owbc
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Everything posted by owbc
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Is Mark A positioning the Brewers for a sale?
owbc replied to True Blue Brew Crew's topic in Milwaukee Brewers Talk
It's certainly a plausible theory, but I get the impression that Mark enjoys owning the team and doesn't want to cash out. Although maybe he has grown frustrated by the inability to compete in baseball's economic landscape. The revenue situation right now is not pretty to say the least, with the Brewers falling farther and farther behind the bigger markets. I think the more likely explanation is that after the Yelich contract blew up in their faces they have decided not to sign any more long term contracts and plan to run the operation a bit leaner. More like how Tampa operates. Or perhaps prepping for a 'rebuild' is the better way to think of it. The Hader trade was the first indication of that, the lack of interest in signing our other assets indicates they are getting ready to trade them as well and go with the younger core. -
Ding dong, the shift is dead. Long live the pitch clock.
owbc replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Milwaukee Brewers Talk
From what I've heard, infield repositioning after the pitch isn't going to be a thing. There isn't any reason for them to be moving laterally because they are still going to cover the right side gap against lefties. The only difference is that the SS can't go any farther over than directly behind 2B and the 2B can't be on the outfield grass while covering the gap. A 5-man infield is also still legal. I think the penalty is irrelevant, it's probably something that will get called like 3 times per season. -
Club wins Burnes' arbitration case (source)
owbc replied to Brewermania101's topic in Milwaukee Brewers Talk
Burnes was never going to sign an extension with us. Better for everyone that the wishful thinking gets squashed now. I do think the odds are increasing that the Hader trade will mark the end of this era of competitive Brewers baseball. Especially if there is lingering bad blood over that, which there may be. -
At the very least they deserve a good first round draw...the last couple have been brutal.
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Yep, it's going to be a rinse and repeat if Oakland moves. "Blah blah blah they only averaged 7,000 fans/game, nobody in Oakland cares about baseball..." Which we all know is BS. Everyone in Montreal switched to following the Blue Jays. They didn't stop being baseball fans. I think Americans fail to appreciate how popular baseball is in Canada. Here's a fun stat -- the Blue Jays averaged 896,000 viewers/game on Sportsnet in 2022. The Yankees averaged 368,000 on YES, but they have generally been in the 200,000s most years. The Blue Jays have been known to draw more viewers than that for their spring training games. It helps that they are broadcast in all of Canada -- but that's the exact same reason why Nashville and Charlotte are good baseball towns that generally support the Atlanta Braves. I have no doubt that both Montreal and Vancouver BC could support successful MLB franchises for the same reason that Nashville and Charlotte are good options.
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There's no bias, it's wins above a replacement DH calculated using the actual output at the DH position in the league. Anybody who can hit can play DH. You can't put Rowdy Tellez in center field. Additionally, the position penalty at 1B is worse than DH because the league average OPS at 1B is 25 points higher than DH. It has to be that way, there's huge variance between the average offensive output at different MLB positions. WAR and wRC+ are complimentary statistics. If you have a full-time DH, it also means that your crappy defenders have to play the field all the time to keep their bats in the lineup. In addition, you're obviously not generating any WAR when you're sitting on the bench while the rest of your team is playing defense. If Winker does miraculously put up a 140 wRC+ it means he got over his injuries which also means he's probably healthy enough to play better defense than he did last year. So maybe he will have some value in the field for us.
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There are so many good "fan reactions" in this article: https://www.chron.com/sports/astros/slideshow/Ridicule-Texas-Rangers-Globe-Life-Field-ballpark-204370.php
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They've been on cruise control on this winning streak. It's not like they are truly dominating anyone, they are going through the motions for 3+ quarters before putting inferior teams away with a quick burst in the 4th. Typical NBA regular season stuff. Last night they almost got caught not doing enough to win, but they pulled it out and treated the fans to some fun basketball. Hard to complain.
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The Texas Rangers' new stadium is the biggest joke of them all. It looks like a Weber grill and has the charm of a warehouse. A perfect fit for Texas. Atlanta I won't comment on except that the demographics of the crowd at Braves games looks a little 'off' if you are familiar with Atlanta as a whole. Colorado and Arizona are both lease extension negotiations similar to Milwaukee. Kansas City's owner is seriously pushing for a downtown stadium, but it's unclear whether that will lead to anything. Tampa is probably going to get their new stadium soon, that will be the next one to get constructed. The A's situation looks like a toss up, if they stay in Oakland I think MLB expands to Las Vegas and whichever of Nashville/Charlotte throws more money at them. If Oakland moves to Vegas, MLB adds both Nashville and Charlotte.
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Just hypothetically, what would be the justification for AFFv2? Texas wanted a retractable roof. Atlanta wanted to move to the suburbs. Nothing else has opened in the last 10 years or is currently under construction.
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Ding dong, the shift is dead. Long live the pitch clock.
owbc replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Milwaukee Brewers Talk
Agree, it sounds like this change would have applied to just over a third of position player pitching situations from 2022. So it should be a significant drop. There was some ridiculous stuff happening at the end of the season such as a position player pitching in a tie game and recording a win (Luis Torrens). Making the "Manfred runner" in extra innings permanent is perhaps a more controversial change to the rules. I've accepted the premise that we need to avoid long extra innings games, but I think it would be more fun to reduce the number of defenders in the field in order to speed up the conclusion of the game, plus it would encourage contact hitting and more creative strategies. -
Yeah, a huge chunk of the tech layoffs is sales and recruiters. The other chunk is basically people with $300K+ total comp who may need to accept a 20% pay cut in their next job at a startup or traditional company. And those folks are chomping at the bit to get some of that talent which was previously out of their price range. There's a lot of good talent there because the layoffs were not very discriminate in most cases.
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Lots of questions. Is the 2040 option a team or mutual option? From the way the article is written, it looks like the taxpayers are on the hook for everything up to 2040. That would make sense because we know the language in this was crafted to be friendly to the Brewers. That's the ideal solution, but again, that may not be possible until 2040. But the Brewers are unlikely to agree to do that without getting a lump sum of cash. And you would want strings attached to that cash so the Brewers don't pack up and leave in 2045. Which means you want a 20-year agreement for them to stay in the ballpark. Which is...a lease. I think you have to accept that the taxpayers made a very bad decision for themselves in the 1990s and they are stuck with the consequences now. The best thing to do would be to avoid having the same topic come up again in 2060.
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This has been coming up in many cities that built publicly-owned ballparks in the late 90s/early 00s. If the public owns the ballpark then the taxpayers have to pay a portion of the maintenance. But it is negotiable. This seems like a big ask by the Brewers but I think that’s the way the contract was written so the state is kind of stuck with it. For comparison, 2018 the Mariners asked for $180 million in exchange for a 25-year lease and ended up with a $135M package. They recently used some of the funding to build an all-inclusive club viewing area that no regular people will ever set foot in.
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1000%. It's kind of crazy that consumer demand hasn't fallen yet and the only reason it hasn't is probably that most people carry over credit card balances so they may be ignoring how much they are falling behind. I also know at least personally, the significant number of people in my inner friend/family circle who have been laid off in the last 6 weeks is influencing my thinking for the year as well.
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Most of the rosters look pretty light on pitching. There's going to be a lot of runs scored in this tournament, although the winning formula might be to have a set of 5 relief pitchers that can cover most of the game. It's also the last chance to watch MLB players without the new rules. The DR is absolutely stacked and has to be the favorite. I would add Venezula to the list of contenders. Mexico looks surprisingly good. The first round US-Mexico game in Phoenix will be a fun one in front of a sold out, pro-Mexico crowd. The Miami pool also promises to have some games with a fun atmosphere.
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It's a near miracle that in 120 years of MLB there have only been two instances where major rule changes to the actual game itself (i.e. not juiced balls or steroids) were required to keep offense and defense in balance. Maybe there are more but the DH/mound lowering and the shift ban are the two big ones that come to mind. It's probably going to be needed more often going forward.
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I just don't see Winker coming back from those surgeries and lighting it up in April and May. It would be truly phenomenal if he is leading the team in OPS at the all-star break. If he bounces back to an OPS of .800 in 2023 that would be considered a success in my view.
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I read the personal finance reddit and many of those folks were all putting in the max $6,500 into their IRA in January. To me the biggest risk is lack of liquidity as you noted, especially in your 55-62 window when you might need the cash. I see it as one piece of a diversified investment portfolio -- and it's a piece that you don't really have to think about after making the contribution. I didn't make a 2022 contribution (still can until tax day) so I might do that depending on what my bonus/raise looks like. It would sure be nice to retire at 55! I spent so much time getting my PhD that I figure I'll work until 70, but I guess we'll see.
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Padres extend Darvish: 6 years, $108 million
owbc replied to homer's topic in Milwaukee Brewers Talk
The arguments I've generally seen for this type of reckless spending are... 1. Assume inflation/infinite growth of baseball revenues so deferred money is fine. 2. The bad contracts can be offloaded later. 3. The owner is a billionaire and can afford it. 4. It's the price to pay to win a championship (often paired with "competitive window" or "everyone else is doing it"). -
Padres extend Darvish: 6 years, $108 million
owbc replied to homer's topic in Milwaukee Brewers Talk
The Mariners had the advantage of Castillo coming over and getting excited about pitching on a contending team in a pennant race for the first time in his career. The way I've seen it reported is that Castillo asked his agent for the extension about 48 hours after Julio Rodriguez signed his megadeal. They also inked it right before everything went wild in free agency. The Castillo contract is surely the floor of what Woodruff could reasonably get. Is Woodruff going to go to the Brewers this year and ask for an extension? I think it would take the young guys coming up and having a good year and getting him excited about the future in Milwaukee. Maybe it's not the same as landing on a team with a generational player like Julio Rodriguez, but I do think Woodruff needs to be excited about staying in Milwaukee if a similar deal is getting done. -
Absolutely. There's nothing better than high-stakes baseball. Eventually one of the major sports is going to make the bottom teams compete in a tournament for draft picks order rather than using a lottery. Or in a sport like MLB were draft order doesn't matter as much, put some draft pool money on the line as well. End the regular season on Labor Day. Half the teams go in the 'playoff' pool, the other half go in the 'draft' pool. The playoff pool teams compete for spots and seeding in the normal postseason in October. The draft pool teams compete for draft dollars and position. Make it a round-robin so there are no eliminations and everyone still plays 162 games that count for regular season stats. You can schedule home games in advance so they are on the 162-game schedule like usual with 'opponent TBD'. April baseball is the other month besides September that is full of empty stadiums and uninterested fans. So April should also be a tournament month. Throw all the teams in 4 region-based pools and have them compete for trophies. Or make it more fun, organize the pools based on standings or payroll from the previous season. Again, do most of it as a "round robin" that can be scheduled in advance, then have some silly championship over a weekend. Give the winning players something they will appreciate like an extra day off or less travel.
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Nailed it. The West sure got shaken up today. Durant and the Suns going for co-revenge against Giannis in the finals? That would be entertaining to say the least.
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Spring training is a great time. We went for the first time in 2019 and it's becoming a bit of a tradition now. This year will be our third time. It's close to a perfect day to go for a morning run, hit the pool for an hour or two, watch some afternoon baseball, and then have a nice dinner. And there is no shortage of great food in the Phoenix area!
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It seems like a common theme in MLB right now is trying to float unsustainable revenue models that are bad for the fans. The RSN thread is basically the same story. This is obviously nothing new, Selig let the Montreal Expos fade into oblivion 20 years ago, but the fact that the widespread destruction of multiple franchises is happening concurrently should be concerning to someone. There's no recovery once it becomes generational and fans move on to supporting other teams. But maybe it isn't since the bottom 10 franchises barely make a dent in revenue numbers and are only useful for extracting public subsidies. I often think that Miami Marlins fans are the smartest ones in baseball for never coming back after the World Series fire sale, even after the new stadium, rebranding, new owner, etc. Miami obviously has a massive baseball fanbase and has sold out almost all of their WBC games months in advance, but they are not dumb enough to support a team that has no hope of winning anything in the near future.
