77 Hitmen

The Rays? You mean the team that has won 2 pennants in the last 17 years with a small fanbase, a terrible stadium, and chronically low attendance? I know of another team that has won only 2 pennants over the last century. Their fans shouldn't be casting too much shade on the success of the Rays.

The Dodgers' TV deal alone is worth something like $8B. There's no way in hell the Brewers would ever get a $8B TV deal in the State of Wisconsin. And that doesn't even get into other revenue streams like corporate sponsorships that just aren't comparable in Wisconsin than in Southern California. This ain't the Packers going up against the Rams in the NFL. You can shout that the Brewers should be handing $600M in contracts all you want, but it doesn't make it any more realistic. The Brewers along with the Guardians and the Rays are the best-run, most successful small market teams. What you see from them is the best you're going to get in MLB. They're not a failure, their franchise is a success story. MLB's competitive balance is what is a failure.

Bingo.

2nd longest drought without a post season series win in MLB. Only the Reds have gone longer (1995) without winning a post season series.

How does the upcoming expiration to the CBA affect his free agency? Does some rich team rush to lock him up to a huge contract before the lockout begins? Or does his and other free agencies next fall get stuck in limbo until the impending labor impasse is resolved?

I'm a day late on this, but yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the White Sox winning the AL pennant. It seems like only yesterday and seems like ancient history at the same time to me. https://www.mlb.com/video/white-sox-win-al-pennant-c19971067 I guess we're now half way to a third consecutive 40+ year pennant drought.

When (or I should say "if") MLB fixes its competitive balance issue. If it ends up being a LA vs. Toronto World Series, that'll guarantee 9 big market teams winning the WS in the last 10 seasons. The lone exception was the 2019 Nationals, who are arguably a "medium market" team. Go back the 10 seasons before that and it was almost all big market teams too except for the Cardinals and Royals. Maybe Seattle fans can have more hope as they're also arguably a medium market team, but the small-market Brewers have run an outstanding organization and this is about as far as they can go under the current system. They can outdo the Cubs, but they just can't keep up with $400M behemoths like the Dodgers.

The Bills are going all in on "snow games" - their new $2B new stadium will be outdoors. But about 2/3 of the seats will be covered by a canopy and it'll have a heated playing surface. On the other hand, the Broncos intend to have a retractable roof for their new stadium. The Bills are the outlier in the wave of new NFL stadiums. After spending close to $2B, most teams and cities want a facility that can be used year-round for events even in the dead of winter. I like how the stadiums in Arizona and Vegas have natural grass because they have a system that rolls the playing surface outside so that grass can grow. If the Bears do indeed build a domed stadium in Arlington Heights, it would be nice if it had that kind of playing surface arrangement. It looks like US Bank in MN conveys some of that "day game" feel thanks to its glass roof. However, based on what I've seen on TV, Allegiant Stadium in Vegas has a roof that's more opaque translucent as if it were a completely cloudy day outside. Perhaps that's to block out more of the intense Nevada sunlight?

The Browns and the city of Cleveland have reached a deal to settle their legal dispute regarding the team's plan to build a domed stadium in suburban Brook Park. The team will pay the city $100M as part of the deal. https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/46585926/haslams-cleveland-reach-deal-move-browns-brook-park

He's been alienating fans almost from the get-go and his numerous PR blunders have been discussed ad nauseum. But Jerry really squandered a couple of golden opportunities to build the Sox into a marketable, big-market team. First when the State of Illinois gifted him a new stadium at gun point and he had a soulless dud of a facility built that focused on luxury suites and corporate clients over the regular fans. Then second was after they won the World Series. Instead of building on momentum from that championship by pouring resources into the farm system and high-quality free agents, we ended up with 2 decades of mostly teams that were underachievers at best. I wonder how much lack of corporate sponsorship factors into them having the 2nd lowest revenue in the league.

And those aren't cheap seats. Right behind home plate in what looks to be Toronto's version of Scout Seats at an ALCS game. How much do those cost?

Yeah, and there's also the whole Twins sale debacle where the Pohlads had one buyer back out and then couldn't find another buyer for the team before they decided to keep the team and bring in additional investors. That doesn't happen because of "paper losses". So much for the theory that there are lots of billionaires out there waiting in the wings who would jump at the chance to join the exclusive club of owning one of only 30 MLB teams because they're all such huge money makers and great investments. Hey, don't get me wrong, I don't feel sorry for Jerry Reinsdorf one bit. He squandered away a respectable market share and strong fan loyalty over the years with all his terrible decisions and actions and has essentially turned the Sox into a small market team within a major market. His predicament is self-inflicted. But just pulling up tables with team revenue vs. major league payroll and saying "SEE!! ALL THE SMALL MARKET TEAMS ARE MAKING HUGE PROFITS " isn't painting an accurate picture. As I've said before, I find it to be an incredible coincidence that the "cheap" MLB owners are almost exclusively in smaller markets and the ones willing to spend huge amounts on MLB payroll are almost exclusively in the major markets. Sure, you have some major market teams who are flops (Angels) and some small market teams punching way above their weight (Brewers), but those are definitely outliers. Does that make Bob Nutting in Pittsburgh a good owner? Hell no, he could at least make his team as competitive as the Royals have been in recent years, but that's not saying much.

That's not correct according to the article linked within the article I linked above. It IS part of the Pirates total revenue of $292M while their total expenses, even with their small MLB payroll, are $294M. https://dkpittsburghsports.com/team/site-stuff/feed?page=0&content=pirates-losing-money-bob-nutting-investigation-mlb-dk All 30 teams are required to pay 48% of that local operating revenue into a general pool that gets divvied up evenly later. That way, the super-rich teams like the Dodgers, Yankees and Mets give up a ton, and the poorer teams like the Pirates, Marlins and Rays get back way more than they submitted. It’s part of baseball’s attempt at leveling the financial playing field. So the Pirates, per this formula, put $70.4 million into this pool, and what gets distributed back to them is $121.9 million. The difference between those two amounts is a plus of $51.6 million, a figure that’s now essentially part of their national revenue. The next two streams are much simpler, as they’re the same for all teams: National TV brings $61.1 million, and sponsorships, merchandise and other elements add up to $24.8 million. Sprinkle on top $8.3 million from a portion of the luxury tax that’s distributed only to lower-revenue teams. Total operating revenues: $292.4 million. .... Total operating expenses: $294.6 million Difference between operating revenues and expenses: Minus-$2.2 million

The following article suggests that idea isn't totally outlandish: https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/what-the-pirates-twins-finances-reveal-about-mlbs-revenue-divide/ In the story, he reported that the team had total operating revenues of $292.4 million in 2024, had an MLB CBT payroll of just under $123 million (which is salaries for the full 40-man roster plus benefits and other expenses) and actually lost money. And he means actual losses. That $2.2 million loss does not include debt service, depreciation or capital expenditures that could create larger losses for accounting purposes. According to Kovacevic, the Pirates lost $2.2 million in 2024 because MLB salaries and benefits were just 41.7% of the team’s total expenses. The team had $171.7 million in additional costs for administrative expenses, travel, draft and international signing bonuses, minor league player payrolls, stadium costs and more. According to the story, the Pirates’ debt is at the highest mark of Bob Nutting’s tenure because of loans taken out during the coronavirus pandemic.

For years, I heard some Sox fans insist that Marcus Semien and Chris Bassett were overrated and not that good after we traded them to the A's. So, I fully expect a number of fans cling to Option 2 no matter what Vaughn does from here on out. That's not to say that I'm predicting Andrew Vaughn has anywhere near the same level of success in his post-Sox career as Semien has had. He could very well end up as much of a bust as he was on the Sox. But even if he was able to sustain success, I expect at least some Sox fans to think he still sucks. And I get it, it's not easy to see players go on to have decent careers after they leave this organization.

We're still debating whether we Sox fans should give him a B for playing a good game of checkers. My guess is that the 4D chess with Vaughn is a total one-off thing.

Seattle pitching needed only 100 pitches total tonight to get that Game 1 win.

Bingo. He was never going to succeed in the Sox's awful organization, as such he was practically worthless on the trade market. This was absolutely the best possible outcome - send him to an organization that is 1) actually good at getting players to succeed and 2) the one team in the position to sink the Cubs' division title and pennant dreams. Getz didn't win the Vaughn trade, Sox fans did.

IMO, if the Cubs had won the World Series as the Sox were coming off 324 losses in the last 3 seasons and no end in sight to the mediocrity, it would be a huge nail in the coffin for Sox market share in Chicago. If the Sox franchise where in a more healthy situation, it'd be easier as a Sox fan to be sanguine about a possible Cubs championship. I also don't remember many Cubs fans rooting for the Sox in 2005. They just kept shouting "what about attendance"! I'm not sure why it's always Sox fans who are expected to kneel down and kiss the Cubbie ring and not the other way around when the situation is reversed.

...the best part is seeing a bunch of Cubs fans on social media getting all butt hurt about the L flag.

Do they really expect any new owner to have any more success than the current organization has had over the last few decades given their market size? How many small market teams have been as successful as they have been? And nobody say the Brewers until I see them advance in the playoffs....they're in the process of blowing a 2-0 series lead to the Cubs. Maybe Guardians fans can take out a full page ad demanding that the Cleveland metro area be transformed into a large market. Or an ad demanding that MLB fix their competitive balance issue.

M's move on to the ALCS and Humpy wins the Salmon Run for the first time ever! https://sports.mynorthwest.com/mlb/seattle-mariners/humpy-gets-1st-win-seattle-mariners-walk-off-into-alcs/1825067

^ I totally agree. As much as I hope for the day that the Sox are spending on A-level free agents, they first need to devote resources into turning this entire organization around. If all that stuff won't cost anywhere near $160M, then I'd rather Ishbia take the rest of that "gift" money and put it toward building a new stadium.

Yeah, I had thought about including Yankee Stadium. The thing about the Dodgers and Yankees, though, is that these are two of the most elite franchises in MLB who are the #1 team in mega metropolises of nearly 20M. They can get along fine without an entertainment district due to brand prestige and market size. They must still be making a ton of $$ on their RSNs. Good point about Miami. But they're the poorest drawing team this year by far that wasn't playing in a minor league stadium. Not exactly a ballpark location success story. Of all the post-Camden ballparks, is there a bigger flop than Marlins Park? Yeah, there was Turner Field (location) and The Ballpark at Arlington (no roof in the Texas heat) that didn't last, but those teams have successfully moved on to new ballparks. The Marlins franchise seems screwed. I'm not sure what their path is out of their mess.

Looking at it another way, there are only a few teams that don't have much going on around their ballpark aside from surface lots. Dodgers, Angels, Brewers, and White Sox. Am I missing anyone? The Royals are trying to leave their ballpark because they don't believe the expressway/parking lots and not much else nearby model will work for them going forward. For the Angels, the NHL's Anaheim Ducks are developing a massive $4B entertainment district near Angel Stadium. It would be one thing if Sox fans could say "don't mess with success" because they are packing in the stadium through thick and thin. I wish that were the case, but 30 years of attendance data has shown it isn't.