MLB 2018 - Hope for a 7-game WS so they'll play on Halloween

This just isn’t true, this is all PR from the Owners. I mean, yes they will make a big killing when they sell, but these teams make huge amounts of money. From 2003 to 2016 MLB League Revenue went up 5.5B and player payroll went up about 2B. Teams don’t pay for their stadiums anymore, what other huge costs do they have? Some more “investments” in Latin American training facilities? Managers and front office people make a few million more?

Teams absolutely make a ludicrous amount of money and there’s no rational explanation that anyone could make to explain where the roughly 5B that the league makes above the cost of player salaries goes that would put teams in the red.

The other thing to note is all the ways that owners do revenue shifting out of the MLB club itself to other entities they own. The Cubs under the Tribune Company, for instance, had a great system where they incorporated their own ticket broker and sold premium tickets at face value to the broker who then scalped them at a large profit which were off the Cubs books but on the Tribune’s books:

McCourt with the Dodgers had another common one that a lot of details came out on due to the divorce proceedings. He moved the parking into a separate entity than the Dodgers and then setup a massive rental agreement shifting team profits into the separate entity.

These are just two examples, but these are all the things that teams are doing to hide revenue and pretend to be poor. The basic math just doesn’t work. Exploding league revenue combined with player payrolls increasing at a much slower pace and no credible other expenses. It’s not like they are paying minor league players a reasonable wage or paying for their own stadiums.

Every single team could afford to sign any of the players on the free agent market, and most teams could sign several without any risk of actually losing any money next year. Obviously this doesn’t mean that they should due to a myriad of reasons, but lack of money is not the problem.

Actually some do. The Giants paid for their own stadium, granted they probably were given the land. I believe others have done that as well. Oakland’s new stadium (if it is ever built) will be done that way.

I do not doubt that most teams make good money and that some teams make a huge amount of money. However much of that has come about with recent TV contracts. Some contract with Disney (don’t remember the exact purpose of the contract) is going to pay each team an amazing amount of money.

But there is no getting around that in baseball the revenue teams like the Yankees and Dodgers makes dwarfs the revenue that teams like the A’s and Twins make.

Now, I don’t want to get into defending the owners. They make good money and good for them. And I have nothing wrong with players making good money. But, I don’t want to hear some player whining about making $20m a year and how he is being mistreated. Players have it pretty damn good in baseball, much better than in football.

The problem with MLB salaries isn’t old guys making 20m a year, it’s that young guys are paid far less than their value on the market.

Well, McCourt was a terrible owner and I think even his fellow owners regretted allowing him to buy the Dodgers soon afterwards.

I don’t disagree and would chalk that up as another point in favor of not collusion: with everything being converted to a stat teams are getting better at figuring out which young guys they can offer long term, guaranteed deals by buying out arbitration years and getting a discount on early free agency (and the players see some benefit because they’re guaranteed money even if they get injured or flame out). Using Cleveland as an example – they’re getting 5 years of MVP finalist Jose Ramirez for at most $50m with $26m of that coming in his final two years. No way they’d find that kind of value in free agency.

The Giants in 2000 were the first team since Dodgers Stadium in 1962 to not use public funds directly although they get some tax breaks and a cheap lease on the land. Good on them completely but they are an aberration and not very recent. The Marlins and Braves stadiums are the most recent fleecings but basically all the recent projects are heavily subsidized. Both can and probably will cripple local government.

Even more to my point, the Giants paid for their own stadium but can run a Top 5 payroll but the Marlins have an almost entirely subsidized stadium and approximately 50M/year in revenue sharing yet have to slash payroll? They are the most egregious example but so many other teams are similar. The Pirates refused to do anything to supplement their core a few years ago.

So many MLB teams propagate the lie that they are unprofitable and that they don’t have the resources to compete. While rebuilding is a valid and critical process at times, you don’t have to cut payroll to rebuild. You can take bad contracts for bundled talent.

While I have plenty of other things to say about Rahm Emanuel here in Chicago, when the multiple billionaire Ricketts family tried to hit up the City claiming that they needed 150 million to renovate Wrigley because they were supposedly so house poor that they couldn’t afford to do it themselves and might have to move to Rosemont to give up 1+ million ticket sales a year he told them to go fuck themselves. Then they did all the work anyway and also bought most of the property around Wrigley because they are ultra rich aholes with a team that prints money.

Cities, counties etc paying for stadiums for any pro team is crazy unless you are somewhere that that stadium will get constant use and benefit the community beyond the pro team using it.

HOF class of 2018: Chipper Jones, Vlad Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman and Jim Thome. Hard to argue with any of those.

Looks like the Russians Cardinals Deep State is at it again:

MLB Cybersecurity = ED-209 in a Yankees cap.

Lorenzo Cain to Milwaukie for 5 years and $80M.

That’s a whole lot of money for a 32 year old.

Good luck - and thanks for the draft pick!

Brewers just dropped a bomb on the NL Central though.

Trade for Yelich, sign Cain.

That is a scary damned lineup now.

Supposedly they are in on Darvish too. I wonder if their collusion guidelines got lost in the post or if they just looked around at no one else bothering to sign free agents and figured they might as well sign some people.

The Brewers are really making a move. While neither Yelich or Cain will “make” a team the will combined with Braun make a pretty good outfield on a day to day basis.

There pitching made a jump last year and that will have to continue.

Well, Dayton Moore’s not gonna let all his free agents get away:

(Sad trombone that plays only fart noises)

Honestly expected it before this season. No surprise though – I’m sure that this was one of the concessions the team gave in exchange for hosting next year’s All Star Game.

Overdue, but glad it is going away. I know that in recent years Cleveland has really played down the use and appearances of that logo.

Yea, I thought it had already gone away. But good for them in making it official finally.

Welcome to the 21st, Cleveland.

Next step - come up with a better logo than the godawful, boring block C. I’m partial to this design by a local company that sells a bunch of Cleveland sports merch; license it and get it done.

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