Jamie McCourt's court documents last week included even more potentially damaging information about the Dodgers' financial plans, specifically keeping payroll constant as revenues increase. Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times has the details:
The projections show the Dodgers planning to cut it to $107 million this year, with slight annual increases thereafter. In 2018, player compensation is estimated at $125 million.
The document anticipates a significant rise in club revenue, from $295 million in 2008 to $529 million in 2018, and in the average ticket price, from $29.40 in 2007 to $53.50 in 2018.
The Dodgers spent 46% of revenue on player compensation in 2007 and 42% in 2008, according to the documents. The projections call for that percentage to fall to 25% by 2013 and remain at about 25% through 2018.
Commissioner Bud Selig encourages teams to spend about one-half their revenue on player compensation, according to two high-ranking major league executives contacted by The Times.
"That's Bud's rule of thumb," one of the sources said.
It's hard to know how substantive this information is; after all, we are only getting one side of the story here. Still, if these reports are anything close to true, it's very depressing.
In other news, Sunday was the first full workout in Dodgers' camp at Camelback Ranch. Here are some notes:
- Tony Jackson of ESPN LA profiled Vicente Padilla, and Ned Colletti delivered the line of the spring when he said the Dodgers waited in their pursuit of the pitcher "until hunting season was over."
- Eric Gagne is open to pitching in the minors if he doesn't make the Dodgers, says Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times
- Ken Gurnick of MLB.com reports on Scott Elbert, who has battling shoulder tendinitis, but threw a pain free bullpen session Sunday
- Roberto Baly of Vin Scully Is My Homeboy has been prolific with his blog posts of late, including a report on Blake DeWitt perhaps auditioning to take over "The Beard" status from Casey Blake.
- Sons of Steve Garvey is finally on Twitter. Follow them at @sosgsosg
- Get your fix of spring training photos -- either from the Camelback Ranch Baseball website, or from Dodger photographer Jon SooHoo.
- Speaking of photos, former Dodger pitcher and broadcaster Jerry Reuss has quite an impressive collection of photos on Flickr. He even has details the photos taken for most of his baseball cards, like his 1974 Topps card, which was an altered version of an earlier photo (thanks to Halos Heaven for the find).