2023 MLB (non-Tigers) catch all thread

[Motown Bombers]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

Which just speaks to the structural diffrences, of which MLB has no control over except to move to a 17 game season. I get that on any given Sunday, or Monday or Thursday, team A could win and team B could lose, turning one of those contenders into a playoff participant. That's more likely than team A winning 9 games and team B losing 9 games in a row to keep it proportional.  Baseball cannot, and is not trying to, emulate that.  That's why comparions between the two leagues are apples and oranges.  In baseball teams play almost everybody.  If you have several great teams then mathematically you are likely to have several teams comparitively worse.  

Now to more more to the spirit of what MB is inferring, would baseball be better if on Aug 19, 2023 you had a few teams with 75+ wins (BAL/TB/ATL/LAD) and then more teams with 60-74 wins? (15 teams were over, 9 teams were under 60 at that point).  I'm not sure the math would support that unless the bad teams were that much worse.

Worth noting, on that date the Arizona Diamondbacks were at 64-61. 

 

What I am inferring is the NFL is a better product because no one team has a competitive advantage over the other. This schedule length is irrelevant. If the season were shorter, teams would likely have shorter rotations and a team like the Dodgers could give massive contracts to a couple starting pitchers that other teams couldn't. If you believe shorter schedules benefit the NFL, MLB can always reduce their schedule. 

[Motown Bombers]

If you take away the Dodgers payroll advantage, do they win as many division titles as they have? I can't say that they would. 

[gehringer_2]

7 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

I don't know.  The Dodgers do more things right than any team in baseball and still have won a real World Series since 1988.  I think it's a crap shoot.  

For baseball, parity still will not get a team a WS win on a regular schedule because winning a WS is fundamentally a random outcome within the subset of teams that make the playoffs. As has been discussed before, a small number of baseball  games has too little power to reliably say anything about any team with a record good enough to get to the playoff. Thus it is easy for a good team to reach the playoffs repeatedly and still not win a WS - e.g. the 14 Braves teams from '91 to '05 just as a matter of bad random luck. But parity should guarantee that any team that manages its resources decently should have a a chance of an appearance in the playoffs proportionately often.

I would look at annual win/loss % or playoff appearances rather than titles as per MB above

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by gehringer_2

[RandyMarsh]

Edman or Mark would probably know more about this but I have heard in the past one of the biggest advantages large market teams have particularly the Dodgers is not even so much the money to splurge on big name FAs but the extra resources they can put forth to scouting, development and analytics.

I have read that its not an accident or particular methodology they have that the Dodgers always have a stacked system and churn out major league players its because the sheer amount of money and personnel they can allocate to it gives them such a leg up over the competition.

[1776]

Ohtani has an opt out in his 10 year deal with the Dodgers. The opt out can be exercised if an unpublicized person, or persons, leave the organization. I would imagine this person, or persons, would be front office people that have a lot of influence on the decisions and direction of the team. He can exercise the opt out at the end of the year of the departure of the unnamed.  

[1776]

https://theathletic.com/5133154/2023/12/12/giants-shohei-ohtani-offer-buster-posey/
 

Good read on the Giants effort to sign Ohtani. 

[RandyMarsh]

17 minutes ago, 1776 said:

Ohtani has an opt out in his 10 year deal with the Dodgers. The opt out can be exercised if an unpublicized person, or persons, leave the organization. I would imagine this person, or persons, would be front office people that have a lot of influence on the decisions and direction of the team. He can exercise the opt out at the end of the year of the departure of the unnamed.  

Wow that's a new one, talk about having leverage, that person could ask for anything and he or she would probably get it. 

[Tenacious D]

8 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

Wow that's a new one, talk about having leverage, that person could ask for anything and he or she would probably get it. 

Unless Ohtani flames out. 

[oblong]

The unnamed person could be one of his handlers or translators or whatever.  Might be that the person is the only one he trusts for certain things and wants them around.

[RandyMarsh]

16 minutes ago, Tenacious D said:

Unless Ohtani flames out. 

True, could you imagine if Baez had a similar clause except it was a guarantee he'd opt out if the person left the organization? That person would be treated worse than Milton from Office Space.

[1776]

4 hours ago, oblong said:

The unnamed person could be one of his handlers or translators or whatever.  Might be that the person is the only one he trusts for certain things and wants them around.

The two mystery names have been revealed and it’s kind of what you’d expect. Mark Walter, the Dodgers’ controlling owner, and Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations

[Tenacious D]

5 hours ago, RandyMarsh said:

True, could you imagine if Baez had a similar clause except it was a guarantee he'd opt out if the person left the organization? That person would be treated worse than Milton from Office Space.

 

[Motor City Sonics]

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[RandyMarsh]

Rays and Dodgers have agreed on a trade for Tyler Glasnow contingent on Glasnow signing an extension with LA. 

[1776]

I believe the Rays did well in this deal. The Dodgers are the “drunken sailors” Avila referred to a couple years back. 

[CMRivdogs]

This might be worth following. Amazon is in talks with Diamond Sports. 
 

 

[Cruzer1]

7 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

This might be worth following. Amazon is in talks with Diamond Sports. 
 

 

Yes, it would be awesome, although there might be more baseball streaming ahead? I don't want that. 

[Edman85]

1 hour ago, Cruzer1 said:

Yes, it would be awesome, although there might be more baseball streaming ahead? I don't want that. 

I've been streaming baseball for 18 years.

[Cruzer1]

33 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

I've been streaming baseball for 18 years.

I know, I'm talking about a situation where it's streaming instead of raw cable. The two can coexist, imo. But the new CBA is going to be really tricky, since we're getting back into the extreme haves/extreme have nots because of the Diamond crap.

[Edman85]

1 hour ago, Cruzer1 said:

I know, I'm talking about a situation where it's streaming instead of raw cable. The two can coexist, imo. But the new CBA is going to be really tricky, since we're getting back into the extreme haves/extreme have nots because of the Diamond crap.

Honestly, evaluate and ditch cable if this goes through. Switching from Comcast Cable+Internet to Hulu Live + ATT internet is saving me about 80 bucks a month. The only thing I don't have with Hulu are the Bally stations, which for me means Rays and Marlins games. If this results in blackouts being lifted and games moving to prime, you can ditch cable, subscribe to Prime and come out way ahead.

[oblong]

The blackouts exist because of outfits like Bally.  If Amazon takes them over I can't see them making the games Prime only.  That might be too far for the organizations.  Amazon could use the cable broadcasts to promote their prime product.  For those locally without cable then they'd have to use Prime.

So win win I guess.

Then the broadband companies will hike their internet prices.

[casimir]

21 minutes ago, oblong said:

The blackouts exist because of outfits like Bally.  If Amazon takes them over I can't see them making the games Prime only.  That might be too far for the organizations.  Amazon could use the cable broadcasts to promote their prime product.  For those locally without cable then they'd have to use Prime.

So win win I guess.

Then the broadband companies will hike their internet prices.

Consumers have money and companies will continue to find ways to get that money.

[Cruzer1]

1 hour ago, Edman85 said:

Honestly, evaluate and ditch cable if this goes through. Switching from Comcast Cable+Internet to Hulu Live + ATT internet is saving me about 80 bucks a month. The only thing I don't have with Hulu are the Bally stations, which for me means Rays and Marlins games. If this results in blackouts being lifted and games moving to prime, you can ditch cable, subscribe to Prime and come out way ahead.

I get too much to give up cable. Especially for NFL and MLB and NHL networks. Most of the streaming services suck, imo. I might be the last dinosaur, but I will stick with it as long as possible. 

Edited December 19, 2023 by Cruzer1

[SoCalTiger]

Ditching cable for me saved $ but more importantly saved time. But cost is not that bad for even cable when you consider the high cost of attending games. So to each their own I guess. 

[Edman85]

23 minutes ago, Cruzer1 said:

I get too much to give up cable. Especially for NFL and MLB and NHL networks. Most of the streaming services suck, imo. I might be the last dinosaur, but I will stick with it as long as possible. 

I have NFL Network on Hulu Live. MLB Network is not, however they don't have exclusive games and almost everything important (like the draft lottery) is simulcast online for free.