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The author thinks that the As not spending enough is a bigger issue than the Mets overspending. That reveals the strong biases this site has towards owners and the obsession with getting players paid as much as possible. It’s rather sad, but this site is still decent for baseball commentary.
At least to me, the As kinda have a reason to spend less. I get the selling off your young players stinks to the fan base, and, stinks because it’s the strategy that saves thr cash and gives the low payroll.
But the coliseum is a DUMP. And, if your goal is to fix bad facilities, and effectively set up your franchise for a longer term better situation ala braves, you want to bank cash to put towards the answer.
Short term loss in competitiveness, long term gain all over. So, keep expenses down, build the war chest, and give them time. Outside the coliseum there’s no reason to believe that, much like the braves, the As don’t have a shot of moving from Rev sharing recipient to Rev sharing payor.
Don’t think the Braves have ever been a “Rev sharing recipient.”
The issue is actually two-fold as the A’s not spending and Cohen playing fantasy Baseball are both problematic and represent what is considered the huge disparity between the handful of haves and the handful of have nots. A salary floor and cap are the only true ways to fix this but owners on both sides of the issue will continue to resist and fight against it
And the owners resisting a hard cap are backed by the mlbpa
The owners are in no way resisting a hard cap. To the contrary, they would love to have one. They tried to get one in the past, but will not push the issue, because they know if they did, it would create an impasse that would result in no baseball at all. It’s the hill the players are willing to die on. This is clearly shown in the history of CBA negotiations.
A hard cap will never, ever be adopted, and the owners know this. And they know them trying to get one would be a fruitless enterprise, no matter how much they would like to have one.
Is what Cohen’s doing problematic? I believe that remains an open question, but hardly settled. He indicated he wants to make the Mets consistently competitive. First step was he’d spend big short term on the big league roster, while building up his minor leagues to slowly replace the higher priced players. He is following through on that, although how successful he’ll be with the minors is TBD. Early returns are positive as the farm has greatly improved depth wise. His deals for Verlander and Scherzer are short term. He has a ton of money coming off the books. I suspect he will drop below the first luxury tax tier before the next CBA, just as the Dodgers are doing now, the Yankees do every few years, the Red Sox do too. They’re all playing within the established framework. We don’t know if Cohen will, but we’ll know within a couple years, but it’s highly likely he will because he knows the other owners will take action. He has a window.
The issue is not teams spending to win. It’s a handful of teams who consistently don’t spend and pocket the money from revenue sharing and national TV contracts and don’t turn it back into their product. How are they helping to expand the game? We have penalties at the top end, but there are no penalties at the low end. Not only are there no penalties, there are rewards. We know there are well run teams and poorly run teams. Hard caps and floors don’t impact that, but it does cap player earnings and increases owner profits.
If MLB one day has hard caps, many of the same fan bases will be complaining if their same ownership and management remains in place.
It would be hard to get breaking info from agents and players to do chats if they weren’t holding poverty franchises like the A’s accountable, I would think. My Braves are a blueprint for what getting a new stadium and surrounding development can do for a payroll. The A’s need to get something done stat.
I think Cohen spending the way he does is bad for baseball as well, but as long as he is buying guys in their mid thirties with limited ability and 40 year old pitchers, I don’t see it netting them anything.
There’s a limit to what you can buy as well. People make a big deal because it’s the first jump in payroll, but, you can’t start DFAing deals with 100 or 150m left on them or soon even Cohen’s money is gone. They made a huge investment in this class. And now they’ve got a a little pile of contracts nobody will touch. Maybe they grab a couple more next offseason off the thin market. But soon Cohen has a 740m payroll+tax penalties bill if you do that a couple years in a row.
It’ll sort of work it’s way out, and if need be, they’ll make a nuclear level 250% tax bracket in a couple years.
The world will go on.
With all the players coming off the books, the Mets are at about $253 million in CBT payroll in 2024. The following year they are at $128 million.
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1npn_xiAwVyCUkZf6t2…
Obviously, they are going to have to replace those players and I think a few are player options, but maybe some players are added internally and not by spending $100 million.
The A’s don’t have to look to your Braves for inspiration. The very thing happened seven miles away from Oakland, after the Giants opened their waterfront ballpark in 2000. With the exception of a couple of seasons, the Giants have been in the mix every year since then and have claimed 3 world titles. The bigger problem for the A’s, though, is that the Giants’ success has rendered the Elephants nearly irrelevant in Northern California. They have little community presence, far fewer corporate tie-ins than the Giants, and no brand identity. A new ballpark won’t fix that.
There’s also that whole pesky media rights thing looming over the teams that should’ve reverted back, but, didnt…
I’ll never understand how anyone is opposed to the players getting paid. They’re the product, they’re why you watch.
The money is always there, and no matter what the cost of attending will continue to go up, regardless of salary. It’s no different than wages for your average American. People complain about how *if* wages go up, the cost of things will go up. Look around; that already happens every year.
Anything the players don’t get goes to the owners. Silly me, I think the ones who provide the on-field show should get as much as they can.
You are silly, indeed. Rooting for players to get overpaid (not “paid”) is like feeling sorry that fortune 500 company CEOs only make an average of a few hundred times the median salary and that the excess goes to those greedy shareholders. Don’t you realize that MLB team have lots of employees outside of players? Look up the staff, and you will see dozens of managers. Read this and see how the main guys alome are over 100. Add the lower level guys too who aren’t listed. mlb.com/nationals/team/front-office
The money could go to raises, bonuses, parties, and other things, just like the money would at other companies. Ask people at work if they feel sorry for the CEO only making 200 times instead of 300 times their salary if you are at a big company. It’s players + staff + owners. Boras has brainwashed people into thinking it’s just 2 groups, but there are more. If anything, focus on minor leaguers, not millionaires. Sure, players are fun to watch, but they are otherwise just as greedy, privileged, and whiny as CEOs. The Nats alone have multiple owners, not all of whom can be billionaires. Remember Derek Jeter, the owner?
The owners earned revenue of $11.5 billion in 2022 according to Manfred. That does not include the final $900 million installment in the sale of BAM.
The players made $4.56 billion of that $11.5 billion.
We know from seeing the books of the Braves and the Blue Jays that non-baseball player related expenses for baseball teams is around $130 million. That includes facilities and all of the execs, FO, coaches, trainers, scouts, salespeople, ticket takers, ushers, security, maintenance, and everyone else on the team payroll other than the players.
You do the math.
There is a huge chunk of money that the MLB players are UNDER paid. Over $2 billion as of 2022.
deGrom Texas Ranger, Your comparison makes zero sense. CEOs are more comparable to the owners than the players, and even that is a bad comparison. Corporate structure is different from team ownership. There is nothing like corporate boards voting CEO salaries in MLB. Plus CEOs sometimes get multimillion dollar salaries despite their corporations losing money. If a player doesn’t perform he’s gone.
In baseball the owners are still taking a much larger slice of the pie when it comes to profits than the players are. The players are more comparable to the workers., except in MLB the players are also the product. All in all trying to compare the somewhat unique aspect of professional sports to corporations is what’s silly.
That’s just wrong. Players are guaranteed contracts when they hit free agency. Look at how Prince Fielder kept collecting 24 million shamelessly for several years when he wasn’t even playing. Releasing a guy means you have to pay for his salary. CEOs are “gone” right after they stop performing, too. They actually get a lot of money in bonuses based on performance. Players are guaranteed a whole lot more money. Same for Strasburg, Corbin, Yelich, etc.
What’s wrong is saying CEOs are gone when they stop performing.
The only way players and CEOs are similar is CEOs are under contract, just like players. And they will also get paid until the contract expires, no matter what their performance.
The Expedia CEO was paid over $292M in 2021. The Warner Bros CEO was paid over $246M in 2021. And the Amazon CEO was paid over $212M in 2021. That’s more than most players make in their entire careers, and in one year about what the highest paid players get in 10 years,
Players and CEOs are not comparable.
Most CEOs aren’t that well-paid. Those are the richest fortune 500 company CEOs. Look at regular CEOs. This is only 1 reference point, but 160k is lower than minimum wages in MLB. payscale.com/research/US/Job=Chief_Executive_Offic…
As far as the CEOs that you’re referring to, there are way more of them than there are players that reach MLB. You’re right, the average CEO makes less than an MLB player. But according to Google there are over 38,708 CEOs in the US. That’s way more even than the approximately 5,000 MiL players.
Multiplying the average CEO salary times the number of CEOs means they are collectively being paid over $6.16B. (That’s a ‘B’ for billion.)
Since there are only 750 players on ML rosters, they’re more comparable to the Fortune 500 CEOs than they are to the average CEO. That average CEO salary is worthless as a comparison tool for MLB players.
Take the top 100 CEOs and compare their salaries the top 100 MLB players over the past 2 seasons.
The CEOs are paid 11 times as much money.
In 2021 there were 6,819,150 C or S corporations in the US. Tht is JUST the US.
In 2021 there were 1508 players that played in at least 1 game that came from 27 different countries.
Giving average CEO salaries is an apples to oranges comparison when you consider how many CEOs there are and how few MLB players there are.
In 2021 1208 players saw action in at least one game. That is a record. I think I typed 1508 in another post. Sorry about that.
There are 1200 on 40 man rosters at any one time. In a typical year, all of them do not see action in the majors. Only about 900 typically do.
MLB player compensation is limited through the first 3 season and then paid based on arbitration for 3 more seasons. That is not the case for CEOs.
Fortune 500 CEO compensation averaged $15.9 million.
MLB player compensation averaged $4.41 million in 2022.
The A’s not spending IS more problematic.
Have you ever heard the expression “any publicity is good publicity”? It rings true, the Mets spending like drunken sailors, along with the Padres for that matter, is good for baseball. It gets the media talking, puts baseball in talking space in the national media, which is a struggle during football season.
Also, like it or not, big market teams being good is good for baseball. The last thing baseball needs is prolonged periods where the Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers etc are not competitive. Saying half the league drives the revenue of baseball is being generous, it’s closer to maybe 30%.
Small market teams not being profitable is on them. St. Louis isn’t a massive media market but they draw very well and are a profitable team. St Louis is also a great stadium in a good area with a lot to do within walking distance. Their ownership invested around the stadium to draw more fans and more revenue.
Mlbs profit sharing/competitive balance rules are in place to help small market teams. The problem is the teams like the A’s exploit the profit sharing system to turn larger profits vs improving the product. Look at the colosseum, it’s one of the oldest parks in baseball aside from the actual historic parks like Fenway and Wrigley. The A’s do not improve it, they do not invest in the area, the city refuses to build them a new stadium because they don’t do anything for the city. Meanwhile, A’s ownership is just happy to make a profit and make Beane a part owner so he is encouraged to keep payroll down as well.
On the flip side, “cheap Tom Ricketts” invested a billion dollars renovating Wrigley without a penny coming from the city, bought building surrounding the park, created a baseball village, invested in the city, went above the luxury tax for a few years, did a quick reset and now are pushing the luxury tax threshold again. Yes, the Cubs make more money than the A’s but they also could have cried poor by claiming they were over 2 billion dollars in debt from buying the team and renovating Wrigley. Instead they spent money on the future and fielding a competitive, World Series winning team.
Hey, TrumboJumbo in first with another first comment! Changing your name doesn’t mean you are any less of a loser.
I almost miss that weirdo Mets fan from a few years back. And I’m not taking metsfan22
Whatever happened to crazy Mets dude. Locked up because Jan 6th maybe?
I’ve asked myself the same thing. He was odd, but not combative like Metsfan22; so he’s not Ashli Babbitt. Maybe he’s George Santos?
5x Grammy award winner, 3x golden spikes awardee, George Santos.
After the Mets playoff loss, he became horribly depressed, got addicted to smack, and has been drifting down the I-95 since.
I-95 is quite long…and which each playoff elimination, he goes further and further down the drain.
First in the comments, first in our hearts. Try-yards like Degrom Texas Ranger drink at his fountain. Just praying to be even a fraction as annoying.
What happened January 6th?
Spectrum planned to drop 22 channels. Including CorncobTV.
They’re saying they want to drop Corncob because they showed over 400 naked dead bodies on their show Coffin Flop!
Agree that most FO’s evaluate players similarly. But that usually refers to established ML players.
Teams such as the Rays, Astros, and Guardians continuously make great trades by taking on guys either in the minors or on another teams bench. Years ago Cleveland had a trade piece in Cory Kluber. They traded him to Texas for a so-so CF and a prospect that threw hard on the Rangers bench – Emmanuel Clase. They knew Brad Hand was heading downhill as a closer and that they would need one as they were going into a rebuild-on-the-fly. They had James Karinchak in the minors and figured they could develop either him or Clase into a closer in a few years. Clase emerged and is now one of the best closers in MLB. At the time Cleveland was made fun of for the Kluber – trade especially in the comment section of MLBTR.
The point being that if you’re playing rotisserie baseball and want to make a trade for this year, then yes everyone sees available player the same way. But the smart teams are looking at where they want to be in 1-3 years, and what their coaching staffs can do with an available player in that time.
It’s a make or break year for Joey Gallo for sure.
Dalbec and Duran for Jazz?
I believe Marlins pass on that offer.
Ya.
Yeah whoever suggested that is insane
I think Bloom would get laughed out of his own front office for even suggesting that
Mayer, Dalbec, and Duran maybe.
Ignored all questions on Bauer, yet again. But, no collusion or anything. Not at all. Nope. Hard to take a site seriously that refuses to chat about the best free agent available. Par for the course around here, instead we’ll chat about guys with 5-6 ERA’s and pretend they’ll be difference makers. It’s almost comical at this point.
I’m assuming you asked about Bauer, but how do you know if anyone else did? And if there are no rumors of any team signing him, what’s the point?
They are super anti-Bauer, but they haven’t been quite as crazy of late. They did answer one question recently, and at least they didn’t go completely crazy on Chapman. I think they are trying to become a bit more sane and balanced, though I could be wrong.
Probably the most talented free agent remaining, but, I don’t know about best. He’s got the radioactive PR side of things going on lately.
I mean, what question would you want answered that isn’t obvious or completely unknown? Bauer, in theory, makes sense for baseball reasons for most of baseball, but as things stand we know nothing of his interest in destination, or who is interested in him. And it’s not flippin collusion if no one wants the guy. Knowing the bum he is he’s perfectly fine languishing in the cash he already has.
Other than the 3 seasons, 2018, 2020, and 2021, in which Bauer himself has bragged publicly that he cheated by using spider tack and other sticky substances on the ball, his ERA is 4.42. He was never good without cheating and the cheating he did isn’t possible today.
He hasn’t pitched in nearly 2 years.
In what universe is he a top FA?
Its comical to even try to say that he is worth much of anything at all as a ballplayer to a team even without the huge PR hit any team stupid enough to sign him would have to bear.
He’s likely the most talented remaining by process of elimination. You combine ability with age and injury history (durability) and he’s probably the best left, the rest are pretty rough by now.
As someone who went to school for journalism once upon a time….I appreciate mlbtraderumors so much. They don’t post for clicks. They don’t offer “controversial” opinions on the completely irrelevant, but hot topics of the day. They don’t deal in absolutes with the predictions and in the chat; they simply give information and genuine, educated speculation.
Why do you WANT to talk about Bauer? That’s the question you should be asking yourself. What is there to say about such an awful subject; that is already over and done with from a baseball perspective? He will get signed, he will play, the world will continue to spin; and hopefully he and the incidents in question won’t get anymore unnecessary attention.
SODO- I can’t speak for those who bring him up initially. For myself, it’s an opportunity for one season to get a guy who, at his worst, can be a mid rotation starter, a solid #3/4 guy with big league experience and only cost LESS THAN MLB-minimum.
That’s a whole lot for almost nothing. And, I presume, it’s even cheaper than that because arguably the signing team gets the credit for the salary being forfeited, that’s why I say less than minimum.
You won’t get more pitching production for less money from any remaining player that’s a FA. And, IF he plays, it’s likely with a chip on his shoulder. That makes him an even more interesting piece to muse about where he may wind up.
That makes it worthy content. But, these days more than ever before, optics do drive some moves and this will be one facing that impact
Less than MLB minimum? What loophole is this? I always thought even released guys get at least the minimum.
Something about the abitration having him not get paid for his first 50 games I believe.
Jaysfans said it below degrom.
The contract will be mlb minimum, but, for 50 days the salary will be $0. He has to play (if healthy), but, earns nothing as part of his reinstatement.
So, anyone who signs him will pay 112/162 of the mlb minimum with payments starting at game 51.
Wow! Women are quite expensive!
Well, it’s actually better for Bauer how it worked out. Because he was on a paid leave he got access to those 50 games worth of money back before inflation hit the fan. So he’s invested it, or bought assets, whatever Bauer does with his money, back before everything got more expensive.
From a time-value-of-money perspective, if you asked anyone if they’d rather get paid a set amount today, or, 2 years from now, you pick today since it’s worth more.
It’s also worse for the dodgers. They just said they would count the administrative paid leave as suspension days served if Bauer would agree to forfeit future salary for those same 50 games. So not really a need penalty.
I’m pretty sure that money was paid retroactively.
Greinke is the most talented by far. Greinke is a HOF pitcher if he doesn’t play in 2023 and better today than Bauer in any season when Bauer didn’t admit to cheating.
At his worst, which is any season in which he didn’t cheat, Bauer was a back of the rotation starter. A #5.
If you think the PR hit would not have huge dollar and cent implications for whatever team that would be foolish enough to sign him, I have ocean front property in Arizona I would like to sell you.
“Bauer was never an Ace without cheating. Take away the super tack and he is a 4+ ERA starter. Back of the rotation. He hasnt pitched in a game for a couple seasons so it’s doubtful he does even that well in 2023.
If you owned the team would you be willing to take on the extreme PR hit for a guy that would be your #5 starter?”
Hmm…
So does it say more about them that they don’t devote much time to a guy who isn’t going to be on a baseball roster this season, or about you that despite the stuff he was accused of you want to read and talk about him a bunch? Ever think that maybe they just don’t want to get dragged into a lawsuit? Seriously, why do you care?
Miguel Andujar?? Why on earth would the Giants want another right handed hitting third baseman? (they have 3 who are significantly better than Andujar already) What are you smoking Mark P?
Giants have *three* third basemen??? They don’t have one right now. Just some randos they hope can hold down the corner until a real one falls off the back of truck outside of Willie Mays Plaza.
Their 3 rando 3rd basemen has OPS+ of 140, 120 and 100 and they don’t need an outfielder either. Their up and coming 3rd baseman, Casey Schmitt, is not falling off the turnip truck.
Well, Andujar isn’t a 3rd baseman so…
Says guy who mutes people. Then complains about an unwillingness to chat.
Consider the scout pay, the marketing, analytics, business, and many others they have to pay. People being billionaires doesn’t have much to do with how low a return on investment they go for. If Bill Gates decided to spend billions on payroll, he would soon run out of money. People ignore the clear reality that money in finite and people don’t just blow through it to please fans on the internet.
Miguel Andujar is out of options and comes with a $1.5M+ price tag if anyone claims him. I’d be stunned if he’s claimed.
He’s never been the same since the shoulder surgery. He has some value, but not at $1.5MM and a guaranteed roster spot. I’m not sure if the rules here. If he clears waivers, can he then sign with any team on a minor league deal, or does he clear waivers and the Pirates can assign him to AAA?
If he clears, he can refuse his assignment and become a FA but he’d forfeit that $1.5M. And nobody else is gonna give him that lol
@Mark P. Agree with your thoughts on Orioles strategy. Probably a year away before they go crazy on high end player purchases; whether via trade or FA. It’s not about winning this year. It’s about getting Rodriguez and Hall steady rotation work. What transpires there will determine things; and possibly as soon as the 8/2 trade deadline?