The big market teams are making it rain on some hos (in this case "hos" refers to free agents).
The baseball off-season has been slow to develop, unless your team was already awesome. The Yanks got Granderson; the Sawx got Lackey and Mike Cameron; the Phillies traded one ace to Seattle (Lee) for another from Toronto (Halladay); the Angels got Matsui; the Mets will probably land Jason Bay; the Cardinals are desperate to re-sign Holliday.
What is the significance of these moves other than to their respective teams? The good teams got better, and they’re all big markets except the one with the best player on the planet [Note: the Mets were not good last year, but they are a big market team with a high payroll]. That’s how it goes in recession-era sports. Want more proof? Here are the major NBA off-season moves:
LA got Artest; the Spurs got RJ; Dallas got Matrix; the Magic got VC; Atlanta got Crawford; the Celtics got Sheed; Houston got Ariza; and the Cavs got Shaq.
The parallels are all there. If your team was in contention or close to it, they got better. If they weren’t, they got worse. Why? Winning teams in big markets sell tickets. Thus they can afford to raise payroll (or in the case of the NBA, afford to pay the luxury tax for exceeding the salary cap). All of those teams who did/will contend are from big markets with two exceptions 1) Orlando is a small market, but only has one team that is well-supported and contends; and 2) the Cavs/Cardinals: both desperate to hang onto the best player of their respective sports (LeBron & Pujols) with the fear that they will leave town for a team with a higher payroll who can pay for other top players and win titles thus ultimately devastating the team and the city’s economy and perhaps lead to the team having to leave town.
Yes, these are the economics of sports in the current recession. Yes, the playoffs of both sports will be immensely entertaining due to the arms race of talent signings and trades. The good teams got better. The bad teams got worse. And we may see a series of teams having to relocate in the next few years as a result. Just like in real life over the last decade, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Oh, and then there’s my Chicago teams which are in the 3rd biggest market and have tons of money, and yet all of them suck (except for the Blackhawks, but nobody cares about hockey anyway). At least my fantasy teams are worth rooting for.
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So the Lakers got better by picking up Artest, and the Rockets got better by picking up Ariza? Is that because they mesh better with their current teams? I guess it could be argued that the Rockets are better than they were last year if you don’t take into consideration that their best player is out for the season. The Rockets are spending less on Ariza than they would on Artest, so I don’t think that they fit into your argument.
The point is, Houston is a winning team in a big market that landed a marquis free agent. And yes, I think they got better (not counting Yao’s injury). Ariza is a better scorer and not much worse of a defender than Artest at this stage of their careers. Ariza essentially replaces both T-Mac and Artest and for a fraction of the money. But the main point, again, was winning team / big market / free agent.
it’s marquee player, not marquis (as in Jason Marquis).