Padres got their guy - a bidder gone

[RedTeamGo!]

Holy crap, what in the world are the Cubs doing? This trade is awful for them. A bunch of teenagers for Yu Darvish????

[757690]

Here is the Darvish trade:

The Cubs and Padres have agreed to a deal that will send right-hander Yu Darvish and catcher Victor Caratini from Chicago to San Diego, Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reports. The Cubs will receive righty Zach Davies, shortstops Reginald Preciado and Yeison Santana, and outfielders Owen Caissie and Ismael Mena in return.

[Crumbley]

Holy crap, what in the world are the Cubs doing? This trade is awful for them. A bunch of teenagers for Yu Darvish????

Ricketts spent all of the money on racist billboards

[Benihana]

Preller is bonkers. Keep the super-elite prospects, don't get at all attached to anything else.

And all of the sudden the funnest team to watch in baseball has added Snell, Darvish and Kim in 24 hours.

I guess the feeling I'm experiencing is right now is what you call...jealousy?

While maybe not the winningest, I’ve felt for the last few years Preller may be the most fun GM to have. He certainly makes things interesting, and I’m very impressed at how he is able to wheel and deal while hanging on to his best prospects.

If not for one unlucky injury, he could have a rotation of Darvish-Snell-Clevinger-Lamet-Gore/Weathers this year, along with an infield of Kim, Tatis, Machado and Hosmer. And CJ Abrams (and Gore/Weathers) waiting in the wings. Maybe they don’t end up winning, but that team will sure as he’ll be fun to watch.

[Benihana]

Here is the Darvish trade:

If the Reds traded Sonny Gray for that return I might consider retiring as a Reds fan.

That looks worse than the return on Cueto or even Denny Neagle. You never know with guys that young, but Jeez Louise now is not the time to sell.

[Patrick Bateman]

If a team is worth a billion dollars, and keeps increasing in value by leaps and bounds every year, then borrowing say, $20M a year, really never becomes an issue. Especially as I mentioned that they will be getting extremely favorable terms on these loans.

Add in that teams that win take in more revenue and profit than those that lose, and it would be smart business to do so.

Borrowing against equity to fund payroll in excess of profits feels like a really good strategy to force yourself out of ownership requiring a sale of the team to repay the debt.

It’s a great strategy for the sports operation and as a fan, but not that realistic for the owner if he intends to keep the team, or expect to make reasonable money on his investment.


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[757690]

Borrowing against equity to fund payroll in excess of profits feels like a really good strategy to force yourself out of ownership requiring a sale of the team to repay the debt.

It’s a great strategy for the sports operation and as a fan, but not that realistic for the owner if he intends to keep the team, or expect to make reasonable money on his investment.


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1. The goal is to make more money overall by building a winning franchise. You wouldn't be doing it every year. Building a winning team generates more revenue, more profits, and you use that to pay off the loans. Teams that make the playoffs makes tens of millions more than other teams, just in the playoff revenue. It is the same as with all business loans. You use the money loaned to build up the business.

2. If the plan doesn't work, there is little risk, as the value of the team keeps increasing, no matter how successful the team is. You can always sell part of the team or all of it if you can't make your payments for a big profit. And if you screw up so much that you never produce a winning team, selling the team is clearly what is best for everyone.

[Patrick Bateman]

There are obviously diminishing returns as you spend more payroll relative to future profits. Otherwise teams would just keep out bidding each other on good players. Ultimately there are finite resources that can be spent accross the owners of mlb, and being an owner that spends significantly more on player payroll relative to profits is awesome for a fan, but not a great business decision. This is basically how every professional sports team works.


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[757690]

There are obviously diminishing returns as you spend more payroll relative to future profits. Otherwise teams would just keep out bidding each other on good players. Ultimately there are finite resources that can be spent accross the owners of mlb, and being an owner that spends significantly more on player payroll relative to profits is awesome for a fan, but not a great business decision. This is basically how every professional sports team works.


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This assumes every team is on equal financial footing, and we know that isn’t true.

The Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers and other large market teams can spend at will and never worry about profits. The league has to put a salary (luxury) tax on them to keep them from buying all the best players. They never have to leverage assets in order to build the team they want.

Teams like the Reds can’t spend like them, even with the salary cap. Borrowing money every now and then would help them get closer and be more competitive. You’re correct, there would a limit of how much they could borrow and how often, but with the salary cap, that would be moot.

Now, of course, maybe teams are already doing this, and the Reds have maxed out their credit. Unfortunately, we’ll never know, because they refuse to open their books.

Anyway, my point all along is more that it is possible for a team worth a billion dollars to access some of that money if they felt they needed it. Whether it is wise to do is another question and you raise good points on that.

[RedTeamGo!]

While maybe not the winningest, I’ve felt for the last few years Preller may be the most fun GM to have. He certainly makes things interesting, and I’m very impressed at how he is able to wheel and deal while hanging on to his best prospects.

If not for one unlucky injury, he could have a rotation of Darvish-Snell-Clevinger-Lamet-Gore/Weathers this year, along with an infield of Kim, Tatis, Machado and Hosmer. And CJ Abrams (and Gore/Weathers) waiting in the wings. Maybe they don’t end up winning, but that team will sure as he’ll be fun to watch.

If Clevinger was heathy I doubt they add one of these starters, though.

[Ron Madden]

Bob Nightengale @BNightengale
The #Cubs are also paying a minor portion of the remaining $59 million in Yu Darvish's contract to the #Padres.

[Rojo Rijo]

My favorite part about this deal is a poster on here who was complaining about Gray being mentioned in trade rumors and asking why we hear about the Reds doing this but we don't hear that other team are, like the Cubs are listening to offers on Darvish as one of the examples.

[REDREAD]

I'll cherry pick one. Here's 2015, Reds #14 in payroll in all of MLB.

2015




Why?

The Reds have the smallest media market in all of MLB. .

And the reason the Reds have the smallest media market in all of MLB, is that they have consistently sucked since 1999, other than the Walt era where they were competitive.
We had posters on here saying the Reds could never draw well on a weekday when school was in. Yet, when the Reds fielded a good team under Walt, they actually drew 30k on some of those nights. The Reds have failed to establish themselves as a regional team because the product is usually poor. Why would someone that is more than an hour's drive away drive up to Cincy to see a team when it was tanking?,

When the Reds were winning under Walt, attendance grew. When the team is doing poorly attendance is down, and I am sure
TV ratings are down too. Example, Walt era, they drew about 2.5 million a year, in 2018, they drew 1.6 million a year.
Huge difference. I imagine if the Reds had been consistently competitive, they would have gotten a much larger TV deal, in addition to larger gate revenues. Instead, most years, they have been very conservative fiscally and pretty much done the bare minimum. Yes, they tried in 2019 and 2020 (after 4 or 5 years of tanking), to try to wake up the fan base.

There is no plan to build a consistent winner.. Even the latest attempt 2019-2020 was a short "Go for it" period, since we only had Bauer for 1.5 years. Yes, it was still a good trade, but instead of trying to improve the team for 2021, they have lost about 9 players from last years roster, and IIRC, Noe Rameriez is the only replacement. So yea, I hope they keep Suarez, Gray and Castillo, but as it stands now, even if they add a decent SS like Didi, they are likely a below 500 team. You can't expect to grow
your media market when the team pulls crap like that. St Louis metro area is 2.8 milliion people. Cincy is 2.1 million people, but
Cincy has Columbus (2 million), Lexington (500k), Louisville ( 1.2 million), Dayton (800k) and other decent sized cities nearby.
(Numbers are from google).. The Reds just have to give these people a good reason to drive down to the GAB. Most years, the Reds fail to do that.

[backbencher]

And the reason the Reds have the smallest media market in all of MLB, is that they have consistently sucked since 1999, other than the Walt era where they were competitive.

No, the reason that the Reds have the smallest media market is because Cincinnati is the smallest metro area with a major league franchise.

Link to Nielsen markets, Cincinnati is #37

But don't just take my word for it. The owners and the players agree with me, in writing. The MLB collective bargaining agreement explicitly defines Cincinnati as the smallest market in baseball.

MLB CBA, see Attachment 26 on page 239

Sure, Cincinnati has exurbs and other driving-distance metros like Louisville. But the same is true for every other team.

[Redsfaithful]

Replace media market with "fanbase", it's just verbiage in this case, his point remains and it's pretty indisputable. The Reds could, at the least, approach and surpass the 2.5 mil+ per year range for attendance, but they largely haven't tried to be competitive for decades now.