maxjusttyped

I don't want bad outfield defense either, but if the Sox are going to lock themselves into it, doing so on cheaper guys like Rosario is preferable to me than spending up for Schwaber or Castellanos.

Definitely not my cup a tea of either, but he's a 112 career wRC+ vs RHP and would be acceptable (to me) as a platoon option assuming they'd make meaningful upgrades elsewhere. It's not as good as adding a Bryant or Conforto type, but I think you can get to ~3 WAR in RF between Leury, Sheets, Vaughn, Rosario & Engel.

Don't have the exact #s in front of me, but the Sox were actually pretty close to the previous luxury tax number, IIRC. A lot of the extensions they've done count more against the luxury tax number than their salary for 2022.

I think Bryant and Story are the 2 best FA fits left, but I'm not sure if Reinsdorf will want to spend on that caliber of player. I could live with a Rosario or Joc Pederson type in RF if it meant the Sox acquire a high end 2B or SP option.

It also allows the Sox to spend more without having to worry about hitting the luxury tax threshold, which we know Jerry wouldn't ever cross.

At a similar point on March 1st, the leaks were constant. Every writer on the beat tonight has (basically) been radio silent for a few hours now. Maybe it's a sign the deal is close and no one wants to mess it up by sending out leaks? Or maybe it's nothing. Who knows.

They are. Into the 17th hour of negotiating now.

.

There's a reason Reinsdorf tried blocking Cohen from buying the Mets. He knew what was coming when I guess enough of them did not. Billionaires living in fear of Steve Cohen actually wanting to win is pretty sad.

If the owners are willing to go higher on later years CBT, I think they'll have a deal. It's clear from what's being negotiated that the players have conceded they won't make up lost revenue from previous CBA's, but I don't think a ~15% increase to the CBT (by the final year of the new CBA) is enough for players to sign off on when revenues increased by 30% between 2015-2019. But that's why it's the owners proposal and not the players. I would think this isn't a final offer for tonight. It seems as if the numbers we're seeing now are close enough to be negotiated, so hopefully that is the case and they can reach a deal tonight.

I'm starting to get my hopes up again... sigh. Here we go.

Maybe the players union will cave, in previous CBA's they have, but it's tough for me to envision them signing off on a CBA where the CBT only goes up by ~5% over the life of it. But hopefully this leaking means the numbers are close enough where an actual compromise is possible.

Tom Ricketts - "Here's something I hope baseball fans understand," Ricketts said. "Most baseball owners don't take money out of their team. They raise all the revenue they can from tickets and media rights, and they take out their expenses, and they give all the money left to their GM to spend. "The league itself does not make a lot of cash. I think there is a perception that we hoard cash and we take money out and it's all sitting in a pile we've collected over the years. Well, it isn't. Because no one anticipated a pandemic. No one expects to have to draw down on the reserves from the past. Every team has to figure out a way to plug the hole." "The scale of losses across the league is biblical," Ricketts said. Bill DeWit- "The industry isn't very profitable, to be honest," DeWitt said on 590TheFan in St. Louis. "And I think they [the players] understand that. They think owners are hiding profits. There's been a bit of distrust there. "It's a bit of a zero-sum game. They have by far the best deal of any players in any sport." DeWitt echoed comments made recently by Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts, who said the league doesn't make a lot of cash because owners put most of their revenue back into their teams. Rob Manfred- “We actually hired an investment banker—a really good one, actually—to look at that very issue,” Manfred said. “If you look at a purchase price of franchises, the cash that’s put in during the period of ownership and then what they sold for, historically, the return on those investments is below what you get in the stock market, which looks like the end of the stock market was a lot more risky.” An MLB spokesperson told Forbes on Friday that their business has been barely breakeven recently. “During the last 5 years, based on the audited financial statements shared with the MLBPA, cumulative industry EBITDA is $208 million or an average of $42 million per year,” per MLB’s statement. The league says free cash before capital expenditures, which has averaged $334 million annually, was negative each of those year, primarily from interest payments. Forbes’ profits estimates have skyrocketed in recent years, with salaries essentially flat since 2015 and revenue up well over $1 billion. Just because Reinsdorf hasn't been crying poor personally doesn't mean the owners and Rob Manfred haven't spent the last 2 years doing so.

How can this possibly be true when owners have spent the last 2 years complaining about how broke they are?

https://theathletic.com/3166756/2022/03/06/rosenthal-mlb-willing-to-increase-luxury-tax-if-players-move-in-other-areas-people-with-knowledge-of-leagues-thinking-said/ If I'm giving up too much of what's behind the paywall, I'll remove this.

If > 8 owners don't want to play in April, which I think is a pretty plausible theory, then it isn't possible for both sides to get in a room and agree on *any* deal right now.

https://theathletic.com/3162810/2022/03/04/sources-angels-diamondbacks-reds-and-tigers-owners-opposed-mlb-luxury-tax-increase/

Don't see how he can sign a 1 year deal for less than the qualifying offer given what Syndergaard, Verlander, & Stroman (on a 3 year deal) all signed for. If the tax goes up at all I think big market contenders would gladly scoop him up on a 1 year deal for well above 18M if that's the market he's looking at.