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. 
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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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What's best is not always what's easy.

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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.

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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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A routine exercise.

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Kurt Henin of NBC Los Angeles writes this afternoon:

The Dodgers have awakened from their winter hibernation.

Today they reached new deals to keep more of their core intact —Andre Ethier, Jonathan Broxton, Russell Martin, James Loney, George Sherrill and Hong-Chih Kuo all reached deals with the Dodgers in the last 24 hours. Those players were arbitration eligible and the Dodgers have avoided that in each case.

Ethier and Broxton, as Matt Kemp did last week, signed a two-year deal with the franchise, providing a bit of stability. Ethier had 31 home runs last season, drove in 106 runs and was the team’s best clutch hitter. Broxton became one of the most feared closers in baseball on his way to 36 saves last season.

That's great and all, especially the Ethier and Broxton parts. But to imply that this was anything beyond routine business is to fail to grasp some fundamental realities of the system. These players weren't going anywhere. 

Avoiding arbitration serves two useful functions. First, it provides cost certainty, mitigating risk but sacrificing upside for both parties involved. This holds true whether the team and player agree to a one-year contract or multi-year deal. Second, avoiding arbitration goes a long way toward preserving an amicable relationship between the player and the team. This is especially important in Matt Kemp's case, as he's the one the club most needs to retain beyond his six years of team control.

Nothing that happened today signifies that the Dodgers' money woes are a thing of the past. As Jon Weisman notes at Dodger Thoughts, one interesting development was Russell Martin's clear penalty for his dismal 2009 season. Other than that, all the contract news of the last few days is relatively unsurprising. I'm happy that no cases went to arbitration, but so very few ever do. 

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Stay dry and safe, everyone. Yesterday was probably the first time in my life I've flown out of Los Angeles to better weather in Minnesota. I understand that San Pedro, my home town of four years, was hit particularly hard. Hope everyone's ok.

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Just my luck.

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We'll dive further into Frank McCourt's statements next week, but my guess is this tells us all we need to know:

We're committed to developing young players, more so than ever. We've invested heavily in that area. And we're in the trade and free-agent markets to see if we can improve the team. We made decisions last year to put this club in a great position to compete at the highest level last year, and the vast majority of those players are back and there's not a lot we had to do this offseason. 

It just bothers me so much that you have to jump through so many logical hoops to arrive at a place where this makes sense. I suppose that the team may indeed be "committed to developing young players, more so than ever" in the sense that there are fewer premium players in the system now due to the extremely low spending on the draft and in amateur free agency. So, in theory, the remaining talented players might be getting more coaching or something. Better student-to-teacher ratio now, you see.

And Frank, we know the organization made decisions last year (and for several years prior) to "put this club in a great position to compete at the highest level last year." Really, no one's complaining about last year. It's the foreseeable future we care about, the one where player payroll and season ticket renewals move in lockstep. 

Lastly, we're all well aware that by body count alone, last year's very-successful team is largely intact. The problem with Frank's statement is that the team lost its best pitcher (by some measures) in Randy Wolf, which it has yet to replace. That counts. And speaking of things "we had to do this offseason," you know what you should do when the major league club doesn't need a lot of help? Reallocate resources to international talent or long-term extensions for key players. 

Of course, there are no resources to reallocate. Whether that's the divorce's fault or something else's is largely irrelevant this morning, isn't it?

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A bit of good news...sort of.

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Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times reports that the Dodgers and Matt Kemp are nearing a two-year extension which would buy out two of Kemp's three arbitration years. Unless another agreement is reached, Kemp would be slated for a final round of arbitration prior to the 2012 season, after which he would hit free agency. As Craig Calcaterra at Circling the Bases implies, this extension will probably make bigger waves than it ought to. The talented young center fielder was going to be a Dodger for the next three seasons unless something drastic occurred. This extension is about security; cost-certainty for the club and financial stability for the player.

We've also got a reaffirmation of the party line. Dodgers President Dennis Mannion reiterated:

I don't think we're hamstrung by Frank and Jamie's situation. If anything, we're more challenged by the economy.

As we've discussed many times, I'm not sure that's the right message to be sending. To keep insisting the divorce isn't affecting spending is to acknowledge that the club is in fairly dire financial straits. Without the divorce, things would still be this lean. That might be the complete truth, and, if so, I give the club credit for its candor. However, the good will generated by such candor could quickly fade as reality sets in. The Kemp extension will likely save the Dodgers money, barring some sort of collapse in performance or health. It shouldn't be taken as a sign that the club is healing financially.

A potential Joel Pineiro signing would be different. That's money the team wouldn't have had to spend anyway. I have two main concerns, though. First, is Joel Pineiro really the right place to spend what money is available? Yeah, he was excellent last season, but his track record suggests he's not as good as his 2009 numbers indicate. Second, are the Dodgers really in on him? Or do they know they're not going to offer enough but want to appear to be active in the market?
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It's a date.

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Today, Commissioner Gordon decided that the trial on the validity of the McCourt post-nup will begin on May 24, reports the Times' Bill Shaikin. The Times' Dylan Hernandez also had it on Twitter. Jon Weisman has an interesting link at Dodger Thoughts, as well. The decision is something of a compromise, as Frank was seeking a February start while Jamie wanted to wait until fall. So today's something of a win for Frank, and I think the decision was perfectly reasonable.

Jamie definitely deserves time to build her case, which won't be an easy one. That said, she's got five months--that should be plenty. What's more, today's proceedings likely put the court (and Frank's legal team) on notice of the type of information Jamie needs to make her case. This, combined with a hard deadline, means that she'll have some judicial remedies should Frank's lawyers drag their feet on document production.

So what's it mean on the field? Well, it's tempting to suggest that Frank may have outright ownership of the team (and certainty going forward) by the time of year when adding a piece or two might be appropriate. But even if Frank wins on the post-nup, does that change the availability of funds for this season? Remember, it's only been a week since honcho Dennis Mannion said that whatever impact the divorce had on club finances wouldn't hit player payroll until 2011. As we've discussed, the Dodgers' financial problems aren't limited to the divorce. Cash isn't flowing, possibly due to ugly debt service.

What I hope is that whatever happens will be done before the season is over. Whether that's Frank solidifying control or some alternative, it's in the club's best interest not to hit next offseason with uncertainty. Because if you can't extend Kemp this winter, next year might be the last chance. And you'll have those Kershaw and Billingsley folks to deal with, too.

Bottom line today: A minor win for Frank, and a potentially significant win for the franchise. May 24: save the date.
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A change at the top.

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I can't imagine Dodger fans have to be all that disappointed by the news that Frank McCourt is stepping away from his day-to-day responsibilities with the club. Dennis Mannion, hired originally to Jamie's old position as President of the Dodgers, now has everyone in the organization but Frank reporting to him. This includes GM Ned Colletti, who will take payroll directions from Mannion. T.J. Simers, whose apparent approval of Mannion is conveyed in the way only Simers can, writes,

In addition to sweeping the floors, Mannion sets the payroll with [Frank] McCourt's approval. He won't say what it will be this season. He says it makes no sense to divulge it to the competition -- or to fans, I presume, who might be interested in knowing how dedicated the Dodgers are going to be this season.

As for Frank McCourt, he was so bullish on running the Dodgers, he now works out of an office in Beverly Hills.

"Frank has had a desire for quite a while to separate himself from the day-to-day operations and focus his time of the developmental opportunity," Mannion says. "Additional ventures to look at are the development of the 360 acres around the stadium and ballpark improvement."

I say Simers approves of Mannion because he goes on to note Mannion's impressive track record, and even that he is likable, despite his Philadelphia roots. Simers does express concern over the team's owner distancing himself from day-to-day baseball and business operations. This is surely some residual pain left from the News Corp. era, but it's a fear I don't share with Simers.

We've seen time and again that owners who demand to make ground-level decisions have a tremendously difficult time fielding competitive teams. These magnates of industry figure they can master the business world, so, after all, how hard could a child's game be? The answer, of course, is that baseball is really, really hard. There are JD/MBA's in the mail room. People kill to get to decision-making positions in the game, and ascension usually doesn't happen by accident. Buying a team with the goal of assuming baseball operations authority is a quick recipe to field a loser.*

*Full disclosure: my dream in life is to buy a minor league team in retirement, and yes, take every bit of power I can grab. But that's life, isn't it? We can all do better than the next guy.


Point is, in my view, we shouldn't be upset that Frank is telling Mannion what he can spend and letting the baseball guy take charge. This, of course, leaves the matter of exactly how much money Colletti actually has to play with. Dylan Hernandez is on the case. Noting no current plans to decrease player payroll, Hernandez reports:

Colletti didn't rule out that payroll could increase, and downplayed concerns that have been raised about owner Frank McCourt's divorce proceedings and the club's decision not to offer any of its free agents salary arbitration. The club began last season with a payroll around $100 million.

"A lot of it depends on how the winter unfolds with revenue and different things along those lines," Colletti said. "If we see good signs, it goes up. If we don't see good signs, it probably doesn't go up."

I should be very clear right away: this is not how I want my baseball team run. I do not want player payroll to be highly correlated with the previous winter's season ticket sales. Why? Two reasons.

1. Investment in the organization should not be a year-to-year decision. There should always be $7 million available for a top-shelf amateur free agent. There should always be flexibility to add payroll through trade if the price (in prospects) is right. A player should never be passed over in the draft because of cost concerns. None of these points are meant to read that the Dodgers should always seek the most expensive players. Just that if your baseball guys run up the ladder and say that Player X at $7 million is an absolute steal, that $7 million needs to be there. It must not be dependent on season ticket renewals.

2. That 2010 payroll decisions are based on this winter's revenue forecasts suggests that the Dodgers are indeed running on perilously slim margins. Yes, it doesn't look like the payroll will decrease. But short of doing something completely insane--say, trading one of the team's premium young players who is arb-eligible--the payroll really cannot decrease. These guys are getting raises. At last year's $100 million mark, there just isn't room for free agents this winter.

Bottom line is that a major-market team should never have to operate like this. Either the team just really doesn't have the cash to make long-term investments, or the divorce really is casting a cloud of such uncertainty over the future of the franchise that spending is effectively frozen. Because--make no mistake--it is.

In the Simers piece, we get a rare acknowledgement of the divorce's potential impact from the Dodgers' front office:

As for the impact McCourt's divorce might have on the team's budget, Mannion says, "I do not believe this year, 2010, the Dodgers will be impacted by anything relative to the McCourts' personal life.

"I can't predict what will happen in 2011. I'm not a family lawyer and don't understand what might happen in the long term."

I'm not a family lawyer either, but I do understand this: if we are to believe Mannion, the club's penury this offseason is unrelated to the divorce. The Dodgers would have had no flexibility this winter, divorce or not. And even the man who doesn't understand what might happen in the long-term is already thinking the divorce's impact won't be felt until 2011.

There's no cash now. Investment in young players has ebbed for years. And the divorce hasn't hit the books yet.

I'm going to make a special effort to enjoy the 2010 team. Whatever flotsam and jetsam Colletti is able to stuff into the last two rotation spots, the team will be competitive because of its young core. If the club can't invest in young players and can't retain its developing stars, next year's team might be the last competitive one for a while.

I'm sure that there are many of you out there rooting for Jamie in the divorce, simply because it's the quickest way to new ownership. I can't say I blame you.
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Late to the party.

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So I probably don't need to tell you that the Dodgers didn't offer a single departing player arbitration. While folks around the 'net are most upset about the non-offers to Will Ohman, Ronnie Belliard, and Guillermo Mota, I'd like to discussed the oft-overlooked cases of Orlando Hudson and Randy Wolf.

What's that you say? Oh, you've heard of them. So we don't need to talk about the four draft picks which would have come back. Or the fact that even if the players had accepted the offers, they would be terrific values in 2010 (Wolf in particular). Or just how gosh-darned valuable those four draft picks are. 

No, I suppose I don't need to go over all that. Not when you have Jon Weisman calling the day "discouraging" and "depressing." Any of you who read Jon know that's about as gloomy as he gets over baseball. Phil Gurnee says that while we should be disappointed, we shouldn't exactly be shocked. MSTI envies Royals fans. And let me tell you, having spent over four years in and around Kansas City, that's quite a statement.

But it's Eric Stephen who addresses the most ominous aspect of this development. After being rendered temporarily speechless, Eric notes:

Could it be that the Dodgers are so strapped for cash that they can't accept even the slightest risk of paying two talented players for one season?

Or is it worse than that?  Do the Dodgers not want the burden of having four extra draft picks in 2010, the burden of four extra signing bonuses, possibly totaling somewhere in the $4 million range? 

Yeah. To me, that’s simply terrifying. From my angle, there are really only three-and-a-half possible explanations for this debacle.

1. It was a baseball decision.

This is almost unfathomable. I mean, we all are relatively hip to the arbitration offer and compensatory draft pick system now, right? And we’re not the ones paid to know these things. Purely on a baseball level, what could Colletti be afraid of? I don’t know about you, but I’d love to have Randy Wolf and Orlando Hudson back on one-year deals. And heck, they’d probably be Type A’s next winter as well.

I don’t need to go further. You go elsewhere for your hardcore analysis, and that’s not my aim here. I’ll leave it at this: if this was a baseball decision, I’d be more confident in a squadron of 12-year-olds who have simmed through multiple seasons in baseball video games than I am in the current leadership.

2. The Dodgers couldn’t afford the risk of either player accepting.

We’re getting closer to reasonability here, especially in Hudson’s case. But come on…he left on bad terms and will probably get a nice deal somewhere. And Wolf was no threat whatsoever to accept the offer. At least with this reason, I could understand the decision, even though I would still condemn it.

3. The Dodgers can afford neither the one-year deals (in the case of acceptances) nor the draft picks.

This is almost unspeakably awful. $4 million spent on early round draft picks is a better investment than $4 million in player payroll many, many times over. I promise you that this will be brought up when the Dodgers spend $4 million this winter on a nondescript reliever and a Juan Castro replacement. The failure to invest in young talent is the dead canary in the coal mine. This is horrible.

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Okay, so I just crushed the Dodgers for not offering Hudson and Wolf arbitration. Me and everyone else (and rightfully so). But while I can’t claim to have Weisman-like levels of optimism, I will at least allow for the possibility of a mitigating circumstance:

3.5. Wolf and Hudson had handshake agreements that the Dodgers would not offer arbitration if they were Type A’s.

Last winter, in the midst of Hurricane Dow, the Elias rankings and draft pick compensation structure cannibalized itself. Instead of benefitting small-market teams losing pricy talent to big-market clubs, the system drove the marginal cost of Type A free agents so high that only the premium players were attractive. Remember that, generally speaking, free agency dollars are inefficient to begin with. Add the cost of draft picks (and the growing understanding of their true value), and the Type A label was a scarlet letter on all but its best wearers. Hudson, you might recall, had been seeking a multi-year deal with an average annual value in the $10 million range. Because of the declining economy and that scarlet A on his chest, he got a one-year deal worth just $3.38 million in guarantees.

Both Wolf and Hudson signed with the Dodgers in February, well after the system imploded. By that time, agents and team executives had seen how damaging the Type A label was to good-but-not-great players on the open market. In fact, just two weeks after Hudson signed, Orlando Cabrera inked a deal with the A’s which prohibited them from offering him arbitration—thus sparing O-Cab the dreaded Type A designation. Indeed, Cabrera achieved Type A designation this season but hits the market unencumbered by the added cost of two draft picks.

Is it possible that the concerns which motivated Cabrera’s agent, Dan Lozano, to get that agreement in writing also affected Wolf and Hudson’s negotiations with the Dodgers?

It’s a long shot, but I have to hope so.

It’s clear that Colletti’s hands were tied with respect to arb offers. The question is: by what? The answer is probably finances. But the implications of such a conclusion are so distressing as a fan that I’m going to hold out just a little bit of hope that there’s more going on here than we know. 

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Also, for those of you subscribed to the feed, sorry for the double post. Formatting disasters.

Instant replay.

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I re-read that last post a couple times and remain very unhappy with how it turned out. Unlike the umpires tonight, I have the opportunity to revisit what went down and decide how to move forward. I'm going to leave the old post there, because I know a few of you want the details. The important part, though is this:

Based on a close look at the McCourts' financial position and the financing mechanisms which allowed them to purchase the Dodgers, I have concluded that the McCourts are not worth close to the $1.2 billion suggested by Jamie in her application for divorce. The Dodgers, as an asset, might be worth $800 million, but given the most recent information available, 58% of the asset's worth is tied up in debt.

With respect to the $400 million Jamie lists in "other assets" of the marriage, I do not believe that figure to reflect net worth. For instance, although the couple owns residential assets worth (at the time of purchase) approximately $123 million, those combined residences secure $60 million of debt. I assume that "other assets" includes various business ventures of the couple, many or all of which are encumbered to a similar degree as the Dodgers and the residences.

Therefore, it is my conclusion that should the Dodgers be regarded as a community asset, each of the McCourts stands to emerge from the divorce with a net worth of something like $225-$300 million, not quite the $800 million Jamie's filing might lead you to believe. If this is indeed the case, it would be extremely difficult for one person to buy out the other's interest in the Dodgers without leveraging the purchase to a considerable degree. If the two decide (or are told) to sell the team to a third party, expect the purchase to be at a discount, damaging their takes even further.

If the asset-transfer agreement (or post-nup) is upheld, Frank wins big time. He would walk out with something like $450-$500 million in net worth, compared to Jamie's $100-$150 million. Her demands for a healthy support package should surprise no one, as she stands to lose the most given unfavorable judicial treatment.

The bottom line, and the most important thing for Dodger fans to understand, is that the Dodgers--as an organization--are in a really rough spot here. If Frank wins the post-nup battle, the Dodgers are stuck with an owner the fans no longer trust. If Jamie wins on the post-nup and one party buys out the other, the organization is back in the hands of a leveraged owner with potentially limited resources. And, of course, the fans no longer respect either McCourt. Finally, if the Dodgers are sold to a third party, the fans will have to endure their third ownership change in a little more than a decade.

From 1954 to 1996, the Dodgers were owned by one family and employed two managers. By the opening of spring training in 2011, the Dodgers might have been owned by four groups and helmed by seven skippers in the last 15 years. As a business-minded kind of guy, I am terrified at what that frequent turnover and instability means from an organizational standpoint. As a fan, I must admit to feeling a loss of connection to the club I grew up cheering because of the blurry, disjointed facsimile I see today.
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