Official 2024 Off-Season Thread!

[striker42]

I find it impossible to understand why fans choose to side with billionaire team owners trying to keep more profits rather than giving Snell $200M, and then call Snell greedy for trying to get that same $200M the owners are refusing to give him.

Like...why is the millionaire player greedy, but the billionaire owner isn't? Why have we been so conditioned to think the wealthiest guy is somehow always in the right, and anyone who dares attempt to pry wealth for themselves is the greedy jerk?

I guess it's the same reason why the masses are against livable wages, but have no problem with filthy rich executives. The brainwashing has been a complete success.

Fans are ultimately fans of the team and that tends to align them more with ownership than with players. If a player leaves your team via free agency for more money, there's a feeling of betrayal. If a player holds your team up for more money, that's resources your team can't spend elsewhere.

Fans tend to forget there's a third side they could be on, their own. Fans should press to be given an affordable, entertaining product. Whether it's a billionaire or a millionaire enriching themselves doesn't matter. The enrichment happens at the expense of the fan.

[DirkPiggler]

The market has sorted it out. Each has gotten very lucrative offers. They passed. Their holdout tells me they arent confident they can repeat their performance and want a long term deal so they can go Anthony Rendon on the team and be a long term albatross getting paid to suck ass. I dont mind players getting paid a **** ton of money. I just hate these long term guaranteed MLB contracts. Let the players worth the money get paid and the players who sign big contracts actually have to care about their performance beyond how much they can make on the NEXT contract. We need some kind of mechanism where teams can pay a player 50% of their remaining contract but they become a free agent in cases where free agents turn into Melvin.

Annual salaries would go up if teams had a way to get out from under horrible deals. Reduce the long-term risk of failure and the short term money would be better.

[DirkPiggler]

Fans are ultimately fans of the team and that tends to align them more with ownership than with players. If a player leaves your team via free agency for more money, there's a feeling of betrayal. If a player holds your team up for more money, that's resources your team can't spend elsewhere.

Fans tend to forget there's a third side they could be on, their own. Fans should press to be given an affordable, entertaining product. Whether it's a billionaire or a millionaire enriching themselves doesn't matter. The enrichment happens at the expense of the fan.

This is a good point as well. Players are transient for the most part. Fan loyalty generally stays with the team rather than the player. What benefits ownership usually benefits the fan, provided that the team isn't run like the Pirates or Athletics as nothing more than a means for the owners to extract TV money from their investment.

Most of us wish Freddie and Dansby well when they aren't playing against the Braves, and will do the same when Max ultimately leaves after this season. But we aren't going to rush out and buy their Dodgers or Cubs merchandise in support either.

[cajunrevenge]

Annual salaries would go up if teams had a way to get out from under horrible deals. Reduce the long-term risk of failure and the short term money would be better.

Thats fine by me. I think it would allow more teams to be competitive in free agency. Only a handful of teams can afford to take a chance on extremely long term contracts.

[DirkPiggler]

Thats fine by me. I think it would allow more teams to be competitive in free agency. Only a handful of teams can afford to take a chance on extremely long term contracts.

It's more than fine by me. It would improve the health of the game, and take away the excuses the cheaper owners use to avoid putting a competitive product on the field.

Now if we can just convince MLBPA to go along with it, that it would be in the long term best interest of the greater number of players.

[Slippyjms]

Betts moving to SS this year. Trying to boost those MVP odds

[Southcack77]

Why would it make more sense to side with a millionaire than a billionaire?

[cajunrevenge]

Side with the broke who want to go to a game without spending 100$.

[msstate7]

Why would it make more sense to side with a millionaire than a billionaire?

I would think most billionaire owners became billionaires before they came owners. If true, not sure why them being billionaires matters for this argument

[ramadon101]

I would think most billionaire owners became billionaires before they came owners. If true, not sure why them being billionaires matters for this argument

The point is to promote an equitable distribution - the owners are making bookoos of money on the teams which is driven by the players themselves. The players ought to have a fair allocation of those funds given that they are the primary engines by which those owners make their bookoos of money. It’s the age old issue with capitalism - corporations cry uncle when times are tough, cut workers, cut benefits, ask for government handouts, etc but when times are good, they want to retain as much of those profits as they can without tricking them down to the workers. And by the way, I’m saying this as an owner of multiple businesses - I give my employees vesting equity in the business so that the performance of the entity is aligned with their own financial outcomes. It’s better for them, and it actually works out better for me too.

[Enscheff]

Why would it make more sense to side with a millionaire than a billionaire?

Because the players represent the labor side of the equation in sports. Most fans are also on the labor side of the equation of whatever industry they in.

Of course the entire red area of the country has been convinced the other members of the labor class are the problem, so it’s no surprise they’d be against the labor side of the sports industry as well.

[Enscheff]

This narrative that execs can be filthy rich because they somehow earned it, but other laborers must not be allowed to be richer than me is the part I’ll never understand.

[Enscheff]

Sports players are greedy being paid millions from playing a game. But executives aren’t greedy because they get paid millions for sitting in meetings. These arguments make zero logical sense.

[Southcack77]

Because the players represent the labor side of the equation in sports. Most fans are also on the labor side of the equation of whatever industry they in.

Of course the entire red area of the country has been convinced the other members of the labor class are the problem, so it’s no surprise they’d be against the labor side of the sports industry as well.

I think we should guillotine all of them.

The truth is that poors would love to make millions playing a child game but they can't.

But one thing they can do is get a vicarious thrill off their team winning and the millionaires looking for a few more shekels stand in the way of that.

Why would they root against their own interest?

Doesn't make sense.

[chop2chip]

Sports players are greedy being paid millions from playing a game. But executives aren’t greedy because they get paid millions for sitting in meetings. These arguments make zero logical sense.

I’ll never hold it against a person (athlete) maximizing their earning potential. But there’s a counter example where people will argue that some athletes aren’t paid enough based on a function of player value and revenue. I understand the point made, but it illustrates the disconnect the sports bubble has with the rest of society. Professional athletes are overcompensated relative to their societal contributions. Owners too.

[Super]

The point is to promote an equitable distribution - the owners are making bookoos of money on the teams which is driven by the players themselves. The players ought to have a fair allocation of those funds given that they are the primary engines by which those owners make their bookoos of money. It’s the age old issue with capitalism - corporations cry uncle when times are tough, cut workers, cut benefits, ask for government handouts, etc but when times are good, they want to retain as much of those profits as they can without tricking them down to the workers. And by the way, I’m saying this as an owner of multiple businesses - I give my employees vesting equity in the business so that the performance of the entity is aligned with their own financial outcomes. It’s better for them, and it actually works out better for me too.

Yup. It’s really not hard to build a business around this principle. I make less money from them than I probably could, but I’m still quite comfortable….so I’d rather the employees be more comfortable too instead of trying to squeeze every single penny out of them.

[bravesfanMatt]

A lot of owners are not making profits from the team. Some don’t make any money. Others just reinvest back into the org. Most Owners only care about value of asset. So saying owners are greedy for not spending 200 million on x player is a bit disingenuous. Doing that might result in increased prices. Not because the owner is greedy but because the balance sheet won’t allow it.

[Enscheff]

Nobody has, nor ever will, deserve a billion dollars. Nobody in the history of the world worked so hard, nor contributed so much, to be entitled to that large a slice of wealth. Nobody has ever been so valuable that they earned a fortune of that size, no matter what the current financial system allowed them to accumulate.

I suppose that’s the fundamental area of disagreement between those who love unrestricted capitalism and everyone else.

[sturg33]

Nobody has, nor ever will, deserve a billion dollars. Nobody in the history of the world worked so hard, nor contributed so much, to be entitled to that large a slice of wealth. Nobody has ever been so valuable that they earned a fortune of that size, no matter what the current financial system allowed them to accumulate.

I suppose that’s the fundamental area of disagreement between those who love unrestricted capitalism and everyone else.

I see the JIM CROW fella is back on his whining about wealthy people, while fundamentally not understanding what creates such a discrepancy. I've politely walked him through it in the past, but appears the lesson didn't stick

If a person makes a product that is valued by enough people for them to voluntarily give that person enough money to accumulate a billion dollars, then that person deserved a billion dollars. Nobody forced you to buy your iPhone, or order your Amazon package, or post your shirtless pics on Facebook. People do that because they believe they get enough value for their money

Bill Gates created an incalculable amount of productivity with Windows. Jeff Bezos enabled tens of thousands of small business to scale overnight with AWS. Elon Musk made electric vehicles an actual desired product to the masses, while creating reusable rockets on the side.

But it's more fun to rock the che Guevara shirt and scream eat the rich from your iPhone that you use 8 hours per day. And nobody deserves a billion dollars!! 900 million is fine, though, probably

A baseball owner who doesn't believe Blake Snell will return good value on the contract demands he asking for is not being greedy. I'd imagine you don't make a habit of paying more for things than you think they are worth

Bitcoin at $70K by the way.

[Slippyjms]

Jackson Kowar who we got for Wright and then traded for Kelenic is OFS with TJ