... in a staggeringly new economic climate in baseball? I hadn't focused on just how much the economics of baseball seem to have improved until I read the following paragraph from a CNN/SI article on the Marlins/Jays trade:

"Tuesday's stunning 12-player trade between the Blue Jays and Marlins that sent All-Stars Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, and Mark Buehrle to Toronto was yet another sign of just how much the economics of the game have changed. Baseball is flush with cash. Look back at the last year, at the extraordinary money that's been thrown around --- the Dodgers sell for $2 billion, the Padres for $800 million; Joey Votto signs a $225 million extension with the Reds, a team with the smallest TV market in the majors; Matt Cain, a pitcher with 69 career wins, signs a $127.5 million deal, the largest ever for a right-handed pitcher. Now here are the Blue Jays, a team that ranked 23rd in payroll last year, taking on a staggering amount of cash. We don't know yet the final details of the deal, but there could be over $160 million going from the Marlins to the Blue Jays. Anthopolous, desperate for a starting pitcher, looked at the free agent market and clearly didn't like what he saw: Edwin Jackson wasn't going to sign for less than $12 million, the price for Anibal Sanchez rose after he helped the Tigers reach the World Series. So the 35-year-old GM got creative."

Is the Tribe even a part of the economic reality of the league anymore? I seem to lose more hope every day ...

ErieTribe wrote:
Is the Tribe even a part of the economic reality of the league anymore? I seem to lose more hope every day ...

I don't know that this means. One of the teams in the trade now has a payroll that stands at $16MM before arby players.

Tribe seems more relevant after the trade. Clearly Marlins couldnt/wouldnt sustain their payroll. I doubt the Jays will unless they now make at least the postseason. If not we will probably see some of those guys leaving Toronto before long. Seeing players with long huge contracts failing to perform in the later years demonstrates the wisdom of avoiding those contracts. Their real problem in Cleveland has been talent evaluation. CC and Lee could have been extendee with long term contracts at 10 to 12 million a year if they had been established early. The long term contracts that were made in that time frame were Hafner and Carmona. At the same time virtually no one was acquired via the draft.

jameseboy wrote: Tribe seems more relevant after the trade. Clearly Marlins couldnt/wouldnt sustain their payroll. I doubt the Jays will unless they now make at least the postseason.

Huh??
How are we more relevant because Miami's owner is the worst in sports?? As I've pointed out here for the last year, MLB payrolls are going to rapidly climb. We saw it last year in LA. We see it now in Toronto. We've seen it in the long term deals given out by the Reds. More and more lesser market teams are going to have payrolls over 100 million. So far we've had no sign that the Dolans intend to even consider going that high.

Elsewhere in the article, it mentions that TV contracts have skyrocketed in baseball, leading to an additional $25 million per team beginning next year. At the same time, the Tribe is thought to be maintaining their total payroll at $65 mill (article in Plain Dealer, but I can't find the cite). I generally haven't been on the "Dolans are cheap" bandwagon, but as the valuation of franchises and free cash flow increases, I guess I would hope they would increase spending along with  the competition. If they can't or won't, then I may have to get on that bandwagon ... status quo as the industry changes around you won't cut it.