Hmmm is right. You pay players based on the marketplace.

That’s how baseball salaries work. Service time, the marketplace, and previous salaries. That’s how salaries are determined in the game.

The stadium issue and ticket prices have nothing to do with player salaries.

Your ticket prices are driven by supply and demand, NOT player payroll. That’s not an opinion, that’s a fact.

The Yankees were drawing 10-12,000 people for mid-week games in the 70’s and still had the highest payroll in the league. Ticket prices were very reasonable at this time.

Today, ticket prices are much higher, not because of payroll but, because there are over 10 million people who annually request Yankee Stadium tickets.

When you have only 4.5 million seats to fill for 81 dates, you can see how some folks are going to be left out. You also can see why ticket prices are so high. Simply put, they are high because they can get the price for the tickets.

The money for the stadium comes from a completely different revenue stream than player salaries.

Having spent the early part of my career preparing arbitration cases, I’m quite familar with the process.

The Yankees are holding firm on this for two reasons:

1. Wang is coming off a horrible end of the season and the Yankees don’t want to set the trend of “up-paying” for poor finishes. For a team looking to rebuild with young players, up-paying right now would cost them millions of dollars in the future.

2. In the Yankees view, when compared to other pitchers in the marketplace with similar service time, they feel the Wang offer is more than generous.

Disagree? That’s why there is arbitration.

As far as his culture having an impact on his play, if he is that sensitive, than the Yankees are correct in holding firm. It would be an indication he isn’t tough enough to play in NY.

Fortunately, he isn’t that sensitive and, regardless of the hearing result, he will be just fine.

that post was interesting…

I think we may have signals crossed. I don’t think the yanks are bad guys for not paying up. I just think it would be money well spent. I believe that reputations are earned and so is good will. I may be naive but I think clearing his mind and not having winners and losers in this arbitration helps keep the slate clean and lets him focus on being a leader for this young staff.

let me add that personally i HOPE Wang wins the hearing.

i am a fan of his, and i want good things for him.

but what i do not agree with is this idea that the Yankees should just give him whatever he wants without questioning it.

if Wang wins the hearing, i’ll be happy for him.

seriously, it’s not that big of a deal. i respect big Joe’s opinion that in his personal experience, overpaying a little generally keeps people more productive in the long run. it’s a reasonale position.

i just disagree with this notion that the Yankees are somehow the “bad guys” for making him what looks like a very generous offer. that’s all.

honestly, i’ve just been waiting to talk about something besides Clemens….

of course it’s worth it to YOU, it’s not your money.

do you agree with this statement?:

“if Wang gets an extra $600K in 2008, his 2009 salary will be at least $600K higher than it would have been if he does not get the extra $600K”

if you do, then this isn’t about $600K. it’s about several millions of dollars.

hmmmm,

Wang better hope you’re not the lawyer representing the Yankees. He will definitely lose.

I am trying to tell you there is big difference between American culture and Taiwanese culture.(I am saying about the majority of Americans and Taiwanese, not everyone.) For Taiwanese, we care so much about feeling. We always want to take care about all the human factors first because Taiwanese makes decisions based on how we feel. True story from my side, I chose to go to another company with less salary just because I was not happy. A lot of Taiwanese can work at the same company for their entire life because they feel they are needed by their companies.

I said that already in my preview post. Don’t worry about Wang’s performance get effected by this arbitration hearing. If he doesn’t perform well this season, it will be other reasons for that, not for this hearing. Wang will work even harder and want to improve himself more after hearing how bad he is.

true, you are correct.

my OPINION is that the cost of the stadium is completely irrelevant to the discussion of the market value of Chien Ming Wang.

what IS relevant are the salaries of other top starting pitchers with similar years of service time. Scott Kazmir is the most relevant data point, as his salary is applicable for the 2008 season.

some more data points:
Jake Peavey (2006) - $2.5M
Erik Bedard (2007) - $3.4M
Joe Blanton (2008) - $3.7M
Brandon Webb (2006) - $2.5M

so you are correct, perhaps i am too confident in my opinions. but i have data to back up my opinion.

i do not see any data or facts in the opposing argument.

i see an argument largely based on assumptions and hypothetical situations, i.e. that Wang will somehow be “upset” or “distracted” by an arbitration hearing.

now, i am not saying there ISN’T good data available to disprove my argument. by no means did i do a conclusive study. i simply looked at a bunch of similar pitchers that i happened to think of off the top of my head.

i am open to being proven wrong. that’s where i am at, i would like to see an answer to this question:

“why should the Yankees pay Chien Ming Wang $4.6M when other elite starting pitchers got significantly less at the same point in their careers?”