Baseball

[Shirley]

Hell of an ending to the Guardian v Yankees game tonight.

David Fry with a home run for the Guardians in the bottom of the 10th!

[jhawks99]

I wanna see Charlie Sheen

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

I wanna see Charlie Sheen

6 degrees of Gutter.......

Run in to Charlie Sheen at Game 7 of the 2016 World Series.
Walked right past him not really thinking twice.
Next half hour I think about how I could/should have asked him if he remembers meeting me in 1986 in Wilmette while filming Lucas (ZERO chance he would have) and how I should have asked him about KU. You know, being that he was offered a scholarship to play at KU.

P.S. This always makes me smile. Now that the game is over.
Fully admit it PISSED ME OFF BIG TIME watching it live.

[pdub]

Most of America looses with this matchup.

[Sparko]

I almost believe they give both teams the live balls.

[jfish26]

Most of America looses with this matchup.

Including the writers, at least from a logistical standpoint. That travel is a bear. At least the West Coast team isn’t Mariners or, worst of all, Padres.

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

Most of America looses with this matchup.

Including the writers, at least from a logistical standpoint. That travel is a bear. At least the West Coast team isn’t Mariners or, worst of all, Padres.

Gutter being Gutter.......

pdub - I completely disagree. Big star power. Big Markets. Two best teams records wise in their leagues.
I know you are a big payroll guy so my guess is that's why you said what you did.
How many WS have there been since 2000 and how many different teams have won the WS since 2000?
I'm going to guess of all the teams that won the World Series since 2000, 10 of them weren't in the top 10 in payroll.
How many different teams have made the playoffs in the last 10 years?
If I am not mistaken, I think every team has.
Yes, of course being in a big market and having a huge payroll helps a team. I'm just saying, maybe not as much as you like to imply it does?

Fish - I can't and won't speak for writers (I am not sure if you are referring to local?, national?, international?) but for many reasons New York and LA are two of the best cities to travel to.
Yeah, maybe it's not a whole lot of fun flying back and forth from LA to NY and NY to LA but there are a whole lot more travel options (flights both commercial and private, hotels, ground transportation, restaurants, etc.) than are available in smaller cities.

[jfish26]

Unless the TV folks are generous with their jets, none of the writers are flying private. Yes, there are a million options. But they still involve long flights in and out of airports that aren’t exactly a ten minute uber from the parks and hotels.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re talking about jobs people kill for. But they’re still people with (in most cases) families, and it’s a lot!

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

Unless the TV folks are generous with their jets, none of the writers are flying private. Yes, there are a million options. But they still involve long flights in and out of airports that aren’t exactly a ten minute uber from the parks and hotels.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re talking about jobs people kill for. But they’re still people with (in most cases) families, and it’s a lot!

All good points!
I was just Gutter being Gutter.

[pdub]

Last 15 World Series winners not top 10 payroll:

21 Braves, 17 Astros, 15 Royals, 11 Cardinals ( juuuust barely - 11th highest )

4 out of 15 - then throw in Dodgers/Yankees this year - that'll be 4 out of 16.

Dunno what to tell you if you don't think spending makes a difference in winning.

[Back2Lawrence]

It’s a closed system. It should have closed spending limits (and floors). It’s pretty simple. Or open it up to actual competition.

I’m just glad that sports (in general) wasn’t quite so icky for the entirety of my fandom span.

It’s not surprising young people don’t seem to follow like they did in generations past.

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

Last 15 World Series winners not top 10 payroll:

21 Braves, 17 Astros, 15 Royals, 11 Cardinals ( juuuust barely - 11th highest )

4 out of 15 - then throw in Dodgers/Yankees this year - that'll be 4 out of 16.

Dunno what to tell you if you don't think spending makes a difference in winning.

"Yes, of course being in a big market and having a huge payroll helps a team".

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

It’s a closed system. It should have closed spending limits (and floors). It’s pretty simple. Or open it up to actual competition.

I’m just glad that sports (in general) wasn’t quite so icky for the entirety of my fandom span.

It’s not surprising young people don’t seem to follow like they did in generations past.

I'm not understanding "it's a closed system". Can't teams who are in the bottom of payroll be at the top of the payroll if they chose to? Before you answer that, I do realize that small markets, and a lack of recent success, make it harder for owners to get players to come to their teams - but isn't that true of the teams in other sports where there is a salary cap?

[pdub]

The NFL has a floor and a ceiling in their salary cap - this levels the field for smaller markets.
Small market owners aren't willing to risk year after year loss.
Yes, we can blame the owners, but that's like blaming the uber wealthy for not giving away half of their wealth -- instead it makes more sense to blame the government/the system.

The Chiefs in the MLB system would have had Mahomes for 3 years and then we woulda had to trade him to the Cowboys, Giants or Jets.

[Back2Lawrence]

It’s a closed system. It should have closed spending limits (and floors). It’s pretty simple. Or open it up to actual competition.

I’m just glad that sports (in general) wasn’t quite so icky for the entirety of my fandom span.

It’s not surprising young people don’t seem to follow like they did in generations past.

I'm not understanding "it's a closed system". Can't teams who are in the bottom of payroll be at the top of the payroll if they chose to? Before you answer that, I do realize that small markets, and a lack of recent success, make it harder for owners to get players to come to their teams - but isn't that true of the teams in other sports where there is a salary cap?

A closed system simply means there is no competition for these teams. They exist as they exist, and a third-party in no way Can simply come in and want to be added, or replace an existing team. And before anyone sites teams, moving cities, lol.

[jfish26]

Bobby and his contract say hello.

I don’t think the answer here is a closed system that (1) hurts less desirable markets (in a sport that is really a LOT more like the NBA than the NFL), and (2) siphons more money to ownership besides.

I think the answer is in further iterating on a system that works fairly well, which it does - I recognize the stats pdub cited earlier today, but on the other hand two quarterbacks have won 10 of the last 23 Super Bowls; over that same period no combination of any two MLB franchises has won more than seven World Series (and only Red Sox (4) and Giants (3) add up, I think, to seven).

Teams should be structurally rewarded for competitive behavior,* and penalized for uncompetitive behavior. In each case with ways that matter to competing, not ways that matter only to the bottom line.

* Which the Royals will be next year, in receiving a sandwich round pick (between rounds 1 and 2) by virtue of Bobby (1) starting and playing all of 2022 in the major leagues and finishing top-3 in MVP voting in 2024. The theory behind this program is that this incentive encourages teams not to artificially keep awesome players in the minor leagues for purposes of buying an extra year of club control. This is EXACTLY the kind of competitive behavior that should be rewarded, in my view, and the sort of thing that should be iterated on to further improve competitive balance across the game.

[pdub]

I recognize the stats pdub cited earlier today, but on the other hand two quarterbacks have won 10 of the last 23 Super Bowls;

To me this adds nothing at all to the argument.
In fact, in my opinion, it adds to my argument as Kansas City's market is 34th but yet they've won 3 of the last 4 Super Bowls.
Anyone had the ability to draft those players. Money was not a factor. Additionally, you also would not be able to convince me that those teams that won the Super Bowl weren't actually good teams and were simply because there was a quarterback there ( offensive, defense, special teams and coaching ).

As said before, the players don't want a cap and the owners don't want a floor so I'm not sure if it'll ever happen. But it remains a large reason why I think pro baseball sucks as a sport.

[jfish26]

All I'm saying is that, in addition to being a bad comparison to baseball structurally, the NFL isn't even really much better off competitively.

Winning a Super Bowl with a sub-HoF quarterback appears to be about as easy as winning a World Series with a sub-top-10 payroll.

The NBA example isn't helpful (to a Royals fan) either, as far as what things look like in a floor-and-cap environment.

And so why should we be looking to solve competitive problems by choosing a path that doesn't really appear to be likely at all to solve them, and simply funnels more money upwards to ownership besides?

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

RIP Fernando.

[KUTradition]

RIP Fernando.

^^^^