City Problems

[Matthew Trueblood]

On Thursday, in the wake of the Giants being outbid for their umpteenth straight elite free agent, the team put out the word that they feel like players are afraid of San Francisco, or uncomfortable playing there. At best, that's a smokescreen. At worst, it's a cynical lie.

Image courtesy of © Lucas Peltier-USA TODAY Sports

"The Giants' problem... from everything we've heard, and everything Buster Posey told Andy Baggarly of The Athletic last night, they've got a geography problem, or a city problem, I guess I would say," said Ken Rosenthal (also of The Athletic) on the web show Foul Territory Thursday. "Players, for whatever reason, have a negative perception of San Francisco right now."

"They have a city problem"@Ken_Rosenthal says that perceptions about San Francisco are affecting their ability to recruit star free agents.

▶️ https://t.co/36XRKc5l3T pic.twitter.com/CyStHukRkY

— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) December 13, 2023

Rosenthal went on to say (as, earlier in the day, Baggarly had written, with Posey's quotes as his evidence) that players were put off by the state of downtown San Francisco in the post-pandemic world, including vague allusions to crime as a concern.

On its face, that argument is shaky and problematic. San Francisco is just one of several cities throughout the United States which have recently become the targets of misleading, exaggerated, and subtly bigoted critiques by people who have something to gain by implying that cities and the demographic groups who tend to populate them are inherently inferior to smaller communities. It's a false narrative driven, as often as not, by politics, which makes repeating it and lending it greater credibility a higher-stakes transgression than most bad choices in the usually low-stakes world of baseball reportage.

The most important refutation for what Posey said, Baggarly wrote, and Rosenthal disseminated to a wider audience is this: it's blatantly false, and easily disproved. No one knows that better than Twins fans. Carlos Correa is a Twin for the long haul, now, but one year ago right now, we all thought he was heading to San Francisco. He agreed to a massive deal to play there, and the deal didn't fall apart because Correa or his family balked during a visit. Remember, a jersey was made up for his introductory press conference. He was ready to be a San Franciscan. It was the Giants who walked away.

That's just one notable counterexample, and while it's a fitting one (since it's really a failure to sign elite free agents, not free agents in general, that Posey said was the city's fault), it's nowhere near the only or best one. Last winter, spreading around the money they elected not to give to Correa, the Giants signed Joc Pederson, Ross Stripling, Sean Manaea, Taylor Rogers, Mitch Haniger, and Michael Conforto. That's just the notable players who signed deals worth eight figures annually. They also brought in a fistful of minor leaguers and fringe guys, including some who knew they would spend much of the season rehabbing from an injury. The evidence is much closer to telling us that free agents love San Francisco and can't wait to get there than that they shy away.

Those who found this narrative plausible (despite the contrary facts at hand) pointed to the fact that many baseball players are White men raised in areas friendly to the aforementioned broad-strokes criticisms of city life, and that many of those might therefore buy into those criticisms and prefer teams (like the Braves, Rangers, and Angels) who play further from supposedly dangerous city centers than ones like the Giants--or, hey, the Twins.

That, though, is just as faulty a story as the notion that free agents hate the Giants at all. Like America itself, baseball is getting less White and less rural all the time. Many of the megastars who have snubbed the Giants recently (Shohei Ohtani, whose choice to sign with the Dodgers prompted this round of finger-pointing by the team, but also Aaron Judge and others) don't fit that mold at all. Some of the players they have signed do fit it, but chose the Giants, anyway. Then, there's Correa, and now Jung Hoo Lee, who agreed to a six-year deal just one day before these excuses about Ohtani began spilling forth.

After both the Giants and the Mets reneged on Correa, he came to the Twins, instead. He was happy to circle back to a team who plays right in the middle of a city that has been slandered with the same nonsense many outsiders have hung on San Francisco and Chicago, among others. One could choose to call Correa the exception who proves the rule, and maybe that would be right, but it underscores a truth that gives the lie to this whole line of argument: All of these decisions, on both sides, are made by individuals, and their idiosyncrasies tend to outweigh sociological tropes.

Maybe Correa is a special guy--the kind of person who can get comfortable more easily than others, and who will bloom wherever he's planted. Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, though? He's from the Andrew Friedman Dodgers, but he's not a true Friedman disciple. He's always been the rational, conservative decision-maker to Friedman's big splash-maker. Whereas Friedman famously embraces irrationality when he gets a chance to do something rare and special, Zaidi has always been most in his element when doing arbitrage. He loves the marginal win at the lowest cost in marginal dollars. He doesn't win bidding wars at the very top end of the market very often, because he doesn't want to do so. If he's letting anyone suggest that San Francisco itself is to blame for the fact that only free agents willing to sign short-term deals have come to the Giants recently, he ought to be ashamed of that. It's not the city; it's the man.

Whether Zaidi sent Posey out with this message to give the team cover after Friedman reeled in the biggest fish to hit free-agent waters in a generation, or whether Posey genuinely believes it, it's wrong. That leaves us with the question: why are people saying it? Why, even once Posey said this to Baggarly, did Baggarly deem it newsworthy? And why did Rosenthal literally broadcast it?

One possibility is that they share the sentiment Posey expressed, and that him saying it just gave them the cover they needed to start stating it as a fact. That, too, can vary from one individual to another. Some reporters might be saying this out of a mistrust for some of the players in question--a rather sad but not wholly unearned suspicion. Others might want to amplify the message because they honestly believe in the decrepitude of San Francisco and some other large American cities. That isn't completely baseless, either. We don't have to pretend Minneapolis is a utopia. We just need to corral the pernicious oversimplification that calls it a dangerous, dirty, or depraved place, because that oversimplification isn't an accident. It's being pushed by people with ulterior motives.

The other broad possibility as to why reporters have repeated and built out this explanation for one team's failure to sign a superstar free agent is more innocent, maybe, but somehow still worse. It's that, with the value of their access for insider reporting purposes dwindling, some high-profile reporters are more eagerly parroting whatever substantial tidbits sources share with them, without interrogating the information they get or filtering it as much as they should.

Be it out of layered latent bigotry or an honest but not necessarily excusable dearth of journalistic rigor, the national media is allowing a false narrative with real and far-reaching consequences in the lives of people far beyond the sphere of baseball to spread and strengthen. That's an important failure, regardless of the basis for it.

"The Giants' problem... from everything we've heard, and everything Buster Posey told Andy Baggarly of The Athletic last night, they've got a geography problem, or a city problem, I guess I would say." Maybe you would, Ken. But you shouldn't.

View full article

[Karbo]

After going to SF to help a friends family move back up to Mn, I wouldn't live there. Mt impression was a filthy city with homeless all over and we found many needles from addicts just laying in the streets. My friends family was getting out of there because they didn't feel safe about their kids.

[Fezig]

Somehow, and I'm not sure how, a guy who writes columns regarding baseball knows more about San Francisco and the sentiment of players throughout the league than a guy who actually lived and played professional baseball there. If given a choice to play in SF or another major league team there isn't a chance I'd sign with the Giants. Even CNN had a story articulating the problem of crime and homelessness in the city. 

In regard to the "facts" that players have still signed there. Just because player A signed there doesn't mean player B-F have the same feeling. 

Lastly, noting crime and homeless, not feeling feeling safe in a large city is not bigotry or a political agenda being pushed by anyone. I find it hilarious that making decisions for you safety based on rising crime statistics makes you a bigot or politically motivated. The problem with the article is the author went in with his own political agenda and wrote with those political lenses on.

For those that missed Posey's quote as it wasn't in the story: 

“Something I think is noteworthy, something that unfortunately keeps popping up from players and even the players’ wives is there’s a bit of an uneasiness with the city itself, as far as the state of the city, with crime, with drugs,” Posey said. 

“Whether that’s all completely fair or not, perception is reality. It’s a frustrating cycle, I think, and not just with baseball. Baseball is secondary to life and the important things in life. But as far as a free-agent pursuit goes, I have seen that it does affect things.”

Edited December 14, 2023 by Fezig
addition

[Cory Engelhardt]

I hadn’t heard about this from the Giants. Thank you for pointing it out.

And yes, it feels like a lie, and a cynical one at best. How you lay out Zaidi’s views on top of budget spending, it reads like he needed a scapegoat for not getting Ohtani to sign there. 
 

I don’t understand at all the purpose of crapping on the city you are from to blame for a player choosing to sign elsewhere. Who is to gain in this scenario? What was the purpose. 

[Brett]

If Ohtani was more interested in a “safe” or “clean” city, wouldn’t he have chosen Toronto over LA?

[AlGoreRythm]

No one called anyone a bigot so don't get offended.

Does anyone deny that those who live in rural communities have, let's say, perhaps a skewed perspective on cities?

I grew up in rural MN and heard the phrase "citiot" every time people came to lakes country from the cities, be they from the Twins Cities or Fargo.

Even the perspective of the Twin Cities from where I'm at in the FM area now is skewed. Best believe I'm being warned 3-4 times to "be careful down there" if I mention I'm going to the Twin Cities for an event, yet I've never felt unsafe in the Twin Cities once.

That doesn't mean those who give that warning are bigots, but it does show they have a vastly different perspective which is more often than not cultivated from watching TV rather than living or spending any amount of time in the city itself.

Would it surprise me to find certain players don't want to play in SF? It wouldn't. Would it surprise me that the human idiosyncrasies of people that Matthew mentioned in the OP can overlap with their perception of a city and keep them from wanting to sign there long term? That wouldn't either.

But is it likely there's a widespread feeling by players toward San Francisco specifically?

If that's actually the case, it's certainly helped along by the reporting Matthew cited in the OP as well as political media, specifically 24hr cable news channels that have a whole lot of time to fill and an agenda to push.

The reality is that people are complicated and very often make decisions based on incomplete or even completely faulty information along with whatever vibe or feelings they have going on in the moment and choosing to push the idea that the Giants biggest issue is a "city issue" and not one of the actual team is irresponsible journalism.

Thanks for the write up Matthew!

[stringer bell]

My son lived and worked in SF for several years and before being married had an apartment a couple of blocks from the ballpark. When I visited, I felt safe and enjoyed many of the sights and sounds of "Bagdad by the Bay". Their next apartment was near the Embarcadero and again was very nice, but there were homeless within blocks of the building.

My son and his family have since moved for work reasons and his final analysis of SF was that it was expensive, but beautiful and culturally enriched, but not a great place to raise a young family. He found the homeless to be a bit of a nuisance, no more, no less. 

 

[LonelyseatinMOA]

Great article Matthew 

[DJL44]

There is crime everywhere. Thinking cities are crime all the time is just as accurate as believing rural areas are nothing but wife-beating rednecks cooking meth while high on Oxycontin.

I don't know why San Francisco is singled out as a particularly high crime city. St. Louis has by far the highest crime rate of any major league city and we didn't hear about that when Sonny Gray signed with the Cardinals. Baltimore, Cleveland, Kansas City and Detroit aren't particularly attractive when it comes to crime rates either. If free agents were only concerned about crime rates they'd be flocking to Tampa, FL.

List of United States cities by crime rate - Wikipedia

The reality is rich people can buy themselves out of problems with street crime. Every major city has high priced neighborhoods catering to rich folks so they don't have to interact with the rest of us.

[SF Twins Fan]

SF is now a **** hole.  I lived there from 2015 - 2017 and have gone back in recent years to visit friends.  It was a nice city at one point but it has steadily gone downhill.  Homeless everywhere, so much so that I'd need to step over human **** at least once a week walking to and from work.  Every building in the financial district smells like piss because of the homeless.  People openly using hard drugs, stumbling around like zombies, and leaving used needles everywhere.

Then on top of that crime in the Bay Area has skyrocketed.  You can't leave anything in your car and to be honest you might still get a few windows broken in because thieves want to check your trunk.

[TopGunn#22]

Interesting to see a column more suited more to The Huffington Post than Twins Daily.  To me if the people that work and live there have this to say about San Francisco who am I to question?  I have been there and went to a Cardinals vs Giants game.  Beautiful Ballpark.  Iconic setting.  But you didn't have to wander far from the ballpark to see the filth, poop, needles and homeless.  It's there, and the scope of it is humbling..  And that was about 5 years ago.  It's undoubtedly worse since then. 

To try to tell me I didn't really witness it, or if I DID it was only through a political and racist viewpoint from growing up in a little town like Rochester well,  I'll just shrug and say "whatever."  You can't deny the very REAL rise in crime in many metropolitan areas.  You can't avoid the carnage that still remains in downtown Minneapolis after the George Floyd riots.  And you can't deny the effect the "defund the police" movement has had on many inner cities.  

Minneapolis used to have on average about 926 police officers.  Today they have less than 500.  Fewer police is an open invitation to more crime.  And much of that increased crime isn't even being reported or investigated.  I don't have statistics to back this up, but I'll bet there are fewer cops on the street in San Francisco than there were 5 years ago.  This is reality.

So on a slow day for Twins baseball with nothing much happening on the trade or free agent front, I'll close by hoping something happens soon so we can all get the taste of this out of our mouths.  

[Guest]

I disagree.  From a macro viewpoint crime stats have increased in San Francisco and in most major cities in the past decade.  That's not some sort of "whiteness" baloney, but fact.  You might have pointed out that recent increases in crime followed several decades of declines in crime stats, but that would require research.  This op-ed is short on facts.

Personally, I grew up in San Francisco.  My family has been in the Bay Area since the 1850s having emigrated there with the Spanish and Portuguese waves of the mid-19th century.  We used to hold our annual reunions at the Society of California Pioneers museum at the Presidio and before that down on Market.  We stopped going three years ago because San Francisco in the nearly universal opinion of three generations has become an expensive, poorly run dumpster fire, just an unpleasant, oft-nauseating, disgusting experience.  And I KNOW San Francisco.

I reached the same conclusion about the Twin Cities two years ago.  We used to make an annual trek there for 5-7 days and planned it around the Twins schedule so we could take in a week of games.  No longer.  It's just not a safe place for kids and our older types.  It may be true that it was worse thirty years ago.  Fine, if so, get back to what the cities were doing right before the recent increases.  They did it once and can do it again

What Rosenthal said of SF could be said of many US cities today as a matter of crime statistics so it's erroneous to conclude SF has a material competitive disadvantage in the free agent market.  But spare me this racist whiteness crap and deal with some facts.

[DJL44]

10 minutes ago, TopGunn#22 said:

And you can't deny the effect the "defund the police" movement has had on many inner cities.  

Well, you can since the "defund the police" folks didn't get anything they asked for. The budget for police officers in Minneapolis actually increased substantially.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Whatever you believe about cities or San Francisco in particular, Rosenthal's rather idiotic statements fall apart once you realize that Aaron Judge chose New York City and Shohei Ohtani chose Los Angeles to reside for a decade.

I lived in LA for a decade. I have family in NYC and visit pretty regularly. Whatever bombs you can lob at SF apply equally well to LA and NYC.

[Nashvilletwin]

26 minutes ago, LonelyseatinMOA said:

to answer your question, no you just have low reading comprehension skills 

On the TD we tend to avoid personal attacks, and when such attacks occasionally and sadly show up, they tend to be related to a difference of opinion regarding one’s baseball acumen.

Seriously, TD owners and managers, one of the best attributes of the TD community is that politics are left at the door and baseball is the pure focus.  There is so much vitriol in the world, do we really need to bring political vitriol into this community?  One would think disagreements about trading Kepler or the FO’s trade record would be enough.  There are other sites we can all visit to participate in political commentary and divisiveness.  

[TwinsDr2021]

7 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Well, you can since the "defund the police" folks didn't get anything they asked for. The budget for police officers in Minneapolis actually increased substantially.

you are correct after dropping 13 million in 21 (from 182 million to 169 million) it has went up the last few years and in 23 was 206 million, on the other hand the state of MN is down around 1000 officers and Minneapolis has dropped from 892 in 2018 to 585, so didn't get anything might be a stretch.

[Squirrel]

Sorry, but most of you are just weenies. Sorry, but you are. 'ACK!!!! THAT SCARES ME!' <run away, run away, run away>

As one who lives and works in the heart of a major city, Chicago, and has for more than 20 yrs, yeah, cities have their problems. Problems that most would rather just turn a blind eye to. None of these things are political issues, but humanity issues, so don't label it otherwise because it makes you uncomfortable and you have somehow been triggered. But Chicago is a great, livable place to be, with so much culture, music, art, sports, etc to explore. More than I could do in a lifetime. I still have never been to a Bears, Bulls or Blackhawks game, for instance. It's been a very rich experience getting to live here. The one complaint I'd make is that it is expensive, and getting worse in that regard, and the gentrification of neighborhoods is pricing out families and low-mid income folks. Money does seem to make the difference, sadly, and those with it can use it to create the environment they want, including super-rich athletes.

But I'm walking distance to the train, which services both MLB teams that are here. It's easy to get to one or the other and I love that choice. As in any large, crowded space, yeah, keep your wits about you. Figure out where you are going and what you are doing and don't be the dumb suburbanite or tourist who thinks they are sheltered from everything.

Baseball in the city is great. And I will go to every city to catch a game, one day, God willing.

[DJL44]

1 minute ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

on the other hand the state of MN is down around 1000 officers and Minneapolis has dropped from 892 in 2018 to 585, so didn't get anything might be a stretch.

There's also a shortage of nurses, teachers, mental health specialists and bus drivers. Unemployment is really low and wages have increased faster in the private sector than they have in public sector jobs.

[SAL]

 

16 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Well, you can since the "defund the police" folks didn't get anything they asked for. The budget for police officers in Minneapolis actually increased substantially.

That is because they raised the pay rate because nobody wants to be a cop for whatever the starting rate is in Minneapolis. Even the city council saw the problem and authorized the raise. 

 

[MMMordabito]

[Squirrel]

14 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

you are correct after dropping 13 million in 21 (from 182 million to 169 million) it has went up the last few years and in 23 was 206 million, on the other hand the state of MN is down around 1000 officers and Minneapolis has dropped from 892 in 2018 to 585, so didn't get anything might be a stretch.

 

9 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

There's also a shortage of nurses, teachers, mental health specialists and bus drivers. Unemployment is really low and wages have increased faster in the private sector than they have in public sector jobs.

 

6 minutes ago, SAL said:

 

 

That is because they raised the pay rate because nobody wants to be a cop for whatever the starting rate is in Minneapolis. Even the city council saw the problem and authorized the raise. 

 

Take a different tack and relate the discussion to baseball, or sports, please.

[DJL44]

4 minutes ago, SAL said:

That is because they raised the pay rate because nobody wants to be a cop for whatever the starting rate is in Minneapolis. Even the city council saw the problem and authorized the raise. 

The entire police force of Goodhue, MN quit this year. This isn't an issue for just Minneapolis or even big cities in general.

Entire police force in Goodhue quits after chief announces resignation | MPR News

Does anyone remember the "defund the police" protests in Goodhue?

[TwinsDr2021]

4 minutes ago, Squirrel said:

Sorry, but most of you are just weenies. Sorry, but you are. 'ACK!!!! THAT SCARES ME!' <run away, run away, run away>

As one who lives and works in the heart of a major city, Chicago, and has for more than 20 yrs, yeah, cities have their problems. Problems that most would rather just turn a blind eye to. None of these things are political issues, but humanity issues, so don't label it otherwise because it makes you uncomfortable and you have somehow been triggered. But Chicago is a great, livable place to be, with so much culture, music, art, sports, etc to explore. More than I could do in a lifetime. I still have never been to a Bears, Bulls or Blackhawks game, for instance. It's been a very rich experience getting to live here. The one complaint I'd make is that it is expensive, and getting worse in that regard, and the gentrification of neighborhoods is pricing out families and low-mid income folks.

But I'm walking distance to the train, which services both MLB teams that are here. It's easy to get to one or the other and I love that choice. As in any large, crowded space, yeah, keep your wits about you. Figure out where you are going and what you are doing and don't be the dumb suburbanite or tourist who thinks they are sheltered from everything.

Baseball in the city is great. And I will go to every city to catch a game, one day, God willing.

Spend a lot of your time at night in the south side? Every major city has places people don't want to go and great places that love to go to. I have been to down town Chicago area and while SUPER expensive I have always felt safe (I also have friends and relatives that live in area's where they won't let me visit at night), same with MPLS, I have been to San Fran suburbs and they are some of the most beautiful places I have every been to (also SUPER expensive) and I have been to downtown San Fran and some areas are the worst place I have ever been, I mean the 40 plus businesses that have closed there didn't do it for no reason.

Also as a gold caretaker, calling people names is beneath you.

[SAL]

I feel this is completely inappropriate and out of character for this site. I think the author needs a reality check. 

I would like your mother or sister to drive through Minneapolis in the evening and rewrite this.

My, or Buster Posey's viewpoint isn't the problem, your opinion that I can't express my opinion is the problem. 

You are what is wrong with liberals today, you aren't at all liberal. You are the biased one.

[SF Twins Fan]

3 minutes ago, Squirrel said:

Sorry, but most of you are just weenies. Sorry, but you are. 'ACK!!!! THAT SCARES ME!' <run away, run away, run away>

As one who lives and works in the heart of a major city, Chicago, and has for more than 20 yrs, yeah, cities have their problems. Problems that most would rather just turn a blind eye to. None of these things are political issues, but humanity issues, so don't label it otherwise because it makes you uncomfortable and you have somehow been triggered. But Chicago is a great, livable place to be, with so much culture, music, art, sports, etc to explore. More than I could do in a lifetime. I still have never been to a Bears, Bulls or Blackhawks game, for instance. It's been a very rich experience getting to live here. The one complaint I'd make is that it is expensive, and getting worse in that regard, and the gentrification of neighborhoods is pricing out families and low-mid income folks.

But I'm walking distance to the train, which services both MLB teams that are here. It's easy to get to one or the other and I love that choice. As in any large, crowded space, yeah, keep your wits about you. Figure out where you are going and what you are doing and don't be the dumb suburbanite or tourist who thinks they are sheltered from everything.

Baseball in the city is great. And I will go to every city to catch a game, one day, God willing.

Me not wanting to live in a city like SF, run into the ground by Democratic policies, doesn't make me a weenie.  I lived in SF for two years, and then NYC for the next two years and I'm well aware of the music, art gallery's, museums, food, and sports those large cities have to offer.  I explored as much as I could while I lived there and continue to do so now living in South Minneapolis.  It doesn't change the fact I've been screamed at by a number of homeless people, had food scraps thrown at me, and been called a cracker a number of times walking in sketchy areas of those cities.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Brett said:

If Ohtani was more interested in a “safe” or “clean” city, wouldn’t he have chosen Toronto over LA?

Ohtani's contract defers $68 of his annual $70mm comp to the end of his contract.  We are told that on one hand that was a generous  effort by Ohtani permitting the Dodgers to sign talent to complement Ohtani and avoid the situation with the Angels.  However, just by the way, coincidentally, nothing-to-see-here, that defers $68 mm of salary California would otherwise tax.  After ten years, Ohtani moves to Las Vegas, receives his deferred comp and avoids a lot of  California taxes.  Now that's civic pride in action!

[DJL44]

28 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Aaron Judge chose New York City and Shohei Ohtani chose Los Angeles to reside for a decade.

Would you believe that New York actually has the lowest crime rate of any city that has MLB? It's true.

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, Squirrel said:

"don't be the dumb suburbanite or tourist"

Classy.  Fine, I'm happy to take my family's money elsewhere.

[SAL]

11 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

The entire police force of Goodhue, MN quit this year. This isn't an issue for just Minneapolis or even big cities in general.

Entire police force in Goodhue quits after chief announces resignation | MPR News

Does anyone remember the "defund the police" protests in Goodhue?

Once again, pay was the problem. The chief made like $37k/year

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 minute ago, DJL44 said:

Would you believe that New York actually has the lowest crime rate of any city that has MLB? It's true.

Oh, I'd believe that. It has a lot of people. I like NYC.

I'm just saying that it's absurd to attribute problems to SF as if they're some kind of show-stopper for free agents when those same free agents go elsewhere with similar problems.

Let's not forget Judge also declined a massive offer from San Diego. But hey, that doesn't fit Rosenthal's narrative.