He's probably the best pure hitter in baseball, outside of Albert Pujols of course, and there's no way the Twins can let him walk. He is the face of the franchise. But wow, this pretty much guarantees an 8 year absence from the playoffs.
Without any sort of deductions, he'll be taxed at around 35% per year federal and close to 8% state (at the current rates). Assuming a flat 23 million per year income for 8 years, after taxes, he'll make around $105 million over the 8 years.
I understand that Mauer and Garnett are huge talents who should be highly paid, but the numbers are absurd. Wonder why tickets are so expensive? Contracts handed out like these based on a fantasy worthy of Alice in Wonderland... that those salaries will pay for themselves, produce a championship, and even a profit. I'd like to see evidence of that working in a small market. Paying this much for talent not only affects the team involved, but tends to push up salaries across the board, hurting teams across the country not named the Yankees and perhaps a couple of other franchises.
Blame it on the Yankees then. Or blame it on the way baseball is set up to put the wealthiest teams in the best position to succeed (except the Mets of course, too much bad karma there).
This is flawed thinking. Ticket prices are not the result of player salaries, player salaries are the result of baseball revenue. If the owners could pay all players the minimum salary, they wouldn't cut ticket prices. They will charge what the customers will pay.
I fail to see how the Yankees can be blamed for the Twins decided to pay maximum dollar to keep their star player. They are using their revenues to pay for this. The small market myth is just that, a myth. Baseball teams get a fortune in revenue sharing every year. The Marlins have consistently pocketed more profit than most teams in MLB thanks to revenue sharing.
Yankees would have offered him something in the 8 years 200 million range. How about the Pirates or the Royals? Didn't think so.
The Twins are not the Pirates/Royals. Not even close. The Pirates are in the situation they are in because of their own terrible decision making. There is no reason they should be making as little revenue as they do. It has been by their choice that they have not tried to field a truly competitive team in over a decade.
The general consensus about this deal was that it was good for baseball and I agree. I had already said that if Mauer signed with the Yankees I wouldn't even watch a baseball game again, sick and tired of the smaller market teams who develop great players that will eventually be fought over on the open market by LA/NY/Boston.
In your opinion. I've got mine and I think these salaries are insane. Insane and injurious to the game of baseball. Good for baseball because a small(er) market team was able to keep its talent. I understand that reasoning and would agree, except for the fact that this keeps salaries for top talent (sorry for overusing the word) INSANE.
Aren't the Twins supposed to move out of the Metrodome in a few years? They had no choice but to keep their hometown boy Mauer there if they expect to sell any season ticket.
No, not in my opinion. The opinion part is that the salaries are insane (with which I agree.) The idea that ticket prices are high because of salaries is not an opinion. It is statement of "fact" and it is incorrect.
You can disagree all you want, but it's a matter of correct/incorrect. Let me ask you a question. If Drayton could sell every seat in Minute Maid for an entire season at $1500 a ticket with no public backlash, do you think he would do it? Now, if you told him "hey guess what, the commissioner just set all salaries for the year at $400,00!" and his financial experts told him that he could turn a profit selling tickets at $10, but customers were still willing to pay $1500...what price do you think he'd sell it for? The minimum he need to make a profit? Or the maximum his customers were happy to pay? Ticket prices are set by the market. There is a break even point that they have to keep them above, but anything after that is based on what the market is willing to pay. When the Yankees found out that people wouldn't pay their prices, they cut ticket prices. There was no correlation between payroll and tickets. In fact, they cut payroll and raised ticket prices. Bob McNair has raised prices nearly every year here despite the fact that player salaries haven't jumped. Owners are in it for as much profit as they can possibly get. Baseball players make the smallest percentage of league revenue of the major sports.
