The Futility Infielder

With the Brewers Payne-ful situation lurching towards a conculsion, Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has an article examinning a situation Milwaukee fans are all too familiar with: when bad ballclubs enter new ballparks. The consistency of this trend is alarming:

The lessons learned in Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Cincinnati in recent years have been harsh, bringing a sobering dose of reality to franchises counting on new ballparks and ramped-up payrolls to result in tremendous success, on and off the field. All four ballclubs now are in disarray, financially and competitively.

"When you look at it, all four general managers - Dean Taylor (Milwaukee), Jim Bowden (Cincinnati), Cam Bonifay (Pittsburgh) and Randy Smith (Detroit) - were fired," said Doug Melvin, who replaced Taylor last year.

"All of them tried to go into new ballparks with higher payrolls and thought it would make a difference. That's out the window now. Clubs like San Diego and Philadelphia have to be a little wary about that."

Haudricort rattles off lots of numbers pertaining to the Unfab Four, as he calls them. Rather than regurgitate those numbers, I thought it would be helpful to assemble them into a simple chart, but then I took it a notch further by plugging it into a spreadsheet. Because Haudricort's payroll data had some gaps and inconsistencies, I tossed it aside, instead opting to use the handy USA Today Baseball Salary Database. That database uses opening day roster figures (not my favorite measure) but actual salaries and prorated bonuses (as opposed to average salaries plucked from multi-year contracts which may be heavily backloaded -- a big plus). Looking at the four teams, the trend becomes very visible (payroll and attendance in millions):

              old0     new1     new2    new3     new4

Detroit       1999     2000     2001     2002     2003

 payroll     $35.0    $61.7    $49.4    $55.0    $49.2 

 attendance   2.03     2.44     1.92     1.50     1.36

 wins           69       79       66       55       43

 losses         92       83       96      106      119



Milwaukee     2000     2001     2002     2003    

 payroll     $35.8    $45.1    $50.3    $40.6     

 attendance   1.57     2.81     1.97     1.70    

 wins           73       68       56       66    

 losses         89       94      106       96    



Pittsburgh    2000     2001     2002     2003    

 payroll     $29.6    $57.8    $42.3    $54.8     

 attendance   1.75     2.46     1.78     1.64    

 wins           69       62       72       75        

 losses         93      100       89       87        



Cincinnati    2002     2003                

 payroll     $45.1    $59.4                 

 attendance   1.86     2.36                

 wins           78       69                

 losses         84       93                



Average      4 tms    4 tms    3 tms    3 tms     1 tm   yrs 2-4 

 payroll     $36.4    $56.0    $47.3    $50.1    $49.2    $48.8

 attendance   1.80     2.52     1.89     1.61     1.36     1.70

 wins         72.3     69.5     64.7     65.3       43     61.9

 losses       89.5     92.5     97.0     96.3      119     99.9

Make no mistake, whether we look at the "before" or the "after," these are bad ballclubs. There's not a single winning season in the fifteen under examination, and the teams' aggregate winning percentage in this chart is .412, equiavalent to a godawful 67-95 record (or rather, fifteen of them).

Looking at the Average section, here we can see that the typical team, entertaining delusions of grandeur, boosted its payroll by a whopping 54 percent upon moving to a new park. Its attendance shot up almost as dramatically, 40 percent upon moving, but on that new field, the team was actually three games worse. The second year in the new park, the team slashed payroll by 16%, and lost big -- another five games on the field, and 25% of its attendance. In year three, payroll was increased ever so slightly, but the on-field product stagnated and attendance sagged another 15%. Year four was downright biblical for the one team that's gotten so far; next year's Brewers and Pirates should beware.

Granted, it's a small sample, but what's perhaps most alarming and depressing about all of this is that once the novelty wears off, these teams look to be worse off than before. Comparing the average of the years 2-4 to the final year in an old park, we see a payroll that's 34 percent higher, attendance that's 6 percent lower, and a team that's ten games worse. Even throwing out last year's Tigers, average team is seven games worse off than before in years 2-3.

What all of this underscores is that, far from Cleveland Indians model and the rhetoric of Bud Selig and various owners, a new ballpark is anything but a panacea for a mediocre team hoping to become competitive. Once the honeymoon's over, disappointment in the team's onfield performance can generate a backlash in the fan base that footed the bill for the new venue, exacerbating a cycle of misery and making it even harder for a team to improve enough to contend. Far from being a model for success, this is a recipe for failure.