MLBRT 9/5/2024

The questions and discussion…  

1) Philadelphia Phillies managing general partner and CEO John Middleton is one of the select group of owners who regularly run a player payroll that is among the highest in MLB. About two weeks ago he told the Athletic,  “It’s remarkable how special (Philadelphia) is as a fan base. It’s why I keep telling everybody, it may be a privately-held business that we own, but it’s not a private organization. It’s a very public organization. It’s a stewardship. We have an obligation. We are accountable to the fans and to the city. If you don’t approach it that way, you shouldn’t be an owner, in my opinion.”

On Friday (8/30) Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos was asked what he would change if he were MLB commissioner for a day and he said, “I would change that ownership doesn’t have any severe consequences for losing for an extended period of time. You know, so like, just like if we’re in the big leagues and we don’t perform well, we get demoted or cut. If their organization didn’t perform well, somebody else would have an opportunity to buy it from then. You know, just to, just you know like keep to where nobody can really own the game of baseball ’cause the game of baseball is above true ownership.”

What is your opinion regarding Middleton’s and Castellanos’ comments? Should MLB hold owners, who tank face certain sanctions and financial consequences including being forced to sell their team to another owner who promises to invest in his new team’s on-field product? Why or why not?

As far as Middleton’s and Castellanos’ thoughts regarding MLB owners who don’t invest in their teams’ on field product… aka the players… and instead mostly pocket the revenue sharing money they get from the so-called big market teams who do spend money to get players to perform for their teams, I’m all for it. Including forcing the owners, who are most reluctant to spend money on player payroll,  to sell the team.  

I just don’t see how enough of the owners would vote to install such a practice in MLB.

But they should because in the long run those cheap owners are doing more to harm to the game and the competitive nature tha should exist between all of the 30 teams than any of the owners who are the so-called big spenders.  

CBSSports.com’s Max Snyder in his most recent Snyder’s Soapbox column discusses this issue and uses the Yankees and  Juan Soto’s impending free agency as his selling point by when he says, “… for the love of all that is holy, do you have any idea how much money baseball teams have? Forbes currently lists (the Yankees’) Hal Steinbrenner’s net worth at $1.5 billion. The Yankees are worth an estimated $7.1 billion. Why in the world would you be worried about a player getting too much money from an owner in a league with no salary cap?”  

Snyder then doubles down on his viewpoint by saying, “The Yankees can absolutely afford re-signing Soto without it handcuffing any future spending at all. If they don’t, they should be publicly shamed by fans and media alike. The only reason they’d avoid going huge would be that the Steinbrenner family now worries more about the bottom line than winning. And let’s be clear about what that means. It doesn’t mean they have to go into the red in order to sign Soto and win. It just means they might make less of a profit. Oh the horror!” 

And just in case anyone might argue that the smaller market teams are at a big disadvantage in spending over the big market teams due to the fact that those small market teams just don’t have the same access to big cash reserves as the big market teams, Snyder uses the Pirates’ owner Bob Nutting as his prime example of why that is balderdash…

Recntly on “X”  billionaire Mark Cuban posted a comment that implied that that Nutting had no reason to spend his money on improving the Pirates because by not doing so he was raking in the cash and one person commenting on Cuban’s comments wrote, “I talked with Mark Cuban about buying the team back in 2006. He loves the Pirates but says the owners will NEVER sell due to their business model. They aren’t required to spend money, so they never do & they make big profits every year through TV & everything else. Lost cause.”

Snyder uses that to say that Nutting “… just rakes in the proceeds and doesn’t give us any indication that he cares all too much about how the team on the field performs. Oh sure, we’ll hear on occasion about how he isn’t making any money and how much of a chore it is to own a baseball team. To that line of thinking, I have a simple suggestion: Sell the team. The Royals are a small-market team. They were sold for $1 billion in 2019. The Orioles were sold for $1.725 billion earlier this year. The Nutting family bought the Pirates for $92 million in 1996. I’d say the return on investment is enough to justify cutting bait on the team right now, right?”

And as far as arguing that today’s players just make too damn much money…

Snyder says, “welcome to capitalism,” and that the owners make a hell of a lot more money than the players could ever imagine making and “When you watch a game from the stands, do you focus on the players or face the owner’s suite? I’ve yet to see a person wearing a jersey of the owner at a game. The players have finite time before their joints tell them they are done playing this game, too. The owners aren’t the ones putting their bodies on the line every night. The players are the talent. That’s who we are paying to see. They deserve to be paid as such.”

And in the end Snyder says it basically comes down to this… “The best players should make the most money (meritocracy) and I simply want the owners to take care of their customer base, which is a basic tenet of any business model. Bad ownership hurts the enjoyment of the fans and that’s just not acceptable to me. It’s weird how many small-market fans get angry at me for getting angry at ownership for not better taking care of them as fans. I’m on your side. I want the owners of your favorite teams to stop lying to you and instead try to give you a lot more fun memories.”  

The final implication being that if Nutting, as well as other cheapskate owners like him, spent money on player payroll then maybe the Pirates, as well as the other small-market teams similar to the Pirates situation, might actually start winning games and being in the playoffs with the final result being that those owners would start seeing their profit margins improve significantly and that those owners would make more money by spending money on better players to improve their on-field product than they ever could by sitting on their asses doing nothing to improve their teams player rosters.

So yeah, I would love to see MLB “punish” (including being forced to sell their teams if they don’t spend that money to improve their on-field product) the owners who tend to feed off  MLB’s revenue sharing program rather than spending their franchises money to improve their teams.

I just don’t see it ever coming to be that the owners as a group would come to an agreement to create such a system that would hold them to be responsible to improve their teams rosters or else…

As of Friday (9/30) it has been a month and counting since the MLB trade deadline.   With that in mind…

2) Which contending team did the best job improving their rosters before the July 30 trade deadline? Why?

I liked what the Dodgers did… they did  the best job improving their roster.

They needed pitching help and went out and got Jack Flaherty to fill that role. He’s given the Dodgers innings and pitched to a 3.49 since the Dodgers acquired him. Then they added Michael Kopech for their bullpen which at times has not been up to snuff this season… and he has excelled so far with 19 strikeouts and one run allowed in 13.1 innings.

LA’s staring nine for the most part is getting healthy and when they are healthy it can offensively been one of the most dangerous lineups for opposing pitchers to face. So instead they went out and reinforced their bench by acquiring utility players Tommy Edman (2B, SS, OF) and Amed Rosario (2B, SS, OF) and veteran outfielder Kevin Kiermaier.

Edman provides better than average defense… he won a Gold Glove at second baseman for the 2021 Cardinals… and can hit enough that he won’t bog down the offense when inserted into games.

Kiermaier is a past four time Gold Glove winner and will fill in nicely late in games as a defensive replacement.

And Rosario is another jack of all trades on the diamond who can also provide a decent bat as a pinch hitter.

They added key pieces where they needed to. They are ready to rock and roll into the playoffs.

3) Which contending team did the worst (or poorest) job regarding improving their rosters before the July 30 trade deadline? Why?

The Guardians did the worst job of upgrading their roster.

They needed to get help for their rotation and outfield at the trade deadline and simply flunked the test by failing to get anyone of import at either position.

They did go out and get veteran right hander Alex Cobb and outfielder Lane Thomas.

But…

Cobb, who has had his moments in the majors, is just a .500 pitcher with a lifetime 3.80+ ERA. He was on the injured list at the time Guardians got him, returned to make two so-so starts, and is back on the IL with a fingernail issue. It’s unclear when he will return.

Thomas has never really been a big threat with the bat.. yes, he did have two seasons when he was with the Nationals when he produced double digits in HRs… 17 in 2022 and  28 in 2023.. but over the rest of his 6-year career the best he has done is hit 9. He is currently slashing .194/.276/.280 and isn’t even playing every day anymore.

4) At 63-72 the Texas Rangers are 10 games out of first place in the AL West and 10½ games out of the last Wild Card spot in the AL and outside of a minor miracle the Rangers are not making the playoffs this season.  

With that in mind, Jacob deGrom recently made another minor-league rehab start with his and the Rangers’ goal of having him making his first big-league appearance since April 28, 2023 which would also be his first since undergoing his second Tommy John surgery.

Since it’s fairly obvious that the Rangers are well outside of the American League playoff picture, should Texas, and deGrom, put a hold on any plans for him to pitch at the MLB level in 2024 but instead continue with his rehab but with the intention of having being healthy and fit to join the Rangers’ starting rotation for the 2025 season? Why or why not?  

If it’s me…

I have deGrom continue with his rehab and do all the necessary work he needs to do o be ready to jump in at the start of the 2025 season and (hopefully) be the All-Star /Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom was before he got injured.

 That’s probably what won’t happen but should in my opinion.  

5) As the MLB season enters into its final month almost all the various sports sites are saying that the Al MVP race is between the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and the Royals’ Bobby Witt.  

At this point in the season…

Who is your current favorite to win the AL MVP… Judge or Witt? Why?

And…

What would it take for the player you didn’t choose to change your mind regarding your selection for the AL MVP? Why?

 I think as long as Judge doesn’t get into any deep, prolonged slumps similar to how he started out the season with, that he should take the AL MVP in relatively easy fashion.

What it would take for Witt to take the award away from Judge is that Judge gets into ting one of those damn slumps and then for Witt to end the season on a hot streak where he hits at least .350 for the season with at least 40 HRs. And an added help would be if he is the driving force that that gets KC into the playoffs a Wild Card. A double added bonus would be snatching the AL Central title away from Cleveland to get into the playoffs instead of just a Wild Card.

Extra Innings…