MrTPlush

Was the bookie letting him bet with money he didn't have? Because if he lost $40mil and only stole $16mil from Ohtani...where did the other $24mil of gambling money he lost come from? That is perplexing. Usually with illegal bookies or bookies based in other countries you are lucky to use your own cold hard cash and get payouts....let alone try to gamble and win with money they don't even have in their possession yet. Did waving $4mil in front of their faces just make the bookie trust he was some mega rich gambling addict and sign off? Did they know he was stealing Ohtani's money and trusted he would steal whatever losses he incurred?

So I guess Ohtani doesn't have a manager or anyone that does his finances for him? I can see where Ohtani could be blind and an idiot to not notice money stolen from him. However, how would an accountant etc. not notice that? Seems it would be obvious. It doesn't explain the ability to bet such stupid amounts of money. These illegal bookies aren't going to let me start raining down $13k bets. NEVER on baseball? What was he even betting on. The fact he NEVER bet on baseball seems mind boggling as he was around it nearly daily. If Ohtani is innocent, jeez, someone in the Dodgers FO give that guy some financial help...this really should not happen.

Active players only...that is why the number of players is only 15.

Yah, not saying they shouldn't have done it or that it will really hamper them in any way. But a waste would still be a waste. Much like the Peralta deal the worst case felt like a pretty dominant (maybe even elite) bullpen arm due to the wiff%. Ashby's days as a starter seem to be at a bit of a risk and he just hasn't had the whiff%/velo he once had....so his ceiling may be crashing down in general. Though I wonder if the deal and those option years may give him a longer leash to be starter. If he moves the bullpen you may as well just rip up those options. Could play the long game and hope he still becomes a decent starter , then we can have nice 1-year deals for a starter.

The most obvious one I would have to imagine is Carlos Santana. 300+ homers and has played in both leagues a decent amount of time. I don't think McCutchen has played for an AL team, but he also has a stupid number of HRs for an active player. Yelich has a good amount for an active player, but I feel like that is a fun fact I would already know if he was one. EDIT: Okay after looking it up one of the four names is a bit shocking, with needing only 111 homers to join this club and has never hit more than 15 in a year.

I’ve been waiting my entire life as a Brewers fan for this kind of stat.

Sure, but at the same time, who cares? Delaying service time is a formality.

Well, Ashby was a waste of money I am thinking.

Mejia had just as much power coming up. He still managed 14 homers the last two years in the minors. 17 homers if you include the MLB ABs in 2018. He hit a ton of doubles to add to it. MLB.com had them both at a 50 rating. Similar power...better bat skills. The later is probably the rarer and more valuable to get in a catcher. There is the defense aspect, but I guess that wasn't a part of the point I was making. Both have/had huge offensive hype, but it definitely didn't materialize for Mejia. Just a tough position to excel offensively at when so much pressure to not mess up on the defensive side of your game....and the beating you take every day.

Giannis isn't leaving unless he asks to be traded. Maybe Milwaukee will still support them pretty loyally...but something tells me that fanbase takes a huge beating if they tear it down. I doubt the front office wants to meet that day in time any sooner than they have to. I have a hard time seeing them actually getting value to offset that. Trading a NBA star always seems to bring a pretty underwhelming return.

Shows how Quero may be promising, but even Mejia flopped bigtime....and he was certainly a much more promising prospect.

Not sure he will ever play his way out of it. Catchers just don't get that much money nor do they get long extensions. It isn't like Contreras is playing his way to a $200mil contract for over $30mil a year.

Wake up Contreras, my oh my.

Here is the problem and why change is almost surely impossible: Making the MLB and your arm imploding day 1 or day 3,000 is better than never making the MLB at all. Expecting to tell kids, college guys, etc to take it easy or they might blow out their arm one day is just....not going to happen. We can look at Woodruff...or any other one of these guys and say, "See kids, this is why spin rate and all that travel ball is bad." is not going to be effective. Woodruff is still a guy who became one of the best pitchers in the game and will make tens of millions before he retires. Not to mention, who knows if Woodruff becomes anything if he doesn't start throwing 100mph. You can't baby your arm and watch some other guys get bonkers spin rates and throw 100mph+, that just isn't going to happen. All those guys will pass you up. It is already nearly impossible to make the MLB level and stay there.

Bud experiencing not having an elite pen, it hurts.

It is just as affordable as it has ever been if you want it to be...actually in many ways even more affordable with the packages that include drink/food. Smaller portions, but that is all some people need and sometimes a smaller portion for your kid to eat half of anyway. People looking for affordable sit in the terrace or maybe the bleacher, that really isn't any more expensive these days. The only way it is more expensive is if you are picky as all get-up, must sit in a certain section, must go on a certain specific day of the week against a specific team in a specific month. There are still a ridiculous amount of games, some on weekends, some in the summer, and some on holidays where tickets are less than $15 (maybe even $10). I think the reduction of people going to games is a bit overblown. The start of this argument dates back to 2017 or so (72.7mil), where it then tumbled to 68.5mil before COVID. Things hit a concerning level in 2022 when they were still only drawing 64.6mil post COVID. However, that number spiked to a staggering 70.7mil in 2023. If you want to specifically look at the Brewers, they drew nearly identical fans to the park in 2017 and 2023. However, they ranked worse overall in 2023 (#15 versus #10). So, between 2017 and 2023 there is hardly that much of a decline in fans going out to the park. You could reduce that gap even more if you consider the clownery in Oakland effecting it a solid half million. It remains to be seen if the staggering jump in 2023 will stick. If it does (or even improves) I really don't think MLB has much of an attendance issue on their hands. Even if it declines slightly, you could probably just attribute that to economic times and I bet most sports will see struggles too.

Did you see how much effort he put into complaining about the new parking system after saying he is never going again anyway? This is hardly shocking. I do appreciate the disclaimer about how he isn't ever going to AmFam again or isn't a Brewers fan anymore though. Then I know to pretty much disregard whatever the opinion is. And that isn't sarcasm....I hate when people complain but fail to mention it really doesn't apply to them anyway.

Spin ball hard, throw ball hard, and start before you are a teenager. End of story and yah...the ball changing probably is a big part of why that happened. Though I think analytics is a lot to do with it anyway. It is broken and you aren't going to fix it. Guys aren't going to stop throwing hard or reduce spin rate....even if you deadened the ball. Why would you? Swings and misses will still make you better off. Smart teams will start investing in more pitching. Extending guys will become more and more risky on the pitching side. I wouldn't depend on some incentives to get guys to take care of their arms better,

One of the most bothersome things about Angel (and a few others) is the fact they will get a call wrong, double down, and sit on a throne on top of their inflated ego. With Angel, it isn't even behind the plate that is the core issue...dude has been messing up calls for decades all over the diamond. It is unfortunate that the umpires are protected as much as they are.

No way they are wasting money on people to do it. Definitely a computer, mostly. Last I knew the Brewers were cutting off a lot of ‘fat’ as far as employees. No reason to have employees track prices…if a dude can make a Twitter page to track celebrity airplanes, ticket tracking software is elementary stuff. It isn’t entirely due to secondary prices as Labor Day is dirt cheap, yet Brewers are pricing very very premium.

Meh, I am waiting for the Wisconsin one, 2099

I am sure they have smart people creating the algorithm and making sure it is effective. I am confident the Brewers aren't idiots and going to find themselves with a half empty stadium on Labor Day and cost themselves $1mil. This type of pricing is far from some new concept and many industries use it. Though as a business-ey person I see a few potential issues: #1 There is a bit of quirk when it comes to people like @rickh150. When you have one person buy it today for $80 and then someone three months from now pays $50, that can certainly ruffle some feathers. Mainly because I don't think most people are hyper aware this dynamic pricing is going on. If I am excited to go to a game and see it is $80, my jaw may hit the floor, and I may just not buy tickets. Even worse, I may just assume all games are that expensive. In an industry that heavily relies on fandom, this is a sensitive model to toy with. #2 This model doesn't exactly make people want to go buy tickets far in advance. The risk with that, if the Brewers decide they aren't very good, no one is going to want to go out and buy tickets...especially after so many years of success. Instead of people being 'stuck' using tickets they bought in March/April, they can simply just not even go. It is the same exact problem with a monthly service to watch the Brewers. By doing so it is very easy to just drop Bally Sports at any given time if they suck. Of course, on the flip side, there could be some good. Dynamic pricing like this motivates you to put a good product out there and hopefully win. Maybe even improving the fan experience in general. You certainly don't want to have dynamic pricing and have a crappy team that isn't fun to watch.

Hiura is simply a terrible example or comp. Hiura had 300 ABs at the MLB level. His splits were extreme, his K rate was over 30%, and his BABIP was comically high. Not to mention he was a pile of crap on defense and his entire value was entirely offense. Despite some posters clamoring to lock him up, his demise was incredibly predictable. There is a reason he never got an extension. On the flip side Contreras has 1,000+ ABS at a premium position, All Star, MVP vote getter, and has Silver Slugger. Hiura would have been 6 years from FA and still multiple years from even seeing arbitration. Contreras will make millions next year in arbitration. Actually, Contreras could falter offensively, have a major injury, and still carve out a career for the next 5+ years as a catcher...even as a back-up. Contreras is set to make millions in the future with virtually zero risk. Manny Pina's career lasted till age 36 and he made almost $15mil. The bar is stupid low for catchers. Contreras is going to get generational money, that is basically an afterthought at this point. Unless you really want to cling to the argument that some catastrophic freak injury could happen. The risk is whether or not he makes $50mil+ in his career or not. Contreras can blow his knee tomorrow and the Brewers would pay him millions in both 2025/2026 regardless of performance.

June 29th, lol wow. You can blame ticket flippers for this. All you see is the Brewers trying to get the fair price for games up front. Why sell tickets for $100, if they are worth $180? Just go buy on StubHub. If the price is comparable to StubHub, well, then I don’t understand why one would complain. If the price was cheaper (face value if you will) the tickets would all be sold out by now and you would be looking at StubHub already anyway. This is a good thing: #1 It means the Brewers are a hot commodity and people are wanting to go to games (spend money). #2 The Brewers are getting the money, not some sleezy douche bag ticket broker.

The problem is, it is college sports. There wasn’t a good answer, thus why they did little to nothing. Could they have done a better job? Sure…maybe. You want them to pay guys (or let them get paid by someone), but also want the NCAA to fund crummy non revenue sports. Even beyond that, expect them to also prop up non revenue schools. It doesn’t help some schools a sport can have great revenue and another school it is worthless. People want the NCAA/Schools to baby all these different sports and baby the less fortunate non-P5 schools to protect the fantasy of college athletics. It’s really trying to put lipstick on a pig.