Yesterday, the Tigers signed
Prince Fielder to a 9yr, $214mil contract, the fourth richest of all-time behind
A-Rod, A-Rod and the Angels' deal with
Albert Pujols. From everything that I had heard recently about Detroit ($8,000 average home value, 14% unemployment in 2009), I could not imagine the Tigres to be any less of a mid-market team that the Tribe. So, I decided to look it up. According to Forbes data that is about 8 months old, the Indians are the
#25 valued MLB team at $353mil, while the Tigers are
#21 at $385mil. Both team peaked in value during the 2008 campaign (you know, just before the shit trickled down out of the fan into the sports world) at $417mil and $407mil respectively, but Detroit has rebuilt since then while the Wahoos have continued to bleed worth (including a precipitous $40mil drop 2011 over 2010 based on poor attendance, I'm looking at you Cleveland). Larry Dolan has managed to keep his operating income in the black over the past decade, while Michael Ilitch has lost about $30mil over each of the past 3 seasons. He might be willing to spend more on payroll (the Tigers have increased their salaried payouts consistently over the past 10 years and have paid about $150mil in each of the last 3) because he has seen a 370% return on his $82mil investment of 1992. Dolan, on the other hand, has seen just 9% since he purchased the club in 2000 and has chosen to keep payroll under $85mil in 6 of the last 10 years. Is it the chicken or the egg? Just to bring everything up to date, the Tribe's 2012 payroll should be about $80mil and Detroit's around $170mil. So, despite the fact that each Indians fan gives about $47/yr to the organization (as opposed to $31/yr for the Tigers), Larry Dolan is a cheap bastard. A city that has 9.5% unemployment and a crumbling infrastructure has landed a fish a 100x bigger than anything our guys even considered. The brain trust could not even give me
Josh Willingham. All I wanted was Josh freakin' Willingham, but they would not promise him a starting job (mostly because they head over heels for
Grady Sizemore's cock) and he landed with yet another division rival. Fuck me.
Here's to praying for Dan Gilbert.
Cheers.
