Ohtani Watch: Dodgers sign - 700M over 10yrs

[South Side Hit Men]

5 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

I’m sorry, but what does this prove other than the smallest market teams are up against horrible odds of winning a World Series?  And calling SF & Boston “mid” market clubs but completing ignoring the wealth of those markets is very  disingenuous.  Move those seven championships to the top group and the disparity is even more telling.  It’s wild that anyone can actually believe baseball isn’t a broken mess.  The randomness of the playoffs doesn’t change that fact.

This is bullshit, all of it. 

San Francisco and Boston were always wealthy cities. Boston didn’t win dick since 1918. The Giants didn’t win duck since they played in Manhattan, even with Bonds.  Both finally broke their winless World Series streaks because they finally installed smart front offices. Guys like Bruce Bochy who Reinsdorf, Tony and Hahn had zero interest in 2023. Guys like Theo and Sabean.

Baseball collapsed over the past forty years not because of teams trying to win, but rather because too many teams are not trying to win. MLB ownership booted an at least marginally neutral Commissioner. Their mindset largely mirrors Jerry’s with the message Go f*** Yourself spoken loud and clear to every fan and player who has ever loved the sport.

That’s how you go from 33% World Series market share to 3%. That’s how the Sox went from a 50/50 Chicago split to 67/33 split. Jerry calls Harry Caray scum. Petty GMs treat Carlton Fisk and Frank Thomas like scum. Boyer treated Jason Benetti like scum. f*** you Jose, we’re paying Benintendi.  “We’re not going to be in any Ohtani race, I’ll tell you that.” What a masterclass in public relations.

[hogan873]

This is aggravating, more because it's not against the rules.  The Dodgers found a way to sign a guy for a record contract and then pay him a tiny fraction of that contract for 10 years, which allows them to go out and sign more top talent.  Ohtani doesn't care because he's making $50 million a year off the field, and he knows he is set for life with $68 million a year for 10 years, starting when he's 39 years old.

There's already enough disparity between teams like the Dodgers and Yankees and teams like the Pirates and A's.  Deals like this are going to cause more tanking and less spending by more teams.  This is not good for a sport that is already losing a fan base.

[Chicago White Sox]

4 hours ago, South Side Hit Men said:

This is bullshit, all of it. 

San Francisco and Boston were always wealthy cities. Boston didn’t win dick since 1918. The Giants didn’t win duck since they played in Manhattan, even with Bonds.  Both finally broke their winless World Series streaks because they finally installed smart front offices. Guys like Bruce Bochy who Reinsdorf, Tony and Hahn had zero interest in 2023. Guys like Theo and Sabean.

Baseball collapsed over the past forty years not because of teams trying to win, but rather because too many teams are not trying to win. MLB ownership booted an at least marginally neutral Commissioner. Their mindset largely mirrors Jerry’s with the message Go f*** Yourself spoken loud and clear to every fan and player who has ever loved the sport.

That’s how you go from 33% World Series market share to 3%. That’s how the Sox went from a 50/50 Chicago split to 67/33 split. Jerry calls Harry Caray scum. Petty GMs treat Carlton Fisk and Frank Thomas like scum. Boyer treated Jason Benetti like scum. f*** you Jose, we’re paying Benintendi.  “We’re not going to be in any Ohtani race, I’ll tell you that.” What a masterclass in public relations.

Fine, let’s ignore wealth all together.  You’re still using MSA to reflect the size of a media market when you should be using DMA.  Based on DMA rankings, here is the reality of the situation:

1. New York: 5
2. LA: 2
3. Chicago: 2
4. Philadelphia: 1
5. Dallas-Fort Worth: 1
6. Houston: 2
7. Atlanta: 2
8. Boston: 4
9. Washington DC: 1
10. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose: 3

The 14 teams that play in the top 10 media markets have won 23 / 29 of World Series (~80%), while the other 16 clubs have won a total of six.  There is zero argument whatsoever that parity exists in baseball.  This is the opposite of the NFL…all the MLB wants is for the largest media markets to be the focal point of October baseball so they can maximize TV revenue.

[T R U]

44 minutes ago, hogan873 said:

This is aggravating, more because it's not against the rules.  The Dodgers found a way to sign a guy for a record contract and then pay him a tiny fraction of that contract for 10 years, which allows them to go out and sign more top talent.  Ohtani doesn't care because he's making $50 million a year off the field, and he knows he is set for life with $68 million a year for 10 years, starting when he's 39 years old.

There's already enough disparity between teams like the Dodgers and Yankees and teams like the Pirates and A's.  Deals like this are going to cause more tanking and less spending by more teams.  This is not good for a sport that is already losing a fan base.

This is a total fluke situation that we may never see again. There is probably a small fraction of players who would even entertain signing a massive deal and putting 97% of it a decade down the road.

[bmags]

1 hour ago, hogan873 said:

This is aggravating, more because it's not against the rules.  The Dodgers found a way to sign a guy for a record contract and then pay him a tiny fraction of that contract for 10 years, which allows them to go out and sign more top talent.  Ohtani doesn't care because he's making $50 million a year off the field, and he knows he is set for life with $68 million a year for 10 years, starting when he's 39 years old.

There's already enough disparity between teams like the Dodgers and Yankees and teams like the Pirates and A's.  Deals like this are going to cause more tanking and less spending by more teams.  This is not good for a sport that is already losing a fan base.

For me this is obnoxious less because of haves and have nots parity, though I do think this breaks a system that had worked pretty well.

But there are some inherent advantages the west coast teams have. Big cities, yes. Nice places to live. Yes, the home town of a ton of baseball players…yes.

They also have a huge advantage with the Asian markets because of straight up geography. The games would play at a reasonable hour in Japan.

They haven’t exclusively owned this market, but for top players it’s an uphill battle.

What are the downsides? Well taxes, both luxury and state.

He circumvents these in a way that obliterates the luxury tax which had proven powerful - yanks and dodgers have dipped under multiple times now.

Will every player do this? No, but for players who have additional revenue streams, I.e. the best players, they can now put their thumb on the scales for a super team without losing much - The net present value of the Ohtani deal is still massive. Maybe it was beaten by blue jays, but still most ever.

Welcome to the nba super team era of the nba - where places players most want to play have found a situation where they can easily fit multiple guys.

Oh and they can still afford massive pd and scouting operations.

Let’s do salary cap. Sorry players. I care more about an entertaining game in this artificial economy than supporting a low stakes power struggle.

[bmags]

We could maybe pull a china and put all of US on eastern time to crush that advantage.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

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

[baseball_gal_aly]

 

 

[bmags]

2 minutes ago, baseball_gal_aly said:

 

 

Yes because there is no other leagues we can look at with this structure to see how it would function.

[baseball_gal_aly]

3 minutes ago, bmags said:

Yes because there is no other leagues we can look at with this structure to see how it would function.

It would function exactly as the NHL and NBA do. Stars would get paid and the middle class would shrink. Oh hey, that's no different than MLB right now. 

Edited December 12, 2023 by baseball_gal_aly

[Snopek]

Lol thanks Bob. Fabulous piece of history 

 

[bmags]

3 minutes ago, baseball_gal_aly said:

It would function exactly as the NHL and NBA do. Stars would get paid and the middle class would shrink. Oh hey, that's no different than MLB right now. 

Teams are mostly around the salary cap, milwaukee and denver have the best players in the world. No idea what you are talking about.

[South Side Hit Men]

2 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Fine, let’s ignore wealth all together.  You’re still using MSA to reflect the size of a media market when you should be using DMA.  Based on DMA rankings, here is the reality of the situation:

1. New York: 5
2. LA: 2
3. Chicago: 2
4. Philadelphia: 1
5. Dallas-Fort Worth: 1
6. Houston: 2
7. Atlanta: 2
8. Boston: 4
9. Washington DC: 1
10. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose: 3

The 14 teams that play in the top 10 media markets have won 23 / 29 of World Series (~80%), while the other 16 clubs have won a total of six.  There is zero argument whatsoever that parity exists in baseball.  This is the opposite of the NFL…all the MLB wants is for the largest media markets to be the focal point of October baseball so they can maximize TV revenue.

10 different MLB teams have won the World Series and 16 different teams (9 NL, 7 AL) reached the World Series since 2011. That’s a higher parity rate than your beloved NFL example or the other two leagues.

Few of the remaining 14 teams have even tried to reach the WS despite having the resources to do so via enormous revenue sharing plus MLB TV and Internet 1/30 shares.

The lowest valued MLB teams per Forbes in 1995 were $70M. In 2023, the lowest valued team is worth a billion, and the reason is each team is guaranteed $180M in revenue floor with a player salary floor of $30M. Any lack of parity is based on the warped incentive structure to penalize proper management of bottom market teams like the Cardinals, and reward owners like Pittsburgh’s Nutting and Oakland’s Fisher and several others for permanently tanking.

Apparently none of the Top Three MSA / DSM Market six teams got the memo they were allowed to win more than 0 playoff games last year.

Edited December 12, 2023 by South Side Hit Men

[chitownsportsfan]

Baseball is both fine and broken. It is a regional sport and always will be. It is more similar to CFB than the NFL. Depending on who you root for you will have a very different experience.

[Chicago White Sox]

25 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

10 different MLB teams have won the World Series and 16 different teams (9 NL, 7 AL) reached the World Series since 2011. That’s a higher parity rate than your beloved NFL example or the other two leagues.

Few of the remaining 14 teams have even tried to reach the WS despite having the resources to do so via enormous revenue sharing plus MLB TV and Internet 1/30 shares.

The lowest valued MLB teams per Forbes in 1995 were $70M. In 2023, the lowest valued team is worth a billion, and the reason is each team is guaranteed $180M in revenue floor with a player salary floor of $30M. Any lack of parity is based on the warped incentive structure to penalize proper management of bottom market teams like the Cardinals, and reward owners like Pittsburgh’s Nutting and Oakland’s Fisher for permanently tanking.

Apparently none of the Top Three MSA / DSM Market six teams got the memo they were allowed to win more than 0 playoff games last year.

If you’re actually pretending the MLB has better parity than the NFL, then you simply don’t get it and it’s not worth arguing further.  The KC Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens, & Pittsburgh Steelers are all small market teams that have been incredibly successful.  Does having a great QB make a massive difference in your ability to succeed in the NFL?  Of course it does, but the system in place gives small and large market teams an equal chance of landing one of those players.  And generally speaking, it gives all teams the same level of resources to retain talent and acquire new talent via free agency.

You seem to want to blame the lack of parity in baseball solely on the “cheap” small market owners.  And yes, that factor plays some role and baseball needs a salary floor to prevent them from pocketing revenue sharing.  But that doesn’t change the fact that the Dodgers & Yankees pull in significantly more revenue than their small market peers and can therefore spend considerably more than them.  That is a foundational problem with baseball and again the randomness of the playoffs doesn’t change that.  The big market will continue to make the playoffs more frequently than their small market brethren and they will continue to win the majority of World Series titles over time.

[Balta1701]

1 minute ago, Chicago White Sox said:

If you’re actually pretending the MLB has better parity than the NFL, then you simply don’t get it and it’s not worth arguing further.  The KC Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens, & Pittsburgh Steelers are all small market teams that have been incredibly successful.  Does having a great QB make a massive difference in your ability to succeed in the NFL?  Of course it does, but the system in place gives small and large market teams an equal chance of landing one of those players.  And generally speaking, it gives all teams the same level of resources to retain talent and acquire new talent via free agency.

You seem to want to blame the lack of parity in baseball solely on the “cheap” small market owners.  And yes, that factor plays some role and baseball needs a salary floor to prevent them from pocketing revenue sharing.  But that doesn’t change the fact that the Dodgers & Yankees pull in significantly more revenue than their small market peers and can therefore spend considerably more than them.  That is a foundational problem with baseball and again the randomness of the playoffs doesn’t change that.  The big market will continue to make the playoffs more frequently than their small market brethren and they will continue to win the majority of World Series titles over time.

At the same time, there is some benefit to the business as a whole in having the Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox actually make the playoffs pretty often. IF they are winning the World Series every year this is a bad thing because then no small market teams get the revenue and fan boost from winning a title, so there needs to be a path where small market teams can make the World Series and sometimes win them. If they are so good that it prevents other good teams in their division from making the playoffs, this is a bad thing because it is hurting those franchises specifically. If it's a challenge for a small market team to win a World Series, but it's an achievable challenge, then baseball has struck a decent balance.

The thing we don't want is for MLB to become a European soccer league where only the teams with Oil money have a chance to win, and all the other teams become farm systems to develop players for the few big franchises who are ok losing money.

The Dodgers, Yankees, Mets overspending might help them, but it's not foolproof. There's mostly an ok balance here, you can build a 100 win team in Cleveland or Kansas City if you're smart. 

I am worried that "Deferred money" has created a new loophole available only to a big market club, a tool that allows the highest money teams a way around some portion of the luxury tax due only to the fact that they are high revenue teams. The Dodgers have a credit card that the Royals do not have, they can go into debt like this with the expectation of higher long term revenues. This was not intended by the CBA and hasn't been the case previously.

[Chicago White Sox]

Lol

 

[Capn12]

Leury is clearly almost 3x the player Shohei is.

[Tnetennba]

33 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Lol

 

Shohei is a unicorn and Rick Hahn is a dope, but we knew this before 😂. 

[baseball_gal_aly]

This. 

 

[South Side Hit Men]

7 minutes ago, baseball_gal_aly said:

This. 

 

40 years of indoctrination from the Chairman and his paid media minions is hard for many to overcome. 

https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-stockholm-syndrome

[bmags]

3 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

At the same time, there is some benefit to the business as a whole in having the Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox actually make the playoffs pretty often. IF they are winning the World Series every year this is a bad thing because then no small market teams get the revenue and fan boost from winning a title, so there needs to be a path where small market teams can make the World Series and sometimes win them. If they are so good that it prevents other good teams in their division from making the playoffs, this is a bad thing because it is hurting those franchises specifically. If it's a challenge for a small market team to win a World Series, but it's an achievable challenge, then baseball has struck a decent balance.

The thing we don't want is for MLB to become a European soccer league where only the teams with Oil money have a chance to win, and all the other teams become farm systems to develop players for the few big franchises who are ok losing money.

The Dodgers, Yankees, Mets overspending might help them, but it's not foolproof. There's mostly an ok balance here, you can build a 100 win team in Cleveland or Kansas City if you're smart. 

I am worried that "Deferred money" has created a new loophole available only to a big market club, a tool that allows the highest money teams a way around some portion of the luxury tax due only to the fact that they are high revenue teams. The Dodgers have a credit card that the Royals do not have, they can go into debt like this with the expectation of higher long term revenues. This was not intended by the CBA and hasn't been the case previously.

100% agree with this. I think in the past the thought was that deferred money could help smaller revenue clubs afford big talent. Now it's broken wide open a new loophole to help bigger revenue teams avoid a tax hit (which removes additional resources from them and spreads revenue to smaller teams).

Maybe this truly is unique to Shohei, but I'd rather not see. I'm generally fine with baseball's competitiveness, but if this breaks open a new super team era (concentrated to the best markets) while also living with the extremely boring offseasons, it will be brutal.

[TaylorStSox]

59 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

40 years of indoctrination from the Chairman and his paid media minions is hard for many to overcome. 

https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-stockholm-syndrome

If you go to r/baseball, the reaction has been pretty universally "this is bullshit." Thousands of posts from fans of every team seem to agree. It has nothing to do with Jerry.

[South Side Hit Men]

2 hours ago, TaylorStSox said:

If you go to r/baseball, the reaction has been pretty universally "this is bullshit." Thousands of posts from fans of every team seem to agree. It has nothing to do with Jerry.

The AAV is consistent with the current present value of his future deferred payments. This is the value MLB uses for their calculation. Calculated using the current market interest rates, his annual deferral payments are worth $44,081,476.50, plus the $2,000,000 in cash he receives each year = $46,081,476.50.

The Dodgers are being charged a fair “tax”, if a luxury tax could ever be fair. People bitching are basically ignorant of math and or the process. See American average credit card balances for real life examples.

Lottery winners take a similar present value cash payment vs. spreading payments over 20-30 years.

$46M is significantly greater than what Ohtani would receive from a vulture finance company like JG Wentworth.

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by South Side Hit Men

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

7 hours ago, baseball_gal_aly said:

It would function exactly as the NHL and NBA do. Stars would get paid and the middle class would shrink. Oh hey, that's no different than MLB right now. 

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