MLB 2023 Season

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by CONN CHRIS

If you are a T-Mobile user, get the T Tuesday app (or whatever it is called). T-Mobile offers free subscriptions to a host of partner streaming services on Tuesdays. I waited for the free MLB.tv day last March. I was a paid MLB tv subscriber for a decade or so until my son pointed this out to me last season.

I am! And I will look for this.

Originally Posted by Amazin69

Oy vey. In case this genius hasn't noticed, people enjoy watching baseball games. That's why they are telecast, that's why Budweiser advertises on them, that's how come the Yankees get to charge money for tickets.

So the revenue is being generated, regardless of how much it hurts our woke friend's fee-fees. And, compared to corporate profits and the Steinbrenner clan, I think Aaron Judge makes a damn good choice of recipient, all things considered.

I believe you missed his point. He is saying we all are paying for this one way or the other. How? I gave you some examples. When MLB teams get tax considerations for new stadiums is another; you as a taxpayer contribute to that revenue stream.

[clipped]

[Amazin69]

Great, so don't do that then. Plenty of communities don't play hostage to owners. (Look at Oakland, obviously.)

That still doesn't seem like a reason for your redacted "friend" to try and rile the peasantry's fury against Judge, all "OMG, that bastard has our money!"

I mean, lucky for Aaron he isn't black, I guess, so that the "how dare that pig make all that money for playing a game!!" venom could be true to its racist roots, but I've been watching capital dress attacks on labor up in faux-populism since Dick Young helped the Mets drive Tom Seaver out of town by claiming Nancy was jealous of Ruth Ryan, and I didn't like it then, either.

(The difference was that in 1977, the whole country hadn't been through 43 years of worker-crushing neoliberal hell, so I was only annoyed as a fan back then. Now that I know how this crap is used to kill Americans ["How you gonna pay for it, Bernie?? Huh? Huh?"], I'm even less tolerant than before.

But Yankee fans gotta Yankee, I suppose. [/somewhat triggered and probably over-broad. But still.])

[Déjà Bru]

Let's talk about sports agents for a bit. Speaking of yesterday's signing of Carlos Rodon,

For Scott Boras, Rodon’s agent, this is the fourth contract worth at least this much that he has negotiated this offseason alone. The others were for Carlos Correa (Giants, $350 million, 13 years), Xander Bogaerts (Padres, $280 million, 11 years) and Brandon Nimmo (Mets, $162 million, eight years). His total over the past month or so is more than $1 billion.

Almost $1.2 billion, to be exact, if you add Rodon's deal to this list:



Say Boras' take in this is 10%. That's $120 million for one month's work!

Caveats:

• It's not just Scott Boras alone.

The Boras Corporation operates out of a $20 million, 23,000-square-foot, two-story, glass-and-steel building in Newport Beach, California. Subsidiary companies include Boras Marketing, which does memorabilia, marketing, and endorsements and the Boras Sports Training Institute for strength/conditioning and sports psychology. Many of the 75-person staff are former major leaguers, including Bob Brower, Don Carman, Bill Caudill, Scott Chiamparino, Mike Fischlin, Calvin Murray, Jeff Musselman, Domingo Ramos and Kurt Stillwell. The company has scouts across the United States, Asia and Latin America. Staff also includes an MIT-trained economist, former NASA computer engineer, three lawyers, five personal trainers, an investment team, although the firm does not provide investment services for clients. Also on staff is a sports psychologist and a 14-person research staff charged with watching each day's games and reporting to Boras.

• Presumably, Scott and his corporation are not paid up front based on the total value of these contracts. They, like the players, must wait for their money.
• Presumably, Scott and his corporation pay their fair share of taxes. Right? Right?

But still. $120 million earned in a single month.

[Amazin69]

I believe sports agents only make 4%. It's performing arts agents who get 10%.

So Boras might not even have cracked $50,000,000 for the month. Poor fellow.

[thehef]

Re Boras, if I were a GM, my default position on his clients would be to pass. Not that I couldn't be persuaded otherwise on a case-by-case basis...

Why? I look at the Corey Seager example. His options were, essentially:

- 10 years, $365m will Texas
- probably 8 years around $300m to stay in LA***

***Not sure LA's actual offer was reported, but during spring training in Seager's final year in LA, the Dodgers reportedly offered an 8-year, $250m extension, so the guess above is probably in the ballpark.

Now, to be clear, I don't begrudge any player for wanting to make as much money as possible during his career. Nor do I begrudge Boras for essentially doing the same thing...

That said, it says something to me about a guy's actual committment to winning when he chooses...

- 10 years, $365m will Texas, and the likelihood of barely sniffing - perhaps never even reaching - the playoffs for the remainder of his career

... over...

- probably 8 years around $300m to stay in LA, and likelihood of not just playing in October, but being a key member of title contender every single year

Easy for me to say that someone should leave $50-$75 million on the table (actually, more when you consider the tax implications of CA vs TX), but there's no real difference in lifestyle between those options, other than how playing in a marquee market on a perennial contender - vs the complete opposite of that - affects one's lifestyle. So in Seager's case, that tells me that winning isn't that important to him. Now had he chosen more money to go to one of several other teams that are contenders to the degree that LA was/is, that'd be a different story...

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

Oy vey. In case this genius hasn't noticed, people enjoy watching baseball games. That's why they are telecast, that's why Budweiser advertises on them, that's how come the Yankees get to charge money for tickets.

So the revenue is being generated, regardless of how much it hurts our woke friend's fee-fees. And, compared to corporate profits and the Steinbrenner clan, I think Aaron Judge makes a damn good choice of recipient, all things considered.

Here's another "fee-fee" letter to rant about. The second one, that is. The first one, I think you will agree with.

[Syd Thrift]

I'm seeing nothing in there about being "woke". Can we not turn this into politics, please?

I do see one very dumb take on sports economics, though. Assuming the Yankees have already slotted in the ideal price point for tickets and beer, if they raise prices, they'll sell less of them and get less revenue. Like, what do people think is the alternative? The owners are just like "well, hey, we want to basically just give away beer for $20 but now that the GREEDY PLAYERS have signed a contract we wrote out for them, we can't do that anymore"? Come on. MLB is a business. They operate as a business, not a charity. Hell, if someone figured out they'd make more money by *lowering* prices, they'd do that (in the case of Yankee Stadium, where they have pretty high attendance, that seems unlikely, but still).

But this is like basic Econ 101 stuff. How much it costs to "build" something has little to do with how much people are willing to pay for it except when it comes to your sales pitch on what you want to charge them. People have this weird view of businesses, particularly large businesses, as somehow being detached from this, but no, if anything the bigger business are more detached from the human "we will charge less because we're giving back or whatever" stuff you might see from small business (or of course "we're charging more because we're manufacturing bespoke products" or "you pay for quality", but I digress). There is a point at which your sales x what your charge multiplies into the biggest number and businesses try to peg that as much as they can, regardless of what they just paid out to some outfielder or other.

[monkeyman576]

Guess Correa didn't like his fitness being qustioned.

ESPN: Virtually the only knock on Correa is his durability.

What about his integrity(cough, cough).

[Amazin69]

Originally Posted by monkeyman576

Guess Correa didn't like his fitness being qustioned.

ESPN: Virtually the only knock on Correa is his durability.

What about his integrity(cough, cough).

Well, they did say "virtually".

**********************************

As for the letter-writer who finds Judge's contract "unconscionable", I completely agree. Capitalism unfortunately rewards workers based on things other than the necessity and moral worth of their work.

And as soon as we have a revolution and give Uncle Stevie's and Charles Johnson's (the Franklin Templeton guy who owns the Giants) and Tom Ricketts's and all the other hedge-fund managers's (and the "defense" contractors' and the pharmaceutical bloodsuckers' and many many others') income to teachers and nurses and firefighters and safety inspectors and social workers and so forth, then Mr Unconscionable can start complaining about Judge making the most of his ability.

(But don't you effing dare come for Taylor Swift! Even I have my limits!)

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

And as soon as we have a revolution and give Uncle Stevie's and Charles Johnson's (the Franklin Templeton guy who owns the Giants) and Tom Ricketts's and all the other hedge-fund managers's (and the "defense" contractors' and the pharmaceutical bloodsuckers' and many many others') income to teachers and nurses and firefighters and safety inspectors and social workers and so forth

Well... you start throwing really big bucks at those professions and you'll have a completely different pool of workers competing for - and in many cases, getting - those jobs. The phrase "unintended consequences" comes to mind.

[Déjà Bru]

Mets fans may no longer dump on "James McCann't"!

[Syd Thrift]

WTG Mets KUTGW

[Amazin69]

Does this mean that the alleged $8 million deal for Omar Narvaez and his .597 OPS is back on? Oh…joy.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

WTG Mets KUTGW

Is it up over 700 million for Cohen yet? Pretty sure their luxury tax will be stupid high.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

Mets fans may no longer dump on "James McCann't"!

Sounds like they made another "baseball decision".

[thehef]

It boggles my mind that Craig Kimbrell is getting $10m from the Phillies after his very subpar season as the Dodgers' closer. I mean, I get that $10m isn't really a lot of money for a 1-year deal in MLB, but it's still a pretty hefty paycheck for being mostly a failure... so much so that LA decided that going closer-less in the post-season was a better option than having him on the roster...

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by thehef

It boggles my mind that Craig Kimbrell is getting $10m from the Phillies after his very subpar season as the Dodgers' closer. I mean, I get that $10m isn't really a lot of money for a 1-year deal in MLB, but it's still a pretty hefty paycheck for being mostly a failure... so much so that LA decided that going closer-less in the post-season was a better option than having him on the roster...

You should go over to Reddit and check out the Phillies fans trying to spin it as a great move. It's pretty hilarious.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

You should go over to Reddit and check out the Phillies fans trying to spin it as a great move. It's pretty hilarious.

Having witnessed Kimbrel's failings & flailings up close last season, Trea Turner is probably having a WTH? moment...

[Déjà Bru]

The Dodgers have cut ties with Trevor Bauer.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...r-trevor-bauer

This is remarkable:

The Dodgers are on the hook for the $22.5 million Bauer is owed for the final season of his contract but would save $720,000, the major league minimum, if another team signs him in the open market.

Meaning, Bauer is such damaged goods that the Dodgers are willing to throw away almost $22 million on a pitcher who presumably could still help them.

[MathBandit]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

The Dodgers have cut ties with Trevor Bauer.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...r-trevor-bauer

This is remarkable:

Meaning, Bauer is such damaged goods that the Dodgers are willing to throw away almost $22 million on a pitcher who presumably could still help them.

Also means that assuming any of the other 29 teams do want to have him on their roster, not a single one of them was willing to throw the Dodgers a PTBNL to ensure his services- which would matter given that he gets his pick of any team interested since money doesn't matter (the signing team will pay the minimum and the Dodgers will pay the rest). You have to think that if there's a team out there that does want Bauer, they'd have been willing to throw in a lottery ticket to avoid the risk he signs elsewhere.