Carlos Correa to Mets - 12 Years, $315 Million

[monty57]

32 minutes ago, superfly said:

If I’m ever buying a baseball team it’s not so I can languish around the wild card line for 20 years. I want to win. Nobody’s saying MA should drop 250 million a year on payroll, but if he really wanted to extend Burnes and/or Woodruff he’ll find a way. That’s what rich people do.

Then go buy a team. However, most people who have the financial wherewithal to accumulate a large fortune understand why doing what you’re suggesting might be a bad idea.
 

In Attanasio’s early years, he tried “spending up” to win. Agents learned to bypass Melvin and call Attanasio directly, leading to signings like Suppan, Lohse, and Looper. Attanasio learned that this wasn’t the best way to run the team, and has been relatively successful using his current strategy… That’s what rich people do, not blow their fortune chasing the white whale. 

[owbc]

55 minutes ago, Sixtolezcano said:

1.  I guess then you’re ok with never winning a WS in your lifetime (or if your lucky maybe once).

I'm ok with the current situation because of (1) the expanded postseason as well as the randomness of it; (2) free agency rarely wins championships in MLB; (3) the Brewers are one of the small markets that is legitimately trying to win and not pocket profits. 

 

 

[Fear The Chorizo]

Trying to recall if Mark A. even owns half of the Brewers....I think he was around 40% of a stake (controlling interest) about 10 years ago.

Saying it's on Mark A to open up his pocketbook to spend more on players, when most of his net worth is tied up in investments, is economically ignorant and factually inaccurate to how the Brewers' organization is structured.  There are plenty of minority owners that a small market MLB team has to both continually recruit and keep happy.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Mark A approximate net worth:  about $700 Million - likely 2023 Brewer payroll ~$120M - ratio of about 5.8

Steve Cohen net worth:  about $13 Billion - likely 2023 Met payroll with luxury tax ~$500M  - ratio of a whopping 26

I know this isn't how it works....but if we're focused on comparing a MLB team's payroll to its primary owner's net worth when assessing how much we want a team to spend on player salary, Steve Cohen has alot more spending to do in order to get the Mets' payroll up to about 2 and a quarter billion.

[tmwiese55]

It's never been more obvious something has to be done with salary caps, revenue sharing, competitive balance, etc.    I don't see how they wouldn't get enough teams to vote in favor of it (assuming they only need like 20 to pass it).   

I know in the past the union is opposed to it on account of these mega deals wouldn't be happening. But a way to convince the players would be to look at the NBA, their structure creates a way for the 2nd, 3rd tier players to still get huge contracts. The MLB structure is massively top heavy so the middle guys get squeezed a ton and often times a team is better off playing/paying the young rookie league min than paying 10-15 mil for marginally better production.  Basically look for a structure for a more balance spread of wealth for the players. 

[jerichoholicninja]

So is collusion over now?

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, tmwiese55 said:

It's never been more obvious something has to be done with salary caps, revenue sharing, competitive balance, etc.    I don't see how they wouldn't get enough teams to vote in favor of it (assuming they only need like 20 to pass it).   

I know in the past the union is opposed to it on account of these mega deals wouldn't be happening. But a way to convince the players would be to look at the NBA, their structure creates a way for the 2nd, 3rd tier players to still get huge contracts. The MLB structure is massively top heavy so the middle guys get squeezed a ton and often times a team is better off playing/paying the young rookie league min than paying 10-15 mil for marginally better production.  Basically look for a structure for a more balance spread of wealth for the players. 

Owners need 24 votes to pass anything. That doesn’t really change your point, I’m just clarifying the number. 

[tmwiese55]

21 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Owners need 24 votes to pass anything. That doesn’t really change your point, I’m just clarifying the number. 

Thanks.   That actually does make it a bit tougher.   NYY, NYM, LAD, BOS are clear No votes (maybe Bos is wavering with their current pullback on spending).  It's not hard to get 3 more from Phi, SD, SF, Cubs, LAA, TX type teams.    Getting to 11 like I guessed seems extremely tough, only getting to 7 not so much. 

[wallus]

I find it amusing that one poster that was complaining about ticket prices and the other one that won't pay to watch them are the two people telling the owners to stop being cheap.

[superfly]

3 hours ago, monty57 said:

Then go buy a team. However, most people who have the financial wherewithal to accumulate a large fortune understand why doing what you’re suggesting might be a bad idea.
 

In Attanasio’s early years, he tried “spending up” to win. Agents learned to bypass Melvin and call Attanasio directly, leading to signings like Suppan, Lohse, and Looper. Attanasio learned that this wasn’t the best way to run the team, and has been relatively successful using his current strategy… That’s what rich people do, not blow their fortune chasing the white whale. 

Mark learned the hard way he didn’t know how to run a roster, not that he shouldn’t spend. That’s what Arnold and Stearns were hired to do.

[Jopal78]

2 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Owners need 24 votes to pass anything. That doesn’t really change your point, I’m just clarifying the number. 

The vote for a salary cap would be 30-0 anyways. That’s what the strike in ‘94 was about. I don’t recall exactly anymore but I believe the players walked off not because of a salary cap but because the owners would not also agree to a salary floor. 
 

That ship has sailed now, and baseball finances are fundamentally different, and the players control the narrative in the media on labor issues. 

[tmwiese55]

Maybe it would've been back then, but as you said it's much different now.  You could be correct that even the big market owners would vote for it to protect their profits over their advantage in winning.  But I think those big ones I mentioned would not want to give up their current massive advantage over everyone else on the field. And keep in mind such a proposal would also include revenue sharing with the small markets (which they'd of course hate). 

But who knows, maybe I could be wrong or at least that thinking gets enough so they can't get their 7 No votes.  But still the original point stands that convincing the players is biggest hurdle and I'd think a push to show them the 'middle class' of baseball players would massively benefit and it would only coming from the top top guys who will still be massively rich. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

58 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

The vote for a salary cap would be 30-0 anyways. That’s what the strike in ‘94 was about. I don’t recall exactly anymore but I believe the players walked off not because of a salary cap but because the owners would not also agree to a salary floor. 
 

That ship has sailed now, and baseball finances are fundamentally different, and the players control the narrative in the media on labor issues. 

Any real change will require owners and players to work together and with Manfred at the helm, I don’t see that happening.

Owners need to agree to share tv revenue to create a more equitable monetary situation.

Then players need to agree to a salary cap and floor based on a percentage of revenue.

This will never happen because neither side can get out of their own way when it comes to this stuff.

[CheezWizHed]

Huh... Baseball Economics season came early this year. 

[brewmann04]

Sorry taxes mean nothing to some owners and the game needs a salary cap. I can see why some teams don’t go crazy in Fa 

[BlightyBrew]

I think we should stop focusing on what the Mets are doing and start concentrating on being better than the Cardinals and the Cubs.   The way I see it, right now, 3 teams from the East are in, 2 in the West, which leaves only 1 team in the Central.  Winning the Central next year is the only way a team from our division gets into the playoffs.

The Central is a three team race and we have not done enough to win it.  We are not better than the Cardinals and the Cubs are going to be more of a threat than people want to admit right now.

Of course, its still early and who knows what happens with injuries next year but we need to do more.

[Robocaller]

4 hours ago, brewmann04 said:

Sorry taxes mean nothing to some owners and the game needs a salary cap. I can see why some teams don’t go crazy in Fa 

I was thinking about it and comparing it to cars. Given the disparity of salary totals among teams, it's like you have a race where there are Hyundais competing against Porsches. If you have a Hyundai and are staying close to the Porsches, you can claim a moral victory. Just not a real victory.

Since it's not strictly high income teams that spend a lot, profit-sharing wouldn't be a solution to the salary disparities, but it would help a lot. It could also hurt if teams have a guaranteed income of $100M and choose having $50M teams out there to make a profit.

 

[zurch1818]

I seem to remember a few years ago when owners wouldn't sign players past their early 30's. I don't know what changed since then.

Also, I thought baseball viewership is decreasing with an aging demographic and cord cutting from my generation. I don't understand how TV revenue can explode in the future like it is now. Teams must be pumping in money from other sources (like the Mets).

[homer]

18 hours ago, jerichoholicninja said:

So is collusion over now?

There's no collusion but there is collusion. 

 

[tmwiese55]

2 hours ago, zurch1818 said:

I seem to remember a few years ago when owners wouldn't sign players past their early 30's. I don't know what changed since then.

Also, I thought baseball viewership is decreasing with an aging demographic and cord cutting from my generation. I don't understand how TV revenue can explode in the future like it is now. Teams must be pumping in money from other sources (like the Mets).

Good points.  Yea what happened to the lessons have been learned that long contracts to 30+ year olds are stupid and end in disaster?  Which I still think is true.   Seems the agents have sold teams on this pay super long big money to reduce the annual amount over the life of the deal to reduce the tax.  But still, these contracts are gonna be anchors on their books in 5-7 years.  For Harper, Machado, Trout, Soto types it makes some sense since they were so young at FA. But the guys this year are your typical 31ish in most cases. 

I guess we just have to play the long game, once Yeli's is off our books all these other teams are going to be saddled with 25-50 mil in dead money, that's our time to shine. 

[jerichoholicninja]

Are there any owners who have publicity stated a desire for a salary cap or complained about the economic inequalities of the game? Are there players that have done the same? The answer is pretty much a no all around so if the people who can actually make the change don't want it why does any fan think it's going to happen.

[Lajitas]

4 hours ago, zurch1818 said:

I seem to remember a few years ago when owners wouldn't sign players past their early 30's. I don't know what changed since then.

Also, I thought baseball viewership is decreasing with an aging demographic and cord cutting from my generation. I don't understand how TV revenue can explode in the future like it is now. Teams must be pumping in money from other sources (like the Mets).

Baseball viewership is actually not decreasing much, except for the national televised games.  The viewership has become regionalized.  Consistently during the season, the games on the various regional cable networks are at the top of the ratings in each market every week.  It's just that fans will watch their own teams' games, but not others.  Brewer fans watch Brewer games, but don't watch games that don't involve the Brewers in any sort of substantial numbers.  And the same is for the fans of all teams.

[owbc]

4 hours ago, zurch1818 said:

I seem to remember a few years ago when owners wouldn't sign players past their early 30's. I don't know what changed since then.

Also, I thought baseball viewership is decreasing with an aging demographic and cord cutting from my generation. I don't understand how TV revenue can explode in the future like it is now. Teams must be pumping in money from other sources (like the Mets).

Interest rates changed. 

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/why-are-teams-issuing-extremely-long-contracts/

Basically when interest rates are high it makes more sense for both players and owners to sign longer deals.

The whole demographics thing is a red herring, as noted in the post above this one. MLB's demographics trends are consistent with every other sport.

[Fear The Chorizo]

2 hours ago, tmwiese55 said:

Good points.  Yea what happened to the lessons have been learned that long contracts to 30+ year olds are stupid and end in disaster?  Which I still think is true.   Seems the agents have sold teams on this pay super long big money to reduce the annual amount over the life of the deal to reduce the tax.  But still, these contracts are gonna be anchors on their books in 5-7 years.  For Harper, Machado, Trout, Soto types it makes some sense since they were so young at FA. But the guys this year are your typical 31ish in most cases. 

I guess we just have to play the long game, once Yeli's is off our books all these other teams are going to be saddled with 25-50 mil in dead money, that's our time to shine. 

Baseball has and always will be a young man's game, no matter how much players in their 30s earn in salary - worrying about how a small market team can afford resigning a pitcher or hitter at the tail end of their prime as they reach free agency shouldn't be something we worry about as fans of the Brewers under the current system.  Small market teams have to be great at identifying young talent in the draft and international signings every year and should focus all their resources at improving that aspect of player acquisition.    

 

[sveumrules]

MLBTR reporting the Giants are re-allocating some of their freed up Correa cash to Taylor Rogers (3/33) and Michael Conforto (2/36).

Couple of opportunistic agents right there.