Category: MLB

Notes: Shohei Ohtani, gambling, Camden lease

Shohei Ohtani’s deferrals, betting lines moving because of MLB employees, and chaos in Baltimore.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Shohei Ohtani is a Dodger for the next 10 years, but he’s going to be paid by them for much longer than that. The $700 million contract—the largest in not just MLB’s history, but in North American pro sports history—that the two parties agreed to is going to be “mostly” deferred, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, which will significantly decrease the luxury tax hit his contract will have on the Dodgers each season. Teams are allowed to use deferrals like this, to create a “discount” on the luxury tax hit, and the Dodgers are apparently utilizing that idea to its fullest. Ohtani will still get paid a significant amount of cash each year, but he’ll also be collecting paychecks from the Dodgers well after he’s retired. Not a bad gig if you can get it.

Continue reading “Notes: Shohei Ohtani, gambling, Camden lease”

You don’t have to buy what Jerry Reinsdorf is selling

Jerry Reinsdorf loves to lie so much that he’s bragged about it in print, and yet!

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

One bit of news from this year’s MLB winter meetings that flew under the radar amid all the Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto rumors only sort of involved the winter meetings. White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf reportedly met with the mayor of Nashville — the host city for the meetings — about… something. The what is undisclosed, but it also doesn’t matter, because the only thing happening here is that Reinsdorf is trying to drum up concern back in Chicago that something that does matter could have been discussed.

Continue reading “You don’t have to buy what Jerry Reinsdorf is selling”

The Orioles have the cash and the prospects to improve. So why aren’t they?

The Orioles look like they might “we tried” their way through another offseason.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

The Orioles appear to be close to signing free agent reliever Craig Kimbrel to help out a bullpen that’s missing the injured Felix Bautista, who is out for the 2024 season following Tommy John surgery this year. That’s good, that they’re being proactive. The Orioles’ problem hasn’t been that they make no moves, though: it’s that they aren’t making enough of them. And the non-Kimbrel parts of this offseason so far are a good reminder that this issue remains.

On November 29, Jon Meoli, writing for the Baltimore Banner, discussed that the pitchers who could help the Orioles’ rotation were already coming off the board, and once they were gone, that was going to be that. Options still remain and all, but the Orioles haven’t exactly shown a willingness to go out and get them if it’s going to cost money — recall that Kyle Gibson was thought to be maybe just the start of something last winter, especially when the Orioles went after him so quickly, but that didn’t turn out to be the case at all.

Continue reading “The Orioles have the cash and the prospects to improve. So why aren’t they?”

A new series investigates the Braves’ publicly traded business

The Braves have to file quarterly financial reports now, giving us some insight into their operations, and by extension that of the rest of the league. And now Rob Mains is on that beat.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Last November, the Braves’ ownership changed hands. Well, sort of. They’re still owned by Liberty Media, but now the Braves are their own company, known as Atlanta Braves Holdings, LLC, with their own publicly traded stock. Which means they have to create detailed reports that other Major League Baseball clubs do not, as a window into their financial successes and failures.

Sure, they can still bend the truth or only show it through a lens that will trick you into seeing something that isn’t there — being publicly traded doesn’t suddenly make you ethical or moral or honest — but there’s a bit more reason for the Braves to be, at the least, more honest than the other 29 clubs, since they’re in the interest of attracting investors who are, comparatively, expecting things to be on the up and up. As Rob Mains explained for Baseball Prospectus:

Continue reading “A new series investigates the Braves’ publicly traded business”

Red Sox job postings reminder of benefits of unionizing

Expectations for what teams have to feed to minor-league players keep changing, for the better.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Before minor leaguers unionized under the MLB Players Association umbrella, MLB teams were reluctant to spend pretty much anything on them. The pursestrings loosened in recent years, sure, with player housing and raises and such becoming part of the norm, but all of that was done in an attempt to stave off public relations issues and the “danger” of player organizing. That was more of an investment in maintaining as much of the status quo as possible than it was in the players themselves.

Things are a bit different now with the collective bargaining agreement in place, however. (Some things are the same, because this is MLB, but hey.) For instance, the Red Sox have put up some job postings of late, looking for a dietician for each of their minor-league affiliates, as well as a roving nutrition coordinator. The dieticians are likely a pseudo-requirement, as the CBA states that teams must provide “high-quality” meals both before and after games for players, but these clubs could also just order better catering. Having a dietician planning out these meals will help ensure that they actually are “high-quality” instead of merely “not garbage,” which is significant.

Continue reading “Red Sox job postings reminder of benefits of unionizing”

US Senators ask Rob Manfred and MLB to explain this spring’s anti-labor action

MLB’s support of a wage-suppressing exemption to a state law in Florida hasn’t gone unnoticed by the federal government.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

With the unionization of minor leaguers voluntarily recognized by Major League Baseball this past spring, the federal government seemed to slow down its questioning of the league and its motives with regards to labor and potential abuse of their antitrust exemption. The questions aren’t completely gone, however, as three senators — Richards Durbin and Blumenthal, as well as John Hickenlooper — sent a letter to the league seeking clarification on why MLB would say one thing and do another.

The issue in question is the league’s support for an exemption to Florida’s state wage and hour laws. Which, if you’ll recall, is something MLB put in for back in March even as they were voluntarily recognizing the union (original reporting by Jason Garcia). These three senators want to know why MLB is pursuing laws that “appear to significantly undermine the agreement,” where the agreement is the collective bargaining agreement ratified by both the Major League Baseball Players Association and the league itself.

Continue reading “US Senators ask Rob Manfred and MLB to explain this spring’s anti-labor action”

MLB owners meetings begin Tuesday, Oakland mayor requests ‘no’ vote on A’s relocation

The Las Vegas A’s story will complete one more chapter this week, one way or the other.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

The annual MLB owners meetings begin in Arlington, Texas on Tuesday, November 13, and will run for three days. Assuming no gastrointestinal virus rips through them like happened with the canceled GM meetings, anyway. Among the many points under discussion is the Oakland Athletics, and whether they should become the Las Vegas A’s, or whatever it is they’d change their name to if forced.

The city of Oakland hasn’t fully given up on the A’s yet, with the current mayor, Sheng Thao, submitting a letter to 15 of MLB’s owners, asking them to vote no on the relocation of the club. Not all 15 would need to be convinced in order to halt the relocation, either: this kind of move requires 23 of the 30 owners to vote yes. If it does get the required number of votes, you can be sure a revote would be cast to make it seem as if it’s a unanimous decision, but before that false front is presented to the public, earning those 23 yays is the goal.

Continue reading “MLB owners meetings begin Tuesday, Oakland mayor requests ‘no’ vote on A’s relocation”

Schools Over Stadium loses lawsuit over petition, but plans to start over

Schools Over Stadium has been slowed down, but they aren’t giving up on cutting off the A’s stadium funding in Las Vegas.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Let’s rewind to September for a moment. The A’s and the state of Nevada pushed ahead with plans for a publicly financed stadium, and the state’s educators pushed back with the filing of a petition meant to cut off said public finances. The plan was to get the petition its required signatures and put it on the ballot in 2024, so that the citizens of Nevada could decide if they wanted their tax dollars to go towards yet another new stadium, or if those funds should instead be put toward anything else. Like, say, the educational system that desperately needed them.

I wrote about that issue at Baseball Prospectus (no subscription required) after speaking with the Nevada State Educators Association:

Continue reading “Schools Over Stadium loses lawsuit over petition, but plans to start over”

Notes: MLB settles lawsuit, non-player contracts, Vegas strike

MLB settles a pesky lawsuit, changes the way contracts for non-players work, and a strike looms in Las Vegas

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Once Evan Drellich wrote up a piece on the reasons why there could end up being a settlement in the antitrust suit filed by the Tri-City ValleyCats, Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, and Norwich Sea Unicorns, it felt like settling was an inevitability. And on Thursday, that’s what we got: the trial was scheduled to begin on November 13, but now there won’t be a trial, as the lawsuit has been settled.

These three teams, all disaffiliated by MLB before the 2021 Minor League Baseball season, invoked the move as a breach of the Sherman Antitrust Act, saying that it was “a horizontal agreement between competitors that has artificially reduced and capped output in the market for MiLB teams affiliated with MLB clubs.” With the Supreme Court not yet agreeing to hear the suit, however, and chances of SCOTUS actually overturning the antitrust exemption being slim, it makes sense that the suing parties would be open to settling. MLB, too, as slim as those chances might be, don’t want to risk it or draw attention to their exemption if they don’t have to, so of course they’re going to settle. They want to disaffiliate more teams later, and the less the spotlight is on them, the quicker this can all be forgotten about without a trail of official statements left behind, the better for them.

Continue reading “Notes: MLB settles lawsuit, non-player contracts, Vegas strike”

Notes: Rangers spending, Royals secret stadium costs, antitrust suit

The Astros spent, too, despite what their fans think, the Royals’ stadium plan is even costlier than imagined, and thoughts on what to do about the antitrust suits inching their way toward SCOTUS.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

After the Rangers defeated the Astros in the ALCS last week, there were a surprising number of fans of the latter that essentially said, “Texas only won because they spent so much money to defeat Houston.” Which, first of all, who cares if that’s true, and second, that’s also not true. The Rangers did spend a lot of money, yes, and much of it on free agency instead of on extensions to established, homegrown players, but they barely spent more than the Astros did. As I got into for Baseball Prospectus [subscription required], the only reason the two payrolls weren’t even closer than they are is because the Mets covered a big chunk of what was still owed to Justin Verlander, a midseason trade acquisition for Houston, for the 2023 season.

Continue reading “Notes: Rangers spending, Royals secret stadium costs, antitrust suit”