Major League Ready

He was the best option available unless you want to give up the haul Oakland got for Murphy. There is a reason Oakland has the best winning percentage of any team outside the top 5 in revenue since the turn of the century. They got 4 MLB ready players for 2 years of Murphy. I will take Vazquez for 3/30 and look forward to finally having a great defensive catcher 4-5 days a week.

After hearing / reading this statement many times, I wondered just how influential each method has been in the past among winning teams. So, I compiled data in the form of WAR by acquisition method from the best teams over the past 20 years. I have many examples from mid and small markets. I want to collect large market data for comparison. Then, after the holidays I will post the data showing the relative impact of each type of acquisition. I can tell you this .... Trading for prospects has been far more impactful than trading for established players for teams with below average revenue. Trading prospects for elite players is virtually non-existent among the examples I have gathered. The interesting thing about free agency is that the better a team is at producing prearb talent, the more budget they have for free agency. It would be accurate to say that player development enables or drives a team's ability to spend in free agency.

Actually, I would appreciate it if you did make your point. How are they not mutually exclusive. I would love to hear your logic. I know how increasing the luxury tax threshold, decreasing revenue sharing, and a shorter period of control benefits players. Can there be any doubt these actions would further diminish parity? Please explain how this would not be mutually exclusive in the interest of parity, Minnesota Twins Fans or any other fan outside of the top revenue markets. I will happily root for players getting all of these things if you explain how they would not widen the disparity.

Well, you did say you were more focused on players getting more money as opposed promoting parity. I don't know how else to interpret what you said and your message has remained consistent. I thought it was odd during the CBA negotiations that you took this stance then and it's still hard to understand that the interests of the players is more important to you than that of the fans.

Mike, I don't want to put words in your mouth but it sounds like you took a position based on supporting the players instead of parity and the health of the game. More importantly, the fans are the people paying those enormous salaries not the owners. They don't take the money out of their pockets. They take it from us, and pay the player along with many other expenses and keep a piece for themselves. Shouldn't the people paying the toll be a key consideration, not just in LA and NY but everywhere?

I was very much in favor of a significant increase in minimum salary and present a plan that was higher than what was agreed upon. I looked at the negotiating positions and sided with what I thought was best for the game. Let me ask you ... !) Did the significant increase in the luxury tax threshold increase disparity? 2)1) Would decreasing shared revenue as the players proposed improve parity? 3) Would decreasing the initial length of control hurt smaller markets? Why would I take the players side when their position is bad for our team and any other team in the bottom two-thirds of revenue. Do you disagree that the players were asking for things that were not in the interest of the fans of lower revenue teams ?

You have a point in that the Owners are the only people who can fix this problem but wouldn't you agree that requires the acceptance of the players? Keep in mind that it was the players who insisted on a higher luxury tax threshold, and they wanted to reduce revenue sharing. Did you want the owners to just hold out until the players agreed to keeping the luxury tax where it was or a small increase. Is it reasonable to say the owners could have increased revenue sharing when the players wanted it reduced? Business owners are far more motivated to serve the interests of their customers as compared to employees or players in this case. It's understandable that a player looking at a very short window to earn an enormous amount of money could care less if the system is fair to small market fans. Isn't it reasonable to think the owners are more concerned with the fans given they have much longer-term interests? Their motivation is still greed but I think owner's interests are far more in line with fan interests as compared to players.

Agreed! If only it were that easy. Heck I would have taken any increase, but the players wanted less revenue sharing so there was no chance the players were going to accept more revenue sharing, right? Of course, the big markets are not going to give up a major portion of their advantage either but it would have been nice to see it diminished a little.

Actually, I think we are in complete agreement. I just emphasize the players role in this because most people are very biased in favor of the players. Just looking to balance the blame.

IMO, and some baseball writers touched on this last CBA, this was misrepresented. Yes, some teams made profits while rebuilding. However, there are many clear examples that illustrate the best way for a small or even mid-market team to rebuild is to trade away all of their established / expensive players for prospects and then give young players playing time that would have gone to these players. Houston was down to a $40M payroll. Cleveland traded away Clevinger and Kluber who did nothing after they traded them and got Own Miller / Ahmed Rosario / Andres Gimenez / Myles Straw / Ahmed Rosario / Cal Quantrill and Emmanuel Clause. Now that they have established those players they added Josh Bell. They spent their money on a very productive extension with Jose Rameriz who produces equal or great WAR to Correa for 60% of the cost. Using players that produced more than 1.5 WAR 49% of their WAR came from players acquired as prospects. Tampa and Oakland have followed similar strategies. They simply can't play in the high-end free agent game because that type of free agent does not produce enough WAR per dollar spent for them to be successful. Would they spend the money if revenue sharing went up an extra $30M? IDK. My guess is they would funnel it into extensions like Ramirez / Franco when they have those opportunities which is not going to be every year. I would also guess Tampa and Oakland would spend it if they had it. There are a couple teams like Pittsburgh and Cleveland who are just reluctant to spend. The point being tearing it down to the studs and playing prospects has proven to be the best way to rebuild a team. It also happens to be profitable but that seems to be getting more focus than how small market teams have been successful.

Perhaps but is it possible the owners of the league are interested in growing or even maintaining interest in the game in all markets. The motivation is still financial gain but what do I care if Billionaire owners or players making $100s of millions get more money? I am interested in reducing or at least maintaining the current disparity in revenue for our mid-market team. Will the small markets spend the money. IDK for sure but the Twins spent more when their revenue went up. Actually, again, why should we care if Pittsburgh spends the money. A smaller increase in the luxury tax still reduced the disparity for our team as does an increase in revenue sharing. The player's interests clearly did not align with the fans of mid-market teams during the last CBA. Do we just want to hate rich people so much that we don't want them to succeed even when their interests align with our interest in greater parity?

Since the turn of the century, the top 3 teams in revenue (Yankees / Dodgers / Red Sox) have won 90 or more games a combined 39 times. The Reds / Brewers / Rockies / Orioles / Pirates / Marlins / Padres / Royals have combined for 16 seasons with 90 or more wins. An average of two 90 win seasons in the past 23 seasons. The A's / Rays and Guardians have been by far the best among the revenue challenged teams with a combined 28 seasons with 90 or more wins. Their largest free agent contracts in the history of these franchises are $30M / $40M and $60M. These teams have excelled by trading off their expensive (established) players for prospects and players just starting their ML careers. A cap would have required them to abandon the strategies that have made them successful. When our Minnesota teams were out of contention we did not want mediocre vets taking playing time from players that could possibly be part of the future. Fans love the idea of making owners spend but I bet we would feel a lot differently if we had to give a couple of mediocre veteran players playing time in front of players who could be part of the solution.

I don't disagree with your sentiment but it's easy to generalize and lose sight of specifics relative to how the disparity grew. The fact that the owners are doing well is always the retort. Is that relevant in the context of negotiating terms that widen the gap. It was very clear during the last CBA that it was the players holding out for a substantial increase in the luxury tax. They even started with pushing for a reduction in revenue sharing. So, when we talk about greed, they had no regard for fans or parity while framing their position as being about parity. We should all be insulted they thought we are that dumb.

No doubt that's part of the reason why the disparity is tolerated but it was the players pushing for a higher Luxury tax threshold. They even wanted a reduction in revenue sharing so let's acknowledge the facts instead of putting this on the league / owners by default.

That was a typo. I fixed it in the original post. Thanks for clarifying. You hit this one dead center in the bullseye. The only way to change the disparity is if our owner is the only owner or one of 2-3 willing to operate at break-even or a loss. Even in that case, the top teams would still have a $300M advantage. The premise that the problem is owner profits is incredibly misguided. The parties fighting to increase the spending disparity (luxury tax) and against revenue sharing is the players association.

If you would take the time to look, you would find that payroll rank and revenue rank are very close for virtually every team when measured over a 10+ year timeframe. IDK what SanDiego's owner is thinking but that is an extreme anomaly. The fact that the top few teams have 2X the revenue of the bottom teams is by far more responsible for spending disparity. Blaming profit taking when there is a $350M revenue disparity between top and bottom is analogous to calling a guy making $50K year cheap because he does not drive a vehicle that costs $150K. What is always lost in this argument is that if all the owners were willing to spend every dime of profit, it would increase the disparity in spending ability even more.

Kepler does not have nearly the impact of an elite arm so they don't need to get back an elite arm for trading him for the trade to be a good move. What if they get an MLB ready catcher? IDK who that would be, but the point remains. Making room to play Wallner could (not should) improve the team regardless of the return. Those are the kind of moves that have made Oakland/Tampa successful.

Increasing the luxury tax furthered the divide. It sure didn't seem like Twins fans were concerned about this back when it was being negotiated. Everyone just wanted baseball and the result is the divide was widened. I guess the good news is that the players did not get the reduction in revenue sharing the wanted. From a player's perspective the big money contacts were always going to come from the largest markets so greater divide is good for the biggest name free agents. What's good for the sport and what's good for ALL fans was not a pressing issue.

By far the most influential factor will be revenue increase/decrease. Inflation is not going to drive revenue up. It will likely have the opposite effect and it will drive up operating costs. The good news is they are getting a $30M from the sale of remaining BAM ownership. They could spend an extra $30M this year with the understanding there would be no money available to replace Gray & Mahle and of course they need to cover arbitration increases.

There is zero doubt that they would do this if it would drive the franchise value up wildly as you suggest.

Not that much. How many passed balls per game? How does Narvaez or any other catcher compare in that stat. I would assume working with pitchers and calling a game is more important than either of these stats but that's a really tough one to quantify.

Did you read the explanation Chpettit gave? Rather than double quote I just inserted it below. “But the RBI stat isn't measuring what people who like it claim it is. It's not at all hard to find BA with RISP stats. Or % of runners driven in stats. Or any number of combinations of outs, bases occupied, game situation, etc. stats that show who the actual clutch hitters are while RBI does nothing of the sort. For example: In 2022 Jose Abreu drove in 75 runs while Jose Miranda drove in 66. However, Abreu had 679 PAs to Miranda's 483. Miranda drove in 16.1% of the baserunners he had on during his 483 PAs. Abreu drove in 13.8% of his. Guy on 3rd, less than 2 outs? Abreu drove in 39.4% of his runners, Miranda drove in 47.2% of his. If I catch 200 walleyes over the course of a summer and you catch 150 am I the better fisherman. Well, if you fished 15 days and I fished 20 days, I would say no. I just had more opportunity to fish. What are we really looking for? We want a player to convert opportunities, right? Two players can drive in the exact same number of runs where one has 50% more opportunity. Those players are not equally adept at driving in runs because they both drove in the same number of runs. Measuring the percentage of conversions as Chepettit19 has explained here is a far better measure of productivity than simply using total RBI. Put a different way, using the one stat that actually counts runs does not provide any measure of effectiveness unless it's pair with the number of opportunities to drive in those runs.

Over 2-3 seasons, I will take Miranda and the nearly $19M per year in salary to be invested elsewhere. The difference is they can sign Rodon vs a retread. Miranda plus Rodon >>>>> Abreau and retread. For those that would prefer a couple high leverage RPs ... That works too.

Great post! There are obviously stats that are much better measures of effectiveness driving in runs. Apparently, this is not lost on most "stat heads".

There is no arguing they did not get enough production out of the corner OFers. That is a very different argument than suggesting letting Rosario go was a mistake. He was horrible last year. He clearly would have made the team worse. The players they put out there were all better but got injured yet somehow your conclusion is the FO made a mistake. That conclusion sounds like you developed an opinion when they let him go and then just ignored what actually happened.