MLB Offseason

Agree 100% with the need for parity and the fact that the lack of it in MLB has likely contributed to baseball dropping from the #1 sport in the country to #3 or maybe lower among people in their 30s and under. I’m not done with the sport or the league though. I was a Brewers fan before I was a Packers fan.

Salary cap, floor, or both???

I too am not ready to give up the game this last year was quite remarkable for the Brewers.   I’m am hopeful for the future sadly they will never be able to outspend but got to keep finding some gems in the rough.

Just wait until Burnes and Adames get signed for what will probably be more than 300 million combined.

Dodgers continue to buy several years worth of pennants.   MLB can not let this continue much longer. Small market owners have to get some balls and put a stop to it somehow.

Super-utility man Tommy Edman and the Los Angeles Dodgers agreed to a five-year, $74 million contract extension that will keep the National League Championship Series MVP with the World Series champions through at least 2029.

The deal tears up the final season of a two-year contract Edman previously signed and replaces it with one that runs from 2025 through the 2029 season. The contract includes a sixth-year club option for $13 million with a $3 million buyout and will give Edman a $17 million signing bonus, sources said. About one-third of the overall value of the deal is deferred, according to sources.

Dodgers approaching $1 billion in deferments.

Latest MLB Free Agent Predictions:
Juan Soto: Brewers
Alex Bregman: Brewers
Pete Alonso: Brewers
Willy Adames: Brewers
Martín Maldonado: Cubs

— John “BrewersRaptor” Egan (@BrewersRaptor) December 1, 2024

Mark A have an oil well come in other something? 

Montas signed with mets. 2 years 34 million.

@D J posted:

Dodgers approaching $1 billion in deferments.

Wait until they sign Burnes and Adames.

Will they have enough left over to build a bigger trophy case?

https://www.si.com/mlb/rob-man...at-bat-rule-baseball

Interesting idea, to hell with baseball past. Would get your best player an extra at bat during the game

A dumb fucking idea. Leave the game alone.  It will make a mess of the statistics when comparing current players to past players.  I could see Ohtani getting 200 RBI and suddenly want $150,000,000 a year instead of the $700,000,000 he is already getting.  There will only be about 6 teams left in MLB if this ever goes thru. 

If they left the game alone we wouldn't have the pitch clock.

The infield shift would still be a thing.

Pitchers in the NL would still be pretending to be MLB players at the plate.

No one would be stealing bases. It would still be a home run or strike out league.

Pretty much any change they have made to the game has been an improvement. Not sure this would be but they have earned some benefit of the doubt in recent years.

Give me robo ump for balls and strikes and MLB is due a miss or two on rule changes after that. If the main concern is reverence for history, stats and shit like that - too bad. Nothing stays constant. 

Golden bat is a dumb idea.

I love the pitch clock, didn't mind the shift

Robo balls and strikes makes a ton of sense

end blackouts if you want to improve baseball

https://www.mlb.com/giants/new...ames-giants-contract

As Boris posted, Adames gets 7 years and 185 million.

Burnes' contract is likely next. I had predicted a year ago they'd sign for a combined 300 million when they hit free agency now. It seems a combined 400 million is in play.

Baseball has lost popularity in the last 40 years for several reasons, but one of the main ones is that unlike the other three major sports, it failed miserably at competitive balance. I'm preaching to the choir on this forum, but the Bucks and Packers have just a good a chance of getting to a Super Bowl every year as any other team. You just have to hit it big on a superstar in the NBA or on a HOF QB in the NFL. Every team basically has an equal chance. The stars in the NBA can force trades, and that often sucks for that team's fans, but even then they can auction them off and get a huge package back that allows you a better chance to be competitive again (essentially that's why OKC is good again).

If you are the Dodgers, Yankees, Giants, or Mets you can make colossal mistakes one year and retool everything by signing free agents for massive contracts for no compensation to the team they are leaving. It's been going on for 30 years.

When I lived on the East Coast, I had a coworker who was a Yankee fan. He used to troll me by asking about the young players on the Brewers were developing so he would know who the Yankees were going to sign in free agency 3-4 years later.

The Brewers drafted and developed (or traded players the drafted) for Burnes, Woodruff, Hader, Williams, and Adames. They got back about 25 cents on the dollar for those guys. When a guy gets traded in the NBA, the team trading even a borderline all-star (Gobert or Mikal Bridges) gets 4-5 high draft picks.

Woodruff got hurt or someone would have outbid for him also and Williams is going to get traded for some mid-level package. They got almost nothing from the Hader trade directly. Luckily, they got Contreras because the A's got infatuated with Ruiz. They ended up with nothing for Adames. They did get Ortiz for Burnes, but Ortiz is just a bit above average right now. He may develop into a great player, but that will be about the time that Contreras and him hit free agency and get about 400 million combined in 3 years.

Don't say they got nothing for Adames. They will get a round 1 comp draft pick. Now whether that turns out to a great player remains to be seen.

@MichiganPacker2 posted:

I'm preaching to the choir on this forum, but the Bucks and Packers have just a good a chance of getting to a Super Bowl every year as any other team.

Agreed with the Packers but I think the Bucks shot at a Super Bowl is extremely low.

Better than the Bears' or Vikings' chances.

I'd take Giannis in the Super Bowl over any Viking 🤭

@Boris posted:

I'd take Giannis in the Super Bowl over any Viking 🤭

Unless it was a load management game

@Boris posted:

I'd take Giannis in the Super Bowl over any Viking 🤭

But he would be terrible at extra points  .

The Adames contract is pure insanity.  25M a year for a guy that at best is a borderline All Star and at worst is a marginal starting caliber player.

https://www.nj.com/yankees/202...gering-contract.html

Juan Soto

15 years

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$765M

@ammo posted:

Don't say they got nothing for Adames. They will get a round 1 comp draft pick. Now whether that turns out to a great player remains to be seen.

It's not nothing, but what's the percentage of players picked 30-35 overall that are above average major league players? I'm not sure, but I doubt it's very high.

@Boris posted:

https://www.nj.com/yankees/202...gering-contract.html

15 years

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$765M

Was just going to post that. 51 million a year for the next 15 years. I wonder how much is deferred?

Now we just wait on Corbin Burnes to get 200+ million to be a good, but declining starter over the next 6-7 years.

From MLB:    The deal, which the Mets have not confirmed because it’s pending a physical, contains a $75 million signing bonus, an opt-out after five seasons and no deferred money. The Mets will have the ability to void Soto’s opt-out clause after the 2029 season if they boost the average annual value of the final 10 years of his deal from $51 million to $55 million, according to a source. In that case, the overall deal would be for 15 years and $805 million -- a $53.66 million AAV.

That’s nuts. No deferred money.  MLB is officially broken.

How long can this go on?  Not just in MLB but pretty much all sports. When do fans rebel against ticket pricing, parking, hot dogs, beer, TV subscriptions and souvenirs made in China?  I’ve pretty much given up going to games and am holding on to not paying for Peacock, Prime etc.   And I haven’t bought a new hat of Tshirt in years.  

I think the MLB financial model is the most perverse of all of the sports.  No hard cap, manipulation of service time, and overinflated contracts that really shift competitive balance to a handful of teams.  

I’d much rather players get a Jackson Chuirio type contract earlier than a huge Corbin Burnes contract later in their career as age and performance decline.

As long as owners feel you will pay for the product

good for Soto.  My biggest gripe in the world of baseball is that some of Soto’s millions could have gone to make the wage for the kids in AAA more manageable

Well, we are 3/4 of the way to the first billion dollar contract.

Just wait for Ohtani and his Golden Bat.

@Tschmack posted:

I think the MLB financial model is the most perverse of all of the sports.  No hard cap, manipulation of service time, and overinflated contracts that really shift competitive balance to a handful of teams.  

I’d much rather players get a Jackson Chuirio type contract earlier than a huge Corbin Burnes contract later in their career as age and performance decline.

The Chourio contract was a grand slam, but you also run the risk of signing 20 year olds to 90 million dollar contracts and then they never live up to it. Remember Lewis Brinson (traded for Yelich), Matt LaPorta (traded for Sabathia), and Brett Lawrie (traded for Marcum). All of those guys would have been candidates for the Chourio type deal and all flamed out very early.

But I agree that the financial model is crazy. It's not fixable though, because there is zero chance of the players union every agreeing to a max salary or a salary cap.

Baseball provides a lot of content for streaming services as 162 games fills up a lot of hours. But when 4-5 teams are the Globetrotters, about 10 teams are middle class, and the bottom 15 are all Washington Generals, it's going to be hard to maintain interests outside of NYC, SF, and LA.

The MLB players union is the strongest in all professional sports.   A lot of their contempt was built (historically) by shady owners that loved to claim poverty but refused to open their books and prove it.  Or by doing things like pocketing revenue sharing money instead of improving their facilities or spending on players.   There’s no one more full of shit than a MLB owner.  

Making matters worse are a long line of lackey commissioners put in place to prop up corrupt or greedy owners.

The way things are progressing I’d say they should contract half the league.  Maybe more.  The majority of teams have no interest in spending and the usual suspects take over and load up their rosters.

@Tschmack posted:

The MLB players union is the strongest in all professional sports.   A lot of their contempt was built (historically) by shady owners that loved to claim poverty but refused to open their books and prove it.  Or by doing things like pocketing revenue sharing money instead of improving their facilities or spending on players.   There’s no one more full of shit than a MLB owner.  

Making matters worse are a long line of lackey commissioners put in place to prop up corrupt or greedy owners.

The way things are progressing I’d say they should contract half the league.  Maybe more.  The majority of teams have no interest in spending and the usual suspects take over and load up their rosters.

A lot of this is true, but I think many of the NFL owners are more full of shit than the average MLB owner. And Roger Goodell is more of a lackey than any MLB commissioner has ever been. But the NFL has competitive balance due to the salary cap and the fact that there is a minimum salary requirement for each team.

The NFL sets up a system to keep superstars (especially QBs) on the same teams, prevents owners from being cheap and pocketing the profits without at least trying at a minimal level, and the draft is the most likely to really improve the team in the short term.

The NBA isn't as good as the NFL, but at least there are financial incentives to try to keep the superstars in the same place, and the top picks in about half the drafts give you a chance to change things quickly. You also have a minimal salary floor so owners can't cheap out. However, there are probably only 1-2 potential superstars in each draft, so it's harder to turn things around fast. By and large, the owners are less terrible people than many of the NFL owners.

As you mention, MLB has the worst combination of everything. It's by far the worst for the rank and file players. The average career is only 2-3 years for most players (before they get to salary arbitration) and they are stuck at minimum wage for most of it. 700K a year sounds like a lot of money, but most players are making about 35K a year while they are in the minors and some are below the poverty line. Then, they get their one shot at minimum-level money for a very short period of time. There is incentive for the teams to force them to stay in the minors leagues longer even if they could contribute at the major league level and develop there because they'll lose them faster. If the players are good, they are as good as gone by the time they get into their primes (age 28-32). The large market teams then overbid for them and end up paying them huge money until they are in their late 30s (Soto will be 40 in his final year). That inflates the market for the star players even more.

I think Attanasio is a decent owner. He's obscenely wealthy in almost any context, but not compared to the other MLB owners. I think Attanasio's net worth is somewhere 700 million. Juan Soto just got more guaranteed money than Attanasio is worth. To keep Burnes and Adames, he would have had to shell out more than half his net worth.

The other problem for small-market owners is that they either have to gamble and sign players like Chourio early and hope they are actually good (90 million before even playing a major league game is a huge gamble) or they have to sign veterans with injury or performance baggage. Those contracts are often like Hoskins was. It was a two year contract that Hoskins could opt out of after one year. If Hoskins would have returned to all-star status, he would have opted out and made more money elsewhere. If he struggled like he did, he opts back in for 18 million.

This is never going to get fixed, but I will still watch, so I'm guilty of supporting it.