2023 MLB (non-Tigers) catch all thread

[oblong]

7 franchises have won the last 10 super bowls, 9 franchises have won the last 10 world series, including the aforementioned Royals.

It's apples and oranges anyway because you build the teams different. There's a lot more development and international work that goes on in MLB. 

[Edman85]

1 hour ago, Motown Bombers said:

Yeah those are all reasons why the NFL is better than MLB. The thing is, if you do draft a player like the Chiefs did with Mahomes, New York and Los Angeles can't give him a massive deferred contract. They can pay him the same as what the Chiefs pay him. The Chiefs are rewarded for drafting well. If the Royals had drafted a player of Ohtani's caliber and spent the time developing him, he would have been traded because the Royals would know they can't keep him. It matters in the context of the Lions because they are equal with other teams. It means the Lions have just as good of chance of being one of the dominant teams in the league as any other team. Parity is what makes the NFL better. 

I'm not sure the NFL has more parity or is better. It may be more popular because the season is shorter, condensed to one day, and more conducive to fantasy leagues. They have also mastered the art of publicity. I hesitate to say better; that is in the eye of the beholder, and this beholder couldn't give two ****s about the NFL.

[Longgone]

16 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

I'm not sure the NFL has more parity or is better. It may be more popular because the season is shorter, condensed to one day, and more conducive to fantasy leagues. They have also mastered the art of publicity. I hesitate to say better; that is in the eye of the beholder, and this beholder couldn't give two ****s about the NFL.

It's better, there are real issues with MLB that neither side seems willing to adequately address.

[Motown Bombers]

28 minutes ago, oblong said:

7 franchises have won the last 10 super bowls, 9 franchises have won the last 10 world series, including the aforementioned Royals.

It's apples and oranges anyway because you build the teams different. There's a lot more development and international work that goes on in MLB. 

The fact there is a lot more development and international work makes it even worse. Teams will do all the work of developing talent and then a team like the Dodgers will swoop in and over an enormous contract.  The Tigers have benefited from this. The Marlins went and scouted and signed Cabrera and spent the 4-5 years developing him to only have to trade him at age 24 because they could never be able to sign him. Sure they won the World Series in 2003 but imagine that team with Cabrera and Giancarlo Stanton and Hanley Ramirez? We wait years for these prospects to develop, and if they do, they're likely gone. I don't worry about the Lions not being able to compete with other teams to keep their star players. 

[oblong]

I wonder if Mahomes wishes he could he a free agent in a league without CBT instead of a salary cap?

[Motown Bombers]

6 minutes ago, oblong said:

I wonder if Mahomes wishes he could he a free agent in a league without CBT instead of a salary cap?

Mahomes had the opportunity to be a free agent and he chose to sign with the Chiefs. The thing is, the Rams couldn't just offer him a $700 million contract that the Chiefs had no hopes of matching. 

[oblong]

7 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

The fact there is a lot more development and international work makes it even worse. Teams will do all the work of developing talent and then a team like the Dodgers will swoop in and over an enormous contract.  The Tigers have benefited from this. The Marlins went and scouted and signed Cabrera and spent the 4-5 years developing him to only have to trade him at age 24 because they could never be able to sign him. Sure they won the World Series in 2003 but imagine that team with Cabrera and Giancarlo Stanton and Hanley Ramirez? We wait years for these prospects to develop, and if they do, they're likely gone. I don't worry about the Lions not being able to compete with other teams to keep their star players. 

They could have kept Cabrera but didn't want to.  That's different from not being able to.  

[Motown Bombers]

2 minutes ago, oblong said:

They could have kept Cabrera but didn't want to.  That's different from not being able to.  

LOL they wanted to keep Cabrera. They couldn't pay him what the Tigers and other teams were able to pay. I also bet if money was equal, Cabrera would have preferred to stay in Florida. 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Motown Bombers

[Jim Cowan]

17 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

Different sport but is Jon Rahm's blood money deal actually better than Ohtani's deal?  Did he get $400 million up front?

It appears that the answer is that he got $300 up front, $300 deferred, the likelihood of earning about $30 per year, a staff of 10, and use of a royal family private jet.  It's  a 4 1/2 -year deal. 

Jon, watch you don't sit on any forensic evidence on that airplane.

All the people murdered by MBS will still be dead.

[Edman85]

15 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

It appears that the answer is that he got $300 up front, $300 deferred, the likelihood of earning about $30 per year, a staff of 10, and use of a royal family private jet.  It's  a 4 1/2 -year deal. 

Jon, watch you don't sit on any forensic evidence on that airplane.

All the people murdered by MBS will still be dead.

There's some other stuff going on there. Different topic, but the negotiations between the PIF and the PGA Tour could nullify a lot of that if they go a certain way. Regardless, he showed his ass in a big way last week. I lost a lot of respect for him, if that means anything at all to him. (It doesn't)

Edited December 12, 2023 by Edman85

[RatkoVarda]

SFG finally get someone to take their money; CF Jung Hoo Lee, 6/122M including posting fee; will play in same division as BFF Kim

[1776]

29 minutes ago, RatkoVarda said:

SFG finally get someone to take their money; CF Jung Hoo Lee, 6/122M including posting fee; will play in same division as BFF Kim

Six year deal with an opt out after four years. 

[Tiger337]

6 hours ago, Edman85 said:

I'm not sure the NFL has more parity or is better. It may be more popular because the season is shorter, condensed to one day, and more conducive to fantasy leagues. They have also mastered the art of publicity. I hesitate to say better; that is in the eye of the beholder, and this beholder couldn't give two ****s about the NFL.

I also don't give a **** about the NFL, but in general I don't think parity makes a league better.  Parity can be boring.  I like it when the are good and bad franchises.  I also like it when a franchise that has been bad for a long time becomes good.  It's a much more intriguing story line than every team is the same and a random team wins every year.  Of course, that isn't what happens, but it seems to be the ultimate goal of parity.  

 

I think the NFL is more popular because it's easier to follow with a shorter season and only one game per week.  They also market the sport better.  I don't think parity has that much to do with it.  

Edited December 13, 2023 by Tiger337

[casimir]

Doesn’t baseball have the most parity?  Almost all teams have a winning percentage between 40-60% at the end of the regular season.  That can’t be said of football or basketball.

[casimir]

Seth Lugo signed with Kansas City for $45M over 3 seasons.  Oh, and get this, he isn’t deferring any of it until after the playing contract is up.

[gehringer_2]

26 minutes ago, casimir said:

Doesn’t baseball have the most parity?  Almost all teams have a winning percentage between 40-60% at the end of the regular season.  That can’t be said of football or basketball.

Baseball has the most randomizing inputs that mask team quality and keep winning percentages close. I wouldn't call that the same thing as parity in terms of the ability to win your division occasionally.

[casimir]

5 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Baseball has the most randomizing inputs that mask team quality and keep winning percentages close. I wouldn't call that the same thing as parity in terms of the ability to win your division occasionally.

Is that what is meant by parity, the ability to win a division?

[Tiger337]

3 minutes ago, casimir said:

Is that what is meant by parity, the ability to win a division?

If that's the case, then just put all the teams in the playoffs.  Just use the regular season for fantasy and gambling.  

[1776]

5 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

If that's the case, then just put all the teams in the playoffs.  Just use the regular season for fantasy and gambling.  

Rob Manfred approves.

[gehringer_2]

1 minute ago, casimir said:

Is that what is meant by parity, the ability to win a division?

That's what I would take it to mean - the idea that any team has roughly equal chance to be a good team if it brings a similar level of management skill to the table - that the league set up doesn't have a consistent bias against certain teams - which in the end means all teams should have similar resource bases. 

 

[1776]

Farhan Zaidi says the Giants offered Ohtani the same deal LA did but Ohtani chose the Dodgers. Not surprising.

[chasfh]

17 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

It appears that the answer is that he got $300 up front, $300 deferred, the likelihood of earning about $30 per year, a staff of 10, and use of a royal family private jet.  It's  a 4 1/2 -year deal. 

Jon, watch you don't sit on any forensic evidence on that airplane.

All the people murdered by MBS will still be dead.

Perhaps, but at least you know where the LIV blood comes from. No one knows where the bodies of the people the PGA murdered are. 😉

[Motown Bombers]

11 hours ago, casimir said:

Doesn’t baseball have the most parity?  Almost all teams have a winning percentage between 40-60% at the end of the regular season.  That can’t be said of football or basketball.

Currently 30 of 32 teams have real a possibility of making the playoffs in the NFL right now. The parity is that all teams are working from the same budget. The Lions have been a historically bad franchise because of poor ownership and the inability to draft and develop players. It's not because a handful of teams have an unlimited budget and can just sign away their stars. I have no fear if the Lions wanted to sign Goff, St Brown, and Sewell to extensions they will be able to because they have the same budget as every other team. If Torkelson and Greene become stars, I have no faith that the Tigers can compete with the Dodgers or Yankees or one of the few teams with nearly unlimited budgets. The Tigers aren't rewarded for drafting and developing those players like the Lions are for drafting and developing St Brown and Sewell. The Dombrowski Tigers got rewarded for never drafting and developing players. Only Verlander and they really shouldn't have been able to draft Verlander. They were able to because they were willing to pay more. At least MLB fixed that. 

[chasfh]

13 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

I also don't give a **** about the NFL, but in general I don't think parity makes a league better.  Parity can be boring.  I like it when the are good and bad franchises.  I also like it when a franchise that has been bad for a long time becomes good.  It's a much more intriguing story line than every team is the same and a random team wins every year.  Of course, that isn't what happens, but it seems to be the ultimate goal of parity.  

 

I think the NFL is more popular because it's easier to follow with a shorter season and only one game per week.  They also market the sport better.  I don't think parity has that much to do with it.  

It’s a difference in style that leads to the substance of parity between the sports. It’s OK to have good and bad franchises in a sport, I agree, and football has those too. (See Lions, Detroit.)

But even beyond that, it’s a different animal when there are also systemic issues that lead to the lack of parity, versus merely competence differences among the individual franchises. One can point to Tampa and say, look, there’s a franchise that doesn’t spend big bucks on free agents and they’re winning. But do the people of Tampa love love love their team that recycles its entire roster every four or five seasons because they won’t bid to keep stars longer than that? The stadium is in a ****ty location, sure, but I’d bet unusually low roster stability must have something to do with the weak attendance, too.

What I don’t know is whether there’s any causation between inability/disinclination to sign and keep big stars, and a team’s inability to finally win a ring. Many people might say that idea is ridiculous on its face, because the playoffs are a crapshoot 100%, but remember, Oakland had the same issue in the playoffs when they were winning 90+ every year, too. It’s only two anecdotes so I’m not fully subscribing to the hypothesis yet, but I also don’t think it can be rejected out of hand for lack of sample size.

[chasfh]

11 hours ago, casimir said:

Doesn’t baseball have the most parity?  Almost all teams have a winning percentage between 40-60% at the end of the regular season.  That can’t be said of football or basketball.

Stop the baseball season after 17 games and let’s see what the distribution of records are.

As for basketball, that’s a sport designed in such a way in which one guy can make a team good, and two guys can make them champions. Not possible in the other big three sports.