouldn't be Logan White's job.
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Those seats are ok, I guess.

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Cousin-of-the-blog Ryan Eberhard passed along this photo taken during last night's game.

Though last night certainly went well, the beer hiding the scoreboard seems fitting, given the club's sluggish, injury-riddled start. No word on whether Frank McCourt was in his usual seat in this vicinity. If he was, Ryan was wise not to trumpet our relation!
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The divorce gets the New York Post treatment.

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Joel Sherman has an article up today mostly discussing the fractured relationship between Joe Torre and current Yankees brass. He does dish some McCourt, though:

He left an untenable relationship with Yankees ownership to work for something that has become worse with the Dodgers: deadbeat owners.

The divorcing McCourts have reduced a flagship franchise into an organization that behaves like a scrounging, small-market club. The payroll has diminished to less than the Twins, and the club is among the most penurious in the draft and international market. And the coffers will be closed again come the July trade deadline since Jamie McCourt's claims of co-ownership with Frank McCourt are not to be determined by the courts before August.

The distance from Torre's old job to his current one was stark yesterday: The Yankees were at the White House enjoying a final victory lap for last year's championship while Torre was at Citi Field not yet ready to identify which bottom-of-the-barrel option he was going to start tomorrow in place of the injured Vicente Padilla in what already was a rotation impaired by frugality.

I'm a fairly loud critic of much of the McCourts' actions, but I wouldn't go as far as Sherman does here. Characterizing them as "deadbeats" is a little much; they haven't abandoned the franchise. Not every parent that can't afford to buy their kid the nicest toys is a deadbeat. While it is true--and frustrating and apalling and ridiculous--that the Dodgers are operating like something much less than Los Angeles' premier sports franchise, they're still trying.

As for the trade deadline...well, I'm as curious as you are. The division is eminently winnable--seriously, a couple games over .500 might get this done. It will certainly be close enough that one or two parts can make a difference. We've known all along that this club's biggest concern was depth in the outfield and quality fill-ins for gaps in the starting rotation. Here we are with Manny Ramirez and Vicente Padilla on the disabled list. And yes, the club is struggling. 

But I'm nowhere close to ready to even downgrade my hopes for this team. Maybe I'm being naive, but I really believe that the money will be there to fill in holes come June and July. Hopefully, the spousal support issue will be settled by then and the Dodgers can quit trying to pretend to be poor. 

Oh, and as for Sherman...just two-and-a-half months ago, he wrote this article titled "Mets' failure to sign bargain players goes beyond Minaya." In it, he criticized the Mets for failing to close on players like jon Garland, Doug Davis, and Bengie Molina. So I guess I'm a little mixed up as to the message we're supposed to take away...are cheap retreads...bad?...good?

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Over at The Hardball Times today, I took a look at the Ryan Howard extension. I hope you'll go read it, but I'll give away the ending: it's a really dumb move. Remember this sort of thing when people crush the Dodgers for not being in on the mega-contract free agents.

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Sometimes, you have to tip your cap.

---
In Wednesday's Times, Eric Sondheimer wrote about an effort to help keep the Los Angeles Unified School District's sports programs active. An excerpt:

A projected $640-million deficit in the 2010-11 school year prompted the school district to institute a 25% budget cut in the sports program. In the fall, football programs were going to be reduced from having six paid coaches to four and freshman-sophomore basketball teams were expected to be eliminated. Additional cuts were planned for the spring.

[...]

McCourt said he learned of the proposed cutbacks to sports after inviting a group of civic leaders to the Dodgers' spring training facility at Camelback Ranch in Arizona late last month.

"Everybody was quite alarmed," he said. "We went to work in a collaborative way. I indicated right then and there they should count me and the Dodgers in."

McCourt pledged that the Dodgers Dream Foundation would help support baseball and softball. 

I grew up playing baseball in the South Bay. One of the glorious things about Southern California is you can play it year-round, and I mostly did for about ten years. Look at this sort of thing how you will: kind-hearted and altruistic or shallow and made-for-TV. Whatever it is, it's keeping kids on the baseball field. And in my book, that's a wonderful thing.

Bringing things back to the Dodgers organization, I'm happy to hear that Frank does things like the sit-down with civic leaders mentioned above. Much criticism has been leveled at the McCourts for failing to connect with Los Angeles. While it's easy to see that the fans are generally down on the McCourts, if Frank intends to be around for the long haul--which he says he is--then having the private support of the movers and shakers is a must. The fans will come back, too, as the wins stack up and the organization builds toward sustainable excellence.


Since today is We Love Frank McCourt day at Dodger Divorce, I'd be remiss to ignore Tony Jackson's great piece on Ned Colletti up today at ESPN Los Angeles. How Frank closed:

Giants owner Peter Magowan didn't want Colletti to go, especially not to the archrival Dodgers, and certainly not until after the GM meetings, which were in Indian Wells. When those meetings concluded, Colletti drove to Los Angeles and met with Frank and Jamie McCourt for eight hours.

"You could tell the process was going to be very quick,'' Colletti said. "They had a lot of questions on a vast array of topics, and it was very much a rapid-fire Q-and-A. I had a lot of questions for them, too."

That was on a Friday. Magowan, who had granted a 72-hour window for the McCourts, met with Colletti on the following Monday.

"We talked about where we had been as an organization,'' Colletti said. "I said I really had to follow through. Frank called and asked for a second interview and I said yes, but we needed a 24-hour extension on the window. Peter said he would only give me until noon on Tuesday. I went home, grabbed a suit and flew to L.A. We met at the Beverly Hills Hotel from 2 until midnight, with a 45-minute break for a salad at the Polo Lounge.''

The interview was intense, challenging, exhausting, but Colletti gave as good as he got, which was exactly what McCourt was looking for. Colletti pretty much heard what he wanted to hear, as well.

"I talked about the goals and objectives of the organization and how serious I was about those,'' McCourt said. "I wanted him to have a very clear sense of what he was walking into, and he was undeterred by it. It was what he wanted.''

McCourt left at midnight and returned the following morning at 6.

"By 10, Frank had offered me the job,'' Colletti said. "By noon, we had a deal.''

If you're any sort of Dodgers fan, you need to go read the whole thing. It's excellent work. And it's only the first part of two.

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Ok, ok, ok, back to business. A few weeks ago, I somehow missed this Boston Herald article, now behind a pay wall (sorry!). It has some interesting nuggets, including this:

[Frank's] attorney, Sorrell Trope, told the judge his client can't tap credit lines to maintain Jamie McCourt's high-falutin' lifestyle. 

"If we look at this case, realistically, you can't order Mr. McCourt to borrow money to pay support,'' Trope toldSuperior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon.

This is a little funky. If Trope was referring to Frank's operating lines of credit, this argument doesn't do much for me. Using lines of credit to pay for expenses is how the McCourts live--and that's fine. It's how extraordinarily folks should do it. So to say that Frank would have to go into debt to pay support is a wee bit disingenuous. 

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How about that Matt Kemp kid? Keep an eye on that youngster. He might be a pretty good player someday. Have a great weekend, Dodger fans. I'm counting down the days until my first (but hopefully not only) Dodgers game of the year: next month in Chicago.

Oh, and Dodger Divorce still believes in Chad. 

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Going backwards.

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Joe Posnanski has an interesting post up about the relationship between revenue and payroll. As he's so skilled at doing, he turns a common assumption on its head:

You know, we focus a lot here on team payrolls … and those payroll numbers can be pretty stark. This year, for instance, the Yankees $206 million payroll is $44 million more than any other team and at least double the payroll of 22 teams (and six times the payroll of the Pittsburgh Pirates).

But people who know a lot more about accounting and such have told me for a long time that payroll is not the issue — REVENUE is the issue. And when you look at the Forbes numbers, yes, it does seem to ring true that salaries are driven by revenue and not the other way around … that is to say that your ticket price didn’t go up because Roy Halladay got a $60 million extension, but instead Roy Halladay got a $60 million extension because of the price of your Philadelphia ticket (and all the other Phillies revenue streams — the Phillies made $233 million in revenue in 2009, sixth-most in baseball).

As you surely know, the Dodgers are trending in reverse. After bringing in $247 million last season, fourth-most in baseball, the Dodgers have trimmed their payroll to about $95 million (according to USA Today). Those Phillies, on the other hand, parlayed their $233 revenue in 2009 to a 2010 payroll of about $142 million. 

To put this in some perspective, using Posnanski's methodology: the Dodgers' revenue grew by $7 million from 2008 to 2009, yet the payroll dropped about $30 million from 2009 to 2010.* Conversely, the Phillies' payroll jumped by $13 million from 2009 to 2010* on the strength of a $17 million revenue increase from the corresponding previous seasons.

*The 2009 figures are Forbes', which accounts for total player costs. The 2010 USA Today figures only consider the Opening Day roster.

The Phillies aren't the only example, of course. Suffice it to say that the norm is exactly what Posnanski suggests: increased revenues lead to increased payroll, not the other way around. Another way to approach the topic is the percentage of revenue spent on baseball operations (a figure which includes payroll). If a team spends 100% of its actual revenue on baseball operations, it neither gains nor loses money on the year. In 2008, the Dodgers spent 93% of club revenue on baseball operations, 61.5% of which went to payroll. In 2009, the Dodgers spent 86.5% of club revenue on baseball operations, 58.4% of which went to payroll. This season, the Dodgers figure to do wonderfully at the gate, while the team carries the second-lowest payroll of the McCourt era.

I'm not sure that any hard conclusions can be drawn from this data. Forbes' figures aren't gospel, and we know the financial structure of the Dodgers is quite complex. It's certainly interesting, though, that the Dodgers' ratios are inverted. The club is spending a little more on non-player expenses while taking more of the revenues out of the team. All winter long, Frank McCourt wanted us to know that the divorce hasn't affected the organization. And yet, every time numbers come out tracking the Dodgers' income and expenses, spending on the team looks down and profit-taking looks up. Considering, as we've been asked, that Frank doesn't have any cash to spare, one has to wonder where the heck it is.

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Quote of the (Fri)day.

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In this New York Times article by Billy Witz, Clayton Kershaw said of his impact, "I'd rather [we] win because of me than in spite of me." I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say: same goes for you, ownership. While the first week-and-a-half of the season might not have been perfect, there's little to suggest the Dodgers won't be around in September. Of course, some youth in the 'pen wouldn't kill the club, would it? Have a great weekend, everyone. I'm heading out into the sunshine for Greinke v. Twins.
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Some Opening Day notes

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Happy Vin Scully Day, everyone! I hope you're as excited as I am for your first welcome to 2010 Dodger baseball from the man himself. In the mean time, some quick notes:

• According to the Times' Dylan Hernandez (among others), musician Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas will throw out the first pitch today. If that's not odd enough, LeAnn Rimes will sing the national anthem. Rimes spent the winter mired in marriage trouble rife with allegations of infidelity. Does that sound familiar to anyone besides me? What a strange selection, considering the circumstances.
• Per Daily News wire services, we get a neat quote from Joe Torre on the divorce's potential effect on the team this season: "We can't let it." When approached for comment, Dodgers' general manager Ned Colletti ran away covering his ears with his hands and singing, "I can't hear you, I can't hear you!"
• Gary Suess (not the doctor. He spelled it differently) of Bleacher Report lists the Dodgers as the #1 potential destination for Pedro Martinez to materialize midseason. Suess suggests that Pedro would have to accept a rock-bottom salary with the Dodgers, who finances are presumably constrained by the divorce. Personally, I don't think Pedro's in line for a big payday wherever he lands.

Enjoy Chavez Ravine baseball, everyone. 

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When's the time to panic?

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Not about the season, of course. The team will be just fine, I suspect. But what about the organization as a whole? While he doesn't use the 'P' word--yet--the Long Beach Press-Telegram's Bob Keisser does think it's time to worry. Keisser:

Dodgers fans were so thrilled to have the Fox era of ownership end that they accepted the McCourts at face value even though we hardly knew their faces. They had no baseball background, and it was widely reported that they bought the team on credit thanks to good financing terms from Commissioner Bud Selig.

Now we know. They feathered the nest they're now going to break into pieces, and this will not end well for the team on the field.

It is talented enough to compete for another playoff spot, but less so than a year ago. The team isn't likely to spend for a needed bat or arm down the stretch. If things go south, the team could be sellers, not buyers.

While most of the young players are committed for a few more years because of free agency rules, they're not going to be so quick to stay with a franchise when their time comes if the team is in the dumps and acting like a small-market team. Once Joe Torre retires, there will be a leadership vacancy. And anyone who thinks there isn't a chance of attendance decline hasn't been paying attention to the recession.

Keisser's last point is the crux of it all, and something I've been very curious about. Nothing's going to change if 3.8 million fans are still walking through the turnstiles. People love the Dodgers; at what point does the shattered relationship between ownership and fans start affecting gate receipts? My guess is that it's fairly simple: when the team stops winning. 


For as bitter as fans feel toward the McCourts, we don't show up to spot Frank in the owner's box or Dugout Club seats. We come for what happens on the mound and in the batter's box, and to share traditions with our fellow fans. Like so many of you, I compare all of my baseball experiences with my earliest memories of Dodger Stadium. And none of those memories concern ownership.


As long as the team is winning, the relationship between ownership and the fans will be secondary to the product on the field. Frank had better hope things remain this way; Dodger Stadium is a big, big place that doesn't do well half-empty. 
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Keisser also calls out Frank McCourt for his frequent references to the improvements to Dodger Stadium. As Keisser sees it, the bulk of updates serve McCourt more than the fans; newer ways to advertise, more outlets for folks to drop money on food and souvenirs, and new premium seating areas. He's got a point. While fans certainly appreciate more seating options and quicker concession lines, such things are as beneficial to ownership as they are to the fans. 
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What's bad for the Dodgers is good for the Giants.

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Yes, that's how it works. The Sacramento Bee's (love that!) Bill Bradley writes:

Maybe the Giants have a chance to win the National League West after all.

That's because their rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, are writing the script for a great Hollywood drama, with no happy ending in sight.

The owners of the Dodgers, Frank and Jamie McCourt, are getting a divorce. As part of those proceedings is an Aug. 30 trial to determine who will run the team. Oh, and Jamie is asking for $1 million a month in temporary spousal support.

So how will the divorce hurt the Dodgers as the season opens? First, it will mean the team will be a seller, not a buyer, at the trading deadline. Second, if the team falters early, it could replace manager Joe Torre with his cheaper bench coach, Don Mattingly.

Plus, their biggest offseason acquisitions were pitcher Ramon Ortiz, 36, and Garret Anderson, 37. Oh, and Manny Ramírez is in his contract year, which means he'll start pouting about June 15.

A few things: (1) The trial beginning August 30 is to determine who owns the team, not runs it. Nit-picky, yes, but a very important distinction; (2) Saying the team will be a seller is a little aggressive. And really, what sorts of players on this team are even sell candidates? Maybe Blake, Furcal, Kuroda, Padilla, and bullpen flotsam and jetsam. But certainly not the cost-controlled core of the team; (3) Replacing Torre with Mattingly wouldn't likely save a dime--Torre's under contract; and (4) Being in a contract year could well have the opposite effect with Manny--he needs to show he's still an elite hitter if he wants anything approaching his current deal.


Happy Tuesday! And happy baseball!
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A busy day in divorce land.

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On a day I'd be just as happy talking about the team's 2010 hopes, two high-profile writers add to the McCourt divorce saga. First billing goes to the Times' Bill Shaikin, who brings us yet another installment of he-said, she-said:

In making her case for temporary spousal support, Jamie McCourt fired back at her estranged husband in court papers filed Monday, making a reference to Frank McCourt's "extramarital activities."

"Frank [and his lawyers] make some hurtful and unnecessary personal comments about me," she wrote. "I would prefer not to address such accusations or to discuss my belief as to Frank's extramarital activities."

You'll recall that the letter sent to Jamie's attorneys alleging that Frank, too, had an intra-office affair was from an anonymous source. Indeed, it looks like Jamie and her lawyers don't feel comfortable asserting the alleged affair as fact; Jamie's "belief as to Frank's extramarital affairs" is all we've got. Further in Shaikin's piece:

In Monday's filing, Jamie McCourt's lawyers took exception to Frank McCourt's claim that his annual income is limited by bank restrictions to $5 million, arguing that he could access at least $18.4 million this year.

Her lawyers further argue that, by asking the court to deny any temporary support, Frank McCourt hopes to pin her in a financial position so precarious that she would "cave into his demands and relinquish any claim to the overwhelming bulk of the marital estate, including the Dodgers."

I don't know about you guys, but I think this kind of stuff is much more interesting than the alleged affairs or emotional breakdowns. The gist of Jamie's argument here is that Frank's stated liquidity is ridiculously deflated. While he claims that, under certain loan agreements, his payments are capped, she describes such an argument as hollow and misleading. Not only was the cap on his distributions temporary, she says, it also affected only certain income streams. 

And her lawyers are exactly right about what Frank's side is trying to do. That's how this works. I'd suggest he's also trying to force her into disposing of some of the residential real estate; what Frank would call "Jamie's" assets. This would at least create the impression that the post-nup has teeth. 

And, of course, the logical solution here (pay less for lawyers, accountants, experts, etc.) isn't going to happen. As we've discussed, there's just too much at stake to skimp on such things at this juncture. What's $10 million now when the prize is half (or all) of the Los Angeles Dodgers and associated enterprises? If Jamie really finds herself up against the wall, maybe we'll find out how much backing she'd actually have in an attempt to buy Frank out. Surely, one of the potential partners would cosign on her legal bills. Right?

Shaikin's article also notes that things look to have fallen apart for good in April 2009, when Frank confronted Jamie over her relationship with Jeff Fuller. We know that she'd been looking to formally boot the post-nup many months before.

The USA Today's Bob Nightengale has also dived into the divorce. Hi, Bob! For his well-researched, informative piece (which might be second to only the Annual as a starting point), Nightengale sat down with Frank McCourt himself.

The last six months have left him weary, emotionally exhausted and embarrassed, with his personal life and details of his crumbling marriage chronicled everywhere from TMZ to the Los Angeles Times to a burgeoning website: DodgerDivorce.com.

Yet here at Camelback Ranch, as he watches his club in action during a Cactus League game, he shows no sign of stress.

McCourt's voice never wavers in his first in-depth interview this spring, showing a resolve that he will not only endure but also prevail through the most turbulent time of his personal life.

"It's tough. I'm not going to lie to you," he says. "It's a very, very sad thing. Nobody wants to go through this privately, never mind publicly.

"But in L.A., so much of it is about drama. L.A. is so much about personalities. It's just how the city functions. This is a juicy story for people until it's not juicy anymore. Then, they move on to somebody else's story.

"Tiger Woods was fantastic for me."

No doubt. Maybe my memory fails me, but, thinking back, I'm not sure Frank has done a whole lot wrong when it comes to addressing the divorce itself. He's been aloof at times, and he'll certainly offer a clunker of a quote on occasion. But who wouldn't? His lawyers have been much tighter with information, inclined generally to let this play out in court. Which is exactly what you do when, as I believe is the case, the law is on your side.

The damage Frank's suffered due to the divorce is the unfortunate (for him) airing of the club's financial laundry. This isn't a good time to be perceived as playing games with money, even if that's how the world really works and there's nothing untoward going on. And in the "the facts speak for themselves" category, there is that pesky payroll issue. 

You don't get to be the marquee team in Los Angeles and spend about the same as the Minnesota Twins. And even more damning is that the Twins aren't just doing it with payroll; any one of Wilson Ramos, Max Kepler-Rozycki, and Miguel Angel Sano (all recent Twins signees) would probably be the best amateur free agent in the Dodgers' system. No, spending is not a baseball panacea. But it's probably the closest thing we've got.

In Nightengale's piece, Frank also offers his take on the effect of the post-nup. I think he's right on when he stresses that this situation is much different from that of the San Diego Padres, due to the presence of the post-nup. Jamie's lawyer disagrees.

"Mr. McCourt is ducking the issue," Fields says. "He thinks he's going to get ownership of the Dodgers and 95% of the assets.

"They agreed to be 50-50 (owners). And she doesn't want to sell. She loves baseball. She has the ability to buy out Frank if he wants. If he doesn't want to sell, they'll have to figure out a way to run the team together."

I've seen much of Frank's filings; to say he's ducking the post-nup issue is ludicrous. As for however advantageous a position Frank might be in (I'm not sure 95-5 is accurate), it must be remembered that Frank also took a much greater risk than Jamie when agreeing to the terms of the post-nup. That has to be factored into any analysis of the fairness of the agreement. Moving on, I don't foresee any scenario in which the two could possibly run the team together. The only way it could ever work is for both to cede control to a management team, profiting but powerless.

Lastly, Jamie's repeated assertion (through her lawyers) that she is ready, willing, and able to buy the team is well...neat, I guess. Even assuming there is a universe in which Frank would voluntarily allow her to take over, any change in ownership would have to be put through the same approval process Frank endured several years ago. After the events of this winter, can you imagine baseball's owners signing off on an ownership group led (or at least fronted) by Jamie McCourt? I sure can't.

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