Hot Stove 2023-2024

Teams have several different angles to weaponize this, such as "You're no Ohtani and he's only getting ~$45m per NPV!" and "You're no Ohtani and he agreed to huge deferments as a team player!" It basically takes away most labor gains of the AAV record going up by $25m-plus.

— Jarrett Seidler (@jaseidler) December 11, 2023

Yeah I figured there was no way they (dodgers, or ohtani’s party) would take it this far without knowing either 1. It was legal or 2. It was a grey area that they could fight and win

the owners put this exact scenario into the CBA, because deferred teals are incredibly team friendly. i’m sure every front office is losing its mind but the owners care more about staying rich collectively than they do about anything involving the games, so their reactions are probably more like elation that even more precedent has been set for top players to take contracts that are far cheaper in the long run than the stated dollar value

For anyone wondering if MLB will challenge or cancel Ohtani's contract: The answer is unequivocally no. There is a specific article in the collective-bargaining agreement that addresses this. And it's very clear: Deferred money is limitless -- even $680 million of $700 million. pic.twitter.com/DGNK0JulED

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 11, 2023

I guess there’s also tax implications depending where he’s living while collecting the deferred money?
I guess if the dodgers want to pay a ghost player $68M a season stating in 10 years they’ll have to live with that. I’m guessing this is a great way for a current GM to fuck over a future one

Yeah there’s going to be another lockout isn’t there.

yes the tax aspect makes the most sense to me — i hesitate to assume bob n. is passing on accurate information but

Shohei Ohtani’s decision to earn just $2 million a year certainly is a great benefit to the Dodgers’ payroll, but also a stroke of genius for tax repercussions.
If he’s not living in California once his deferred payments start, he will not be subjected to heavy California tax.

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) December 11, 2023

Ignoring the ridiculous deferments for a moment, this does put Ohtani back into the “what people thought he’d get paid after his UCL injury” bracket

xp but idc in particular if he’s doing it for that reason, but if you choose to pay a player $70m then that should count towards your cbt. Not this manipulative shit because you want to keep your draft picks and keep spending. The league literally introduced a Steve Cohen tax to rein teams in, but what’s the point then?

Interesting! pic.twitter.com/RFBk4BL42S

— Danny (@TatisMVPszn) December 11, 2023

The thing is they’re not choosing to pay him 700 mil a year, and that was made obvious as soon as the deal broke with a tweet immediately after about deferments. This isn’t a new phenomenon, it’s just a phenomenon that’s finally been taken to its extreme

they should just abolish the luxury tax if they're just gonna let teams skirt it like this

The judge thing, while related, is a bit different. You end up paying an average to the luxury tax in the years judge (presumably) won’t be playing. Ohtani’s contract will be counted to the luxury tax completely for all 10 years, just at a lower cost due to inflation

The judge example to the extreme would be even worse as you could do a 100 year 300mil contract to only have 3 mil a year to your luxury tax. When you take the deferment manipulation to the extreme, it’s still 45~mil a year to the luxury tax for 10 years

^^to clarify, not saying this deferrement business ain’t bad, just the judge example would have been a worse precedent to make. You could really max out and ruin a team by using years of the contract to manipulate the luxury tax

I love Ohtani but this is straight up bullshit and I think this sort of thing is really bad for the game. Can’t root for the Dodgers after this sorry

if you choose to pay a player $70m then that should count towards your cbt. Not this manipulative shit because you want to keep your draft picks and keep spending. The league literally introduced a Steve Cohen tax to rein teams in, but what’s the point then?

― mojo dojo casas house (gyac), Monday, December 11, 2023 6:35 PM (fifteen minutes ago)

gyac, it's easy to understand it's just that you're viewing it thru the lens of competition when it needs to be viewed thru the lens of money

the reason the owners introduced the steve cohen tax is because the large majoriy of them don't want to feel any pressure to engage in the way steve cohen is doing business, which is to say spending a shit ton of money every year on his baseball team

the reason why the owners are more than happy to let a team manipulate the luxury tax w/ deferred payments ie because they would all love to engage in the business of deferred contracts

the incentive structure here is very clear, it's just that the idea of it being about winning on the field is kayfabe. it's about winning at the bank.

I get that. I think it’s bullshit, and Ohtani is a scab. He can afford to do this because he has tens of millions in endorsements. I stand by my opinion that it’s bad for the game, in both the short and long term.

This is just getting worse and worse.

Fuck baseball!

lol

The next ownership group will figure it out 😳

— Justin Turner (@redturn2) December 11, 2023

I mean any player can afford to live on 2 mil a year with 680 deferred, endorsements or not.

I get that. I think it’s bullshit, and Ohtani is a scab. He can afford to do this because he has tens of millions in endorsements. I stand by my opinion that it’s bad for the game, in both the short and long term.

― mojo dojo casas house (gyac), Monday, December 11, 2023 7:01 PM (three minutes ago)

well you were asking why they would introduce a steve cohen tax if they would allow this so i answered

anyway, there's a number of star players on contracts w/ deferred money so the idea that ohtani is a scab or some kind of unique villain gets a bit into hysteria territory for me. the only players who will ever engage in deferred money contracts are like the top 1% of the top 1% of baseball so i wouldn't worry about it too much. no team is offering a player a 2 year $10 million deal w/ money deferred, this is irrelevant to the large majority of players

deferred contracts are in the CBA which means they were approved by the union. if you ask yourself why the union would approve deferred money in the contracts if it was going to be harmful to players the answer is because it will never effect 99.9% of the union

I’m aware other contracts with deferred money exist. The amount deferred isn’t $34m, a literal whole other player.

lol sorry $24m! Which is still true!

so it's ohtani's responsibility to figure out the exact number of deferred money that is "fair" vs the amount of money where it's not? i'm sorry but that's completely ridiculous

Hey J0rdan? I get that you like it. I don’t care.

well i'm sorry that we're posting on the same message board, i'm not sure what the solution is to that problem

I don’t think you’re getting this. They haven’t deferred 24 millions a year, they’re paying him 460~ million 2023 dollars all up over the life of the deal

Lol gyac

I don’t know how set in stone that 460 mil is, based on the questions thermo thinwall brought up, but that’s the ballpark reporters are going with right now

no offense to you "fuck ohtani" and 'fuck baseball" guys but your beef is with the owners it is not with ohtani. the owners have been trying to ruin baseball for 150 years and yet here we are

Tbf, it’s reasonable to think this one was pushed by ohtani too, and at the very least obviously accepted. I’m still trying to think through the implications of what this actually means beyond this singular event tho. For now it’s clearly in the rules so anyone can do it. If smarter brains than I have determined it’s terrible for the sport/players (whatever to owners), then I’m sure it’ll be changed very quickly

The owners have a vested interest in making money, but having a competitive product is strongly tied to making money (see Steve cohen tax). Hence my questionably naive hope

everyone is saying it was pushed by ohtani and i'm sure it was because no team would ever propose this to a player. but the idea that the competitive balance aspect of it is for ohtani to worry about is ludicrous

Why would anyone's beef on this specific issue be with the owners for agreeing to a player's idea?

Fans beef with players every time they try to craft a superteam around them (unless that superteam is your team).

Xp Completely true. The idea shohei should even shirk the idea of not allowing his team to be as competitive as possible (within the clearly defined rules) is against the principles of what it means to be a player in general. Can’t really shame the player for doing the most for his team to win, that’s they’re main job

Their

having a competitive product is strongly tied to making money

the problem w/ this statement is that it takes it as a fact that the dodgers are going to render baseball non-competitive. let's put aside the fact that a legendary team in a huge market winning 5 straight world series would in fact be amazing for the business of baseball overall, the more likely outcome is that the dodgers fall victim to the typical problems that plague old, expensive sports teams. or, like the astros, they make 7 straight LCS appearances but only win two titles. there's too many variables at play, history would tell you that competitive balance is always going to find its balance

Real Ohtani beef should be with undermining the union and (entirely of his own volition) setting a precedent for every team to try to screw over future big contracts.

Trust me on this, I take absolutely none of that as a fact and completely agree with everything you said

I was schooled on this opinion early in the thread

Why would anyone's beef on this specific issue be with the owners for agreeing to a player's idea?

Fans beef with players every time they try to craft a superteam around them (unless that superteam is your team).

― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, December 11, 2023 7:34 PM (two minutes ago)

hey if you want to be mad at ohtani knock yourself out. "fans direct their anger at players instead of the billionaire owners who make all the rules" is not a defense that *i* would be making of *myself*. but live your truth, it's america.

This is way way back in the thread now but LOL at the idea that the Orioles winning the division in 2023 is proof that money doesn't win ballgames, the Orioles don't spend money and largely thanks to this they sniff contention once a decade or so and sometimes lose 110 games

Real Ohtani beef should be with undermining the union and (entirely of his own volition) setting a precedent for every team to try to screw over future big contracts.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, December 11, 2023 7:38 PM (three minutes ago)

again this is only legal per the union in the first place because it does not effect 99.9% of the union. if you want to be pissed at ohtani for undermining the future earnings of... like... adley rutschman or something go ahead but that's a weird thing to be mad about

Didn’t know Ben Verlander posted here

I mean there was more in that post than the “the orioles”. What’s with all these black and white readings? If someone says money is not THE ONLY THING that leads to winning, why are people reading that as someone saying money is not important to winning? Hard to not text wall when so many people read what they want from your posts unless you put in a million provisos (don’t worry, I won’t)

Didn’t know Ben Verlander posted here

― mojo dojo casas house (gyac), Tuesday, 12 December 2023 10:47 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Stick to the informative posts about baseball which you’re good at. The vitriolic quips aren’t your strong suit

"fans direct their anger at players instead of the billionaire owners who make all the rules"

Except the owners didn't make all the rules here? They're collectively bargained with the union - and no, they didn't take into the account a player giving those owners a bunch of money because why the fuck would you ever think you'd need to take that into account?

i don't know who ben verlander is. some dumb baseball guy?

anyway, you guys are talking about the future earnings of hundred million dollar players when the precedent that has been set that is actually materially effecting the earnings you guys apparently care so much about were the ozzie albies and ronald acuna type contracts that have now led to the corbin carrol and jackson chourio contracts where kids w/ barely any money are being incentivized to give up huge amounts of potential money in their prime earning years in order to "buy out" all the years of artificially depressed salaries put in place by the owners to hoard money. the amount of players who are even going to get to free agency to have their earnings "undermined" by the evil ohtani is rapidly dwindling by the day because the owners have moved on to screwing their best players before they even hit the majors. but maybe i heard that on ben verlander's podcast i'll have to go back and check

I think what you had said earlier is that more small market teams should do a Rays. But it’s incredibly hard to pull off. And I’m sure lots are trying, but it’s not a real solution to financial imbalance in the league. (I’d also add that the issue is getting blown out of proportion a little too right now)

That was an xpost to HP