Do you have any data at to what percentage of Cub fans reply on mass transportation to get there, and exactly how much dumber Sox fans are that they can't do the same thing/
If they had stayed with the Sox way, Crochet would be valued as an oft injured and relatively unproven reliever. That isn't great. It isn't just about service time. It is about lifetime earnings. Getting a few bucks early might be a thing, but you are playing for the powerball contract. His deal as a reliever would have been missing a zero as to what he could get as a starter. It's pennywise and pound foolish.
If they are going to go all of the way, this could be the best thing they ever did. But hearing people talk about them not wanting to deal with analytics, it seems like we will half ass it. Again.
This has been the mode of operation in pro sports for 2 generations now. Yeah it sucks at times, but with the failure of the RSNs, this was the next step to keep it all in house.
The Sox way would have left hundreds of millions of dollars potentially on the table by potentially rushing him as a reliever instead of taking his time as a starter. He might have started the money earlier, but he should have been between $3m and $5m in his first year in arb as a starter. Instead he was barely over minimum as an injury riddled reliever.
And of course, no one will actually ask those kinds of questions, nor will they stand up as a press conference and talk about these things in detail, so we get the minions getting their PR pieces in exchange for good press.