Salary Dumping versus Attendance Dumping

[Alex]

If I have a pitcher that is going to win 20 games and is being paid 6 million dollars, and I trade him for prospects, is that really a salary dump if the what the pitcher was producing far exceeds what he was being paid?

I think that this type of situation does not count as salary dumping because gate attendance will probably go down as a result of dumping a player that produces more than they are being paid. Instead of salary dumping, we should really call it attendance dumping.

The Bartolo Trade was more of an attendance dump for prospects rather than a salary dump for prospects because we traded a pitcher headed for 20 wins who was being underpaid. How can you salary dump if the person is underpaid for their results?

Whenever the player traded was contributing more than what they were being paid, the use of the phrase salary dumping is really a spin word for attendance dumping.

[The RotoTribe]

It's an interesting point that you make. I dont necessarily think it is attendance dumping. If a team dumps one player, but has another just as good waiting in the wings, it isn't necessarily so that the team will flounder. Thus, not an attendance dump.

Now, the issue with the Tribe is not so much the dump of one player, but rather the cumulative effect of losing many players. In my mind, the loss of Belle, Thome, Ramirez and Alomar were salary dumps. Add Colon to the mix, and the cumulative effect of these losses made it impossible for the Tribe to recover. Mind you, I don't think the Tribe was wrong to dump the salaries of Ramirez or Belle (I'm a little less enthused about dumping Thome, but in theory him too). They wanted too much money.

Even with the loss of these players (with the exception of Colon), the Tribe might have had decent replacements had they not traded them for journeymen.

So, ultimately, with the loss of all these players and without the same quality or near quality replacements, an attendance drop had to be expected. Had the Tribe kept some of the replacements (Casey, Giles, Burnitz, Kent), the drop off in competiveness would not have happened or at least would have not been so extreme. If the Tribe stayed competitive, there would be no drop off in attendance.

[Alex]

There was a form of agent "disregard" that followed the tribe. Trading Sexson, Casey, and Burnitz pretty much meant we had committed to Manny and Thome long term.

Once the potential replacements are traded away, the agents then exploit the Tribe's newfound positional weakness by demanding "respect" via incredibly lucrative salarys for their ballplayers even though tribe management already gave them "respect" by trading away younger, able replacements.