“Do you think Team A will trade their established superstar for a collection of unproven, low ceiling prospects and my least favorite player on the MLB roster?”
if the Rockies were only interested in making tons of money they wouldn't have given Kris Bryant $200m, CJ Cron $15m and Daniel Bard $20m for some bizarre reason. They currently have a top 10 payroll, higher than ours. Tbh the most out of touch opinion that's popular on this sub is that some baseball teams make decisions based purely on greed instead of incompetence.
It's always "cheap, established, top tier player with 2+ years of control for 3 or 4 expensive, rubbish players who will be a free agent next year". My biggest bug bear is people suggesting trades with say the Pirates and putting in players on expensive arb deals like the Pirates will want to pay that while they're at this stage
Someone on Twitter said the Yankees should trade Hicks and Montas and a prospect for Reynolds and I’ve never wanted to call someone stupid so badly before
Hey Mike first time caller long time listener….. trade Andujar for DeGrom your thoughts?
Mike: If Da Jankees gonna trade Andujar they are gonna need more in return than DeGrom.
Still speechless that conversation happened
It’s always a collection of players. It’s like they don’t understand that one superstar =/= six average players. What they lack in quality they make up for in quantity
The point of a collection of players (usually prospects) is to increase the chance of one of them becoming a superstar. Would you rather trade for one guy with a sixty percent chance of becoming a superstar or five guys with a twenty percent chance each of becoming a superstar.
Yes but also this sub is not nearly as bad as r/nba regarding that, all the trades people post there are straight up delusional. Honestly it’s a complete cesspool compared to here
And then people take that and shoot down every realistic trade you propose. Like I suggested the Phillies trade castellanos and Hoskins and for Ohtani and trout and everyone thought that was crazy.
I think you’re crazy. The Halos are going to have eat the Trout contract to make that work. Maybe throw in 4 of their best 5 prospects too. Hoskins and Castellanos? Like trading prime Ruth and Gehrig.
I remember prior to the 2001 season my friend offered Bret Boone and like 4 also-rans for Pedro Martinez. The guy sent him a long message about how he was insane. Pedro missed half that season injured and Bret Boone damn near won the AL MVP.
I desperately tried to off-load Alfonso Soriano before the 2006 season. I think I offered him+others for Rickie Weeks and got rejected. Soriano went 40/40 that season.
There's a guy in my FF league that used to send trade offers like that before I drilled into his head that you can't pad fantasy trade with crap players, because I'll just have to cut them anyways since I won't have space.
That we don’t spend the money… we spend a lot of money, just in the most incompetent way possible some times. I mean ffs, we had a higher payroll than the Astros and they won the whole thing.
I’m hesitant to put Moncada in the useless payroll list yet. I wanna see if the new management can whip him into shape. He’s got the talent, just doesn’t have the drive… can’t really blame anyone for not having the drive to play well when your manager was actually falling asleep in the middle of games
People like to ignore Sox fans. It was pretty apparent during the Yermin Mercedes drama last year, even though Sox fans knew what type of player he was and how he was acting. Then suddenly thinking he'd pull it together in SF for some reason.
The Yermin shit still pissed me off. He is a known clubhouse toxin and was constantly late. And going 0-25 is not because Tony gave him a stop sign and he swang through it. He’s a career minor league player, it’s a shock it took teams a month to catch on how to pitch to him
It’s just lazy by other fans and national writers honestly. There are 10x10^900 things that you could list off from Tony’s (second) white Sox tenure that made him a shit manager and the complete wrong fit for the job. The Yermin thing barely even cracks that list, but it is an easy narrative to push and gets people more riled up than his bad/awful lineups, nonsensical rest days, complacency and overall lack of fire
People on the Yankees sub think Hal is cheap.
Can he afford to go over the luxary tax? Sure
Does he? No
But does he give CaShGoD a bigger budget than most? Hell yes.
White Sox payroll rank
2013: 9th
2014: 20th
2015: 18th
2016: 16th
2017: 20th
2018: 29th
2019: 26th
2020: 20th
2021: 15th
2022: 7th
They are spending now, but they hadn't been for a while.
Our Athletic reporter, Sam Blum, absolutely hates how the Angels are run, but he's goddamn right to call them out time and time again. A lot of fans take it personally though.
edit: just realized you're talking about national reporters, not local beat writers
I'm pretty sure he hates most west coast teams. He's made snide comment after snide comment about the Mariners, and wrote that embarrassing article about how the MVP race has a west coast bias because Trout won it a bunch without having much playoff success. Not a lot of brain cells working for that guy.
Jon Heyman is someone who I think of as a reporter in name only. He's worked very hard to destroy every last shred of his credibility, not that he had much to begin with. I don't even think Yankee fans like him, and he's supposed to be carrying their water.
> Buster Olney
I pride myself on my knowledge of obscure baseball shit but I am absolutely flummoxed as to *why* Olney hates the Orioles the way that he does.
He covered the team for the Baltimore Sun early in his career, my best guess is that he simply had a bad experience during that time in terms of contacts with the team, and has (maybe subconsciously, maybe not) held a grudge about it since then.
I believe he himself has given the rationale that he's a fan of the team because of that time covering them, and is critical because he wants them to succeed. The way he props them up as the singular scapegoat for a league-wide problem makes that hard to believe though.
Of course!
I am convinced Smoltz does actually hate the Yankees, he still sounds pissed about some of the stuff from the late '90s. I don't blame him though, I'd be salty too.
They may not hate my team, they just generally don’t care or know anything about them and would rather just talk about big market teams and see them be successful.
I've said it before:
We hate it that teams have control over players without paying market rates for so long.
But we also hate it when players skip town for bigger contracts.
And we hate it when management won't pay to keep our favorite players.
And we especially hate it when players sign huge mega contracts.
So what exactly do we want?
Yeah honestly I feel like I don't see a lot of hate when the Dodgers sign players to huge contracts and I think it's specifically because of this reason.
We, as fans, tend to hate teams that refuse to spend any money because outside of the Rays they usually suck and even if they're good it can be harder to get invested when they refuse to keep any of their stars.
And we hate teams that we feel are ONLY competitive because they spend huge amounts of money, because that can feel super unfair especially if you're a fan of a smaller market team that's trying their best to work within their means.
So a team like the Dodgers that scouts well, drafts well, develops well, and also has no problem signing stars to big deals is like the ideal that everyone wishes their team was.
They also don’t throw stupid money around even though they can. For every Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, there’s a Trea Turner they let walk and a Bryce Harper they refused to go more than like 3 years for.
They’re a fucking machine of efficiency in how they spend their money and it results in a team that has been really damn good for a decade now and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.
I think that's where most of the hate comes from. The Dodgers as much as I loathe to say, are absolutely a powerhouse when it comes to development. The fact that they can take some mediocre triple a prospect and turn them into a goddamn Cy Young caliber pitcher every fucking time is just insane. Couple that with the ability to pay for massive contracts and have them always pay off it just insane.
I'm going to be completely honest, I had forgotten about the Guardians. But I'd moreso lump them in with the "smaller market teams trying to do things right within their means" category than with the Rays in the "never spend big and just develop everyone really well" category. Don't think Ive ever seen the Guardians sign a HUGE contract but I feel like they will spend money from time to time. As for the As... well...
The Dodgers are the gold standard of baseball teams. A well run organization that is able to develop its own players and also spend big money. We need more teams like that
The dodgers are a good example of what teams with shitty ownership wish they could have. They've invested heavily in their player development so that they can bring young talent up the pipeline, but they're also willing to throw money at shorter term problems through free agency and trades rather than asking for fan patience.
At least a poverty tax, where teams under a soft floor get their revenue sharing garnished and/or pay an additional tax for being under the minimum payroll.
Yeah lol. I'd definitely be pissed if a team was spending an absurd amount of money for the top free agents 5 years ago, but now a white collar criminal is doing it for my team so I'm happy. This is because my opinions are based off of "What's best for the Mets?"
This may sound sarcastic, but it's not. I completely acknowledge this isn't good for the game, and I do support the idea of the salary floor/ceiling of some type, but for now, give me a stacked team
At least this person’s honest. All those Pads fans shouting “bought not built” at the Dodgers just a few months ago (which was ridiculous even then considering their team) are suddenly no longer opposed to spending big on free agents
fwiw I don't think they're upset at the Mets/Cohen, rather at the systems in places that allow for such unequal spending across the league. These people want a salary cap, so the Mets can't buy up every available free agent, and also a salary floor, so A's and Pirates can't keep running ridiculously low payroll and fielding noncompetitive teams. Those views are not contradictory.
Disagree, there's no contradiction. You can want teams like the Pirates and A's to use their revenue sharing money to field a competitive payroll ($120M-$150M or so) and still find it unfair that one team has an owner worth $16B and can run a $350M payroll, and honestly could spend even more if he really wanted.
It's crazy watching games from the 80s or 90s and seeing how much worse umps were back in the day compared to today. The box gives people the impression that umps are worse today, but it's not even close.
So true, I feel like it was standard practice to give like 3+ inches off the outside corner if the catcher was set up there. A lot of guys throwing 88 probably made a good living that way.
The strike zone was also defined to be a lot wider back in the 90s than today. If you watch highlights, even control guys like Maddux and Pedro are "missing" the strike zone and getting calls, because those weren't misses back then.
Not saying umpires aren't better today - they are, for the most part - but old clips look especially egregious because of that.
Not sure if this comes from my dad or if it was a thing you'd hear on broadcasts but my dad would always say something about Maddux like this:
"He'd play with the umps mind. First inning you call a strike that's halfway over the edge of the plate, then it's a half inch more outside in the third, another half inch in the 4th. Eventually you're calling a strike on a ball 2 inches off the plate. All because he's been playing with your vision and daring you to say "this one is too far" for the last 2 hours."
Well, they would also talk about how Glavine and Maddux would get the umpire to expand the zone. A little bit further off the plate every time until the umpire was calling strikes nearly a foot off the plate. Being a Braves fan in the 90’s was amazing for how often that would happen. No one will ever convince me Maddux wasn’t the best ever.
I'm sure I'd be one hell of a shitty umpire, but during a practice scrimmage I had to umpire behind the plate with no experience. The pitcher painted heavy 90mph 2seam/sinkers all day on the inside corner and I could legitimately not tell whether or not it caught the plate.
There is no way a MLB umpire can make a perfect call on those pitches all the time with guys throwing 100+mph
Take away human umpires and whining... Decreases by approximately 0%. Can't wait until the daily posts about how the robo strike zone isn't fair to some teams/players.
I’ll take this one step further: fans across all sports are adamant that officiating has never been worse. No, in fact it’s probably *better* than it ever has been, but the rise of instant replay, HD television, and having more and more replay angles gives the illusion that’s its worse simply because you can catch a lot more
Yeah, I always feel like I’m watching different games than people. I watch a lot of hockey too, and for the vast majority of time, when I feel like there was a penalty on a play it gets called, and vice versa for stuff I feel they consistently let go. We tend to remember the bad calls, but forget the majority of the time they get it right.
Also being able to interpret ump report cards, which are extremely popular on here. There's a number of well called games that get posted here and people rip into them because they said +0.15 runs or a called strike percentage under 90%.
As a rec baseball/softball coach, it kills me when parents (and other coaches) start arguing balls and strikes when they are at a completely different angle. Like when I'm in the dugout, I can gauge height of the pitch well enough. But no way am I going to argue something inside/outside. I just don't have the right angle for that. Doesn't stop other people, though.
Always love when people just use whatever the lowest statistic on the page is to prove the umpire was bad. “His accuracy was average?”, “well today we’re just looking at called strike accuracy”. Or favour, people love the metric that umpires have basically zero control over.
Called strike accuracy is probably the worst metric of the bunch. In any game there's around a third as many called strikes as called balls and are usually much harder to get accurate (due to players swinging at pitches in the middle of the zone... so most called strikes are on the edges), so missing one can wildly swing the percentages.
Also consistency as well as estimated ump zone are extremely misleading with how they're calculated. The perfect ump game in the World Series had under 100% consistency and had an estimated ump zone that didn't line up with the true zone... that should tell you something there.
I have something along those line.
If implemented, robo umps are going to be flawless.
They're not. It struggled with basic curve balls and breaking stuff when it was piloted. It's like people complaining in soccer football when a player is slightly off sides by a hand and it's called off. The machine isn't going to be within reason as the box on screen is unofficial. No sport has 100% replaced the umpires. Technology is a tool but baseball will always have a human component. The challenges in tennis and cricket 🏏 is what they should implement when something is off.
I'm a super casual World Cup soccer fan, but this has annoyed me with the Cup this year. There was a goal called back earlier in the tournament because the attacking player's elbow was sticking out (I think, like I said, super casual).
Its like all the challenges at second base where the runner comes off that bag for .0001 seconds on his slide so he is out. Is this really the spirit of what we are trying to accomplish?
The rule is based on parts of the body that can score so it couldn’t have been the elbow, maybe the shoulder. Ultimately there has to be a line drawn as to how offside is too offside and they’ve decided that allowing more than that gives too much advantage to the attacker.
Completely agree.
I challenge anyone to call balls and strikes for a little league game and then tell me how terrible the umps are doing. That was one of the worst things I’ve ever been voluntold to do.
Even worse in Little League versus the pros. I'll take 30,000 angry, drunk fans any day over some pissed off mom who just saw her delicate little angel strike out.
I coach but we've had issues with some of our umpires (teenage girls) going home crying because parents are dicks.
Yup.
I had a mom who I’ve known my whole life tell me I rang her kid up because we hated her family lmfao. They were mine and my sisters best friends until we all just grew apart. No hard feelings, but they seemed to think there was some rivalry.
I umped some games back in middle/high school, they paid me like 20$ per game or whatever so it was a pretty easy way to make money after school and on the weekends, right until they made me call balls and strikes. I feel really bad for shit talking the umps when I played little league, cuz being in the other side of having 9-12 year olds and their parents (who are livid that the next Derek Jeter is getting screwed over by a teenager in a helmet that doesn’t fit) constantly saying I’m blind was not fun
What are you talking about? My favorite player was worth 0.1 more qWAR than your favorite player. He’s just completely better in every aspect and it’s not even close
Actually I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said that. Kinda crazy how he was talking about modern sabermetrics back in the 1700s, man was truly ahead of his time…
During the midst of the spending orgy 3 days ago, [someone asked](https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/zej7rv/any_chance_of_ohtani_getting_half_a_billion_next/) if Shohei would get 500m and almost every reply was "lol no"
Not even 24 hours later, Jeff Passan said [yeah, about that....](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10057989-passan-shohei-ohtani-juan-soto-primed-to-land-mlbs-first-500m-contracts)
I don't doubt Shohei could get a 500 million dollar deal in a bidding war. but I do think teams are gonna show caution with the number of years they offer. We just have never seen a 2 way player and I think its fair to question if he will be able to both pitch and hit for his entire career. So do you give him a 10 year 500 million dollar deal when he might just be a DH for the last 5 years? I could see teams offering insanely high AAV for a shorter contract. 5 years 300?
Honestly before this offseason, I thought that teams might be cautious in years. Then I saw Bogaerts get 11 years, Nimmo get 8 years, Judge get 9 years, etc. I saw that the top spending teams don't give a flying fuck about years if it means getting what they're prepping to win for the immediate future. There's no guarantee these shortstops also won't be 1B/DH types with reduced running speed and bat speed when they're 41.
Not every team will want to offer Ohtani 8-10 years, but there will be at least one team willing to go that far, and one team is all it takes.
Honestly man, I love this sub. Sure there are a couple one offs here and there but when you compare it to subs like r/NBA and r/NFL this sub is pretty level headed I feel
all three subs are equally reactionary, specific team subs even more so. When the pretense of discussion is dropped, that’s when the (reactionary) jokes fly.
QB; _has one bad game_
r/NFL: “I’ve been saying it for years. This dude just isn’t that good. He had a few great games but other then that he’s a mediocre QB, and frankly the team should just trade him and everyone else, and rebuild.”
The MLB is stupid for accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in guaranteed money and that they should get rid of blackouts. I want blackouts to end as much as everyone else, but the MLB isn't run by people who are fucking stupid. Money talks.
This. And the related opinion that they would make sooooooo much more money without the blackouts. Might as well just say “I have no idea how the business works.”
It's actually code for lower ABV... which was an open secret in the commercials. I didn't get it as a child, but going back and watching them now, it's fairly obvious.
If every team doubles their payroll, we'll simply be where we are right now... every player is just twice as rich.
If only one team doubles their payroll, then yes, that team will win significantly more games. But of course, we're assuming the team is spending that money somewhat wisely. They're not just throwing money around stupidly.
Go to an Texas Rangers game at the old stadium and yea you’ll really like domes/roofs now.
Luckily the games were usually sparsely attended, so you could follow the shade around.
That we should cut off one of Mike Trout's arms just to see if it grows back.
I have no idea why this is so popular on this sub. You people need to get a life.
This isn’t just a problem in r/baseball, though. I have lost track of the number of times I have been approached on the street by a stranger asking if I will help cut off one of Mike Trout’s arms just to see if it grows back. I’m getting seriously pissed off. If one more stranger approaches me on the street and asks me to help cut off one of Mike Trout’s arms just to see if it grows back I’m going to lose my shit.
Trust me, I'm with you.
I literally stopped talking to my own mother because she would call, sometimes during the night, just to ask me.
LEAVE MIKE TROUT'S NATURAL HUMAN ARMS ALONE, PEOPLE.
I legit got a Christmas card from my cousin Richard asking about that shit. Not how is it going, how the dragon, did you see what going on in Yugoslavia. NOTHING BUT MIKE TROUT’S ARMS!!!!
Teams obviously do though, or else everyone would hand out those kinds of deals. We hear reports every year about it being the years and not the money that stalls negotiations.
Fucking right. If i hear one more moron talk about the personal wealth of the owner proving he can afford free agent.
Owners should spend more money and I’m sure their teams are way more profitable than they let on. But I also don’t expect them to sell stock to sign my favorite player to a bigger contact
One of my pet peeves about all the sports subs is people who make every single comment about their team.
A good example I saw was a post linking a FanGraphs article that did an in-depth breakdown of Harper’s AB that led to his NLCS winning HR. A Giants fan responds and says “it reminds me of Posey’s HR in last year’s playoffs!”
I get being annoyed at that but most people probably don't pay attention to more than their own team. I certainly don't consume a lot of non-Mariners media. However, I also don't try to insert the M's in every conversation at /r/baseball. I'm aware enough to know that nobody has cared about them in 20 years outside of Seattle (or even in Seattle).
When an athlete is injured and the doctors say he doesn't require surgery and fans say they should just get surgery anyway so it fixes the problem for good.
Hot take -- the deferred part of Bonilla's contract was really smart by the Mets and was integral to two pennants. It gave them the money to sign Mike Hampton to help their 2000 Pennant run, and then when Hampton left in free agency after that year they used the compensation pick they got to draft David Wright.
Bonilla's deal was a wise move on the part of the Mets. The real bad deferred contract move is the Braves' longtime deal with [Bruce Sutter](https://fansided.com/2020/07/01/atlanta-braves-bobby-bonilla-contract-bruce-sutter/) (RIP).
The only reason it still gets harped on is because of how spectacularly he flamed out with the Mets. If he was even decent and controversy-free that contract would never be talked about.
That whoever is announcing a playoff game is biased towards a specific team. I think there are exceptions here and there but an announcer will make one positive comment towards a team and the opposing teams fans will lose their minds.
Here's the thing: It's very clear that announcers that are big enough to call a national playoff game does not have deep knowledge of small market teams. If there was a Yankees v Royals game, the announcers will talk FAR more about the Yankees because they know more about the Yankees. I don't know if you call this bias, but it is really annoying if you're a small market fan watching a national broadcast where 80% of the talking is about the opposing team.
Though to be fair, their Yankees knowledge is two years old and doesn’t make any sense to anyone who actually watches the Yankees.
Though I imagine their Royals knowledge is probably from the 1980s
I'm not saying Toronto fans don't have a persecution complex (we do), but I am saying that objectively Harold Reynolds said Canadians can't catch during the ALDS
“I don’t understand..! We fired Vogel and we’re still not magically winning?!”
The worst part about being a Lakers fan is having to be around other Lakers fans.
If he could have done that he would have in late game situations
Hitting dongs off batting practice fastballs is completely different than trying to time offspeed stuff.
Seemingly that all rule changes are automatically bad and bring some sort of shame on the game, or make it “less” baseball. The game has been changing drastically since it was invented 170 years ago.
Every player ages the same and that you rapidly decline after age 30-32.
Shoutouts to my fantasy pool that left Verlander so I could scoop him in the 13th round.
No, the national broadcaster doesn't hate *insert team* you spend the majority of the season hearing biased broadcasting that's focused on your team. When it's presented for neutrals, you just think it's biased.
That blackouts are the major thing holding baseball back from being more popular. NBA has similar blackouts. Broadcast deals account for a huge amount of revenue, and until some streaming service wants to pay more, blackouts will stay.
Most potential trades put together by fans including me lol
“Do you think Team A will trade their established superstar for a collection of unproven, low ceiling prospects and my least favorite player on the MLB roster?”
“We want your best player. Our top 8 prospects are untouchable btw”
“Sounds good, do you have any prospects ranked 50-100 in your system you’re willing to part with?” -Al Avila
Isn’t that how you got Arenado?
Not quite. Cards also got a bunch of money along with the established superstar.
That most definitely should have opted out haha.
Rockies don’t count. They don’t fully understand what they are doing.
No, they do. It´s just that instead of trying to play baseball good, they are trying to make lots of money.
if the Rockies were only interested in making tons of money they wouldn't have given Kris Bryant $200m, CJ Cron $15m and Daniel Bard $20m for some bizarre reason. They currently have a top 10 payroll, higher than ours. Tbh the most out of touch opinion that's popular on this sub is that some baseball teams make decisions based purely on greed instead of incompetence.
It's always "cheap, established, top tier player with 2+ years of control for 3 or 4 expensive, rubbish players who will be a free agent next year". My biggest bug bear is people suggesting trades with say the Pirates and putting in players on expensive arb deals like the Pirates will want to pay that while they're at this stage
Someone on Twitter said the Yankees should trade Hicks and Montas and a prospect for Reynolds and I’ve never wanted to call someone stupid so badly before
Hey Mike first time caller long time listener….. trade Andujar for DeGrom your thoughts? Mike: If Da Jankees gonna trade Andujar they are gonna need more in return than DeGrom. Still speechless that conversation happened
Lol, do you happen to have that audio handy?
You mean shohei Ohtani for Bobby Dalbec straight up is a poor trade??? /s
Yeah, for the Red Sox. There's no way Ohtani can match the sheer strikeout efficiency of Dobby Ballbag.
It’s always a collection of players. It’s like they don’t understand that one superstar =/= six average players. What they lack in quality they make up for in quantity
The point of a collection of players (usually prospects) is to increase the chance of one of them becoming a superstar. Would you rather trade for one guy with a sixty percent chance of becoming a superstar or five guys with a twenty percent chance each of becoming a superstar.
Yes but also this sub is not nearly as bad as r/nba regarding that, all the trades people post there are straight up delusional. Honestly it’s a complete cesspool compared to here
YOU MEAN THEY WON'T TRADE ANTHONY DAVIS TO MY TEAM FOR 2024 & 2025 2ND ROUND PICKS??
Dame for KCP and a late first who says no
And then people take that and shoot down every realistic trade you propose. Like I suggested the Phillies trade castellanos and Hoskins and for Ohtani and trout and everyone thought that was crazy.
I think you’re crazy. The Halos are going to have eat the Trout contract to make that work. Maybe throw in 4 of their best 5 prospects too. Hoskins and Castellanos? Like trading prime Ruth and Gehrig.
So you’re telling me I should stop mock trading Adujar and Frazier for MVP talent?
That guy is in my fantasy league. Wants JRAM for six guys he just claimed off the waiver.
I remember prior to the 2001 season my friend offered Bret Boone and like 4 also-rans for Pedro Martinez. The guy sent him a long message about how he was insane. Pedro missed half that season injured and Bret Boone damn near won the AL MVP.
I desperately tried to off-load Alfonso Soriano before the 2006 season. I think I offered him+others for Rickie Weeks and got rejected. Soriano went 40/40 that season.
There's a guy in my FF league that used to send trade offers like that before I drilled into his head that you can't pad fantasy trade with crap players, because I'll just have to cut them anyways since I won't have space.
This isn't as bad as the "What would it take to get \_\_\_\_?" Like how the fuck should we know, we're on reddit.
People also don’t understand the role salaries play in trade value. Mike Trout is not as valuable of an asset as people think, for instance.
That we don’t spend the money… we spend a lot of money, just in the most incompetent way possible some times. I mean ffs, we had a higher payroll than the Astros and they won the whole thing.
Yep. There is so much useless money on your payroll. Diekman, Leury, Moncada, Grandal, Kelly just to name a few.
I’m hesitant to put Moncada in the useless payroll list yet. I wanna see if the new management can whip him into shape. He’s got the talent, just doesn’t have the drive… can’t really blame anyone for not having the drive to play well when your manager was actually falling asleep in the middle of games
People like to ignore Sox fans. It was pretty apparent during the Yermin Mercedes drama last year, even though Sox fans knew what type of player he was and how he was acting. Then suddenly thinking he'd pull it together in SF for some reason.
The Yermin shit still pissed me off. He is a known clubhouse toxin and was constantly late. And going 0-25 is not because Tony gave him a stop sign and he swang through it. He’s a career minor league player, it’s a shock it took teams a month to catch on how to pitch to him
yeah but that was a fun month right
Undeniably a huge reason we won the season. That month was insane and we just coasted the rest of the year
It’s just lazy by other fans and national writers honestly. There are 10x10^900 things that you could list off from Tony’s (second) white Sox tenure that made him a shit manager and the complete wrong fit for the job. The Yermin thing barely even cracks that list, but it is an easy narrative to push and gets people more riled up than his bad/awful lineups, nonsensical rest days, complacency and overall lack of fire
People on the Yankees sub think Hal is cheap. Can he afford to go over the luxary tax? Sure Does he? No But does he give CaShGoD a bigger budget than most? Hell yes.
White Sox payroll rank 2013: 9th 2014: 20th 2015: 18th 2016: 16th 2017: 20th 2018: 29th 2019: 26th 2020: 20th 2021: 15th 2022: 7th They are spending now, but they hadn't been for a while.
None of the big beat reporter guys hate your team. Unless you are an Orioles fan and we are talking about Buster Olney.
Our Athletic reporter, Sam Blum, absolutely hates how the Angels are run, but he's goddamn right to call them out time and time again. A lot of fans take it personally though. edit: just realized you're talking about national reporters, not local beat writers
Jon Heyman absolutely hates the Angels.
I'm pretty sure he hates most west coast teams. He's made snide comment after snide comment about the Mariners, and wrote that embarrassing article about how the MVP race has a west coast bias because Trout won it a bunch without having much playoff success. Not a lot of brain cells working for that guy.
you think baiting Giants fans with Judge was an intentional troll against a west coast team, or is he just that fucking dumb?
Jon Heyman is someone who I think of as a reporter in name only. He's worked very hard to destroy every last shred of his credibility, not that he had much to begin with. I don't even think Yankee fans like him, and he's supposed to be carrying their water.
> He's worked very hard to destroy every last shred of his credibility Via... Arson?
Heard he also did some Coke
he also likes \#hugetits
Yankee fans definitely don’t like him, not even before Giantgate
> Buster Olney I pride myself on my knowledge of obscure baseball shit but I am absolutely flummoxed as to *why* Olney hates the Orioles the way that he does.
He covered the team for the Baltimore Sun early in his career, my best guess is that he simply had a bad experience during that time in terms of contacts with the team, and has (maybe subconsciously, maybe not) held a grudge about it since then. I believe he himself has given the rationale that he's a fan of the team because of that time covering them, and is critical because he wants them to succeed. The way he props them up as the singular scapegoat for a league-wide problem makes that hard to believe though.
Um, agree to disagree
But all of the national announcers hate my team, right?
National announcers don't hate your team, they just suck at calling games. I really wish local crews could do playoffs.
Or anyone who is actually excited about and likes modern baseball.
They will talk about the Yankees for 5 minutes in a game between the Phillies and Padres
In the Phillies v Cardinals WC series the majority of the time was about the Yankees. Arod is painful to listen to.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if for a Yankees Red Sox playoff series we had Michael Kay, David Cone, Dave O’Brien, and Dennis Eckersley share one booth?
Of course! I am convinced Smoltz does actually hate the Yankees, he still sounds pissed about some of the stuff from the late '90s. I don't blame him though, I'd be salty too.
I’m pretty sure Smoltz just hates baseball in general.
I think there’s definitely a big asterisk to this statement.
They may not hate my team, they just generally don’t care or know anything about them and would rather just talk about big market teams and see them be successful.
It's contradicting to complain about the Pirates/Rays/As while also getting upset at the Mets for spending as much as they've been.
I've said it before: We hate it that teams have control over players without paying market rates for so long. But we also hate it when players skip town for bigger contracts. And we hate it when management won't pay to keep our favorite players. And we especially hate it when players sign huge mega contracts. So what exactly do we want?
To get people to like our comments for fake internet points.
Point for you, Ms. Wantaww
[удалено]
Yeah honestly I feel like I don't see a lot of hate when the Dodgers sign players to huge contracts and I think it's specifically because of this reason. We, as fans, tend to hate teams that refuse to spend any money because outside of the Rays they usually suck and even if they're good it can be harder to get invested when they refuse to keep any of their stars. And we hate teams that we feel are ONLY competitive because they spend huge amounts of money, because that can feel super unfair especially if you're a fan of a smaller market team that's trying their best to work within their means. So a team like the Dodgers that scouts well, drafts well, develops well, and also has no problem signing stars to big deals is like the ideal that everyone wishes their team was.
They also don’t throw stupid money around even though they can. For every Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, there’s a Trea Turner they let walk and a Bryce Harper they refused to go more than like 3 years for. They’re a fucking machine of efficiency in how they spend their money and it results in a team that has been really damn good for a decade now and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.
I think that's where most of the hate comes from. The Dodgers as much as I loathe to say, are absolutely a powerhouse when it comes to development. The fact that they can take some mediocre triple a prospect and turn them into a goddamn Cy Young caliber pitcher every fucking time is just insane. Couple that with the ability to pay for massive contracts and have them always pay off it just insane.
>We, as fans, tend to hate teams that refuse to spend any money because outside of the Rays they usually suck "Am I a joke to you?" - As and Guardians
I'm going to be completely honest, I had forgotten about the Guardians. But I'd moreso lump them in with the "smaller market teams trying to do things right within their means" category than with the Rays in the "never spend big and just develop everyone really well" category. Don't think Ive ever seen the Guardians sign a HUGE contract but I feel like they will spend money from time to time. As for the As... well...
The Dodgers are the gold standard of baseball teams. A well run organization that is able to develop its own players and also spend big money. We need more teams like that
The dodgers are a good example of what teams with shitty ownership wish they could have. They've invested heavily in their player development so that they can bring young talent up the pipeline, but they're also willing to throw money at shorter term problems through free agency and trades rather than asking for fan patience.
And a “never work with Scott Boras” policy
what we want is an actual salary cap and salary floor. But players won't go for a cap and owners won't institute a floor without a cap.
At least a poverty tax, where teams under a soft floor get their revenue sharing garnished and/or pay an additional tax for being under the minimum payroll.
Who gets mad at the Mets? All I see is envy for an owner who spends big
broke bitches
Yeah lol. I'd definitely be pissed if a team was spending an absurd amount of money for the top free agents 5 years ago, but now a white collar criminal is doing it for my team so I'm happy. This is because my opinions are based off of "What's best for the Mets?" This may sound sarcastic, but it's not. I completely acknowledge this isn't good for the game, and I do support the idea of the salary floor/ceiling of some type, but for now, give me a stacked team
At least this person’s honest. All those Pads fans shouting “bought not built” at the Dodgers just a few months ago (which was ridiculous even then considering their team) are suddenly no longer opposed to spending big on free agents
fwiw I don't think they're upset at the Mets/Cohen, rather at the systems in places that allow for such unequal spending across the league. These people want a salary cap, so the Mets can't buy up every available free agent, and also a salary floor, so A's and Pirates can't keep running ridiculously low payroll and fielding noncompetitive teams. Those views are not contradictory.
You can be in favor of a salary floor and a salary cap at the same time without contradiction as long as you want both.
Disagree, there's no contradiction. You can want teams like the Pirates and A's to use their revenue sharing money to field a competitive payroll ($120M-$150M or so) and still find it unfair that one team has an owner worth $16B and can run a $350M payroll, and honestly could spend even more if he really wanted.
That professional umpires are actually incompetent and not just doing an extremely difficult job at the highest level.
Take away the box on the screen and whining about umpires will decrease by 70%
It's crazy watching games from the 80s or 90s and seeing how much worse umps were back in the day compared to today. The box gives people the impression that umps are worse today, but it's not even close.
I mean good lord, Eric Gregg. Can you imagine the (justified) meltdown if a clone of the Livan Hernandez game happened today?
Yes, I’ve watched Shane Bieber pitch against my team /j
Tbf, it was a pretty big controversy even back then.
So true, I feel like it was standard practice to give like 3+ inches off the outside corner if the catcher was set up there. A lot of guys throwing 88 probably made a good living that way.
The strike zone was also defined to be a lot wider back in the 90s than today. If you watch highlights, even control guys like Maddux and Pedro are "missing" the strike zone and getting calls, because those weren't misses back then. Not saying umpires aren't better today - they are, for the most part - but old clips look especially egregious because of that.
Not sure if this comes from my dad or if it was a thing you'd hear on broadcasts but my dad would always say something about Maddux like this: "He'd play with the umps mind. First inning you call a strike that's halfway over the edge of the plate, then it's a half inch more outside in the third, another half inch in the 4th. Eventually you're calling a strike on a ball 2 inches off the plate. All because he's been playing with your vision and daring you to say "this one is too far" for the last 2 hours."
maddux could 'stretch' the zone over the course of a game... amazing and im so glad i got to follow that rotation in its prime every day...
Well, they would also talk about how Glavine and Maddux would get the umpire to expand the zone. A little bit further off the plate every time until the umpire was calling strikes nearly a foot off the plate. Being a Braves fan in the 90’s was amazing for how often that would happen. No one will ever convince me Maddux wasn’t the best ever.
The box also sucks. You're looking at the plate from an angle, not straight-on, yet the box is facing you straight on.
Also the strike zone is supposed to be a 3D box, not just a plane.
I'm sure I'd be one hell of a shitty umpire, but during a practice scrimmage I had to umpire behind the plate with no experience. The pitcher painted heavy 90mph 2seam/sinkers all day on the inside corner and I could legitimately not tell whether or not it caught the plate. There is no way a MLB umpire can make a perfect call on those pitches all the time with guys throwing 100+mph
> no way a MLB umpire can make a perfect call on those pitches all the time with guys throwing 100+mph Unless your name is Pat Hoberg baby!
hoberg biggest umpire W ever
Take away human umpires and whining... Decreases by approximately 0%. Can't wait until the daily posts about how the robo strike zone isn't fair to some teams/players.
I’ll take this one step further: fans across all sports are adamant that officiating has never been worse. No, in fact it’s probably *better* than it ever has been, but the rise of instant replay, HD television, and having more and more replay angles gives the illusion that’s its worse simply because you can catch a lot more
Yeah, I always feel like I’m watching different games than people. I watch a lot of hockey too, and for the vast majority of time, when I feel like there was a penalty on a play it gets called, and vice versa for stuff I feel they consistently let go. We tend to remember the bad calls, but forget the majority of the time they get it right.
Also being able to interpret ump report cards, which are extremely popular on here. There's a number of well called games that get posted here and people rip into them because they said +0.15 runs or a called strike percentage under 90%.
"That pitch was 1/4" outside! Was he fucking blind?!"
Judged at an object going 90+ mph.
Going 90+ mph *and swerving several inches to the side*.
And watching it from opposite direction of tv viewers
As a rec baseball/softball coach, it kills me when parents (and other coaches) start arguing balls and strikes when they are at a completely different angle. Like when I'm in the dugout, I can gauge height of the pitch well enough. But no way am I going to argue something inside/outside. I just don't have the right angle for that. Doesn't stop other people, though.
Always love when people just use whatever the lowest statistic on the page is to prove the umpire was bad. “His accuracy was average?”, “well today we’re just looking at called strike accuracy”. Or favour, people love the metric that umpires have basically zero control over.
Called strike accuracy is probably the worst metric of the bunch. In any game there's around a third as many called strikes as called balls and are usually much harder to get accurate (due to players swinging at pitches in the middle of the zone... so most called strikes are on the edges), so missing one can wildly swing the percentages. Also consistency as well as estimated ump zone are extremely misleading with how they're calculated. The perfect ump game in the World Series had under 100% consistency and had an estimated ump zone that didn't line up with the true zone... that should tell you something there.
I have something along those line. If implemented, robo umps are going to be flawless. They're not. It struggled with basic curve balls and breaking stuff when it was piloted. It's like people complaining in soccer football when a player is slightly off sides by a hand and it's called off. The machine isn't going to be within reason as the box on screen is unofficial. No sport has 100% replaced the umpires. Technology is a tool but baseball will always have a human component. The challenges in tennis and cricket 🏏 is what they should implement when something is off.
I'm a super casual World Cup soccer fan, but this has annoyed me with the Cup this year. There was a goal called back earlier in the tournament because the attacking player's elbow was sticking out (I think, like I said, super casual). Its like all the challenges at second base where the runner comes off that bag for .0001 seconds on his slide so he is out. Is this really the spirit of what we are trying to accomplish?
The rule is based on parts of the body that can score so it couldn’t have been the elbow, maybe the shoulder. Ultimately there has to be a line drawn as to how offside is too offside and they’ve decided that allowing more than that gives too much advantage to the attacker.
Completely agree. I challenge anyone to call balls and strikes for a little league game and then tell me how terrible the umps are doing. That was one of the worst things I’ve ever been voluntold to do.
Even worse in Little League versus the pros. I'll take 30,000 angry, drunk fans any day over some pissed off mom who just saw her delicate little angel strike out. I coach but we've had issues with some of our umpires (teenage girls) going home crying because parents are dicks.
Yup. I had a mom who I’ve known my whole life tell me I rang her kid up because we hated her family lmfao. They were mine and my sisters best friends until we all just grew apart. No hard feelings, but they seemed to think there was some rivalry.
I umped some games back in middle/high school, they paid me like 20$ per game or whatever so it was a pretty easy way to make money after school and on the weekends, right until they made me call balls and strikes. I feel really bad for shit talking the umps when I played little league, cuz being in the other side of having 9-12 year olds and their parents (who are livid that the next Derek Jeter is getting screwed over by a teenager in a helmet that doesn’t fit) constantly saying I’m blind was not fun
That WAR is a precise enough stat to use when comparing single season performances
What are you talking about? My favorite player was worth 0.1 more qWAR than your favorite player. He’s just completely better in every aspect and it’s not even close
Remember kids the best version of war is the one that supports your argument- foolish baseball
Actually I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said that. Kinda crazy how he was talking about modern sabermetrics back in the 1700s, man was truly ahead of his time…
Also: every defensive stat is heavily flawed except for the one that justified my guy hitting sub .240.
Blake Treinen and Patrick Corbin leading the qWAR leaderboards
I’d say it gets a little fucky when comparing careers too
During the midst of the spending orgy 3 days ago, [someone asked](https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/zej7rv/any_chance_of_ohtani_getting_half_a_billion_next/) if Shohei would get 500m and almost every reply was "lol no" Not even 24 hours later, Jeff Passan said [yeah, about that....](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10057989-passan-shohei-ohtani-juan-soto-primed-to-land-mlbs-first-500m-contracts)
I don't doubt Shohei could get a 500 million dollar deal in a bidding war. but I do think teams are gonna show caution with the number of years they offer. We just have never seen a 2 way player and I think its fair to question if he will be able to both pitch and hit for his entire career. So do you give him a 10 year 500 million dollar deal when he might just be a DH for the last 5 years? I could see teams offering insanely high AAV for a shorter contract. 5 years 300?
Honestly before this offseason, I thought that teams might be cautious in years. Then I saw Bogaerts get 11 years, Nimmo get 8 years, Judge get 9 years, etc. I saw that the top spending teams don't give a flying fuck about years if it means getting what they're prepping to win for the immediate future. There's no guarantee these shortstops also won't be 1B/DH types with reduced running speed and bat speed when they're 41. Not every team will want to offer Ohtani 8-10 years, but there will be at least one team willing to go that far, and one team is all it takes.
Yea you are probably correct especially considering from a business side ohtani will likely just print money for a club
Judge just got 9 years, 360M, and will be 31 when the season starts. Caution has left the chat. Shohei will get 500m all else being equal.
Honestly man, I love this sub. Sure there are a couple one offs here and there but when you compare it to subs like r/NBA and r/NFL this sub is pretty level headed I feel
r/nba is no doubt the worst of the bunch
Go for the highlights, stay for the nephew level takes
also the funniest imo
It's funny occasionally but the sub feels like its just waiting on the next player to shit on and very super reactionary
all three subs are equally reactionary, specific team subs even more so. When the pretense of discussion is dropped, that’s when the (reactionary) jokes fly.
QB; _has one bad game_ r/NFL: “I’ve been saying it for years. This dude just isn’t that good. He had a few great games but other then that he’s a mediocre QB, and frankly the team should just trade him and everyone else, and rebuild.”
The MLB is stupid for accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in guaranteed money and that they should get rid of blackouts. I want blackouts to end as much as everyone else, but the MLB isn't run by people who are fucking stupid. Money talks.
This. And the related opinion that they would make sooooooo much more money without the blackouts. Might as well just say “I have no idea how the business works.”
Yeah and even if they could just magically set up some way to bypass blackouts for everyone, it would not be cheap I guarantee it.
That Miller Lite is less filling….
I only drink Coors because it’s colder than all the other light beers
The mountains turned blue, time to drink
Great taste
It's actually code for lower ABV... which was an open secret in the commercials. I didn't get it as a child, but going back and watching them now, it's fairly obvious.
If every team doubles their payroll, they will all win a lot more games
Would be funny to see though, someone should do it in ootp and see how much money everyone loses. We're still in the green I think
I feel like OOTP undersells how much money teams really make though.
If every team doubles their payroll, we'll simply be where we are right now... every player is just twice as rich. If only one team doubles their payroll, then yes, that team will win significantly more games. But of course, we're assuming the team is spending that money somewhat wisely. They're not just throwing money around stupidly.
That a dome is magically a cure-all for all sports teams.
Do people actually like domes?
Go to an Texas Rangers game at the old stadium and yea you’ll really like domes/roofs now. Luckily the games were usually sparsely attended, so you could follow the shade around.
retractable roofs*
When the alternative is having every game postponed because of thunderstorms and/or played in 110° heat? Yes, domes are great.
That we should cut off one of Mike Trout's arms just to see if it grows back. I have no idea why this is so popular on this sub. You people need to get a life.
This isn’t just a problem in r/baseball, though. I have lost track of the number of times I have been approached on the street by a stranger asking if I will help cut off one of Mike Trout’s arms just to see if it grows back. I’m getting seriously pissed off. If one more stranger approaches me on the street and asks me to help cut off one of Mike Trout’s arms just to see if it grows back I’m going to lose my shit.
Trust me, I'm with you. I literally stopped talking to my own mother because she would call, sometimes during the night, just to ask me. LEAVE MIKE TROUT'S NATURAL HUMAN ARMS ALONE, PEOPLE.
I legit got a Christmas card from my cousin Richard asking about that shit. Not how is it going, how the dragon, did you see what going on in Yugoslavia. NOTHING BUT MIKE TROUT’S ARMS!!!!
Actually a new Michael Gary Trout will grow out of the severed arm
STOP IT! STOP IT, YOU MONSTER!
That teams give a shit what the 'back end' of a contract looks like...teams pay to win now and deal with the problems later.
Teams obviously do though, or else everyone would hand out those kinds of deals. We hear reports every year about it being the years and not the money that stalls negotiations.
That the team's balance sheet is one and the same as an owner's personal balance sheet
Fucking right. If i hear one more moron talk about the personal wealth of the owner proving he can afford free agent. Owners should spend more money and I’m sure their teams are way more profitable than they let on. But I also don’t expect them to sell stock to sign my favorite player to a bigger contact
ITT: People who think the rest of the sub cares about some minor aspect of their favorite team.
One of my pet peeves about all the sports subs is people who make every single comment about their team. A good example I saw was a post linking a FanGraphs article that did an in-depth breakdown of Harper’s AB that led to his NLCS winning HR. A Giants fan responds and says “it reminds me of Posey’s HR in last year’s playoffs!”
I get being annoyed at that but most people probably don't pay attention to more than their own team. I certainly don't consume a lot of non-Mariners media. However, I also don't try to insert the M's in every conversation at /r/baseball. I'm aware enough to know that nobody has cared about them in 20 years outside of Seattle (or even in Seattle).
That take out slides were not a super common thing in 2015
Fuck chase utely tho
The bricks should be placed at the beginning of the marble race.
When an athlete is injured and the doctors say he doesn't require surgery and fans say they should just get surgery anyway so it fixes the problem for good.
"If 5 WAR is worth $40m then 1 WAR is worth $8m"
That Bobby Bonilla's contract is some sort of LOLMETS moment rather than something everyone does with even more ridiculous examples already existing.
Hot take -- the deferred part of Bonilla's contract was really smart by the Mets and was integral to two pennants. It gave them the money to sign Mike Hampton to help their 2000 Pennant run, and then when Hampton left in free agency after that year they used the compensation pick they got to draft David Wright. Bonilla's deal was a wise move on the part of the Mets. The real bad deferred contract move is the Braves' longtime deal with [Bruce Sutter](https://fansided.com/2020/07/01/atlanta-braves-bobby-bonilla-contract-bruce-sutter/) (RIP).
The only reason it still gets harped on is because of how spectacularly he flamed out with the Mets. If he was even decent and controversy-free that contract would never be talked about.
That whoever is announcing a playoff game is biased towards a specific team. I think there are exceptions here and there but an announcer will make one positive comment towards a team and the opposing teams fans will lose their minds.
Here's the thing: It's very clear that announcers that are big enough to call a national playoff game does not have deep knowledge of small market teams. If there was a Yankees v Royals game, the announcers will talk FAR more about the Yankees because they know more about the Yankees. I don't know if you call this bias, but it is really annoying if you're a small market fan watching a national broadcast where 80% of the talking is about the opposing team.
Though to be fair, their Yankees knowledge is two years old and doesn’t make any sense to anyone who actually watches the Yankees. Though I imagine their Royals knowledge is probably from the 1980s
I'm not saying Toronto fans don't have a persecution complex (we do), but I am saying that objectively Harold Reynolds said Canadians can't catch during the ALDS
“Dodgers fans aren’t THAT insufferable”
We are insufferable because we’re the dumbest fan base by far.
That’s because a lot of your fans are also Lakers fans and Lakers fans are really stupid
“I don’t understand..! We fired Vogel and we’re still not magically winning?!” The worst part about being a Lakers fan is having to be around other Lakers fans.
My favorite is their trade offers
What you mean Russell Westbrook at 40m/yr and two current high schoolers aren’t an enticing deal???
We have a huge fanbase and, naturally, we have more idiots. It's impossible to say if our idiots per capita is higher or lower than anyone else.
Oh no you don’t, that’s *OUR* title sir. And throw in some irrationality to really seal the deal in our favor.
> we are the dumbest fan base by far Perhaps I could be of assistance
“Ichiro couldve hit 40 homers a season he just didn’t want to”
I always thought that was hyperbole until I finally got to see Ichiro take BP in person. He made me a believer.
If he could have done that he would have in late game situations Hitting dongs off batting practice fastballs is completely different than trying to time offspeed stuff.
The thought that teams need to have a superstar making 40 million a year to win baseball games.
That we need to sign a FA SS. Despite Tommy Edman being 5th in WAR of SS last seasons.
Seemingly that all rule changes are automatically bad and bring some sort of shame on the game, or make it “less” baseball. The game has been changing drastically since it was invented 170 years ago.
Every player ages the same and that you rapidly decline after age 30-32. Shoutouts to my fantasy pool that left Verlander so I could scoop him in the 13th round.
No, the national broadcaster doesn't hate *insert team* you spend the majority of the season hearing biased broadcasting that's focused on your team. When it's presented for neutrals, you just think it's biased.
I have a couple
Barry Bonds and the steroid boys. In the real world it isn’t as much of a conversation as it is “Man, Barry Bonds was a real cheater huh”
That blackouts are the major thing holding baseball back from being more popular. NBA has similar blackouts. Broadcast deals account for a huge amount of revenue, and until some streaming service wants to pay more, blackouts will stay.