Nick

I just want to watch baseball....

So basically a 12% return not factoring in inflation. Could she have done better with her money elsewhere?

We're being too simplistic. It's always about the opportunity cost. Big question is if you have $1B to invest, do you pick a baseball franchise or simply invest it elsewhere? It's foolhardy to think you can lose money and think you're okay with it because somehow the 'value' is going up. Only way that's happening is inflation. No one, not one single capitalist wants to lose money. Period. I am sure some smart people have figured out where the point of no return is for 2022 baseball season. Apparently, we're not there yet.

Good call on Sawamura....just because a guy has a contract doesn't mean he doesn't have arbitration years left. My bad. Foreigners...

I'm pretty sure Sawamura has two more years if the club exercise option for 2023. Probably a long shot but Sale does have an opt out after this year. I don't see Xander on your list so Sale shouldn't be either.

You have a valid point. I always believed that small market teams opposed increase in luxury tax limit due to imbalance that it would create from on the field competitiveness. I AM WRONG. Small market teams don't want to raise the luxury tax limit because in doing so there would be much lesser payroll amount subject to the tax. Players want to raise the limit, the higher the better. Owners, who many of them benefit from allocation of luxury tax back to them, would not want to raise the bar and decrease the amount subject to tax. It's taking money away from them. Owners should Increase minimum wage. Increase the funding and number of eligible players for the pre-arbitration player bonus. Hell give it to top 150 with a $100M pot. $3.3M per year per team. Award the said bonus pool to a metric, fWar as an example. Highest fWar player would get the most money, based on the ration of player fWar divided by total fWar for 150 players, multiplied by $100M. Get the season started.

I'm not sure if I would use the phrase 'hurt'. But based on sheer numbers my initial thought is big revenue clubs such as Yankees would lose most in terms of 'lost opportunity'. Despite high payroll, some have estimated Yankees' gross revenue to approach close to $350M. The club may withstand it financially for lost season but they probably lose OPPORTUNITY to earn $50M. That would 'hurt' no matter how rich I am. It may 'hurt' the Rays ownership more not to profit $10M. I'm just throwing out numbers. Also someone mentioned what the lost season would do to 'value' of a club. Most business takeovers I've been involved dealt with FUTURE free cash flow. I would guess that would be the case with baseball teams. So in example above, I would value the Yankees based on $50M annual free cash flow plus fair market value of hard assets. I doubt one partial season will diminish the value. As a seller, I'm asking you how much are you willing to pay me for a chance at earning $50M annual free cash flow? Obviously it's more complicated than that but an easy way to start thinking.

I'll say it again. Owners are in complete control when it comes to dishing out mega bucks. They want the players to stop them from spending. I suppose Yankee ownership can always claim, hey look, $210M is the soft cap. We're spending up to the soft cap, meanwhile pockets greater portion of gross revenue.

Latest from MLBTraderumors.....probably a long shot... As for the Red Sox, Rosenthal lays out a scenario where Correa takes over as their shortstop given that his defense is far superior to that of Xander Bogaerts, who could be shuffled over to second base. However, he also points out that, given the lockout-shortened Spring Training to come, there will be less time for Bogaerts to develop his skills at a new position than there would be in a more normal year, perhaps making the plan too awkward to implement successfully. After this season, Bogaerts can opt-out of the three years and $60MM that will be remaining on his contract, something that he seems likely to do if he has another healthy and productive season. Signing Correa now could be a way for Boston to preemptively replace Bogaerts, but as Rosenthal points out, the club hasn’t signed a free agent contract larger than $14MM since Chaim Bloom became the club’s chief baseball officer. Suddenly dropping $300MM on the table would be a huge departure in strategy. However, it’s exactly because of that avoidance of significant commitments that the club’s future payroll is fairly blank. If Bogaerts does indeed opt out after this season, that would leave Chris Sale as the only serious commitment on the books.

Luxury tax limitation.... I've proposed this idea in the past and this maybe a compromise between the owners and the union. Each year, a team receives an exemption for one player on its roster. This will impact only few teams. 1. Every player has one home team designation based the team the player was with when such player became eligible for 'rookie' designation. Many Sox players qualify, Xander, Devers, etc. 2. Use $20M as the maximum luxury tax payroll for computing the team payroll. Thus if Devers is signed to a $30M per year deal, only $20M of his contract would count against the luxury tax. 3. The idea is to keep home grown talent with the team he debuted. 4. Suppose Sox also extend Xander's contract. Player designation for this exemption can switch from year to year. Why not exempt Dever's entire payroll? Why not?

Texas Ranger's 2021 opening payroll was $95M. That number is sure to go up with additions of Seager ($32.5M), Semien ($25M) and pitcher Gray ($14M), total addition of $71.5M. I believe Davis ($16.75M) was in his final year of his contract and is now a FA. So some money will come off the books as well but overall, net plus on player payroll. I'd imagine player's union would have applauded the signings. First two are 10 and 7 year mega deals. But my guess is that for every mega contracts added, there's probably one that's coming to an end, David Price deal comes to mind (2022). There will never be a shortage of mega contracts. Owners can't help themselves. Someone will pay Devers for his bat. Count on it. Thus the focus for the union has to be for 70-80% of the lowly paid players. Owners need to raise the minimum wage. I just can't believe that's asking for too much money. Why not $1M? That should also raise the floor for teams on the cheap. Owners should provide incentive for pre-arbitration players. It could be a 'bonus' based on some standards. But one that would not carry into following year. You pay for what a player did. This bonus pool should be contributed equally by 30 owners. Chances are good that it will benefit smaller market teams, by definition who has more 'cheap' players on the roster, or should I say more accurately more pre-arbitration players. This one time bonus payment should be left off the luxury tax calculation. It's paid by the league and not the teams. Annual payment of $3M per team generates $90M into the pot. That's not much money. If you can't pay it, then you have no business owning a team. It's performance based so no player can bitch about it. Just thinking of ways to make the life better for minimum wage earners.

You pretty much hit the nail straight on. We just want to watch baseball.

Even at his best, Renfroe constantly feels like a player at war with his worst impulses. His cannon arm probably cost the Red Sox more runs than it saved, thanks to his bloodlust for assists. He recorded a league-leading 16 of them, but just as often airmailed a cutoff man to allow an extra base or overran a ball while thinking THROWTHROWTHROW. Offensively, he wants to pull everything, and understandably so. He's blessed with tremendous power and he barreled balls at an elite rate. But his best stretches came when he at least nodded at the idea of staying up the middle. When he entered hero mode, like during the American League Championship Series vs. the Astros, he became the easiest out in the lineup, trying to yank everything and going 1 for 16 as a result. Still, he blasted 31 homers while setting career highs in average (.259), on base percentage (.315), RBIs (96), and OPS. It's hard to complain about any of that, especially for 3 million bucks. I came across article this while reading about Noah Song by John Tomase, dated 11/11/2021. It's probably been covered here before but pretty good summary of Renfroe as a player. I never thought a Sox player would be criticized for hitting 31 homers and driving in 96 runs......modern age of analytics I guess.

Thanks a million!

Does anyone have an update on Noah Song? It's been several months ago but a former Navy pilot thought Noah's flight school training should have ended last fall. I thought I read this on SoxProspects site. It amazes me that there's absolutely NO NEWS on this guy. Has he called it quits? Anyone here with military contacts?

Maybe we should simply go to class system similar to the one used by high school associations. Opulent League...top 15 big spenders. 8 teams will make the playoffs. Top 4 teams will get a first round bye. Frugal League....top 15 least spenders. 4 teams will make the playoffs. #5 seed from Opulent League will play #4 seed from Frugal League, winner to play the #1 seed from Opulent League. #6 seed from Opulent League will play #3 seed from Frugal League, winner to play the #2 seed from Opulent League. #7 seed from Opulent League will play #2 seed from Frugal League, winner to play the #3 seed from Opulent League. #8 seed from Opulent League will play #1 seed from Frugal League, winner to play the #4 seed from Opulent League. There will be no interleague play, meaning 15 suck ass owners will get to play each other 162 times. Someone shoot me.

I'm bit dumbfounded by the strong stance the owners are taking in respect to Luxury tax limit amount. No matter what the limit, they control their spending, no? Or is it the case of 25 owners knowing that few owners can't help themselves and getting their payroll up to $240M, thus making more apparent to the fanbase of 25 teams their unwillingness to spend money to improve their teams?

$30M for 8 years of Xander is way too much for my taste. I rather go all in on Devers at $32M, IF given the choice. Suzuki probably is better alternative to shore up our offense if we lose Xander and replace him with a defensive shortstop. If Paxton shows promise in September (maybe a wishful thinking in my part), then maybe we can move away from Eovaldi and add $17M to the 'pot'. I can live with outfield of Verdugo, Kike and say Suzuki. Or we can go Schwarber, Kike and Verdugo for one year before moving Schwarber to DH. Whitlock is the ultimate team player but he has stated his preference for an opportunity to start not long ago. Bloom still has couple of major moves before 2022 and that may reveal what direction the organization is headed.

Not sure what kind of money Xander and Devers are looking...... Per Cot's....selected final year contracts $22.0M JD $16.0M David Price $12.0M JBJ $07.0M Vaz $07.0M Wacha $05.0M Hill $01.5M Sawamura $70.5M Total coming off 2023 payroll (Moon, any 'penalty' for options not picked up ie JBJ as an example will be charged off to 2022 season). We will need a catcher, DH, outfield depth, three starters to be replaced (Eovaldi, Wacha and Hill). I think we'll extend Eovaldi, his current tax payroll is $17M, so that may go up to say $22M, or delta of $5M, leaves us with $65M. I will assume that Paxton will return 100% heathy for 2023, thus only one starter needs to be replaced.....this is the critical area, someone within the organization has to step up and take a starter's role, and I don't think it's asking too much...no additional money needed We'll need a DH, best case scenario is for Casas and Dalbec to step in to play 1B/DH. We can spend $10M for a OF/1B/DH, leaving us with $55M. We can budget for $5M for Vaz replacement...doable. Thus we have a war chest of $50M+ to keep Xander in Boston (I doubt we'll pay $10M, more likely $25M (delta of $5) and couple of more years added). I think we'll keep Kike, it may cost us say $12.5M for 2 years, delta of another $5M, we still have $40M+ for Devers' extension. Based on Dever's expected pay of $11M for 2022 season, even at $30M extension, that's delta of say $20M. Sox still has $20M+ to pay for arbitration raises for 2023 and some bullpen additions. Key will be a starting pitcher or two emerging within the system and both Casas and Dalbec becoming a 'major' league talent. We have extended Kike for additional $5M, acquired a catcher for $5M, acquired outfielder/1B/DH veteran for $10M, Eovaldi extended for additional $5M, Xander extended at $25M and Devers signed to a $30M contract. I doubt Sale opts out, just to cover all the basis. Bloom's biggest signing maybe Devers. I'm sure Bloom is reading this as I type.

yet no one complains about increase in price of gas.

The union and owners remain distant on several important issues, including a pre-arbitration bonus pool. The owners increased their offer on a bonus pool from $15 million to $20 million for 30 pre-arbitration players, The Athletic’s Evan Drellich reported. But the players want a $115 million pool for 150 players, according to Drellich. Not sure why it's a big deal for the owners.....$4M per team?

That makes sense..... You know there was a time when Jim Kaat/Ron Guidry games would last little over two hours.......

One of my best baseball moment was when the Sox visited White Sox for a 4 game weekend series. I believe it was the year before the White Sox moved to their new baseball stadium across the street. I drank and ate a lot that weekend. Fun times.

Let's again cut to the chase. The problem is not the spending of Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox. I will come back to them later. The problem is teams that spend little but make enough profit to keep the money train going. Those are the teams that the union needs to address. There has to be a minimum payroll total for these teams. If they won't spend minimum money on payroll, then the major league, ie other owners, must be willing to kick them out. Force a sale. My guess is there are many wealthy individuals willing to own a baseball franchise. They would know the commitment money wise before buying a franchise. You raise the payroll starting with lowest spending teams. Period. Now if you are somehow able to tie each team's payroll to their revenue, you may end up with the Yankees being able to spend $300M. But is that good for baseball? Absolutely not. But if you are able to bring in a third team to New York with 90% owners' vote? Mets and the Yankees won't go for it but it sure would be good for baseball. A third team in New York can generate more money than bottom third of MLB teams I bet. Now that would be a game changer. I ask you, what more can the Yankess, Dodgers and Red Sox give to the players?

How about expansion? Isn't it the best way to increase pay for current fringe players? 30 to 36 teams, essentially a 5 team divisions. 6 x 26 = 156 additional players. Can we find 6 expansion teams? Expand into Mexico?