Look at Ray Ray Run

What in the world are you smoking? Right now they're a 100+ loss team easily and you have them winning 81 games. Fedde blows. Kopech blows now. Crochet has never thrown more than 65 innings in a year and that was in college. Soroka blows. If the Sox trade cease, they contend for one of the worst rotations of the past decade easily.

I'm trying to keep up, are you arguing cease doesn't have a lot of value after a guy with zero mlb experience just signed for 300+ million to pitch?

Baltimore will be good for 3 years AT best and then return to bottom dwellers.

My point is most people try to point to the Dodgers and Yankees and say they don't win it all every year because money doesn't buy wins and you can win without spending, look at the rays.

Correa was literally broken which is how they got him from the Mets. Healthy Correa was gone. Buxton they extended at a discount because he's made of glass. He was never a free agent. Royse Lewis and Miguel Sano were never free agent signings by the Twins. Jaysus. This is like me saying uhhh luis robert!! Yes, luis robert is one of the ten best players on the planet imo. No, the Sox will not retain him if he remains at this level through FA. And the Sox aren't one of the financially disadvantaged teams either, they're just disadvantaged because of bad ownership.

And yes, we can argue until we're blue in the face as to whether the Sox could. Of course they could but there's no league incentive for them to do so really (meaning our owner stinks, so tough us). They try to punish tanking in a league where tanking isn't even really valuable. One player isn't turning a roster around in baseball. I'll add this too though, as always not my money so I'd be fine with Sox signing this but for me, this is a crazy contract imo but other pitchers probably happy to see it.

Exactly, pretty soon more teams in bigger markets will lock in their spot annually because that's been the trend already. There's not a single team in the AL central who actually compete for elite talent.

Unless I misread your post, you were implying the Dodgers aren't guaranteed to have a super team. Truth is, in a 5 or 7 game series there's no such thing as a super team in baseball. But over 162 there certainly is and the Dodgers are pretty much guaranteed to be in the playoffs again in 2024 before the season even starts.

The Dodgers have made the playoffs 11 years in a row and won the division 10 of 11 years. The year they finished second they won 106 games. They've gotten to the NLCS or later 6 of those years. Are people just blind to the reality? It's like people arguing the Yankees couldn't buy titles. The Yankees have missed the playoffs 5 times since 1994. They havent had a LOSING season since 1992. The Sox have made the playoffs 5 times since 94 lol. The problem is the gap is getting worse too. People are too busy pointing out the rays as this reason you don't have to spend, yet the rays haven't won a world series ever.

Yeah, I think Forbes is pretty low on team values given they always sell for more, but it's wild the gap between the top and bottom in baseball from a resources standpoint.

Joc made me lol, and Bellinger literally had to take a one year prove it deal. Not sure they really let Machado walk. He was a rental. Of your list the only star they let walk was Seager and it was a miss since their ss situation is a disaster.

The playoffs is a crap shoot. It doesn't change that one playoff spot is locked up every single year and 70% of the league has zero chance of keeping their super star talents in FA.

The Dodgers have spent more money on four players (Freddie, Mookie, Ohtani and yamamoto) in the past two years than 19 teams have spent on their total payrolls since 2009.

The Glasnow move is wild with the extension. I love Glasnow too, but he's made of glass. I wouldn't even count this as a full pitcher acquisition. Cease, Glasnow, Ohtani and etc would be about as filthy as they would be unreliable but... in 2025 it would be crazy good stuff.

1 WAR is probably worth about 11ish million now.

Yeah, better get Eloy out of there so he can't leave a bad influence on all the young future stars like Zach Remillard!

Did I miss the memo in CF?

For a guy who could find himself out of the big leagues in 2 years I'd say so. The floor here is a lot lower than a typical FA. Ceiling also probably a little higher.

I feel like pitching is so much easier to translate from a scouting perspective. The problem with international leagues is similar to the problem with colleges and etc. A guy can make a living off hitting pitches he'd never see in a major league game consistently. Additionally there's just not enough samples off top-tier stuff to draw any concrete conclusions about how they will really respond there.

Sorry to spam; don't have much time to post/jump online these days so try to get it all out in a row! Lets use the Jags as an example. The Jags are a small market joke who just had one of the most embarrassing seasons of all-time under Urban Meyer. They had a QB that was solid though, they brought in a new coach, and now they've been in the hunt two years in a row. A one year turnaround. The NBA, I don't think I need to give examples of one player helping turn a franchise around. The NFL has a TON of players that matter, and the cap forces teams to make tough choices and turn over rosters which turns the league over. Sure an elite QB can carry a team for a decade, but those guys play anywhere that drafts them for the most part. Being bad you are rewarded with that. The important thing about everything above is it comes down to one thing; the fans feel like they always have a CHANCE. Oh my god, we're so bad but the next peyton manning is in this draft!!! In the NBA it's the exact same way, even with the lottery. This keeps engagement up and keeps teams always ready to go all-in. In baseball, a young core as an under market team might get you, what, three years? No way do you get a decade, or 5 years even like you can get from a star QB or an elite NBA talent just from the draft alone. In the NFL too, coaching can literally change your entire opportunity. Baseball needs a cap because they need to evolve and become a game that is decided by the players and not the owners, and the only way to do that is to make it so the financial playing field is even and teams can't load up or trim down to the studs.

Teams don't try to win because with no salary cap you have no salary floor. A salary cap is not a bad thing; it guarantees a fair distribution of revenues to players. It's better than what they have now and it would greatly help the sport and limit this tanking issue you talk about. Even if you tank you have to spend x amount of dollars.

The MLB playoffs are a complete crap shoot. The NBA has less perceived parity because stars dominate the sport and one man can impact so much. The NFL is similar with the QB position -- great QB's are going to be in the hunt. Difference is, great QB's are everywhere, and great players in the NBA are everywhere. Baseball parity problems are different. The MLB is a lot like a college sport in that the same sets of teams are typically challenging every year but they can cycle and have a couple years where their young guys come together at the right time and they're good for 2-3 years before falling off into rebuild oblivion for another 8 years. The cycle between competitive/not-competitive is much more dramatic IMO because one player isn't going to change the tied via a draft, and if you don't spend it's your only way out so it's going to take time.

Do you follow the NBA? How has the middle class shrunk?

How mad are you if you're Toronto and you offered say 10 years 525?

Another source said "the majority" of Ohtani's salary will be deferred in order to mitigate what the Dodgers are charged toward their competitive balance tax payroll on a yearly basis This sounds an awful more like a current-value 10 year 550 million type deal the more and more I read about it. 700 sounds big though, and it is, but it sure is a lot less 25 years from now (still a ton though!).