kinda think this should be getting a little more of the “baseball is ruined!” attention than the Dodgers signing a good player to a minor league contract for money any team could have afforded
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Yup. The Pirates and Mariners also have good young rosters and have done almost nothing. The Orioles made a lot of questionable moves and they also have a good young roster! Feels like half the league isn't even trying.
I hope you watched in 2024 then, the NL West was a real tough race that came down to the final week when the Padres were only two games out of first with five to go and owned the tiebreaker over the Dodgers because they beat the crap out of them head to head
I’m in favor of a salary cap as long as there’s also a salary floor, which would help alleviate both of these issues. At least ten or eleven owners will never agree to the latter, so it’s a moot point
It’s been reported that only 20 teams even contacted this guy that any team could afford. More attention should be paid to the 10 teams that didnt even try
I’ve been telling people all day that I’d be cool with baseball having a salary cap if it also had a salary floor, and the issue is that those 10 teams that didn’t even contact Sasaki would never accept having to spend enough to reach the floor
Bingo. People are saying his upside is best pitcher in the world. And these teams didnt even bother to contact him? Those owners should be driven out of baseball on a rail. THAT’s the story here
whole lot of people are mad online today about the actions of one rich entity that owns the Dodgers when they don’t realize they’re actually mad online about the actions of about a dozen rich entities that own other MLB teams and do not care at all about making them into winning MLB teams
Hey, and maybe if you get the shitty owners out, you can talk about salary caps and floors. Money may be a problem (i think so and Im a dodger fan) but there’s also an owner problem. Work on that, you can fix the other
Meanwhile, Jays are trying to spend money but keep being the second or third choice of everybody they go after. Including a guy they actually signed, somehow.
The way MLB abandoned any pretense of competitive balance feels parallel to the era of lawlessness and firehose-intensity corruption we're about to inaugurate.
it feels parallel to our upcoming political nightmare in that the majority of organizations that should be doing all they can for the public they serve and whose livelihoods their financial decisions directly affect are in fact not doing all they can
Yes, but in baseball the organization with authority is MLB, right? Their offices in NYC. Ohtani's contract would never have been allowed in the past; it's such a middle finger to notions of competitive balance, you have to laugh. But LAD is colonizing Japan, so "balance schmalance."
the Dodgers had been signing contracts with deferred money - completely legal under the current CBA, anyone can do them if they want to - for years prior to getting Ohtani. the organizations I meant were the MLB teams, many of whom are not doing everything they can to put a winning team on the field
also Sasaki would have signed with San Diego had their ownership situation not been in flux, the Dodgers whiffed on Ohtani when he was first posted, and I mean LA is geographically close to Japan so it’s an advantage sure but to say MLB is somehow rigging these signings is Joe Rogan level brain rot
Baseball isn’t ruined forever but cmon man you can’t be so obtuse to know Sasaki was gonna sign with the Dodgers and that it’s not a fun product when only ~3 teams can win in a given year and that fans other than NOT going to games is maybe the only way to change this.
162-game season champions since the Dodgers started spending big in 2013, in order: Red Sox, Giants, Royals, Cubs, Astros, Red Sox, Nationals, Braves, Astros, Rangers, Dodgers. Eleven years, nine different champions (none of whom were the Mets or Yankees)
Because in football there’s a position that is basically 50% of how good your team is. The Patriots didn’t win 7 Super Bowls because the football equivalent of utility infielders were good.
I’m saying, people are crying out for baseball to institute a salary cap and, well, that doesn’t always mean “every team has the same chance” with the NFL as a prime example.
The Twins are for sale. The Cards and Padres have multiple high money bad contracts that have a stranglehold on their spending. This is why we need a Ceiling and a Floor.
Yeah, no. Oh, it's not about the Sasaki thing — that's on Sasaki in my book. It's really about the Dodgers circumventing the salary cap with deferred money. THAT is what is ruining baseball. It negates the purpose of the cap and should not be allowed. The deferred money SHOULD count towards the cap.
if the deals weren’t legal the league wouldn’t allow them. the Mets do it too. every other team can do them. the money will count against the cap in the year it is deferred to.
why? every other team can do them too and chooses not to. presumably the players and owners are fine with them because they agreed on including them in the CBA. so…?
I said “should” be illegal. Because even if everyone can do it, it distorts the purpose of the salary cap. They have circumvented the salary cap _in the year(s) that the player is playing_. I’m not interested in the owners being ok with it. It screws the fans.
i mean both things can be true. all owners not spending more sucks, and also the dodgers getting Roki (which was obvious anyway), and Snell and HSK2 and resigning nearly all their FAs is also just not great
The Ricketts family is worth $5 billion, they own a shit ton of Wrigleyville, they have a massive TV deal, and they play in the third biggest city in the country. Why aren’t they constantly offering huge contracts to big free agents? Why are they doing things like salary dump Cody Bellinger instead?
look im not defending the rickets family, they should be spending insane amounts more. but its also true that all else equal, players absolutely prefer the dodgers to the cubs (and the cubs TV revenue is about half of the dodgers)
They. Don’t. Have. Any. More. Money. I know you desperately want that not to be true. And you’re right in a sense. They could spend a little more and reduce profit to near zero. But it wouldn’t make up any significant ground on the Dodgers and Mets.
You name it, Twins fans have been crying foul about how awful the Pohlads spending has been for decades. But nobody pays attention to the Twins because the Pohlads DONT CARE so the media DOESNT CARE.
I mean I was a Dodger fan back in winter 2011 when they were owned by a broke divorced guy who was actively selling the franchise, and even he was willing to let his general manager sign SOME free agents
McCourt announced he’d be selling the team in November 2011 and set a strict limit on spending for the offseason, and the Dodgers’ GM still went out and filled the roster with some valuable pitchers and hitters. Much different today, it’s basically active owner collusion.
oh and the Dodgers hadn’t signed their big TV contract yet, that happened in 2013. again, broke divorced guy actively shopping his team, and even he still signed off on some free agents.
The Twins still have a roster capable of winning the AL Central.
Healthy Joe Ryan, and Correa/Lewis/Buxton playing a combined 99 games after the ASB (and only Buxton moderately healthy) and everyone running out of gas ruined the season.
Run it back with better conditioning/health & they make Oct
I hope they do! I like them. I also think the idea that because of the ownership situation they can’t sign off on any free agent contracts smells funny to me because my team was once in an identical position to that and still actually signed some players
I'm not defending the Twins at all, I wish the payroll hadn't dropped from 155M to 130M going into the '24 season, so it'd be more reasonable this off season to have $10M lying around to grab Rizzo or France.
They did whatever they did with their infield for somewhat inscrutable reasons, but it is currently an open question if they will have more than 3 major league quality starting pitchers under contract who will be healthy for opening day.
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Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
People are pissed because the Dodgers are going to be extremely good for a while, not because they can afford to spend more than the Reds.
also im sure that the ownership structure + huge TV deal have nothing to do with this at all.................
im not even disagreeing with you tbh
You name it, Twins fans have been crying foul about how awful the Pohlads spending has been for decades. But nobody pays attention to the Twins because the Pohlads DONT CARE so the media DOESNT CARE.
Best we can hope for is a sale announced in April and try to snag a straggler FA.
Would I like it if they signed Pete Alonso to solve 1B/DH or find a LHP for the bullpen? Absolutely, but I'm resigned to reality.
This is a situation where an ownership with even less liquidity in a much smaller market and no upfront TV money.
Healthy Joe Ryan, and Correa/Lewis/Buxton playing a combined 99 games after the ASB (and only Buxton moderately healthy) and everyone running out of gas ruined the season.
Run it back with better conditioning/health & they make Oct