caulfield12

Whatever they do, Georgia shouldn’t be able to play Alabama again until they at least win a playoff game first. Right now, it might be Michigan/GA and then Alabama/Cincy. From a competitiveness standpoint, though, Cincy/MI and UGA/Bama would be more compelling semi finals, I guess. Then again, Bama might overlook Cincy. Unlikely, but possible. OkState and OU definitely didn’t belong anywhere near the playoff. Notre Dame might/should be able to hang with Cincy or Michigan.

Looking like yet another title for Bama. Yawn.

Not sure how 1.4-1.6 fWARs the last two seasons are much of an upgrade. At best, you’re even with Madrigal’s projected production. Just at a much higher price point. If they’re going this route, would almost rather bet on Andrelton Simmons returning to a 5 fWAR player at age 32 after three consecutive disappointing seasons…where he could just concentrate on defense and have no pressure to do anything but hit 9th. That’s still not likely to beat Madrigal, either.

He’s referring to Rodon…

His rookie season was very solid before he hit a wall like Beckham, it was his second year that was much less so…

They won’t cross the picket lines if they are legit prospects…

Rodon earned a lot more than $3 million last year…same with Lynn’s deal, although duly rewarded with a nice extension. McCann before the Mets paid him off.

Major League Baseball’s first lockout in 26 years is already off to a weird start — players aren’t officially listed on any team site, just faceless mugshots where smiling faces should be. The only question remaining is how long the lockout will last. Negotiations are ongoing. I turned to our stellar MLB writers to gauge the temperature: Levi Weaver, Rangers: Feb. 1 Jake Kaplan, Astros: Feb. 10 Dan Connolly, Orioles: Feb. 14 Chris Strauss, MLB managing editor: Feb. 14 Tim Britton, Mets: Feb. 16 Jayson Stark, senior writer: Feb. 23 Nick Groke, Rockies: March 1 Andy McCullough, senior writer: May 15 (“I'm laughing to myself, thinking about how bad Twitter will be if it lasts until May 15. Put me down for that. It won't last until May 15.”) Consensus average: Nobody believes in some pre-January breakthrough. February it is. I’ll enter the fray and say this gets done quickly: Pencil me in for Jan. 20. Feel free to reply to this email with your prediction and, if you get it right, we’ll figure out a fun prize. theathletic.com

KW/White Sox Don’t Always Get Their Man A couple of months ago, in breaking down where the Twins' 2021 season went wrong, President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey offered this assessment of the pitching staff he assembled in concert with Thad Levine and other key decisionmakers: "Our pitching in aggregate, early on, guys didn't throw the ball. … When you're talking about the one-year pitching market that's in that range of cost, there's a lot of outcomes there, and sometimes, they do line up that way without getting great outcomes. I would say that we have to come back and evaluate that because we didn't hit on those for sure. Those guys didn't pitch as well as we thought they could have." J.A. Happ and Matt Shoemaker were one-year deal guys who delivered a 6.77 and 8.06 ERA, respectively, for a combined $10 million — an average of $5 million .… As I talked about on Thursday's Daily Delivery podcast, Bundy has upside. He finished ninth in the Cy Young voting in the shortened 2020 season. But in his other three most recent seasons, he posted ERAs of 5.45, 4.79 and — just last year — 6.06. The Twins seem inclined to believe they can either fix Bundy or that the pitcher they are getting is magically the one who was very good in 11 starts two seasons ago and not the one who largely struggled in his other 74 starts since the start of 2018. "Our hope is that we can get him healthy and pitching, and we can see a lot more of the 2020 version of Dylan over the course of a full season," Falvey said on Wednesday. They can hope. But hope is not a plan. Maybe it will work out, and certainly this isn't the final pitching move the Twins will make even if it's the last one for a while. But for now, we're left to wonder: Did they learn anything from 2021? [email protected] 612-673-7564 “No need to read the comments, here is what they will say: Pohlads are cheap. (JR is cheap) The front office are stat nerds, not real baseball men. (Well, I’m not sure about stat nerds, just nerds.) They pretend to make offers for top players to save face while low balling them. (See Parkman) They signed Buxton because they had to, but what they need is pitching, pitching, pitching. (See adding Kimbrel but not addressing RF.) Another last place finish for the Twins. (Well, not going that far, lol.) They will never win anything unless they fire everybody and kidnap Garrett Cole.” (LoL) Don't worry, they have had discussions with every good pitcher on the market! ? And likely made offers low enough to guarantee they won’t sign them. I still believe at heart we are closest to a combination of Twins and Mariners fans. We lack the organizational efficiency, gritty underdog spirit and small market sizes of TB, Oakland, Milwaukee, Cleveland, etc.

2011 was all about Adam Dunn, and that was a doozy. He did “okay” after that season, but it almost singlehandedly handedly destroyed the post 2005 Sox. Guillen going AWOL and JR cutting ties with Buehrle, KW soon thereafter got his promotion upstairs and the lost Robin Ventura wandering in the wilderness years of 2013-2016. Using the popular Robin as cover with the fans for their own ineptitude. Shark and Shields trades, among others…as well as Cabrera/LaRoche/Robertson and Sale destroying the ‘83 throwback jerseys due to lack of stretchiness. The only positive was pretty much Abreu and individual seasons of Eaton and Avi. Danks imploding into a ball of fire.

https://www.fool.com/taxes/2020/09/25/why-does-billionaire-warren-buffett-pay-a-lower-ta/ This is not rocket science, here. Or simply look at the net taxes paid by corporations like Amazon/FB by domiciling in Ireland or the Caribbean. Or a certain former president the past 10-15 years. Not something any middle class taxpayer can do, exactly. Even the billionaires know it’s a joke. “A 70% marginal tax rate. A 77% estate tax. A 3% tax on every dollar over $1 billion of net worth. As various plans to tax the ultra-rich gain steam in American political discourse—and after a recent bombshell report that the 400 richest Americans paid a lower tax rate than other income groups last year—many billionaires have been challenged to address their very existence amid growing income inequality. At least a dozen billionaires have made public statements that call for the super-rich to pay more in taxes. On Monday, Salesforce chairman and cofounder Marc Benioff penned the latest in a string of billionaire op-eds calling for higher taxes on the wealthy. The California software entrepreneur, who ranked No. 93 on The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans released earlier this month, wrote that “increasing taxes on high-income individuals like myself would help generate the trillions of dollars that we desperately need to improve education and health care and fight climate change.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/cartercoudriet/2019/10/15/billionaires-more-taxes-gates-buffett-bloomberg/?sh=7cfe5bf57792 Even Forbes of all publications is sympathetic. In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes. Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row. ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years. The data provides an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of America’s titans, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg. It shows not just their income and taxes, but also their investments, stock trades, gambling winnings and even the results of audits. Taken together, it demolishes the cornerstone myth of the American tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most. The IRS records show that the wealthiest can — perfectly legally — pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each and every year. https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax

They were attempting to compete 2010 through mid 2016…

Right, very few can win an argument for public stadium financing anymore, unless they’re possibly in a red state….and choose to support the billionaire/“job creators” side. Historically, one would think it would be the exact opposite, but not so much in the last 4-5 years. Definitely progressives would throw a major fit, one can argue whether they are right or wrong but the arguments are well-known.

However, I was shocked to read Tuesday that about 65% of MLB players make $1 million or less. Maybe I'm just dumb and naive, but I would've guessed that figure would be around 20-25%. Now, before you get ready to send me an angry tweet about those 65% of players still making a great living, I'm well aware. The lowest paid player makes more than $500,000, so nobody should cry a river for anyone playing Major League Baseball. https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2020/05/27/mlb-2020-player-salaries

But if you look at all the rosters across baseball…a majority of the players who receive ANY big league playing time aren’t. Look at every single player who played for the Sox last year, not just the current roster.

The philosophy underpinning the primary disagreements about the value of publicly funded sports facilities hasn’t…besides the fact that the other article is more contemporaneous. By that argument, Veeck as In Wreck isn’t helpful at all to modern day sports marketers. How to Win Friends and Influence People, just as relevant. In fact, it’s 5x more difficult now to get public funding for stadiums than in 1997…and increasingly challenging moving forward.

https://econreview.berkeley.edu/the-economics-of-sports-stadiums-does-public-financing-of-sports-stadiums-create-local-economic-growth-or-just-help-billionaires-improve-their-profit-margin/ Unfortunately, the subsidies have not created the local impact that they promised. To understand why, let’s consider the Atlanta Falcons’ new stadium, which cost $2 billion for construction—$700 million of which was paid by local taxpayers. While proponents may talk about a multiplier effect, several theoretical and empirical studies of local economic impact of stadiums have shown that beliefs that stadiums have an impact that matches the amount of money that residents pay are largely unfounded. The average stadium generates $145 million per year, but none of this revenue goes back into the community. As such, the prevalent idea among team owners of “socializing the costs and privatizing the profits” is harmful and unfair to people who are forced to pay for a stadium that will not help them. Further, a study by Noll and Zimbalist on newly constructed subsidized stadiums shows that they have a very limited and possibly even negative local impact. This is because of the opportunity cost that goes into allocating a significant amount of money into a service like a stadium, rather than infrastructure or other community projects that would benefit locals. Spending $700 million in areas like education or housing could have long-term positive consequences with the potential for long-term increases in the standard of living and economic growth. Additionally, it is important to consider that public financing is largely helping billionaires pay less for a service that they can afford. This dangerous precedent is an unnecessary privilege rather than a necessity. These sports teams are supported by successful owners who are capable of funding stadiums themselves. The owners will be compensated handsomely through the profits received through ticket sales, corporate advertising, and concessions over the next several decades. Public subsidies are an unfortunate power play used by these influential teams on local communities that are emotionally attached to sports teams, and a shift to making these projects private is going to be important moving forward. Furthermore, stadium construction in college sports is indicative of the precedent in professional sports. For example, the University of Alabama’s football program brought in $174 million in revenue in 2018, which is comparable to professional sports teams. College sports, especially in historic, blue-blood programs, can affect communities just as strongly as professional sports teams can. However, Alabama was funded entirely by the school, carefully racking up profits before deciding to invest in a new stadium. Starting something similar in professional sports could lead to a system of self-sustenance and owners considering stadium costs when deciding to purchase a new team. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sports-jobs-taxes-are-new-stadiums-worth-the-cost/ One promotional study estimated that the local annual economic impact of the Denver Broncos was nearly $120 million; another estimated that the combined annual economic benefit of Cincinnati’s Bengals and Reds was $245 million. Such promotional studies overstate the economic impact of a facility because they confuse gross and net economic effects. Most spending inside a stadium is a substitute for other local recreational spending, such as movies and restaurants. Similarly, most tax collections inside a stadium are substitutes: as other entertainment businesses decline, tax collections from them fall. Promotional studies also fail to take into account differences between sports and other industries in income distribution. Most sports revenue goes to a relatively few players, managers, coaches, and executives who earn extremely high salaries—all well above the earnings of people who work in the industries that are substitutes for sports. Most stadium employees work part time at very low wages and earn a small fraction of team revenues. Thus, substituting spending on sports for other recreational spending concentrates income, reduces the total number of jobs, and replaces full-time jobs with low-wage, part-time jobs. A second rationale for subsidized stadiums is that stadiums generate more local consumer satisfaction than alternative investments. There is some truth to this argument. Professional sports teams are very small businesses, comparable to large department or grocery stores. They capture public attention far out of proportion to their economic significance. Broadcast and print media give so much attention to sports because so many people are fans, even if they do not actually attend games or buy sports-related products. A professional sports team, therefore, creates a “public good” or “externality”—a benefit enjoyed by consumers who follow sports regardless of whether they help pay for it. The magnitude of this benefit is unknown, and is not shared by everyone; nevertheless, it exists. As a result, sports fans are likely to accept higher taxes or reduced public services to attract or keep a team, even if they do not attend games themselves. These fans, supplemented and mobilized by teams, local media, and local interests that benefit directly from a stadium, constitute the base of political support for subsidized sports facilities.

You want more future owners of the Chicago White Sox, the answer's likely among those listed here at the bottom of this letter as signatories... https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000177-d6c1-dca5-a3f7-dff713a40000 Marcus Lemonis, CEO of Camping World, has been mentioned numerous times, but he's "only" worth around half a billion, haha.

This, for example, was from May 10th...hinting at her name. https://www.awesemo.com/sideaction/30-percent-of-the-chicago-white-sox-have-allegedly-been-sold-to-mystery-buyer-for-a-boatload-of-money-bjs/ Along with this somewhat interesting tidbit... Back in March, it was reported by Crain’s Chicago that Jerry Reinsdorf’s sons, Michael and Jonathan, were actively trying to purchase shares of the White Sox. “Over the years, several limited partners have sought to sell their White Sox partnership interests, and in many cases, they have been able to sell to other partners,” Reinsdorf wrote in the letter, obtained by Crain’s. “These sales have been infrequent. Recently, I have become aware that additional partners are seeking liquidity because of the death of partners or to accomplish various estate planning goals. My adult sons, Michael and Jonathan, are part of a small, but well-funded and credible, investment group that wishes to purchase White Sox limited partnership interests.” https://www.chicagobusiness.com/consumer-products/more-reinsdorfs-want-stake-sox?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D04035061536488459413099681381699703648|MCORGID%3D138FFF2554E6E7220A4C98C6%40AdobeOrg|TS%3D1620695737&CSAuthResp=1%3A%3A186547%3A359%3A24%3Asuccess%3AA65AE5DE542F0C5A988AF94F4AF19ABA This is from they (Lucas & Hobbson) got married back in 2013 in Hyde Park. No mention of KW and Hahn sightings, haha. https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20130630/hyde-park/george-lucas-mellody-hobson-reception-galaxy-of-stars-turn-out-for-bash/ The greatest cheer from the crowd came for actor Robin Williams, who gave a "royal wave" from the back of his golf cart. Other celebs spotted were Grammy-winning R&B artist Ne-Yo, Oprah BFF Gayle King and "Today" show weatherman Al Roker. Chicago notables attending the event were newly minted Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, former White House Social Secretary and Johnson Publishing Company CEO Desiree Rogers, businessman Christopher Kennedy (son of late Senator Robert F. Kennedy), the Rev. Jesse Jackson, former Mayor Richard M. Daley and his brother and Illinois gubernatorial candidate Bill Daley. Also spotted were Bulls and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, radio host Tom Joyner and former NBA star and senator Bill Bradley. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel drove to the event directly from Lake Shore Drive, where barricades separating the Lake Front Trail had been removed. Emanuel left before the night's music guest — Prince — took the stage, a police officer working security said. Prince kicked off his set just before 10 p.m., diving into "1999." Lights flashed from inside the huge covered tent, which a dozen passersby could just barely see from across South Lake Shore Drive.

We had a thread on it....but it was very surreptitiously announced.

On a new stadium OR selling under 1,200,000 or 800,000 or whatever the number of tickets required to qualify for state subsidies?

Along with Williams, San Diego Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove, Chicago White Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito, New York Yankees pitcher Jameson Taillon and Mets pitcher Taijuan Walker were among the first players to change their profile pictures on Twitter. NEW YORK -- Within minutes of locking out players Thursday amid contentious negotiations on the next collective bargaining agreement, Major League Baseball scrubbed all remnants of player likenesses off its official properties such as MLB.com, replacing player photos with generic silhouettes. In response, players decided to lean all the way in. Players started to change their profile pictures on Twitter to the generic player silhouettes in solidarity and as a response to the league's action. The decision to do so was not an organized, calculated move by the Major League Baseball Players Association but rather started off as a joke in a small player text group chat, according to New York Mets pitcher Trevor Williams, one of the first to change his profile picture. "It was just being silly," Williams told ESPN. "It's a meme. When you think about it, by us posting a picture of what MLB does, we're doubling down on what they're doing. It's not supposed to be serious."

If they do want to change to six years of control (or total years from signing date), they definitely have to balance it...because Latin American prospects starting at age 14-16 are on totally different timelines than a junior or senior NCAA All-American who hits the big leagues within 1-2 years of being drafted, but usually debuts at 23-24. Of course, the real key for the majority of players is having team control at ages 25-29.

RoberT The biggest loss, other than to Year 1-3 players being woefully underpaid, has been low to mid 30's veterans being priced out of the market (replaced by cheaper youth) and the general unfairness of the international free agency system, guys like Ohtani in particular. Capable relievers, starters and superstar position players are much better off. Catching salaries have fallen for all but the most elite, and that's only 5-7 guys.

Of course, the Mets and Yankees both messed up with Quintana...although there were extenuating circumstances attached. Also doesn't include Bassitt. Montas came from Red Sox or Rangers? Dodgers?