5/29/25 9:10PM Tigers @ Dodgers

[Tigeraholic1]

Dodger Stadium Los Angeles, CA

Game Time Forecast: 60 Cloudy

Listen: 97.1 The Ticket

Watch: FanDuel Sports Det

Starters:

RHP Reese Olson

RHP Roki Sasaki

[Sports_Freak]

A heads up. Thank You for the GDT but the date is incorrect.

[Sports_Freak]

The Yankees used to be my least favorite team. I never liked them or their fans. But the Dodgers have overtaken them. I hope they ALL pull hamstrings and lose 100 games. Their unfair payroll makes a joke out of MLB. And I still say bean them. Hurt them. Make them....bleed. 😡😡

[Tiger337]

I dislike the Dodgers too, but I actually think having a villain team is good for baseball.  

[chasfh]

43 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I hope they ALL pull hamstrings and win only 100 games.

 

[chasfh]

[Sports_Freak]

44 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I dislike the Dodgers too, but I actually think having a villain team is good for baseball.  

I don't agree. MLB wants to grow the sport and make it popular across the whole country. A team going out and buying all the best talent with a $300 million payroll is an unfair advantage. Fans see this and say, why bother going to games, the Dodgers buy all the victories. Their team doesn't have a chance. $150 million payroll? How cute, expensive losers 

[Tiger337]

2 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I don't agree. MLB wants to grow the sport and make it popular across the whole country. A team going out and buying all the best talent with a $300 million payroll is an unfair advantage. Fans see this and say, why bother going to games, the Dodgers buy all the victories. Their team doesn't have a chance. $150 million payroll? How cute, expensive losers 

All fans care about now are championships and the Dodgers have only won two of them this century.  I don't think they are going to turn fans away.  

[chasfh]

5 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I don't agree. MLB wants to grow the sport and make it popular across the whole country. A team going out and buying all the best talent with a $300 million payroll is an unfair advantage. Fans see this and say, why bother going to games, the Dodgers buy all the victories. Their team doesn't have a chance. $150 million payroll? How cute, expensive losers 

On the other hand, aren't the Dodgers actually doing it right by putting to foot all the way down on the pedal to put together the best team possible? How many other teams, almost all of whom are run by billionaires, are doing that?

Opening Day payroll:

Team	2024	2025	Increase
Dodgers	221	321	$100
Orioles	94	150	$56
Padres	154	197	$43
Phillies	236	278	$42
Tigers	95	131	$36
Angels	159	192	$33
Red Sox	162	184	$22
Twins	119	137	$18
Diamondbacks	157	174	$17
Reds	88	103	$15
Mets	302	315	$13
Jays	222	233	$11
Mariners	129	138	$9
Royals	105	113	$8
Athletics	48	55	$7
Nationals	95	100	$5
Pirates	72	75	$3
Brewers	94	94	$0
Guardians	86	82	($4)
Rays	88	73	($15)
Rangers	222	206	($16)
Yankees	294	272	($22)
Rockies	134	112	($22)
Braves	225	202	($23)
Giants	189	158	($31)
Cubs	216	184	($32)
Astros	237	204	($33)
Marlins	84	47	($37)
Cardinals	164	122	($42)
White Sox	118	59	($59)
All 30 Teams	6633	6736	$103

[monkeytargets39]

At least with the 90s/2000s Yankees they had a pretty good core of players they developed on their own.  Jeter, Posada, Bernie, Soriano, Cano, Pettitte, El Duque, Mariano.  That’s a lot of all-star caliber players developed by one franchise around the same decade or so.  There were several others who weren’t all-stars but were legit contributors.

This current Dodger team has….Muncy, Pages, Will Smith, May and a broken down Kershaw.  Everyone else was a high profile FA signing or lopsided trade.  

I don’t like the Yankees but the Dodgers are definitely tracking worse.  

Edited Saturday at 07:02 PM by monkeytargets39

[Sports_Freak]

41 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

All fans care about now are championships and the Dodgers have only won two of them this century.  I don't think they are going to turn fans away.  

All fans care about is the possibility of a championship. And with one team hoarding all the quality players, the possibility of the Pirates or Marlins winning a championship are real close to 0%. Fans will stay away in droves.

[Tiger337]

16 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

All fans care about is the possibility of a championship. And with one team hoarding all the quality players, the possibility of the Pirates or Marlins winning a championship are real close to 0%. Fans will stay away in droves.

Maybe the Pirates and Marlins owners should sell their teams if they can't compete.  If you have no chance of ever making a post-season with 12 teams, then you are a big part of the problem.  

[gehringer_2]

54 minutes ago, chasfh said:

How many other teams, almost all of whom are run by billionaires,

Quote

Maybe the Pirates and Marlins owners should sell their teams if they can't compete.  If you have no chance of ever making a post-season with 12 teams, then you are a big part of the problem.  

No one should have any economic sympathy for *anyone* who owns a major league baseball team (or an any other pro sports team FTM) but IMO at least, it doesn't particular advance the argument to harp on the assets of any particular ownership because that isn't what makes the situation what it is. The Dodgers and Yankees aren't able to spend more money because their ownership groups are richer or theoretically able or willing to invest more, they can spend more because the team has more revenue. If Ilitch owned the Dodgers he'd probably be spending what the Dodgers spend now and if the Dodger's ownership group owned the Tigers they'd probably be spending more or less what the Tigers spend now. Or conversely if Ilitch still owned the Tigers but the Tigers were the team from LA, the Tigers would be spending what the the Dodgers do.

There simply are not 30 markets in the US where you can generate the kind of revenue that LA and NYC generate. Every other sports org recognizes that and makes a serious effort to normalize revenues across the league. As long as baseball doesn't, there is no ownership group that will ever be able to rescue the Pirates or Marlins, Detroit etc., from their revenue disadvantage.

Edited Saturday at 07:32 PM by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

10 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

No one should have any economic sympathy for *anyone* who owns a major league baseball team (or an any other pro sports team FTM) but IMO at least, it doesn't particular advance the argument to harp on the assets of any particular ownership because that isn't what makes the situation what it is. The Dodgers and Yankees aren't able to spend more money because their ownership groups are richer or theoretically able or willing to invest more, they can spend more because the team has more revenue. If Ilitch owned the Dodgers he'd probably be spending what the Dodgers spend now and if the Dodger's ownership group owned the Tigers they'd probably be spending more or less what the Tigers spend now. Or conversely if Ilitch still owned the Tigers but the Tigers were the team from LA, the Tigers would be spending what the the Dodgers do.

There simply are not 30 markets in the US where you can generate the kind of revenue that LA and NYC generate. Every other sports org recognizes that and makes a serious effort to normalize revenues across the league. As long as baseball doesn't, there is no ownership group that will ever be able to rescue the Pirates or Marlins, Detroit etc., from their revenue disadvantage.

With 12 teams making the playoffs, every team should be able to compete, make the playoffs some years and thus have a chance to win it all.  Bringing the Dodgers back to the pack isn't going to make it easier.  

[gehringer_2]

3 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

With 12 teams making the playoffs, every team should be able to compete, make the playoffs some years and thus have a chance to win it all.  Bringing the Dodgers back to the pack isn't going to make it easier.  

IDK, if you bring the highest spending teams "back to the pack" then that is going to lower the cost of FA's and a team like Detroit would have that much higher chance of having landed Bregman for example, who certainly would have made us more competitive.

Which is why the MLBPA is just as responsible for the competitive mess the league is in. The players won't do anything that might limit the top end biggest contracts. But the reality is that more players would  share in more of the revenue if 10 players got 50M instead of 1 getting 500M. The MLBPA has never seen it that way though so there is an effective alliance between ownership in the union in a system that sucks.

Edited Saturday at 07:46 PM by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

18 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

There simply are not 30 markets in the US where you can generate the kind of revenue that LA and NYC generate. Every other sports org recognizes that and makes a serious effort to normalize revenues across the league. As long as baseball doesn't, there is no ownership group that will ever be able to rescue the Pirates or Marlins, Detroit etc., from their revenue disadvantage.

Counterpoint: since the New York and Los Angeles DMAs make up 11% of the US population all by themselves, and the teams both have a fan footprint that straddles the country, it's in Baseball's best interests to privilege these two teams to maximize their on-field success and, by extension, Baseball's total revenue overall. The remaining 28 owners are mollified by the substantial profits they get from owning a baseball team that both throws off hundreds of millions in revenue and increases in valuation, and which they don't even have to spend on to seriously compete, because competing is a nice-to-have, not a must-have.

 

[chasfh]

Here's another way to look at the revenue vs payroll question as it relates to baseball teams.

[gehringer_2]

this sort of makes sense. If you assume non-payroll expenses for operating a team don't vary *that* much across teams, then as total budgets go down, the % of non-payroll expense goes up, thus the % of total revenue to payroll is going to drop as well.

Looking at the chart, it appears a lot of team have non-payroll budgets in the range of 150M-180M - which might include any money ownership was taking out of the team as well.

[casimir]

4 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

I don't agree. MLB wants to grow the sport and make it popular across the whole country. A team going out and buying all the best talent with a $300 million payroll is an unfair advantage. Fans see this and say, why bother going to games, the Dodgers buy all the victories. Their team doesn't have a chance. $150 million payroll? How cute, expensive losers 

You had it right back when Mike Ilitch was spending like a drunken sailor and you thought there needed to be a salary cap back then.

[casimir]

3 hours ago, monkeytargets39 said:

At least with the 90s/2000s Yankees they had a pretty good core of players they developed on their own.  Jeter, Posada, Bernie, Soriano, Cano, Pettitte, El Duque, Mariano.  That’s a lot of all-star caliber players developed by one franchise around the same decade or so.  There were several others who weren’t all-stars but were legit contributors.

This current Dodger team has….Muncy, Pages, Will Smith, May and a broken down Kershaw.  Everyone else was a high profile FA signing or lopsided trade.  

I don’t like the Yankees but the Dodgers are definitely tracking worse.  

Should the Dodgers send Betts back to Boston since it was a lopsided trade in their favor?

The Tigers traded away Flaherty, got a couple of promising prospects, and then reacquired Flaherty.  Should that be allowed?

[casimir]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

On the other hand, aren't the Dodgers actually doing it right by putting to foot all the way down on the pedal to put together the best team possible? How many other teams, almost all of whom are run by billionaires, are doing that?

Opening Day payroll:

Team	2024	2025	Increase
Dodgers	221	321	$100
Orioles	94	150	$56
Padres	154	197	$43
Phillies	236	278	$42
Tigers	95	131	$36
Angels	159	192	$33
Red Sox	162	184	$22
Twins	119	137	$18
Diamondbacks	157	174	$17
Reds	88	103	$15
Mets	302	315	$13
Jays	222	233	$11
Mariners	129	138	$9
Royals	105	113	$8
Athletics	48	55	$7
Nationals	95	100	$5
Pirates	72	75	$3
Brewers	94	94	$0
Guardians	86	82	($4)
Rays	88	73	($15)
Rangers	222	206	($16)
Yankees	294	272	($22)
Rockies	134	112	($22)
Braves	225	202	($23)
Giants	189	158	($31)
Cubs	216	184	($32)
Astros	237	204	($33)
Marlins	84	47	($37)
Cardinals	164	122	($42)
White Sox	118	59	($59)
All 30 Teams	6633	6736	$103

That’s an inflationary of only 1.5%.  I’m in a completely different industry, but we use 3.5% year over year for labor (wages and salary) if we don’t have precise numbers to use for budgeting/forecasting purposes.

[chasfh]

Tork’s OPS+ craters by more than 700 points. Suck.

Edited Saturday at 11:07 PM by chasfh

[Motor City Sonics]

Did I miss something.  Is Torres hurt?      Hitting .429 and he's being rested today?    2 games in with an off day tomorrow and he's being rested?     That is odd.  

[gehringer_2]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

Counterpoint: since the New York and Los Angeles DMAs make up 11% of the US population all by themselves, and the teams both have a fan footprint that straddles the country, it's in Baseball's best interests to privilege these two teams to maximize their on-field success and, by extension, Baseball's total revenue overall. The remaining 28 owners are mollified by the substantial profits they get from owning a baseball team that both throws off hundreds of millions in revenue and increases in valuation, and which they don't even have to spend on to seriously compete, because competing is a nice-to-have, not a must-have.

 

counter point to the counter point: the NFL

Football has been eating baseball'slunch for decades. Is it because there is so much parity almost all fans have recent memories of championships/near championships and rebuilds are 2 or 3 seasons instead of 8 or 9? Is parity the reason? I don't know - but it's the first argument to make.

[chasfh]

33 minutes ago, casimir said:

That’s an inflationary of only 1.5%.  I’m in a completely different industry, but we use 3.5% year over year for labor (wages and salary) if we don’t have precise numbers to use for budgeting/forecasting purposes.

Twelve teams going to the bank by pocketing the difference in spend.

The Cubs is especially galling. Any goodwill the Ricketts might have had from the 2016 world championship is, as Ernie would surely intone were he here today, looooong gone.