owbc

As someone who owns one house that I live in, I struggle to see how the 20% price increase since I bought in 2018 helps me in any way. It doesn't help me with my mortgage payment. It doesn't give me more liquidity. It makes my property taxes higher. There's no way to realize that gain in value since I need somewhere to live. My house is not an investment, it's a basic need. If I had a second property it would be different, but I do not. Not to mention that the huge price increase is making things unaffordable for other people who aren't lucky enough to have a house like I do. Certainly the increase in crime and homelessness over the last year is noticeable. And that's with the eviction/foreclosure bans still in place. So as a whole the price increases are making things worse.

I’m not going to defend Ryan Braun’s actions or personality but the repeated misery that his beautiful swing has brought upon self-righteous Cubs and Cardinals fans has given me nothing but joy. I cheer the guy because of how much it annoys the opposing fans. #RyanBraunForever

In my view the “cheap owner” stuff only applies to signing contracts they are overpays in exchange for a few extra wins. Every single owner in baseball would have locked in Tatis for this price. It’s a bargain. ARod made way more money than Tatis is going to make. The Padres got lucky that MLB is facing some uncertainty right now.

It is well-documented that as a country we're not building nearly enough housing to keep up with demand. That said, current surge is mostly caused by low interest rates plus people wanting more space during the pandemic. Here in Seattle the news likes to run stories about people leaving for cheaper 'Zoom towns' but the reality is that our housing prices are even more insane than everywhere else. The median price just hit $800,000. Is it overpriced? It's just supply and demand. Once you have the house, good luck trying to get any work done on it. And in the unlikely event that you can find a contractor, expect to pay 50% premiums due to materials and labor shortages

In 2019 the Brewers averaged 59,000 TV viewers and the Marlins averaged 15,000.

Looks like we found our cleanup hitter for the wildcard game.

It's almost like MLB has a bit of a leadership issue, huh?

As I read these ideas, I am even further convinced that the Brewers should produce their own broadcasts and market them to the highest bidder. The MLB teams that have majority ownership in an RSN are clearly in the best shape right now...but there are not many of them. NYY, NYM, BOS, BAL, and Seattle. Not sure if the Cubs have a majority stake in Marquee or not. The Washington Nationals also have minority ownership in Baltimore's RSN. There might a few others that I'm forgetting? I have no idea what the contracts are like with Sinclair but I assume that the Brewers can not just scoop up the pieces of FS Wisconsin, at least right now. They have some talent from in-house video production for content at their stadium and it wouldn't be that hard to scrape together a broadcast that matches the production quality of those YouTube broadcasts that MLB was doing. I'd rather have crappy production than be subject to gambling advertisements. The daily fantasy junk is already a big turnoff to me. Given it's already mid-February, I assume they have no choice but to come to some sort of deal with Sinclair. Hopefully it's a short-term deal. RSNs are dying and will be gone entirely soon enough. The ones owned by MLB franchises will market themselves to streaming services or whatever becomes of cable TV without skipping a beat. The stupidity of the whole thing is incredible though. The people running MLB have business degrees, right? You think at least one person in charge would remember why the Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves are more popular than almost every other MLB team not in NY/LA. The Brewers should be giving their broadcasts away for as cheap as possible in order to get as many viewers as possible. It might cost them money in 2021, but in 2030 or 2040 it will pay big dividends. If they stick with the RSN model, they won't have any TV viewers left when the contract runs out.

FWIW, the Miami Marlins are in the same situation as the Brewers -- currently negotiating with Sinclair and supposedly considering other options as well.

I think the change to a more exciting game will come when teams realize the 3TO type hitters are not longer the best way to produce runs. Deadening the baseball may be part of that. Getting less homeruns from an all or nothing approach means the value of contact hitters will increase. Being able to field your position may become more important. Personally I think great defensive plays are more exciting than homeruns. But most teams would rather have an average defensive shortstop who has some power than a great shortstop who can only hit singles because the value of that power outweighs the value of great defense. Reduce that power difference by even a little and the scale tips in favor of the singles hitter. Having less offense doesn't have to mean fewer great plays. IT also would bring back the value of stealing bases and hitting behind runners and such. If we move from needing to steal bases at a 75% clip to score more runs than station to station baseball to 70% then the value of basestealers goes up. Then every time some gets on base there's more chances of something happening on a pitch. That assumes of coarse they keep the deadened ball long enough for those natural forces to change. In my view deadening the baseball will not fix the high K rate, at least not to the extent needed. Contact hitting is like bunting, it’s so hard to do that it would take ages to raise a whole new generation of baseball players to be better at it. And even that might not be enough. That’s why MLB needs to be constantly tinkering the rules like every other sport and responding to trends. They let it swing so far in one direction that sometime simple like a dead baseball is not enough to fix things.

It’s amazing how clueless the people in charge are. Everybody knows the pendulum has swung in favor of the pitchers/defense so the solution is to make another change that benefits the pitchers/defense? LOL. I actually agree with deadening the baseball in theory but it only works if you make other changes in tandem. Hitters literally can not put the bat on the baseball because everyone is throwing 90 mph sliders to go with their 97 mph fastballs with movement. Where is the corresponding change to help hitters? Lowering the mound? Shortening the distance between the bases? This stuff isn’t that hard. Every other league is constantly tinkering the rules to keep up with trends in the sport. MLB knows exactly what the product should look like to be interesting and popular and there are a number of ways to achieve that. Instead they have allowed the pace of play to slow to a crawl, fundamental components of the game (bunting, stolen bases) have almost entirely disappeared, and yet nothing is done. Deadening the baseball isn’t even a rule change. You know, steroid-era baseball at Coors Field was actually quite interesting, most of the action was because of the huge outfield allowing more singles/doubles/triples and the hitters can square up pitches better because they don’t move as much. It’s not because of home runs. The game might be better served by keeping the baseball that flies better and moving the fences back, which would increase the number of singles, doubles, and triples. While making speed more valuable on both offense and defense. A 7-inning slow pace, 3TO game sounds just as awful as a 9 inning one. I mean think about the messaging here—our product sucks so we need to shorten the games? Let’s make NFL games 3 quarters because people hate watching them so much while we’re at it. I also don’t buy the minor league comparison. The players aren’t as good in the minor leagues. Did anyone watch an XFL game and find the game as enjoyable to watch as the NFL? Is Joel Stave as fun to watch as Aaron Rodgers? Don’t sell baseball short! Professional baseball at the top level IS interesting to watch. Anyone can be entertained by it for 2-2 1/2 hours as they have been for over a century. If modern MLB isn’t entertaining it’s because it’s no longer the same game as it was even 10 or 20 years ago. Anyway, to end this rant I’ll note that the rot at the core is the distrust between MLB and MLBPA. Good luck fixing anything with that going on.

That was a long 15 years...

0-9 from 3pt. Not surprisingly, they are not winning.

I love watching Ozuna hit. His swing is so violent. He was squaring up everything in the zone last year. It's a good time for the Braves to spend money to keep up with LA. Also, he produced this all-time great lowlight:

They have a lot of money

There isn't a bad deal they can make because it doesn't matter. They can do whatever they want. Baseball is going to eat itself. The Dodgers had the NL MVP, so they bought the AL MVP. They won the World Series, then bought the NL Cy Young winner. It's broken. This stuff, and their appalling TV rules, are going to continue the sport's demise. At some point, either the owners realize this can't go on, or the MLB bubble pops, and a new league rises from the ashes, one that can't sustain the current player salaries and the players have no option but to play in a cheaper, more balanced league. That would be way down the line, obviously. The Dodgers’ success is everyone’s success from the owners’ perspective. Everybody gets a chunk of their revenue. The Pittsburgh Pirates are basically the Washington Generals at this point. The Globetrotters can’t play themselves, right?

Damn, this seems like the kind of deal brewcrew07 wants us to make. Too bad we got outbid by the Dodgers.

In my view the rationale to go the streaming route is to build a bigger and younger audience which will lead to more revenue in the long run. Just taking the money is pretty risky when you are dealing with a revenue-strapped company that wants to turn your broadcasts into some sort of gambling game.

I'm so sorry to hear that. Devastating.

I agree. I would really love to see them do something creative even if it is just on a one-year trial. We already know that Attanasio cares about broadcasting more than most owners and isn’t afraid to venture at least a little bit outside of the box, such as his hire of BA who was inexperienced relative to other candidates. And the Brewers have such pathetically low TV revenue that they have an easier “out” of RSNs than most teams. Imagine how people would react if they signed a deal with Amazon Prime Video, even if it was worth half of what they could get with an RSN...

Bump because our baby arrived! I figured I should do this post in the middle of the night while I let my wife get some sleep!

On the plus side, I haven’t used a public restroom for months. Only the nice toilet paper for my bottom these days.

It seems to me that Hiura’s height issue will be mitigated by the fact that he won’t have to catch any throws from himself.

We all know that whatever Sinclair does is going to be complete garbage. I’m cheering for it to be as awful as possible so they finally give up on RSNs.

I was hoping that the Seattle Kraken NHL team would go this route, but instead they announced that they have partnered with the RSN owned by the Seattle Mariners (ROOT sports). Which really just shows how big of a cash cow these RSNs are, since the Kraken have been acting like one of the more forward-thinking pro sports franchises out there. No such luck, they would rather shut out their younger audience to get a slice of that cable TV pie.