caulfield12

https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-teams-that-need-to-add-starting-pitching Cease connected to Orioles and Reds...Giolito to Tigers. No Braves, Cards or Rays (assuming Glasnow goes now)....

Obviously I didn't write it. Was toggling back and forth at work and had a couple of classes in a row and it ended up in the wrong thread. But it actually kinda fits in a way because we're always comparing the two fan bases as well as the inferiority complexes that exist in Flushing/Queens, Anaheim, Oakland, Baltimore...vis a vis the so called dominant franchises in those markets. So I guess if Eloy and/or Cease end up back with the Cubs and everything comes full circle...then we can bemoan the Northsiders again. But certainly not in the way that Angels fans are rueing every aspect of their existence and certainly in retrospect the fact that Ohtani somehow got away with zero return for replenishing the organization...not to mention desperation trade deadline losses as well.

https://africa.espn.com/football/insider/story/_/id/39092376/ranking-reasons-man-united-bad-premier-league-2023 Reason #1 for Man U downfall sounds familiar....

Once asked about his team, Muser replied with this pearl, “I’d like to see them go out and pound tequila rather than cookies and milk, because nobody’s going to get us out of this but us.”

For now they have Margot, Outman, Chris Taylor, Heyward and Betts splitting time in RF/2B. Rays really can’t trade Arozarena until they know results of Franco investigation.

Greg is going to flip… “According to data by Logitix, tickets for the Dodgers home opener have jumped 152%. Before the Ohtani signing, the average ticket for opening night was priced at $390.95 per ticket. Now? The average price for the highly anticipated game scheduled for March 28, 2024, has soared to $983.71. However, the data also reveals ticket prices won’t be so bad for the wallet for other Dodger games. In the 2023 season, Dodger fans were paying an average of $171.67 per ticket. Next year, tickets are expected to go for an average of $295, which is a 71% increase.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/dodgers-ticket-prices-soar-shohei-182748256.html

Lance Lynn and Yoan both make it into Paul Sullivan’s Shohei article According to reports, agent Nez Balelo said it was Ohtani himself who came up with the idea of annually deferring $68 million per year of his 10-year, $700 million deal and paying out the bulk of the money between 2034-43 to ensure the Dodgers had enough money left to spend on other free agents who can help them win championships. What a swell guy. Ohtani hasn’t spoken to the media, so for now we can only speculate on how he became so fluent in contract construction, and why he’s so willing to put his team ahead of his own financial interests. Everyone was aghast when the news leaked about the deferrals. Many on social media thought it was unfair to the other billionaires who can’t keep up with the Dodgers’ owners. But as it turned out, any player can defer as much money as he wants, and any team can offer to do so. It’s seldom done because the value of money decreases over time, so why would anyone willingly take less now knowing the rest of the contract won’t be worth as much 10 years later? Ohtani’s deal will work out to about $46 million per year instead of $70 million, and though $460 million is nothing to sneeze at, it doesn’t sound nearly as cool as $700 million. But Ohtani makes so much off the field — perhaps $50 million according to some estimates — that he doesn’t need another $70 million a year to pay his bills. He reportedly lives in a relatively modest home in Newport Beach, Calif., and doesn’t splurge on sports cars like Yoán Moncada, so he’ll be able to get by fine until the deferrals kick in 10 years from now. The Dodgers are now well situated to make the postseason annually, just as they were before the signing. But as we saw this year when the Dodgers, Atlanta Braves and Baltimore Orioles all won 100 or more games and failed to make it to their League Championship Series, the postseason is a crapshoot that renders the regular season meaningless. The Dodgers started Lance Lynn in a playoff loss last October and watched him give up four home runs in an inning. Having money to spend doesn’t make you a genius. The overreaction to Ohtani’s signing was to be expected, with Los Angeles Angels fans crying, Toronto Blue Jays fans angry and everyone else just shaking their heads over the massive figure. The Athletic sent a reporter to Angels Stadium when the news was revealed Saturday on Ohtani’s Instagram account. Someone placed flowers on an Ohtani marker as though he was dead, not moving to Dodger Stadium. https://www.yahoo.com/sports/paul-sullivan-shohei-ohtani-unique-023200291.html

Schist. Scheisse.

Going cost to save $35 million in 2024 salary but most importantly to LAD adding TOR starter Glasnow...to cover the one year Ohtani won't be pitching.

He's going to be a lot closer to Ichiro than a 20-25 homer guy...especially playing 81 games in SF.

It does have everyone in the world (temporarily at least) talking baseball, Dodgers, Ohtani...even all the other professional leagues.

Hoerner at least would be better than the likes of India or Frazier, but not happening.

Rays clearing tons of payroll. Around $35 million by my count, as Margot was set to make $10 million coming off a 0.4 fWAR season (2022 was surprisingly good). They might be in on Cease now, too. https://www.tampabay.com/sports/rays/2023/12/12/wander-franco-dominican-republic-mlb-investigation-spring-training/

Outman to Sox lol. Simply to have a more interesting board, whoever is still left hanging around past the trade deadline.

You're going to be saying the same thing about the next 15 pitchers off the board. Which ultimately works in favor of JR and Getz I guess. Of course most fanbases don't attend due to rational, risk-mitigating front offices. Not exactly inspirational.

When Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani joined the Angels in 2018, my cousins and I made a bet. How long until he leaves Orange County to join the Los Angeles Dodgers? We knew it wasn’t a matter of if, but when. Not just because the Blue Crew is one of baseball’s marquee franchises, while the Halos are as respected as a soul patch. Or because Angels owner Arte Moreno makes NFT investors seem as smart with their money as, well, the Dodgers, who just signed Ohtani to the richest contract ever in professional sports, at $700 million for 10 years. Nah, we knew Ohtani was fated to leave because he's a young, talented person — and folks like him usually get the hell out of O.C. the moment they can. We saw the best minds of my generation flee for Austin, Texas, Chicago, New York, the Inland Empire, but especially L.A. — the place our elders taught us to fear as full of crime and liberals. Our friends and relatives left to find opportunities that were impossible in staid, conservative, expensive Orange County. They rarely looked back. When their new neighbors asked where they were from, most would demur and say “Southern California” or “near Los Angeles." City, civic and county leaders didn't care about this exodus, since O.C. was never meant to be cool. We were the spot where people moved after they made it. Orange County was aspirational, and if you couldn't afford to hack it here, good riddance and don't forget to take along other underachievers like you. This thinking went on, unchecked, for decades. But it’s finally dawning on the lords of O.C. that losing our young to Los Angeles and elsewhere portends doom. https://www.yahoo.com/news/column-shohei-ohtani-just-latest-224818706.html

Can I please at least get a trademark symbol next to Caulfield in the thread title? Thanks in advance for your time and consideration, oh mighty yet benevolent moderating team.

Almost starting to feel sorry for Craig Kimbrel. Almost. But he keeps getting paid $10+ million per year...so not feeling THAT sorry. At any rate, Liam's a good dude...he might end up signing in the middle of the season to one of those deals with incentives based on a 2-3 month long season in order to earn a much healthier 2025 option year. Don't want to ever bet against that guy. Do so at your own peril.

Doomed by favorite uncle (who definitely liked his beer, mostly Coors in the 70's and 80's) loving the White Sox, the other liked the Cubs. Of course, he was from Dubuque and worked for the local meat packing company.

Probably has a clause that will be opened upon JR's "untimely" death which binds the Board of Directors to never signing a Sox player for over $100 million into perpetuity, lol... South Side "lunch pail/working class/blue collar" indeed.

Ohtani accepting such a drastic portion of his compensation in deferrals will give teams ammunition when they ask other players—all of them inferior to Ohtani—to do the same. Many owners might be pissed too, insofar as a deferral like this one provides a model, albeit with strings attached, to a supersize payment total for players. The latter theory has origins in other sports. In 2010 the NHL’s New Jersey Devils gave a $102 million contract to goal-scoring winger Ilya Kovalchuk. The sticker price was a lot, but the stunner was the term: a 17-year pact that Kovalchuk, then 27, was never going to play all the way out. The franchise built the contract that way so that Kovalchuk’s salary cap hit would be lower. A furious league office fined the Devils and took away some draft picks because New Jersey had committed a grave sin against sports’ ownership class: It had devised a creative way to enhance a player’s salary. But the Dodgers now have a path to give more players more money while also snapping up Ohtani, and who knows what their down-the-road obligations might be because of Ohtani’s deferrals? The current CBA runs only through 2026. The sport could look much different by the time Ohtani needs to get his cash. Players might be angry about the money Ohtani will have to wait to get, and other owners might be angry that the Dodgers are giving it to him. Baseball’s owners aren’t a monolith, and some will be offended merely at the notion that the Dodgers got a player they’d never dare try to get for themselves. None of that is the Dodgers’ problem, though. They’ve pulled a coup, and their fans will get to watch one of the most exciting athletes ever for the next decade. Ohtani has been more generous to his new employer than he had to be, but such is life when you’ve just spent six years drawing favorable comparisons to Babe Ruth while never once appearing in the postseason. Ohtani languished on a team that never deserved him. Now he will star for one that barely has to work to afford him. Picked a really good year for the Dodgers and Padres (HaSeong Kim) to kick off the season in Korea. They're only missing the mythical Lee, who will be patrolling CF in SF for at least the next four seasons. And of course Yamamoto and Shota Imanata (big Cubs' fall back option at $75-90ish million) are still out there as well.

Ohtani’s 10-year deal, worth $700 million, would see him collect only $2 million a season until after the deal concludes. The rest will arrive without interest, Ardaya reported, between 2034 and 2043. In other words, Ohtani will issue an interest-free loan of nearly his entire salary for more than a decade. That will free up cash flow for the Dodgers while lowering the team’s obligations under MLB’s competitive balance tax. That tax applies to big-spending teams like the Dodgers, as a collectively bargained incentive to hold salaries down and give smaller-market teams (but really just cheaper owners) a better chance to compete without making a big financial effort. Ohtani will be fine. He has been the face of baseball in his native Japan for years, and he has recently become the same in the United States. His endorsement earnings are enormous, estimated in Ardaya’s report at $50 million a year. That allowed Ohtani to not quite work for the Dodgers for free but to accept an employment agreement worth nowhere close to what $700 million indicates. Sports economists will have a field day figuring out his new contract’s present-day value. A stock reaction to this reporting on Monday afternoon was: How is that legal? Well, it’s right there in the collective bargaining agreement between MLB’s players and owners, the one they struck up after a lockout in 2022. “There shall be no limitations on either the amount of deferred compensation or the percentage of total compensation attributable to deferred compensation” in MLB contracts, it says. The Dodgers don’t even have to have all that deferred compensation funded until years from now. The piper will need payment, but it will be a while. The world might end, or the Dodgers might get sold first. And Ohtani might be living somewhere other than California, so he might pay less in taxes. In the meantime, the Dodgers will pay about $20 million over 10 years for the best baseball player alive. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports that in competitive balance tax terms, Ohtani’s deal will count for $46 million, not $70 million, per season. That will save L.A. millions in tax penalties while Ohtani is on the roster, though the deal is so big that it’s not right to see the whole thing as a tax dodge. https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/shohei-ohtani-700-million-contract-183057095.html

Even there you had the Pohlads with multiple billions more than JR refusing to spend significantly on their product...just much better front office personnel and scouting/evaluation/coaching staffs for much of the past two decades. (Obviously the 2005 and 2008 coin flip Blackout win exceptions.)

Lee, a South Korean MVP and the son of a former MVP, can terminate the deal after four years and $72 million to become a free agent again. Zaidi discussed the team's negotiations with Ohtani and said the club had made three different offers, including a final proposal very similar to the deal with the Dodgers. "The proposal that was made was very comparable if not identical to what he wound up agreeing to,” Zaidi said during a video call. “We offered what would have been the biggest contract in major league history. I’m guessing we weren’t the only team that did that. But wanted to show our aggressiveness and interest right out of the gate.” SFgate.com/sports Giants are now claiming they largely lost out on Ohtani "due to geography."

Royals clearly outspending Sox this offseason...sigh. At least we're on par with CLE and MIN.