Garner’s plan could cure ailing game

Phil Garner is the manager of the Milwaukee Brewers. He should be the commissioner of Major League Baseball. “No,” he says, “I’ll never get that job. I can’t even convince my boss (acting commissioner and CEO of the Brewers, Bud Selig) to believe the stuff I keep telling him.”

Garner played 15 years in the majors. He is in his seventh year as a manager in Milwaukee. Sunday we sat in his office at County Stadium and talked about the rising cost of player salaries and small-market vs. big-market teams.

“I don’t think revenue sharing makes any difference in equalizing a team’s chances of competing for name players,” he says. “I don’t know why the owners don’t see it. If the teams like New York [Yankees] and Chicago [White Sox] have to give us small-market teams two or three million dollars in revenue sharing, it’s only driving the cost of salaries up.”

Garner leans to the front of his desk, hands waving to make the point.

“Look,” he urges, “all a small-market team is going to do with that revenue money is go out and try to bid on a player a large-market team probably wants, too. So we bid a little more than we could have without the revenue sharing, but the large-market team still has more money and if they want the player, they get him.”

Garner leans back in his chair, shaking his head.

“So,” he says, “all we have done is bid up the price. That’s what revenue sharing does.” Garner speaks from his Milwaukee experience when he says, “All we [small-market teams] really get are the players nobody else wants. We got Marquis Grissom from Cleveland in a deal because there was no line of clubs waiting to go after him. We do that and hope for the best.”

Garner would revise the amateur draft to try and stop the salary rise and keep teams competitive.

“We in Major League Baseball are going to spend $120 million in the draft this year. The bonus money for the top couple of picks is up to $2, $3 and $4 million. We can’t keep doing this for players who never make it to the majors and have little monetary incentive with that bonus money,” he said.

Garner proposes that $120 million be handled otherwise.

“I would give $60 million to split among all teams to use as they want,” he said. “Thirty million would go to sign players, with some cap on the top money to be paid. The other $30 million would go into an annuity that would pay those players the bonus money if they make the majors.”

Garner believes this would make players work to move up.

“I woud give a full bonus to the players who make it to the majors in three years,” he says. “I would reduce that bonus for every additional year it took to reach the majors.”

Garner says it doesn’t matter which team a player makes.

“Baseball needs to be concerned about development of players. By putting the money in a fund, the bonus money is already there and no team is losing out because a player it signed makes it to the majors with another team.”

He thinks a moment and slumps.

“I’m pessimistic about all of this. Major League Baseball isn’t acting to protect the whole product and that’s not good.”

Garner is known as “Old Scrap Iron,” a nickname from his playing days. Nothing has changed. Major League Baseball could use a good dose of that attitude in its front office, but as Garner says, it won’t happen.

NEWS columnist Gary Thorne, an Old Town native, is an ESPN and CBS broadcaster.