So what are the players planning on conceding today? Bathrooms in the clubhouse? Per diem meals? 60 team playoffs? The “Union” is looking more like Poland and France in WWII with each passing day.
Perhaps I was being a bit insensitive. But then again, American itself had been in a “legit war” in two different regions of the world for well over 10 years recently. There are massive amounts of human atrocities going on all over the world and have been well before the Ukraine incident (which I very much empathize with and donated to in the first couple of days of the incident). You call them “spoiled players” but that is just being hypocritical because you would do the exact same thing in their situation.
FSF, it makes the guys uncomfortable when we talk about what’s going on in the world.
I had to just leave off.
People know about it, but they come here and to baseball to escape from it for a bit.
It’s escape reading, or escape entertainment.
So I try to be sensitive about it.
But your points are well taken here.
Yeah, the Bushes sure are standing tall and proud right about now….? Bagram intern camp? War and anyone who profits from it, they make a deal with the devil daily and we all get to live with it? It’s ok though so long as a wage is being paid and a wage is being taxed? What’s the route of all evil again? It’s not the Dark Side of the Moon, even though it made Money?
I remember a lot of people complaining about the 106-win Dodgers being treated like a wild card team last season. The ghost win concept would have made it even easier for the 88-win Braves to beat the 106-win Dodgers. The Dodgers also spent a lot more money than any other team in baseball last year and the ghost win would have hurt them in every way. Outspend everyone in baseball. Win 106 games. The 88-win Braves will get an unearned ghost win against you. I’m I the only one who doesn’t see how that’s beneficial for the players?
The owners do not get any broadcast rights fees for “ghost wins” so that’s a non-starter for MLB. And I suspect “ghost wins” are just a throwaway item for the MLBPA.
Can we keep all results to actual happenings? I hated the runner on 2B because the run is assigned to no one. I see teams in other sports striving to get home field advantage. I don’t understand why they feel it won’t happen in baseball. Yeah, if your the 13th seed and not close to 7th, it may effect your outlook on home field, but that will happen with or without a phantom win. If the 15th and 16th are nipping your heels, that changes things, too. I don’t want to see a best out of four or best out of six. Play the games and then a team can legitimately say they won!
I like how he said there is “no risk” in owning a baseball team. Anytime you spend hundreds of millions or billions of dollars buying something and then spend hundreds more millions every year just to run it there is a ton of risk involved. No matter what it is.
I thought that guy’s question was very rude and I would have never asked it like that but it’s answers like this that make people like him feel that way. The value of baseball teams may have gone up recently but they’ve vacillated up and down before. Ask Disney if there was risk in them buying the Angels. They won the World Series and still lost money on that deal. Especially with this lockout it is very possible the overall value of teams will decline. It’s also very possible that this is the absolute top of the market for baseball teams and their price has nowhere to go but down. We just don’t know.
There is definitely an ton of financial risk in owning a baseball team. Any statement to the contrary is extremely out of touch and really does scream the player bias that chatter was bringing up. “The prices of Major League Baseball teams has gone up recently. There will never be risk in owning one again!” What?!
You’re not understanding all of the benefits of ownership. I agree there is some “risk” in owning a baseball team, but it is substantially less than most businesses. All teams are either owned by someone who paid almost nothing for it and a handful that paid large sums. Those who inherited or bought decades ago are all doing just fine. The ones who bought recently are sitting on HUGE tax deductions where literally half their purchase (on a nominal basis) gets funded by the government.
Just two years ago, their investment was substantially hurt by a global pandemic. It even had lingering effect last year. If viewership continues to drop, its not that hard to see future declines in revenue.
I don’t see where franchise values have declined. They had a year of bad profits or even losses and tried to put as much of that on the players’ plates as possible. Most teams are already locked into long term broadcasting revenue rights and the ones that aren’t are all projected to have MASSIVE increases in annual revenue when they negotiate their next rounds.
Always the same questions. Where is Adell,Marsh and and Cruz and Freeman going. What are the A’s and Tigers going to do. What will The Jays sign. blah blah blah same people asking the same questions.
They want validation from a MLBTR writer.
Very true. The chats are very repetitive and ultimately, the only real answer is that we will all see what happens eventually.
If I had a nickel for every fanbase that asked about trading for Matt Olson, on top of which they want him for a couple of secondary and tertiary players makes the chats somewhat of a joke, not that I’m blaming MLBTR. I’m not sure if it is hardcore wishful thinking on the fans’ part but who knows. Hell for all I know, I’m sure I’ve proposed crazy trade scenarios in favor of the Yankees once or twice.
The questions I get tired of the most are:
“Do you think owners are negotiating with players through back channels?”
&
“Why can’t Seyia Suzuki negotiate with teams when he wasn’t on a 40 man roster last season?”
Or
“Why don’t players just sign minor league deals to get around the lockout?”
It’s always those same 3 questions every chat and it’s always the exact same answer. I have a question. Why don’t they go and read the past chat transcripts so they can find the answers without even having to ask the question? They shouldn’t even have to do that. The answers are so obvious anyway. Regardless they are always asked. It’s guaranteed every chat.
I hadn’t considered deGrom but that guy has the worst luck when it comes to run support. Assuming a full season of healthy deGrom, I could see maybe 6-90, and “qualifying” for the 30th post season spot.
I’m not sure who everyone thinks pays these players but i wish it was only baseball fans because those taxes and tv deals affect much more of the general pop. As more people cut the cord these enormous tv deals will crumble from an already declining overall fanbase. Do less fans equal more money? Less fans equal more marketing money? I suppose less fans might equal less child labor sweatshops but even that cruelty would have trickledown effects. Mlbtr are you guys getting kickbacks from the union for being so anti-owner? Let me in on that lol
The host literally just said that the owners take on “no risk” by spending billions of dollars buying and running teams. If that’s not clear evidence of bias I don’t know what is. I would love to see anyone who actually purchased a baseball team say there is “no risk” in doing so. I promise you won’t find a single one. No wonder so many commenters on this site support the union know matter what. They keep drinking the Kool-Aid from anti-owner writers. It always cracks me up when a freaking writer acts like he understands the economics of baseball more than the people who actually bought a baseball team. If you’ve never spent billions of dollars to buy a baseball team, don’t assume there is “no risk” in doing so unless you are told that by someone who actually has. I am certain no one who has ever bought an MLB team has ever said that to anyone so for a writer to determine that on his own is pretty laughable. And I like Mark Polishuk. That comment was really off base though and showed serious signs of anti-owner bias.
How many owners of baseball teams have gone bankrupt because revenue was insufficient to maintain the business? I’m not 100% sure, since maybe some owner did lose his business in the early days of the game. But, in modern times, it’s zero.
What owners complain about is not making as much money as some other owners. A business with a history of no one going bankrupt sounds to me to be as close to “no risk” as anyone can get. The only risk it seems is not making as much money as they would like.
Anyone who says that there’s no risk owning any business has never run a business period. It’s literally impossible to eliminate all risk owning any business.
So I agree, a very biased anti owner comment, and I’m fairly neutral regarding the negotiations.
You can’t compare a business like baseball, with a built-in clientele, to something like a start-up. That’s a false equivalency. I’ve a been part of two start-ups, one of which I was a partner in my own business. And I believe that owning a baseball team is as “no-risk” as any business can possibly be.
Again, name one baseball owner that went bankrupt, because the business of baseball was risky. Until someone does, “no risk” is an applicable description. Maybe that bias label belongs somewhere else.
Just because they are extremely unlikely to go bankrupt isn’t anywhere close to the same thing as “no risk.” You can still lose a ton of money without going bankrupt. If people stop paying attention to the game because of the lockout or other reasons and the baseball fan base continues to dwindle the owners stand to lose a lot of money. Especially now that they are spending so much to buy the teams. The value of a team could drop by a billion dollars and not go bankrupt. That’s still losing a billion dollars. That’s a ton of risk. Pretty much the opposite of “no risk.” Another pandemic could pop up anytime and that would result in owners losing a ton of money every year until a solution comes around. That’s another serious potential risk. Anytime you invest that much money in anything there is a ton of risk involved. He didn’t even say something like “less risky than other investments” or “less risky than most people think.” He literally said “no risk.” As in no risk at all. Whatsoever. How ridiculous. Nothing could be further from the truth. And how the heck would he know that owning a baseball team is this miracle 100% fully secure investment? He’s writer. He’s never owned a baseball team. If baseball really were this miracle zero risk investment that he says, some current or former baseball owner would have said so by now. Why has anyone ever sold their team ever? If there is “no risk” in owning a baseball team that would make it even less risky than taking the cash because of the inflation. If there were no risk no one would ever have sold a baseball team because it would be the best investment in human history.
People cutting the cord is irrelevant. It would only be relevant if people cut the cord and did not watch TV anymore. It’s not about cable fees, it’s about advertising. I dropped cable awhile ago, but I still watch as many baseball games as I always did, and see just as many commercials as when I had cable.
Tad. Tens of millions of people that follow baseball not even a smidge pay for cable packages that include espn, mlb network, fox, fox sports, wgn, tbs, yes etc etc. Are they going to watch baseball after cutting it? Cable providers want to survive too there will be much cheaper options where you can pick your channels within a few years and hard times it will be for less popular and unwatched. the point really was that if/when advertising money goes awry other revenues will fall as well, taxes are only going up, god knows the players want more and more; who will be left to pay for it? MLB and the owners just gonna suck it up? Theres a reason for the rule changes and other stuff, they are trying to keep the fans they have but until they find a way to actually grow the fan base…..
First the A’s were going to “slash payroll”. Now it’s a complete teardown “fire sale”…you know, even after it was announced the A’s were going to start receiving revenue sharing dollars, again. Top notch analysis.
Not sure where all the pro-owner/anti-player bias comes from, but it makes little sense. Too many people are missing the forest, for you know what.
All sports are entertainment. And athletes are poorly paid compared to other entertainers that reach the highest levels. For example, I just saw that Adele bought, what was described as “a hideaway in Beverly Hills” from Sylvester Stallone, for $58M.
Trevor Noah is worth $100M. Matthew McConaughey $140M. Kevin Costner is worth $250M. Jennifer Anniston is worth$300M. Plus athletes have much shorter careers than other entertainers.
Sure players are wealthy, but owners are the super wealthy, and personally I’d like to see both making less, with people like teachers, making more. But since that ain’t happening, I can’t root for the super wealthy over the simply wealthy.
The problem isn’t athletes making too much money, it’s the huge, and growing, discrepancy between the wealthy and the middle class. The money that baseball players make is just a tree in a huge problematic forest.
The stars might be wealthy, but the actor who is at the tail end of the movie credits is probably only making scale and has to room with 3-5 other actors to make rent. Maybe you can get lucky and bounce around and get a few parts but the difference is actors can transition as they age. Baseball players are held to their performance. A good entertainment agent can get bad actors work for a career. Look at Zach Braff.
You missed the part where I compared athletes and entertainers that had reached the highest levels. What you describe is no different, but probably better, than the lower levels of sports. The actors that make scale, and never more than that, are similar to players in the minor leagues.
The difference, as you point out with Zach Braff, is that actors can get bit parts for decades, but 10 years is probably the max for a MiL career. Just think that every year about 1,800 players are drafted, and if the average ML career is, say 5 years, that’s 9,000 players for only 1,200 spots on a 40-man roster. And that only guarantees a guy league minimum.
So what are the players planning on conceding today? Bathrooms in the clubhouse? Per diem meals? 60 team playoffs? The “Union” is looking more like Poland and France in WWII with each passing day.
What a absurd comment. A legit war is going on and your making quips about spoiled players and comparing their situation to WWII. Geez…
“SPOILED OWNERS!”
That’s right, I don’t think Mike Trout is like Stan Musial, But Christian Yelich might be like Ted Williams?
Perhaps I was being a bit insensitive. But then again, American itself had been in a “legit war” in two different regions of the world for well over 10 years recently. There are massive amounts of human atrocities going on all over the world and have been well before the Ukraine incident (which I very much empathize with and donated to in the first couple of days of the incident). You call them “spoiled players” but that is just being hypocritical because you would do the exact same thing in their situation.
Switch to decaf for like a week.
…or maybe forever.
FSF, it makes the guys uncomfortable when we talk about what’s going on in the world.
I had to just leave off.
People know about it, but they come here and to baseball to escape from it for a bit.
It’s escape reading, or escape entertainment.
So I try to be sensitive about it.
But your points are well taken here.
Yeah, the Bushes sure are standing tall and proud right about now….? Bagram intern camp? War and anyone who profits from it, they make a deal with the devil daily and we all get to live with it? It’s ok though so long as a wage is being paid and a wage is being taxed? What’s the route of all evil again? It’s not the Dark Side of the Moon, even though it made Money?
france was a winner in the end.
Only after the US bailed them out
we achieved indepedance with the help of france.
Geez, that is a dumb take, FSF.
Well, I had to dumb it down for the likes of people like you.
I remember a lot of people complaining about the 106-win Dodgers being treated like a wild card team last season. The ghost win concept would have made it even easier for the 88-win Braves to beat the 106-win Dodgers. The Dodgers also spent a lot more money than any other team in baseball last year and the ghost win would have hurt them in every way. Outspend everyone in baseball. Win 106 games. The 88-win Braves will get an unearned ghost win against you. I’m I the only one who doesn’t see how that’s beneficial for the players?
dumbest troll!
The owners do not get any broadcast rights fees for “ghost wins” so that’s a non-starter for MLB. And I suspect “ghost wins” are just a throwaway item for the MLBPA.
Can we keep all results to actual happenings? I hated the runner on 2B because the run is assigned to no one. I see teams in other sports striving to get home field advantage. I don’t understand why they feel it won’t happen in baseball. Yeah, if your the 13th seed and not close to 7th, it may effect your outlook on home field, but that will happen with or without a phantom win. If the 15th and 16th are nipping your heels, that changes things, too. I don’t want to see a best out of four or best out of six. Play the games and then a team can legitimately say they won!
I like how he said there is “no risk” in owning a baseball team. Anytime you spend hundreds of millions or billions of dollars buying something and then spend hundreds more millions every year just to run it there is a ton of risk involved. No matter what it is.
I thought that guy’s question was very rude and I would have never asked it like that but it’s answers like this that make people like him feel that way. The value of baseball teams may have gone up recently but they’ve vacillated up and down before. Ask Disney if there was risk in them buying the Angels. They won the World Series and still lost money on that deal. Especially with this lockout it is very possible the overall value of teams will decline. It’s also very possible that this is the absolute top of the market for baseball teams and their price has nowhere to go but down. We just don’t know.
There is definitely an ton of financial risk in owning a baseball team. Any statement to the contrary is extremely out of touch and really does scream the player bias that chatter was bringing up. “The prices of Major League Baseball teams has gone up recently. There will never be risk in owning one again!” What?!
You’re not understanding all of the benefits of ownership. I agree there is some “risk” in owning a baseball team, but it is substantially less than most businesses. All teams are either owned by someone who paid almost nothing for it and a handful that paid large sums. Those who inherited or bought decades ago are all doing just fine. The ones who bought recently are sitting on HUGE tax deductions where literally half their purchase (on a nominal basis) gets funded by the government.
Just two years ago, their investment was substantially hurt by a global pandemic. It even had lingering effect last year. If viewership continues to drop, its not that hard to see future declines in revenue.
I don’t see where franchise values have declined. They had a year of bad profits or even losses and tried to put as much of that on the players’ plates as possible. Most teams are already locked into long term broadcasting revenue rights and the ones that aren’t are all projected to have MASSIVE increases in annual revenue when they negotiate their next rounds.
Always the same questions. Where is Adell,Marsh and and Cruz and Freeman going. What are the A’s and Tigers going to do. What will The Jays sign. blah blah blah same people asking the same questions.
They want validation from a MLBTR writer.
Very true. The chats are very repetitive and ultimately, the only real answer is that we will all see what happens eventually.
If I had a nickel for every fanbase that asked about trading for Matt Olson, on top of which they want him for a couple of secondary and tertiary players makes the chats somewhat of a joke, not that I’m blaming MLBTR. I’m not sure if it is hardcore wishful thinking on the fans’ part but who knows. Hell for all I know, I’m sure I’ve proposed crazy trade scenarios in favor of the Yankees once or twice.
The questions I get tired of the most are:
“Do you think owners are negotiating with players through back channels?”
&
“Why can’t Seyia Suzuki negotiate with teams when he wasn’t on a 40 man roster last season?”
Or
“Why don’t players just sign minor league deals to get around the lockout?”
It’s always those same 3 questions every chat and it’s always the exact same answer. I have a question. Why don’t they go and read the past chat transcripts so they can find the answers without even having to ask the question? They shouldn’t even have to do that. The answers are so obvious anyway. Regardless they are always asked. It’s guaranteed every chat.
Who are the Guardians?
96-game season. Mets finish 3-93.
Isn’t that a bit optimistic for Mets’ fans?
10-86 if deGrom is healthy.
I hadn’t considered deGrom but that guy has the worst luck when it comes to run support. Assuming a full season of healthy deGrom, I could see maybe 6-90, and “qualifying” for the 30th post season spot.
DeGrom should get better run support this year. Meaning he might win a couple of games where he tosses a shut out.
I’m not sure who everyone thinks pays these players but i wish it was only baseball fans because those taxes and tv deals affect much more of the general pop. As more people cut the cord these enormous tv deals will crumble from an already declining overall fanbase. Do less fans equal more money? Less fans equal more marketing money? I suppose less fans might equal less child labor sweatshops but even that cruelty would have trickledown effects. Mlbtr are you guys getting kickbacks from the union for being so anti-owner? Let me in on that lol
I have noticed MLBTR is very anti-owner.
The host literally just said that the owners take on “no risk” by spending billions of dollars buying and running teams. If that’s not clear evidence of bias I don’t know what is. I would love to see anyone who actually purchased a baseball team say there is “no risk” in doing so. I promise you won’t find a single one. No wonder so many commenters on this site support the union know matter what. They keep drinking the Kool-Aid from anti-owner writers. It always cracks me up when a freaking writer acts like he understands the economics of baseball more than the people who actually bought a baseball team. If you’ve never spent billions of dollars to buy a baseball team, don’t assume there is “no risk” in doing so unless you are told that by someone who actually has. I am certain no one who has ever bought an MLB team has ever said that to anyone so for a writer to determine that on his own is pretty laughable. And I like Mark Polishuk. That comment was really off base though and showed serious signs of anti-owner bias.
How many owners of baseball teams have gone bankrupt because revenue was insufficient to maintain the business? I’m not 100% sure, since maybe some owner did lose his business in the early days of the game. But, in modern times, it’s zero.
What owners complain about is not making as much money as some other owners. A business with a history of no one going bankrupt sounds to me to be as close to “no risk” as anyone can get. The only risk it seems is not making as much money as they would like.
Anyone who says that there’s no risk owning any business has never run a business period. It’s literally impossible to eliminate all risk owning any business.
So I agree, a very biased anti owner comment, and I’m fairly neutral regarding the negotiations.
You can’t compare a business like baseball, with a built-in clientele, to something like a start-up. That’s a false equivalency. I’ve a been part of two start-ups, one of which I was a partner in my own business. And I believe that owning a baseball team is as “no-risk” as any business can possibly be.
Again, name one baseball owner that went bankrupt, because the business of baseball was risky. Until someone does, “no risk” is an applicable description. Maybe that bias label belongs somewhere else.
Just because they are extremely unlikely to go bankrupt isn’t anywhere close to the same thing as “no risk.” You can still lose a ton of money without going bankrupt. If people stop paying attention to the game because of the lockout or other reasons and the baseball fan base continues to dwindle the owners stand to lose a lot of money. Especially now that they are spending so much to buy the teams. The value of a team could drop by a billion dollars and not go bankrupt. That’s still losing a billion dollars. That’s a ton of risk. Pretty much the opposite of “no risk.” Another pandemic could pop up anytime and that would result in owners losing a ton of money every year until a solution comes around. That’s another serious potential risk. Anytime you invest that much money in anything there is a ton of risk involved. He didn’t even say something like “less risky than other investments” or “less risky than most people think.” He literally said “no risk.” As in no risk at all. Whatsoever. How ridiculous. Nothing could be further from the truth. And how the heck would he know that owning a baseball team is this miracle 100% fully secure investment? He’s writer. He’s never owned a baseball team. If baseball really were this miracle zero risk investment that he says, some current or former baseball owner would have said so by now. Why has anyone ever sold their team ever? If there is “no risk” in owning a baseball team that would make it even less risky than taking the cash because of the inflation. If there were no risk no one would ever have sold a baseball team because it would be the best investment in human history.
Oneofthesedays:
People cutting the cord is irrelevant. It would only be relevant if people cut the cord and did not watch TV anymore. It’s not about cable fees, it’s about advertising. I dropped cable awhile ago, but I still watch as many baseball games as I always did, and see just as many commercials as when I had cable.
Tad. Tens of millions of people that follow baseball not even a smidge pay for cable packages that include espn, mlb network, fox, fox sports, wgn, tbs, yes etc etc. Are they going to watch baseball after cutting it? Cable providers want to survive too there will be much cheaper options where you can pick your channels within a few years and hard times it will be for less popular and unwatched. the point really was that if/when advertising money goes awry other revenues will fall as well, taxes are only going up, god knows the players want more and more; who will be left to pay for it? MLB and the owners just gonna suck it up? Theres a reason for the rule changes and other stuff, they are trying to keep the fans they have but until they find a way to actually grow the fan base…..
IMO, the ghost win is a stupid concept
First the A’s were going to “slash payroll”. Now it’s a complete teardown “fire sale”…you know, even after it was announced the A’s were going to start receiving revenue sharing dollars, again. Top notch analysis.
Not sure where all the pro-owner/anti-player bias comes from, but it makes little sense. Too many people are missing the forest, for you know what.
All sports are entertainment. And athletes are poorly paid compared to other entertainers that reach the highest levels. For example, I just saw that Adele bought, what was described as “a hideaway in Beverly Hills” from Sylvester Stallone, for $58M.
Trevor Noah is worth $100M. Matthew McConaughey $140M. Kevin Costner is worth $250M. Jennifer Anniston is worth$300M. Plus athletes have much shorter careers than other entertainers.
Sure players are wealthy, but owners are the super wealthy, and personally I’d like to see both making less, with people like teachers, making more. But since that ain’t happening, I can’t root for the super wealthy over the simply wealthy.
The problem isn’t athletes making too much money, it’s the huge, and growing, discrepancy between the wealthy and the middle class. The money that baseball players make is just a tree in a huge problematic forest.
The stars might be wealthy, but the actor who is at the tail end of the movie credits is probably only making scale and has to room with 3-5 other actors to make rent. Maybe you can get lucky and bounce around and get a few parts but the difference is actors can transition as they age. Baseball players are held to their performance. A good entertainment agent can get bad actors work for a career. Look at Zach Braff.
You missed the part where I compared athletes and entertainers that had reached the highest levels. What you describe is no different, but probably better, than the lower levels of sports. The actors that make scale, and never more than that, are similar to players in the minor leagues.
The difference, as you point out with Zach Braff, is that actors can get bit parts for decades, but 10 years is probably the max for a MiL career. Just think that every year about 1,800 players are drafted, and if the average ML career is, say 5 years, that’s 9,000 players for only 1,200 spots on a 40-man roster. And that only guarantees a guy league minimum.