Blue Hefner said:
alky313 said:
... John W Henry spent somewhere in the region of a half billion to win the baseball title. He will spend again. For the Prems sake I hope so.
I'm no expert in baseball but do they have transfer fees? I thought they just 'traded' players? They have spent £100mil on players already before they start paying wages. Admittedly it isn't near half a billion yet but its an awful lot of money to win a cup. And as good as winning a cup is, it isn't going help recoup the money
They have mixed version of "transfer fees", "cash incentives" and more. I follow baseball a bit, I've grown a love for the Chicago Cubs (haven't won the title since 1908). When Henry bought the club with his firm they had to trade most of their players. When most clubs trade players they have to pay a good amount of the players existing contract. The Red Sox were forced to pay most of the dead wood their money before they broke contract records to compete with the Yankees.
The Red Sox have a long history with Japanese baseball and shelled out something like £70 mil in a transfer fee for some pitcher who couldnt last to what would be the 55th minute in football. Henry is all about the rinse and repeat method. He essentially 'sold out' Americas most beloved ballpark to corporate America and formed seats out of a very special part of the stadium.
The "moneyball" thing is a bit of a myth and a lot of hype. The origin comes from Billy Beane who is still yet to win anything using the method. The problem with what Comolli did was he bought the most overpriced commodity in world sport. English players. At their real value and their actual performance it probably should have worked. But football is a sport where even a turd will shine amongst other turds. In most sports a bad team is a bad team.
