MLB Plan: Invest Heavily In Your Youth

Major League Baseball is a game that is in transition. The “old-timers” are on the way out and the youth and aggression is taking over the league. We saw just this week a former top closer in Rafael Soriano retire at age 36 after toiling around the minor leagues for parts of two seasons looking for work and we’ve also seen the likes of Maicer Izturis and Chone Figgins, reasonably young guys who can still be useful, also announce their retirement. Why is this new trend occurring you may be asking yourself? Because MLB has a plan and they have stuck to their plan, the plan being to invest heavily in their youth and young prospects.

Major League Baseball released their financial data to the Associated Press this week and it showed that across the board the players received right at 50% of the net revenue in 2015 like they have every year since 2006. What the data also showed was that money spent on amateur players and minor league players rose a whopping 29% in 2015.

Overall MLB net revenues, or how much the league made after all the bills were paid and MLB Network dues were spent, rose from $7.16 billion in 2013 to $8.15 billion in 2015. In the big leagues the players received a nice $4.15 billion in total salary last season while amateurs and minor league players received $540 million, up from $420 million in 2013.

The influx of Cuban and other international free agents amounts for much of the spike in money spent on amateurs especially after the Boston Red Sox gave Yoan Moncada $31.5 million and three other Cuban-born players signed for $8 million or more each including Yoan Lopez, Roberto Baldoquinand and Pablo Fernandez.

Major League Baseball has a plan and that plan is to spend heavily on their youth and invest in the game’s future. So far, so good. 

The Montreal Expos: And Then There Was One

Before the Washington Nationals had Bryce Harper roaming the outfield of Nationals Park and before the team had an ace starting pitcher with one brown eye and one blue eye the team played their games in Canada, Montreal to be exact. The Montreal Expos were once the team that gave teams like the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets fits in the National League East before making the move to Washington before the 2005 season. As the Nationals organization gets older the original players that once donned Expos uniforms begin to become fewer and farther between until we reach just one, Bartolo Colon.

Bartolo Colon of the New York Mets is now the final active member in Major League Baseball to ever wear a Montreal Expos uniform. And then there was one but until a few days ago there was two, the other being Maicer Izturis of the Toronto Blue Jays. Izturis announced his retirement this week after signing a minor league deal with the club because his body couldn’t do it anymore.

Colon turns 43-years old in May and is four years older than Bruce Chen, another former Expos pitcher who last pitched in 2015, and is seven years the elder of Izturis. Colon pitched a half-season with Montreal in 2002 after the Expos acquired him from the Cleveland Indians at age 29. By the way, in return for Colon the Indians were able to pry away a lefty named Cliff Lee, an infielder named Brandon Phillips and an outfielder named Grady Sizemore. No wonder the league wanted to contract the Expos.

Also as an FYI one of the last Expos to ever be drafted is still around as well, Ian Desmond. Desmond will spend the 2016 season with the Texas Rangers after the Expos drafted him. Desmond did not make him MLB debut until the team had already moved to Washington under a new team name.

Colon is still a very serviceable Major Leaguer and still a valuable piece of the New York Mets so who knows, we may still be talking about the last man standing in a Expos uniform five-to-ten years from now. I hope so anyway!