Spare Parts: MLB’s wealth divide grows, but effort divide is more concerning
By most standards — and perhaps yours — the White Sox’s free agent outlay has been pitiful, with no new 2025 salary greater than $3.5 million added to the books.
By the standards of this particular offseason, it has been reasonably productive, because you can at least say that Chris Getz is minding the gaps on the roster. They’re not covered by anything sturdy enough to stand on, yet it’s also more than a lot of teams are doing.
A shocking amount of teams have lay dormant this season. A two-paragraph sequence from Matthew Trueblood’s Baseball Prospectus article about the Pittsburgh Pirates kinda sums it up:
Owners are giving us the same problems. John Fisher and Bruce Sherman are both courting legal action from the playersโ union. Fisher uprooted one of the gameโs original franchises (albeit from their third home) to move them to the middle of nowhere. The Pohlad family put indefensible financial clamps on the Twins out of nowhere 14 months ago, and the only reprieve will come when the team is officially sold. Teams (the Marlins and White Sox) are still voluntarily plunging into old-fashioned rebuilds. Teams (the Reds and Brewers) are still steering back into the dying RSN model, even after promising fans a fresh start in a different medium. Thereโs a fight brewing over control of the Padres, and A.J. Preller is frozen in horror watching it play out. The Mariners are exactly the type of team that needed to stay aggressive heading into this winter, but theyโve chosen extreme stinginess instead. Ditto for the Tigers. How do you decide where to direct your righteous fury?
Iโll tell you: Be mad at the Pirates. Be loudly, lividly mad at the Pittsburgh Pirates, who have steadily conditioned us all to expect shockingly little of them and are still coming in way, way below those expectations. Thereโs still a month until spring training and 10 weeks until Opening Day, but barring something substantial and unexpected, the Pirates have thoroughly blown an opportunity here. They entered this offseason needing relatively little to step forward and be semi-contenders in the weak NL Central. They claimed to have money to spend, and early estimates of their 2025 payroll were in the $100-million range. Now, with the avenues to significant improvement dwindling, they have made virtually no progress toward that goal. Right now, their projected payroll is $81.6 million, according to Cotโs Contracts. Thatโs the fifth-lowest in MLB, and it should be a humiliating number for Bob Nutting.
Frustration is boiling over in Pittsburgh, as “sell the team” chants interrupted a Q&A session at PiratesFest over the weekend. But it’s not just the smallest of markets feeling squeezed. Cardinals fans are calling out John Mozeliak during the team’s Winter Warm-Up event. Cubs fans booed Tom Ricketts as he maintained a cry-poor stance for carrying a middle-third payroll in the nation’s third largest market.
โI donโt think fans should spend all their time thinking about which team has more money or how much theyโre spending,” Ricketts said during his radio appearance with 670 The Score at the convention. โIt just becomes a big narrative thatโs a distraction.โโ […]
โObviously, the Dodgers have done a really nice job of making good business decisions, making good player decisions,โโ Ricketts said, โand they built a fortress. Thatโs tough. But I donโt begrudge them any of that. Itโs like the Yankees from 30 years ago or whatever, these things come and go.
โI think our fans somehow think we have all these dollars that the Dodgers have or the Mets have or the Yankees have, and we just keep it. Itโs not true. We just try to break even every year.โโ
While the Dodgers and Mets are indeed lapping the field when it comes to new spending — the Dodgers followed up their signing of Roki Sasaki by signing Tanner Scott to a four-year, $72 million contract — it’s partially because the majority of the league is standing still. Below are a bunch of other stories covering the inaction from teams that would benefit most from assertive offseasons, and the two forces make an owner-to-owner CBA showdown feel inevitable two years from now.
Spare Parts
- Why the staggering Roki Sasaki screw-up by the Blue Jays front office is a fireable offence — Toronto Star
- ‘The homework assignment’: Inside the final weeks of the chase for Roki Sasaki — The Athletic
The Dodgers were the presumed favorites for Roki Sasaki’s services all along, which made the Blue Jays’ Hail Mary trade to absorb an $11.8 million obligation to Myles Straw for $2 million for international pool space a real costly desperation move. It’d be one thing if they could write off Straw’s contract as a byproduct of an aggressive winter, but the Blue Jays haven’t been able to make any move of consequence this offseason, which makes it seem like Toronto’s front office never recovered from Shohei Ohtani’s rejection.
Mozeliak is spending his last offseason in charge of the Cardinals having his hands tied by Nolan Arenado’s no-trade clause, which seems like a particularly humiliating way to start a farewell tour.
The Mariners have won 90, 90, 88 and 85 games over the last four years, but have only made the postseason in one of them. That’s the kind of team that would benefit most from a splash, but they’ve instead been preoccupied by trying to trade Luis Castillo.
- Twins ‘active’ in exploring trades, signings even as club’s impending sale limits moves — The Athletic
- What’s going on with the Twins? Here’s an update on what has (and hasn’t) happened this offseason — St. Paul Pioneer Press
The Twins are still hoping for a sale of the team by Opening Day, but for the time being, they have yet to make any kind of transaction, be it a trade or signing, for a major league player.
If Stuart Sternberg can’t regroup and repair his relationship with Tampa Bay politicians in time to salvage a deal for a new stadium, the league will be forced to contemplate its next move if Rob Manfred is hellbent on making the market work.
- Schriffen brings gratitude, confidence into second year — whitesox.com
- Chicago sports-media power rankings: The bottom five — Chicago Sun-Times
I wouldn’t expect somebody like John Schriffen to self-flagellate, so the fact that he identified an accurate point of contention (“maybe the tone of some of the games was a little off and I was a little too excited”) is a small victory. It’s certainly more specific and correctable than anything the equally embattled Pedro Grifol ever said about himself. I just worry about sentences like “Now I’ve gotten to the point where I just don’t care what people think about me,” because while it might be a standard expression of self-confidence, not caring what people thought about him backed Schriffen into some corners. Working in one market and speaking to one audience on an everyday basis means he has relationships to maintain.
Jake Burger wore No. 30 with the White Sox and No. 36 with the Marlins, but he’s switching his uniform number to No. 21 in honor of his daughter, who was born with Down syndrome (trisomy 21).
Burger credits his wife with the idea of wearing No. 21, and was working to change his number from No. 36 with the Marlins before being traded. The couple got their daughter’s diagnosis in April.
He said a foundation is being established to help other families impacted by Down syndrome.
“We’re really, really excited to push that forward and help as many families as we can,” Burger said. “For us, we call it the lucky few. That’s families with Down syndrome, with a kid affected with Down syndrome. And that’s how my wife, Ashlyn, and I feel. That’s how Brooks feels as her brother.”
- ‘Mr. Baseball’ Bob Uecker passes away at 90 — MLB.com
- The inside story of Uecker’s final game as baseball bids farewell to legend — MLB.com
- Milwaukee’s best: A tribute to the humor and humanity of Bob Uecker — The Athletic
- McKinven, Kasper and Hawk share their memories of Ueck — MLB.com
As last week’s news of Bob Uecker’s death circulated and the memorials and tributes followed, I started thinking about the time that he dropped into the White Sox booth to spend an inning with Hawk Harrelson during the latter’s final season in 2018.
Harrelson always talked about wanting to broadcast games to the very end, and were he wired a little bit differently, he probably could have. Listen to the two Frick winners “tell some lies” (to borrow a Hawkism), and while they’re not exactly cut from the same cloth, they share a fair amount of fabric. Nobody expected them to deliver rapid-fire pitch-by-pitch updates, know the 40-man rosters of every team or stay on top of the latest Statcast metric. Viewers wanted the voice, the experience, the charisma, and the emotions the combination conjures.
But reading the various obituaries and remembrances of Uecker, his sense of humor really set him apart, and in a way that never aged him. He effectively built his post-playing career on being a fun hang, and you’d never know from his disposition that he’d endured the sorts of hardships — two of his children preceding him in death, countless health scares of his own — that can embitter anybody. His friends and colleagues say he always found his energy at the ballpark, where he loved seeing everybody, and everybody loved seeing him. Particularly the players, who considered him part of the team and voted him full playoff shares.
Happy Ueck Day pic.twitter.com/UUq5QVKEjG
— Christian Yelich (@ChristianYelich) September 25, 2021
It’s remarkable that he was able to carve out such a niche in a sport on the sheer strength of personality, yet that personality never wore out its welcome. Though he was 10 days short of turning 91 years old, it’s a credit to his being that it still somehow feels way too soon.
A lot of things can be true at the same time. The dodgers have a ridiculous monetary advantage over all teams that they have fully exploited. They also benefit massively geographically when competing for Japanese players. The league desperately needs some type of cap and some type of international draft “IF” they want to level the playing field.
Tons of teams crying poor for absolutely no reason other then to gaslight fans. I took a special liking (well laughing) to Ricketts having no clue the temperature in the room when at cub con he took it upon himself to offer the hilarious details that the cubs simply “try to break even” every season… a team that raked in 500 mil vs a 200ish mil payroll just barely broke even, lol sure.
The pirates a perennial bottom dweller have been gifted the best pitcher in the game, have 2 other solid starting pitchers, and 3 top 100 pitching prospects in the high minors. If ever a team should have made some additions to a sad offense it was them and it was now. Instead they are going to trot out McCutchin a 230 hitter in year three of his one year goodbye tour as their likely cleanup or 5th batter in the order. The nl central is right there for the taking and thats their game plan, WOW.
About 10 other teams I could rant about making no improvements but I will spare everyone the novel. Baseball is broken and it needs to get rid of the terrible owners while at least moderately slowing down the good ones.
According to https://www.statista.com/statistics/193645/revenue-of-major-league-baseball-teams-in-2010/ (not sure why the link says 2010 when the page says 2023), the Cubs have zero reason to complain about falling so far short of the Dodgers. Third highest revenue in the game. The Dodgers made about 45% more than the average team and around 90% more than the White Sox. There are fixed costs that don’t change much regardless of your team’s quality, such as for stadium and grounds maintenance, ticket takers, general personnel (HR, accountants, etc.), so these gaps can lead to team payrolls that are somewhat larger than that revenue gap without creating losses.
That said, you’re right that far too many teams aren’t even trying. The Cubs crying poor is a joke. Even Jerry crying poor is a joke because if he had a team worth watching, more people would come and watch it.
I’m still against a set team salary floor because I don’t believe it will create more parity. Wherever it’s set, teams will dance in just above it by taking on bad contracts. Maybe they win a few more games, but it’s a pipe dream to think some of these owners will suddenly start trying to win and actually compete in their divisions. Set it at $80M and teams will spend $80-$82M with the owners continuing to pocket the rest. All they’ll have done is raise ticket prices so the owners still get the same net profit.
I’ve shared my plan for a tanking tax several times. That might do some good. There also needs to be a bare minimum percentage of revenue that’s spent on the team itself (including coaches, training staff, scouts, etc., but probably excluding FO personnel). And I don’t mean once every few years like the A’s are struggling with, I mean every year, with stiff penalties if you fall short. Yes, I know that’s effectively a salary floor, but at least this version incentivizes making more revenue in order to keep more. And to do that, the best way is to actually put out a competitive team. I hate how broken baseball has become.
The NFL doesn’t have massive team disparity because there is a defined percentage of revenue allocated to the players that teams are required to pay out, both in cap hit and actual cash. This works because all of their broadcasting rights are negotiated at the league level.
The implementation of a salary floor needs to coincide with some form of actual salary cap, even if it is just a soft cap. The problem with this model is it requires equal disbursement of revenue across the league.
Baseball teams all have their own local rights negotiated which immediately causes disparity in revenue streams. The Dodgers aren’t going to be happy pooling their TV rights money with the Rays money and everyone else then getting an equal share.
The MLBPA is never going to go for it because they are shortsighted enough that everyone thinks they can get a Juan Soto level contract even when most of them are lucky to break $5M AAV.
If we assume that the MLB actually is an $11B yearly revenue business, a salary cap mirroring what the NFL does would mean a 48% cut for the players and a $176M salary cap for every team. A 90% floor means teams would have to commit $158M to their roster (and it’s since it’s collectively bargained, its not like owners are paying for this out of their own pockets), with protections in place to make sure there is an actual cash outlay and not just teams taking on bad cap hits to cook their books.
$5 million is basically the price for one year of an average-ish relief pitcher. Lots of guys make their way into that sort of money, in large part because of the current structure. With a cap there will still be stars making huge money but the lesser guys will be the ones who take the biggest hits.
The White Sox are so incompetent that they could legitimately try to compete again next year and they’d probably still be likely to lose 100 games for a fourth straight season, in which case the tanking tax just becomes a stupidity tax.
One of the reasons the Dodgers have a financial advantage they can exploit is lack of competition from about 20 other teams. If I were a player with any sort of clout I’d be hoping and praying for the Dodgers to make me an offer just so I wouldn’t get stuck on some team that’s just going through the motions every year and making no effort to surround me with a winning team.
Owners broke baseball. 1994 cancelled World Series, 2020 mostly cancelled season. Collusion seasons 1.0 – 15.0. The farcical playoff expansion to 12 teams, which drastically reduce the number of teams actually trying to a half dozen., with a dozen plus teams permanently tanking / never competing with max profits via revenue sharing.
Even with the combined several hundred million spent annually by the Dodgers and Mets post Wilpon, they combined have won two World Series (2020 bastardized season and 2024), the same number as Oakland and the White Sox have won the past 36 seasons (1989-2024). LaRussa with his Alderson provided roster and alleged “schematic advantage” pissed away two of three with Oakland despite being a heavy favorite each of the three years.
A four-six-eight division & division winner only team playoff, relegation and a salary floor are three ways to “fix baseball”, and owners will never agree to any of these. They maximize profits by maximizing “off-field revenue”, minimizing “on-field expense”, and maximizing screwing fans and the 96% + of American taxpayers who no longer bother watching the World Series. Owners demanding endless free or near free stadiums, mooching off cable subscribers for four plus decades.
The headline of the article is excellent. It’s unfortunate that the Dodgers are buying up almost every major player, but they are being aggressive and players just want to play for them. There are probably 10-15 teams that should be spending this winter, but aren’t. Both Central divisions are there for the taking, and it could be argued that ALL 10 teams are basically sitting on their hands when their division is there for the taking. The Braves were a model franchise a few years ago with great affordable salaries allowing them to spend. But what have they done this winter…absolutely NOTHING while Fried, Morton and Minter all left. The Orioles, Rays and Blue Jays have done little to improve themselves, the Mariners continue to pinch pennies, the Angels have not made any significant moves, the Padres are stuck in limbo, the Nats have not started spending after their rebuild, even though almost all of their big prospects are up, and the Marlins and Rockies are acting like the Marlins and Rockies always act. That’s 20 of the 30 teams that I have mentioned.
That leaves 10 teams that seem to be trying. The Yankees, Red Sox, Mets and Phillies continue to make big moves in the East. The Dodgers, Giants and Dbacks have spent significantly this winter. The Astros, though trading Tucker, have at least added a big free agent in Christian Walker. The Rangers keep at least trying to make big moves and are almost certainly not done. That leaves…the A’s! They have been one of the biggest spenders this offseason.
I’m not sure what the solution is, but owners have become very comfortable sitting on their hands and raking in the money.
The MLB is a 11 billion dollar business. It has grown steadily despite of the RSN model dying out. Where is this money? The MLB cartel system is ensured because, outside of the Atlanta Braves, all of the 11 billion stay within the same bubble. Within the same owners. They have the same interests. They protect each other.
The Dodgers need the Colorado Rockies as much as they need the Yankees. The Dodgers will do what it takes to keep the big and small market teams alive. I am sure they already know how “profitable” is for them to play a dozen games per year with the Rockies and others small market teams. All the owners need to do is to divide the 11 billion pie into 30 pieces. It is a diabolical economy because the laws of economics have very little impact.
“You lose 120 games? Don’t worry, we don’t want you to go bankrupt, here, have a bigger piece of the pie, and just make sure you field 26-man players so we can have opponents to play against.”
It is a fucked up system, and the fans are the only ones that could hurt them (viewership), and since the RSN model is dead, what better way to keep the fans engaged than bringing in gambling? The “bubble” keep on existing. Tom Ricketts will cry poor some more. The Pohlands just want to cash out as they are probably tired of the grinds being part of the “bubble” brings.
Last year, a fan of Bless you Boys put together an interesting financial analysis here:
https://www.blessyouboys.com/2024/4/19/24134946/the-business-of-baseball-2024-edition
From the link:
Forbes looks at operating profits, defined as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or EBITDA. Forbesโs EBITDA figures are net of revenue sharing, luxury taxes, stadium revenue used to pay for debt, non-MLB events at stadiums that flow to team ownership, spring training, and minor league teams. They exclude ownership in regional sports networks, real estate, and other ancillary businesses. So, in some cases, they understate ownersโ profits.
Exhibit A – Atlanta N. L. Baseball Team
Forbes Estimated Revenue: 2023 $473M; 2022 $425M; 2021 $443M
Liberty Media Reported Revenue: 2023 $582M; 2022 $535M; 2021 $526M
Forbes Estimated OIBDA: 2023 $66M; 2022 $51M; 2021 $83M
Liberty Media Reported OIBDA: 2023 $38M; 2022 $59M; 2023 $111M
2023 is odd, they brought in 109m more but were less profitable. Wonder if they had a lot of one time expendatures to bring tax liablities down.
Also Forbes – if your beat that badly in 2021 and 2022, update your model. You got Pedro over there telling your analyst to do it the FAST way?
Forbesโ model is fine. They donโt include all the real estate income and other โnon baseballโ revenue such as RSN (other teams, NA for Atlanta) which Liberty Media reported for their baseball group.
This is why the authors of the original link I responded to stated in many cases owner profits are understated by Forbes.
1. That cut of Ueck with Hawk was great โ thanks for sharing. Part of his appeal was that his wit was often self-deprecating, but it wasnโt always self -deprecating โ he could land a barb with a smile on his face. The line about Warren Spahn made me laugh out loud.
2. John Schriffinโs comment about people coming up to him and telling him not to listen to the people who want him to tone it down โ this strikes me as an example of survivorโs bias. The people who want you to tone it down are out there too, John. They are just too polite to come up to you in public and tell you how much they dislike your broadcasts. But we can improve in our work, and in our lives, by listening to the people who tell us the things we donโt want to hear.
Let me try: tone it down and/or get lost, Shriffen!
Or forget the toning it down and just stay with the “get lost, Schriffen!” part.
Even better.
I feel like i would’ve been a little more open to Shriffen and his growing pains as a baseball play by play guy if it wasn’t for the reasons he was even there to begin with.
Ricketts and other owners who claim they are โbreaking evenโ is farcical even in this post truth era. They own the real estate around the stadium and are printing money off those ballpark developments.
The only way they’re only “breaking even” with what they’re spending on payroll is paper BS where they’re booking loan interest on all the stuff they bought and constructed, and loan interest from buying the team maybe, against the team’s revenue. And they don’t seem to consider postseason revenue and additional ticket revenue – they aren’t every game sellouts anymore and you can easily get season tickets – from actually being good instead of this half-assed approach.
Of course, the Pirates, White Sox, and others are on the negative-assed approach.
I have no doubt the Cubs are right around that break even point*.
*Revenue – Expenses – Owner’s profit = Break Even
Hey, don’t even think about it or question it Cubs fans, it’s all good. Trust us.
Profit is in the budget, probably as dividend payouts. It’s a line item.
I’ve posted this a few times, but their needs to be a penalty tax for your team consistently sucking. And if you fail to get out of the penalty level after a few years, you need to to be forced out as an owner. My biased rationale is that my own interest in baseball is nuked. I listen to the podcast here and check the site from time to time. That’s it.
I used to watch mlb network, read other outlets on top of smachine and really looked forward to every season. I watched maybe 6 innings last year and have no interest. No way I’m paying extra to watch sox games for the upcoming season. Maybe some radio play but that will be it.
My kids are 8 and 5. Prime time to turn them into fans but I lack all motivation to do so. I’ve already depressingly got them watching Bears games but will spare them rooting for another pathetic franchise. What’s the point if it is so rarely ever fun?
I am not alone, and if you get enough people to not give a shit about the sport, where is the next wave of fans going to come from?
It seems like it’s just dodgers, mets and yankees. How is that competitive or interesting? And you know they will lock out again at next CBA because of course they will.
It’s depressing. I loved baseball. Never thought I’d be so disinterested yet here we are.
They will continue to cap costs such as draft pools, international spending, “luxury” payroll taxes, etc.. They will continue to exempt growing piles of revenue they have zero intention on giving a penny to the players.
They are not satisfied with the tens of billions they sucked out of taxpayers and cable TV viewers who don’t give a rats ass about The MLB. At this rate, nearly every fanbase will be as apathetic as White Sox fans.
Across all professional sports, the only solution found to address competitive imbalance has been a salary cap. All other leagues have this in one form or this or another. The MLB luxury tax is by no means the same kind of thing. So, until they bite the bullet and establish a salary cap, MLB will have an untenable situation.
Is the NFL, where thereโs a salary cap and all tv revenue is shared, more balanced than MLB? A salary cap is a solution in search of a problem.
And yet every other league has found that their sport is better off with a cap.
The NFL operates as one corporate entity with teams as subsidiary’s. Licensing, media, legal all shared along with the revenue. The only thing unique to each team is their ability to make money off their stadium, which is why the Bears need a better stadium deal. This mostly works because american football broadcasts are the single most watched events on TV.
MLB is definitely hitting a point where they’ll need to share more media revenue to number one keep more teams alive, but number two just make it a stronger product. But why would the NY/LA/BOS/Cubs teams do this? All 5 World Series games were in the top 100 broadcasts last year, which is way better than normal only because the two teams were the Yanks and Dodgers. Game five was the highest rated at 18th. The 15th highest rated tv show of 2024 was a reg season sunday night NFL game between two major media markets of Baltimore and Buffalo. More alarming to MLB is that the NFL product is very watered down and low quality.
The MLB/NBA/NHL are in big trouble.
Exactly right — As you say here, it’s the mega-$ teams (NY/LA/BOS/Cubs) that are blocking the way for MLB to have a stronger product via revenue sharing. These oligarch clubs are in fact the problem.
The luxury tax and the revenue sharing model are a joke. It is money that stays within the same bubble. They are just interchangeable terms at this juncture. It is just business jargon the distribute the pieces of the same pie. To fix baseball, there is a need from an entity that is outside of the bubble to intervene or interact just like it happened with the Braves being own by a public company.
Having a salary cap will not make the Pirates any less shitty a franchise under Nutting’s ownership, and he’s not the only one. Until they address the grifters at the bottom, I’m not particularly concerned with the guys at the top giving everything to bring a winner to their cities.
Simply not true, when you look at other professional sports leagues.
Every professional sports league has perennial bottom feeders and do-nothings, so I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you want to talk about relegation like they have in soccer, though, I’d be all for it.
But the difference is that super-rich teams cannot outspend the rest of their league into oblivion, except in MLB.
If spending alone were any sort of guarantee of success the Mets would have had multiple titles in the last decade. Yes, there are teams with a competitive advantage, but the Dodgers just happen to be the one team that is actually able to leverage it with a degree of intelligence that makes it effective. Eventually, those contracts age past their effectiveness, the luxury tax makes everything untenable, and only a team savvy enough to manage all of that on appropriate timelines can keep making it work.
They also happen to have one of the best farm systems in the league, and they don’t sustain what they’re doing, even with all the money they spend, without making a 5th round pick like Gavin Stone or a 2nd round pick like London Knack a useful piece of the puzzle. Or, for a more familiar example, turning around a guy like Michael Kopech. Heck, even getting past that, what other team would have a Gold Glove outfielder like Mookie Betts playing the infield to make room for lesser players just to get the right overall mix? This isn’t just a rich baseball team, it’s a smart one.
So yes, they have an inherent advantage, and they’re smart enough to position themselves way ahead of the competition. But don’t act like a big part of that isn’t the competition just ceding the territory via inaction or ineptitude. Some teams spend but don’t spend wisely, or bring in top stars but don’t develop enough talent around them, or develop stars but refuse to spend on free agents at all. The problem is not the Dodgers being rich, the problem is that they’re good at it and everybody else is either not as smart, half-assing it, or outright not trying at all.
People complaining about team owners not caring about the fans are soooooo close to understanding the root of the problem.
According to gambling odds (just using that since something like fangraphs playoff odds isnโt out yet), the Dodgers have about a 27% chance to win the World Series. The field is heavily favored against them. Yes, they will have the strongest odds by far, but this hardly seems like a crisis to me.
Baseball did just fine when the Yankees won three straight World Series in the late 2000s and the odds are against that happening again. Part of the reason the Dodgers are spending so much is that their famed player development system has not churned out the productive young players that it once did.
I think part of the issue is that itโs fun to win the offseason. Dreaming on the future is such a big part of baseball fandom. So people come up with impositions on labor to make the offseason more fun (deadline for free agent signings as an example).
But thereโs a good chance that the next World Series winner will not have had a fun 24/25 offseason.
it would be a much bigger problem if the mlb didnt let a ton of teams in the playoffs now, if it went back to format where only a couple teams in the AL and NL made it, the dodgers would gain a much bigger advantage from ALWAYS buying their way into the playoffs, yankees have been running the same game for 20 years
sure anything can happen in a short series, but, buying a loaded team guarantees you a playoff spot over 162 game season
This should say late nineties/early 2000s for the Yankees triple.
You might also say that Uecker built his actual playing career on being a fun hang. (Or maybe HE would say that.) He was one of a kind, thatโs for sure.
Mozeliak saying that his 1st, 2nd, and 3rd priorities are trading a guy with a no-trade clause who already rejected one trade this off-season is hilarious. Is it not even possible for him to think of a priority that he can deliver on? I mean, even โIโd like to gain some weightโ would give him an opportunity to claim victory at some point.
Speaking of which, I have really been amused by all the mental effort by NBA fans and journalists that has gone into trying to figure out a trade that will get Jimmy Butler to a team with no assets (the Suns) that can only trade him if Bradley Beal (who has a no trade clause) is traded. Wow, you figured out a trade that works on paper. Now can you tell me why Bradley Beal will waive his no trade clause to move his family from Arizona to Detroit?
While itโs highly doubtful, I wonder if the big teams will work out a compromise WITH THE smaller market owners for the longer term health of the game. America loves the NFL because of the perceived parity in that league. I would argue that, but perception is reality. MLB needs to the US population to believe there is some parity left in this league or we are witnessing a frog boiling scenario.
I’m at the point with my Sox fandom that my give a shit factor is about 5% what it used to be. The Sox have broken me, and MLB isn’t helping much either. I used to be pretty die-hard, would watch all or a portion of probably 80-90% of the games. I’m not sure I watched 9 innings of WS baseball last year. The only things that keep me remotely interested are a couple podcasts and this site – I mean, I like the coverage of the team more than the team/game itself, which is pretty pathetic. I could write the exact same thing about the Bulls and the NBA. There must be a common denominator there, but I just can’t put my finger on it….
.
I have zero issue with the current rules around maximum spending lmits in MLB. I view the revenue sharing, financial overage penalties, loss or demotion of picks and international spending dollars as very fair. Instead of a hard cap, MLB needs a hard floor, for both payroll and operations.
The billionaires using their teams as investment holdings and for some annual spending money, while long suffering fans sit powerless, are where I direct my ire. The ones who say “f it, I wanna win” are the ones I like, and I hope to have one of them in charge of my favorite team some day.
How is imposing a hard floor increasing the fan’s experience? All I see is that crappy players costing 1.5M will cost 5.5M when the hard floor kicks in. Only bad players will benefit from it, and owners will have even less money to sign in the top tier of free agents.
1) Could weed out owners who aren’t serious about financing a competitive product.
2) Raises the competitve floor and evens the playing field in scouting, player development and training.
I don’t believe that GM’s would just use the $ to raise the salaries of AAAA and utility guys.
Colson on Hot Stove:
One of the things that set Uecker apart from a guy like Hawk, for me, was his self-deprecating sense of humor. Bob was always quick to tell jokes at his own expense, whereas Hawk’s ego, at least as near as I could tell, would ever let him be the butt of any joke, even his own. I guess as somebody with a similar sense of humor I always identified a lot more with the likes of Bob than Hawk.
I think that Hawk was self-deprecating a fair amount. He never crowed about being a great player (which he wasn’t) and always joked about his shortcomings as a player. I enjoyed listening to both of them. Ueck was definitely funnier, but I always thought that Hawk was great in the big moments.
I felt like Hawk always spoke with a certain arrogance, particularly the way he would just raise beefs over things he clearly didn’t understand but seemed to believe he did. Honestly, I don’t ever remember Hawk joking about himself at all on the air.
“They got all my money in Bannockburn…”
That being said, I don’t think self-deprecation is necessarily a quality personality trait. In the hands of some, it can be very annoying to listen to, but Ueck did it in a way that was funny. I also don’t think that anyone thought that Uecker wasn’t good at his job; the self-deprecation was a schtick. For someone to play as long as he did in the big leagues he had to be one of the best baseball players on the planet, and he was an excellent broadcaster.
Hawk was certainly arrogant, but he was being himself and was entertaining in his own way. I know he wasn’t for everyone and the last few years were rough, but in his prime and with a good partner I think he was a lot of fun.
Hawk was entertaining, but what annoyed me about him was his insistence on speaking authoritatively or dismissively about things which he had little to no knowledge.
I feel the same way about these two, which is why I respected Bob a lot more than Hawk.
A lot of the teams that are not spending money are those that have RSN-related difficulties or uncertainties. The White Sox, unfortunately, are in this group of at least 15 teams, maybe more.
Without Comcast and other cable companies offering the CHSN network, I am sure the Sox are just getting pennies on the dollar from what they once received from their local broadcasting revenues. I know that Minnesota also is having such problems, and even the Cubs are having difficulty getting their Marquee network to get officially renewed with Comcast while just settling for short extensions right now.
In a big-picture sense, MLB needs to alter the way that this TV money is divided up. The few teams that right now have NO concerns about their local media revenue are the ones who are doing much of the spending. But there are two teams in each game. So, if the Yankees are playing the Royals, the TV money generated from such a broadcast should be distributed relatively evenly. Even if, for example, it is a “Yankees” broadcast, the split should at most be 60% for the Yankees, with the remainder going to the Royals.
Perhaps if the teams not getting the big money from local TV struck a harder bargain, and refused to let the big-money teams’ networks carry games involving their teams, the sort of inequity that currently exists would be soon rectified.
A salary cap, with a floor, would help a great deal. But if the union won’t agree to that, and there is no sign that it would, then the owners have to figure out a better way to divide the TV revenue pot of gold. All this money should not go just to five teams or so. As fan, I would accept a work stoppage if that’s what it took to rectify this situation.
Otherwise, we could continue to have offseasons where only the Dodgers, Yankees and Mets sign the notable players and nearly 20 teams lack the money to truly compete. What fun is that?
That’s what the revenue sharing currently in place addresses.
Smaller teams ar getting the $ (many of those owners are just refusing to spend it), and the extra draft picks, and the extra intl bonus $.
They are choosing to not compete.
They are not getting anywhere close to the revenues that the 10 biggest-revenue teams are, even with revenue sharing.
Most of the small-revenue teams are having the RSN problems I was referring to, so any “sharing” money they are getting is being offset by the revenue declines related to TV money.
They’re literally getting money just for existing and don’t even bother to leverage that inherent advantage. Like, not a single person could show up to a game, they could have no local broadcast, and they’re turning a profit regardless, which is utter horseshit.
Correct.
This is, as always, a fight between billionaires and even richer billionaires. The players have nothing to do with it. I would not accept a work stoppage just because a bunch of soulless drains on the greater good got into a dick-measuring contest.
Eat the rich, but be sure to wash your mouth out afterwards.
“Rich humans are like veal. Conceptually repulsive, but so buttery on my tongue.โ
– Nadja of Antipaxos
Thats a pretty picture of dodger stadium. No wonder everybody wants to play there.
That’s very sweet of Burger. Wishing him best
MLB is a broken business model. The failure of regional sports networks is the indicator that local TV doesn’t draw enough of local teams’ fans to make money, and, the interest is so low that cable “sports fees” are seen to be a rip-off. Add to that the huge disparity in media markets among the 30 teams and that means a huge disparity in revenue. Of course, LA and NYC are going to dominate by size, but they also have two teams with tradition with a capital T and that gives them a national fanbase in the Dodger and Yankees. Next add that MLB teams are independent businesses with good owners, bad ones and mediocre ones, all of whom have other businesses, disparate friends and families and partners, different and unknown financial positions and godknowswhat tax situations.
MLB thinks gambling will stimulate fan interest and generate revenue, and it probably does create interest in “betting on baseball” but not more interest in individual teams. But gambling revenue will peak as young men age out. Internet revenue is shared so that helps, too, but on the margins.
At the heart of MLB’s problem is unprecedented competitive imbalance. The rich get richer, the poor get left behind and the fans of the “not have” get cynical and lose interest. Meanwhile they have to pay $50 a ticket for average games, but $75 for premium games. Neat, but cynical, MBA trick. Plus $7.50 for a Coke, $8 for a hot dog and $14 or more for ordinary beer, and baseball is priced out of the mass market. There is just not that much value to pay for a routine game in mid-summer.
The real solution is that MLB has to restructure into a league dominant model and that means the league decides what teams survive; who gets what revenue; centralizes media revenue with 100% sharing, and, determines all player salaries, with a cap. And contracts are with MLB not the individual teams. MLB will have to buy out all 30 owners. Give each a 50 year note in compensation at fair market value base on the present value of future earnings under this new model, not the current model. The “or else” is the owner has no baseball franchise in the major leagues. With 30 owners and one union, the players and the agents control the game from money to competition, and the fans lose.
The regular season is too long by 4-5 weeks (in March and April). No playoff series should be less than 3 out of five. There should be first half and second half regular season champs plus wildcards. Every one of the 60 games in 2020 meant something because there was no time for teams to “pace” themselves. In addition to the reward of the playoffs, bad teams should face the risk of relegation to AAA, and reversion to minor league revenue and minor league pay. The bottom two go down and the PCL and International League champs move up.
Perhaps some of this is unrealistic