Roki Sasaki decided to sign a MLB contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, because, of course he did. Just like the last best pitcher available, Yamamoto, and that other pitcher, Snell. Oh, and Ohtani. Not to forget Betts, Freeman and all the other stars. And thus, baseball gets to be a little less of a game and more of a race between merger and acquisition specialists to see who wins. The game becomes incidental. And that's a problem, because while some Angelenos, even if they can no longer afford to go to a game, may think it's fine to watch their team pile up superstars and, maybe, trophies for years, they might not notice one-time fans of the sport slowly slipping away.
I see the sport devolving into a few oligarchs, the Mets, the Yankees, and the Dodgers, and a few teams who can make a splash on occasion, and maybe win it all, like Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, and probably San Francisco, but not sustain the level of investment that it takes to do this year in and year out. Then there are the teams that are willing to spend money, but have to be selective, like Arizona, and St. Louis. Below them are the teams that don't really stand a chance. Sure, they might sneak into an expanded playoff format on occasion, but unless luck plays a much larger part than anyone who ever reads statistics imagines, they aren't going to win. Finally, at the bottom are teams that don't care about winning, they exist as developmental and feeder teams for other clubs and are making money from revenue sharing, like the A's and Rockies.
Major League Baseball probably doesn't care, but it should. Tickets are expensive, but the better teams seem to sell tickets fairly well. I spend money on entertainment of various sorts, but a fundamental principle of sports is that the outcome is not pre-determined. And as soon as that premise, real or imagined, slips away, there is no point in bothering to observe the sport any more. Or, to put it more accurately, as soon as that premise appears to be no longer valid, there is no sport anymore. And it seems to me that, thanks to LA co-opting the WBC Championship team, that premise is definitely open to question. I think the Giants have an interesting team of young players (finally). But I'm thinking we could all save time by just giving LA the NL West title right now. I will certainly be watching less. And for someone raised as a baseball fan from my earliest memories, that's saying something. Baseball should address these inequalities that are becoming more and more prevalent, or they will become a minor sport.
7 comments:
Yeah it's a bummer. Take a look at the Premier League. The same teams win all the time. But fans seem to love it. The fans of the "minnows" accept their "minnow" status and hope to occasionally get a draw against the Super Clubs.
I don't know how you fix it. That's the thing. The NFL has revenue sharing and they get teams like the Patriots dominating for a whole decade.
Clearly the "luxury tax" is just an operating cost. It doesn't discourage teams like LA or the NYs.
If they decide that a payroll ceiling (the players would be against that!) for clubs then they would have to have a payroll floor, too (something I think MLBPA would support).
I really think universal free agency and the elimination of the reserve clause, arb-rules, international signing rules, the draft, slot money, all that crap, would improve things. Players need to be able to move—they should not be stuck in one place. The Dodgers have Sasaki under team control for SIX YEARS! That's absurd. He's a professional but is treated as an amateur due to the byzantine rules.
Make everyone anywhere free to sign with any club any time. The number of teams and roster spots are already fixed. With enough worldwide talent every team would have access to good players. Teams like LA would still use their massive wealth and institutional power to stay on top—this is capitalism, after all—but every team would at least have studs on their rosters and a reason to tune in.
From Eric Longenhagen at FanGraphs:
Will the concentration of talent in Los Angeles cause meaningful disillusionment among baseball fans? As excited as everyone is to watch Sasaki pitch, our culture tends to tire and make villains of dynastic sports franchises. One of the many (seemingly spurious) things that Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe, stated publicly during a poorly mic’d Winter Meetings press conference was that Sasaki did not have an enjoyable experience with the media in Japan, going so far as to say it might be beneficial for him to land in a small market in order to avoid more of it. Well, now Sasaki has chosen the antithesis of that. He is intentionally moving into the place where the spotlight is already shining brightest, and where most baseball fans look with ire at the reigning champs. Is $6.5 million enough to subject yourself to schadenfreude from swaths of three different countries in the event that the 2025 Dodgers are the 2012 Marlins or 2011 Eagles? Is “begrudging respect” Sasaki’s cultural ceiling? These are much more difficult questions that will take years to answer.
Dodgers rotation is brilliant but fragile. None of those guys eat innings. Snell, Glasnow, Yamamoto, Sasaki have all had injury issues. 30 starts is rare for these guys. Gavin Stone (25 starts) was their most reliable starter!
Of course they can patch that over with the abundance of talent. And a six-man rotation.
Now they've signed Tanner Scott. If they don't win everything, they will have to be considered absolute failures. Hope the TV magnates appreciate the big market cities when no one else is watching.
The frustrating part is that they are good, not just uber-rich. Andrew Friedman might be the smartest guy in the game. They not just out-spend everyone, they spend smart. They push the envelope. (They just signed a guy from Africa!). They are on the cutting edge in player development and coaching. If they were a bunch of crazy bumblers (the Mets?) it might feel different.
The part of the dodger rotation that is brilliant but fragile, is backed up by several arms who could be very good but are only getting a chance to be in the rotation if injury occurs. Perhaps they are insurance, or could be important trading pieces in case the dodgers fall short of their projected 120 wins if healthy.
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