Most of the front office and management isn't going to be there in 10 years regardless of whether they have or haven't won a WS.
Depends on what the Ohtani bucket brings in from revenues vs the Alvarez/Cole bucket. If the Ohtani bucket earns you $50MM/yr in additional revenues (as suggested here), then Ohtani for sure. No idea how accurate it is: The Dodgers privately have spent years talking about Ohtani brand, and just what it would mean for their glorious franchise. Ohtani is basically Taylor Swift in baseball spikes. Every Dodgers game will now be broadcast live in Japan. They will have billboards touting Ohtani all over Southern California. There will be lucrative Japanese advertising in the rotating signs behind home plate at Dodger Stadium. There will be sponsorships. Merchandise. Jerseys. Caps. Licensing. You name it, Ohtani will be on it. Sure, $700 million is a lot of money, but you know what, Ohtani is going to be worth nearly $50 million a year to the Dodgers in marketing and licensing. Ohtani brought in $25 million a year to the Angels, and with the Dodgers, that should be doubled.
For 2 years I have been saying that Bregman's likely comp is Kris Bryant's 7yr $182M deal but a year shorter due to being a year older making my opinion 6yrs / $156M. But I am now inclined to increase it because 1) There will be few hitters on the market. Altuve, Bregman, Goldschmidt, Rizzo, Conforto are the biggest names currently expected to be FA. 2) Despite huge inconsistency week to week and month to month, Bregman is very dependable when looking at overall season numbers and expectations. 3) There is no model or research where you can find Bregman outside of the top 5-6 3B in MLB based on recent results and expected results the next few years. 4)top level FA spending the last 2 years has gone through the roof. 5) 3B contracts the past 5 seasons. Bryant (30) 7 / $182M Machado (30) 11 / $350 Devers (26) 10 / $313.5M including 1 arb season Arenado (27) 8 / $260M incl.1 arb sea., 2 opt outs Rendon (29) 7 / $245M Riley (25) 10 / $212M including 3 arb seasons. Ramirez (29) 7 / $141M (laughably cheap hometown discount) 7 players 60 years - 5 arb = 55 yrs, 8 FA yrs average $1703.5M -$101.5 arb = $1602M AAV = $29.1M 8 @$29.1M = $232.8M Last 3 seasons WAR (fWAR/bWAR) avg. Bregman (11.9/11.5) =11.7 Bryant (2.5/0.5) = 1.5 Machado (15.3/14.7) = 15.0 Devers (12.1/11.6) = 11.85 Arenado (13.8/14.3) = 14.05 Rendon (1.1/1.0) = 1.05 Riley (15.6/18.7) =17.15 Ramirez (18.1/17.9) =18.0 Average WAR of 7 players 11.25 (3.75 per season) Bregman compares positively. (3.9 per season). So other than being 1 year older there is no reason Bregman should not get a comparable deal. Bregman's reported want: 10yr /$300 Average of 7 contracts: 8yr /$232.8M Average of 2: 9yr/$264.4M My analysis (-1yr for age) 8yr/$236.8M is what he should actually expect (which does not take increased spending into account). FTR: Spotrac's market analysis: 9 /$286.170327M I think a slight hometown discount is reasonable to hope for but only probably 5-10%. And I expect Alex (and Boras) will do everything possible to make sure he is guaranteed a contract through at least age 37 ( and I'm sure that's absolute best case scenario) Therefore, if the Astros seriously want to keep him, then a 7yr / $186.5M is the minimum offer that would not be laughed at.
People get fired in much shorter time-frames than the length of this contract. If it works, it works, if it don't, it don't. **** the Dodgers.
Slightly but not totally related, have you read this? https://www.thetribune.ca/sports/mlb/ Now I'm curious if they have other solid articles.
Exactly my sentiment when it comes to the disparity in baseball. No other league has these self-proclaimed “poor” teams. Poor teams that know how to manipulate their fan base into believing they’re poor, and thus will never spend near the tax threshold (fake cap) and everybody will just blame the Dodgers/Yankees payrolls as being the problem.
NBA and NFL have salary caps and floors. On spending versus revenue, Forbes has the bottom 5 teams in value having an estimated operating income of about $12M in 2022 with about an average player payroll of $108M. I doubt the Forbes numbers are perfect. However, their numbers are likely good enough to show the payroll inequities between the Dodgers and Yankees from the bottom teams (about $160M difference) is mostly due to the Yankees and Dodgers having more revenue than the bottom value teams being cheap by pocketing $12M on average (or $24M if Forbes is off by 100%). The purpose of MLB is to make the owners money. The owners of teams with lower revenues aren't going to sell their teams or portions of it to make payroll bigger. Also, the Dodgers and Yankees aren't going to just let other teams get better by spending more and hurt their ability to earn more revenue. If every team spent $12M more, the Yankees and Dodgers would likely match it proportionally meaning the teams spent more money for nothing.
Great. We all know the rich teams could spend more (and continue to do so as max contract deals continue to escalate every 3-5 years). The point is that the "poor" teams can definitely spend more and choose not to... because they want to maximize profits. And they hope that people don't care or just are on board with owners wanting to be profitable, and now its just 'accepted'. The indentured servitude/arbirtration system certainly feeds into this mentality. Poor teams can still be competitive with low payrolls if they're scouting/drafting well, and poor teams can continue to get star prime years at a discount, or flip them at max value for prospects that re-sets the cycle. The NBA/NFL also don't have this system for its young players, nor should they given some of those players expectations to contribute/produce at a high level starting day one. Even if the Yankees/Dodgers are forced to spend $40 million less, what mandate is there for the poor teams to spend more?
As much as we hate it pro sports are businesses. Maybe 100 years ago, owners got into it for the sport and competition, but that all changed as they grew and money started pouring in. Now that teams have hundreds of millions in revenue and value, only billionaires and high end millionaires can afford to own a team. Unfortunately, they usually prioritize and value money much much more than sport or competition. Some could care less about sports all together. That means that teams are run like any other business with profit being the main and many times only goal. The Astros are lucky to have an owner who played and loves the game and prioritizes winning. But getting a majority of owners to change the rules to prioritize competition and helping lower spending teams compete by requiring spending more is a very very tough task. What needs to happen, is put requirements in place for the new owner during a sale that prioritize spending and actual effort towards winning or at least competing. We know the league can make demands to approve a sale. Eventually there will be requirements in place for all or most teams and they will start prioritizing competition more and more.
I would just point that the top 3 spending teams in 2023 didn't make the playoffs. 2 of the bottom 4 did make it - the two teams with the most wins in the AL. And 4 out of the bottom 10 made it. Overall, 6 of the top 15 payrolls made the playoffs and 6 of the bottom 15 payrolls made the playoffs. One of the top 10 made the World Series; one of the bottom 10 made the World Series.
Of course it is. Its just that more lower level baseball teams tend to treat it more solely as a business than all the lower level teams in all the other sports leagues combined. If you want to tell me baseball is "special" in that they have to have a poverty class, so be it. I don't think the revenues, resources, or richness demographic of the owners that MLB has is all that different. MLB also tends to have to play in larger media markets due to the number of games.
Its always been about spending smarter not spending more (along with some luck with health, etc). But teams that intentionally spend less because they "can't" spend more are bad for the game and growing their fan bases. Arizona also has a market demographic that could support a higher payroll... now will they not spend because they don't have to given their ability to have homegrown talent? Or will they not spend because they "can't"?
