Hot Stove 2023-2024

Thanks for not attacking me and letting me vent.

MLB is broken when only a few teams are in on a star players.

When the Dodgers also sign Yoshinobu Yamamoto then that will be it.

April is a long ways away, I'm sure I will be in a different mind set by then.

And Bob Costas comment really fucking pissed me off…

"Baseball has to be breathing a sigh of relief, because if he went to Toronto, his value to the sport would have been greatly diminished"

For the reasons Bee outlined, plus acting like Toronto is some kind of garbage dump, Costas can go fuck himself.

Heyman can fuck himself too while we’re at it for essentially saying the same thing but with more words

otm

Everyone otm, but I dunno, I’m spoilt, I’m an international fan, I only know Dodger success, and this is a conversation with a million points of nuance that are impossible to cover….. but couldn’t the other teams like… try more? Spend more money? The Pads have tried (are trying?). The Braves are trying. The Phillies are trying. The Jays are trying. The cubs are trying (I think). It’s not a one man race, despite the Dodgers victory. Yes the dodgers have an intrinsic bonus in their location being attractive, but besides that, it’s a theoretically equal playing ground? Anyone could have hired Andrew Friedman (in theory). Any billionaire owner can put out money out (in theory with a bunch of significant variables). We saw some previous figures above about the ridiculous blue jays profits. I can understand the Dodgers being the most boring result to the Ohtani sweepstakes, but I don’t really have time to indulge an organisational response of “this wasn’t fair”. Put up or shut up

I can indulge a fan response of “this isn’t fair” though, that’s entirely warranted. Tear my response apart with your baseball/economic wisdom, I’m open to having the wrong take on this one

In this particular case, the dodgers seemed to have a massive pull that wasn't defined by dollars which definitely makes it tough for the other teams. Despite the 700mil figure, it seems winning was a first priority, with money/location having a conversation for second. But things COULD have been different. If Ohtani moved over to any other city in 2018, does he end up with the Dodger now? If Andrew Friedman stayed in Tampa, if the Dodgers weren't seized from Frank McCourt etc. etc. etc. The Dodgers got themselves some great owners and GM's for baseball purposes. That's their primary crime here imo. Second crime being located in L.A. Third, deciding to spend money wisely.

Good little vid from a couple days before Ohtani signed

Why Shohei Ohtani Is Worth $700 million pic.twitter.com/bzEuk1cyPv

— Baseball Doesn't Exist (@BaseballDoesnt) December 9, 2023

Dodgers post-season chokes a nice counterbalance to make this pill slightly easier to swallow. Ohtani ain't gonna fix that problem

as i think we've mentioned before, you can't necessarily buy a championship

but you *can*, for the most part, buy a postseason berth

no amount of choking on the dodgers' part will make up for all the chances two-thirds of the other teams never had

Yeah but if we're still talking about Ohtani, and like you already mentioned, he's really not helping that part. I don't think it's fandom to claim the Dodgers were most likely reaching the post season most years for the next decade with how their team and farm is set-up.

I guess ya gotta account for what you gain by taking Ohtani off the table from other teams tho. If the Giants were in, it's a different story and that could have significantly effect Dodger postseason berth odds

to be accurate, because it's a zero-sum game, it's all how the ratios of success rise and fall based upon the movements of the 29 other teams. If the Dodgers are playing an unfair game, there's another 11 spots for people to battle for without necessarily having to try match the resources the Dodgers are using.

And if you don't match the Dodgers in resources spent, you can still easily knock them out by using your resources effectively, as the diamondbacks/padres/braves/nats/red-sox/astros/cubs/mets/cards/phillies etc. all did in the post-season in that order. Hell, the team the Dodgers finally got a world series off, the 2020 Rays were 28th in payroll that year, and they took them to a game 6.

Costas has had an irrational hate for the Blue Jays for decades, fuck him.

Are we really heading down this path and complaining that "WAH only four teams get all the star players"? The Yankees have made one WS appearance in the past 20 years. There hasn't been a repeat champion since the '98-'00 Yankees. Since then, sixteen different clubs have won the WS. Out of the teams that haven't won, the Tigers, Guardians, and Rays (to name three) have all been to the WS and have been perennially good.

Baseball has never been a purely money spending contest, and probably never will be. Also, winning creates stars! Stars who make money but don't perform on the field are losers.

well but to mookieproof’s point, it’s not really about the crapshoot of the playoffs it’s who gets into the playoffs in the first place. famously the yankees missed the playoffs for the first time in approximately a bazillion years.

the marlins have never won the NL east.

the rockies have never won the NL west.

etc

On the note of being able to buy a postseason berth:

2023 division winners:
Dodgers (2nd in payroll to Padres)
Brewers (3rd in payroll to Cubs/Cards)
Braves (2nd in payroll to Phillies)
Astros (3rd in payroll to Angels/Texas)
Twins (2nd in payroll to white sox)
Orioles (5th in payroll to everyone)

For those counting along, that's a 0/6, titanium sombrero for people spending the most in the division
If we average, turns out spending the 3rd most in your division gives you the best odds based on 2023 figures, and the top 3 spenders last year (NYY, NYM, SDP) didn't even sniff the post season.
"Baseball has never been a purely money spending contest, and probably never will be." otm. Money's important, but it's far from everything in baseball

phillies and rangers didn't do too bad iirc

Neither did the dbacks iirc

(Last in their division spending)

love 2 be schooled on how small payroll teams have just as much a chance as anybody by a *check notes* dodgers fan

Love that you interpret this as a “schooling”. What’s your email so I can invoice you?

“Just as much a chance”. Damn, haven’t been able to up your reading comprehension yet; few more sessions should do the trick

In tracer’s defense you did just write like a thousand word thesis statement on “why the dodgers are just like everyone else but they do things better let me show you how they do it” and regardless of the strength of your arguments, a lot of uninterrupted messageboard text in a row is often going to look more like a lecture than a conversation

True, except for me saying “how they do it”, I’ve got no idea there.

For future clarification, I’ve got nothing to lecture anyone here on regarding Baseball. But I’m always open to conversation, sorry if me text-walling limits that

there is a certain irony in receiving a screed on how competitively balanced the mlb playoffs are from a fan of the team that has just paid $700m for one player. maybe i’m off-base but it’s almost like you have a stake in this being true regardless of how true it actually is

Yeah, and it’s a high stakes game this posting business

mad at hp instead of being mad at cheap owners who refuse to sell to someone actually willing to spend

There’s a certain irony in receiving a scolding on “schooling” from someone who is…….

like i’m a boston fan and i am fully cognizant of the advantages that come with a high payroll. are owners trying to buy championships? hell yeah. do they always succeed? no that’s why they play the games, but when your team is capable of shelling out more for one player than some teams’ entire payrolls then yes the table is tilted quite a bit. i don’t begrudge the dodgers doing this! if anything the problem is in the other direction: that some owners have clearly decided to use their teams as something close to money laundering operations, do not try to match division rivals, and continually circle the drain all while raking in guaranteed profit-sharing

xp

mad at hp instead of being mad at cheap owners who refuse to sell to someone actually willing to spend

if a team can’t keep at least a tigers level payroll ($131 mil las these) they should be forced to sell. that should be the salary floor. teams can afford it.

no sympathy for crying poverty

*last year

I think you’re having a very different conversation vc.

You’re saying two seperate, contradictory things here: owners aren’t capable of shelling out 70 mil (deferred) a year and so the tables are titled to the dodgers, but also the dodgers aren’t to be begrudged because the other teams should spend more than 70 mil a year and stop competing to spend the least while still raking the profit share.

nothing wrong with a little deserved gloating itt but no need to harness it to an argument about how great mlb’s competitive balance is

100% agree voodoo, the sport needs a salary floor, and probably a hard ceiling too.

Don’t know if we’re reading the same posts Tracer

gyac, probably, since i’m a yankees fan who is mad at the team for not running a $500 mil payroll (which they can easily afford! if you’re making this money spend it on the team, don’t care about the bottom line!!)

to take the dbacks example, they were 16 games out of first in their own division when the season ended (behind guess who) and the only way on god’s green earth that this 86-win team makes the postseason is the expanded playoff format, the secondary function of which is, as far as i can tell, to give the appearance of competitive balance that is lacking during the regular season

“we just landed ohtani… but actually… winning is not about the money”

Sports teams do not need a salary cap, no.

Critiques the *checks notes* Red Sox fan (is this a good argument?)

Sorry bout your sour grapes

spare me

Sports teams do not need a salary cap, no.

….. lol

Not going to make any more posts about reading comprehension after this one, promise

i think we should get back to everyone’s favourite subject, the dodgers choking in the postseason, despite their monstrous payroll, the hows and whys

I would also like to solve this problem

dodgers also always manage to have a thriving farm system producing great players like will smith and an endless supply of pitchers, prospects they can trade for rentals, and a sense of organizational professionalism that money cannot buy

money also can't buy not choking in the postseason

Money could help, Dodgers are still 2 starting pitchers short for this season. Their no-starting-pitchers-besides-lance-Lynn strategy wasn’t exactly a winner this year

I was interested though that apparently the Rangers are having trouble with money due to some TV rights issue, which seems to be damaging a ton of teams. Ken R reported that he thought they wouldn’t bring back Monty, which surprised me because previously he’d been a good fit.

I sometimes get alerts that Blake Snell is streaming on twitch, he is desperate to be a Mariner but I could only see them doing this if they sign him and then flip Kirby for a load of bats, at least one of which would have to be a major league player. I’m honestly not sure where he’ll end up, you don’t hear much about his market compared to the other SPs.