-If the reports about it being due to a 2014 ankle injury are true, it makes the Giants look REALLY bad. I can't imagine them signing up to be the buffoons just to help Boras and Correa.
-I don't think teams generally would participate in schemes to inflate free agent prices.
-Boras is probably wise enough not to do that. If he ever got caught, it would destroy his credibility with teams in future negotiations.
It is funny, they are very similar to the evil empire 20 years ago, right down to signing a SS when they already have one and moving the superior fielder to third base.
So true, Jeter was the most overrated fielding SS ever. Yes, he caught everything hit to him, but didn't get to ball like Jose reyes did. Tony Kubek was a better fielding SS than Derek Jeter., and Clete Boyer was a better fielder than A-Rod at 3B.
All I have to say about Steve Cohen is that he belongs in jail for insider trading. As i log time Indians and Red sox fan, I know hate the Mets as much as the Yankees.
It almost sounds like some of you guys want all the games to end in a tie.
All the "its not fair" whining sounds like a middle school. To be honest, some of you sound more like Karl Marx. No offense intended for any actual middle schoolers.
Maybe, but I suspect that at least part of that is because once you've made a couple large free agent acquisitions, there isn't room in the budget for more. Which inevitably leaves a team with some major holes around those marquee players.
That constraint doesn't appear to be in play with Cohen and the Mets.
Kinda sucks for baseball and for the vast majority of teams. MLB needs to do something about the crazy imbalance and the polluting effect of money that other sports seem to manage more intelligently. That said, there's something poetic about the most obvious cheater going to the team trying hardest to buy a title. Pretty, no. But definitely poetic.
They're all billionaire owners making millions every year. Let them spend some of that money on players. The A's owner is worth 4 billion dollars and has a 30 million dollar payroll. Stop whining. They can ALL afford it.
Everyone seems to be reacting like this is some result of the free agent era with big money owners buying their way to winners. Go look at the list of pennant winners from the start of Live Ball to the advent of free agency. In the American League the Yankees won the majority of them. In the NL it was the Giants and Dodgers. The big city/Big money teams have always won, and will always win.
What about the Oakland A's two dynasties? What about the Big Red Machine? What about 1980s Phillies, the 1960s Orioles, The 2000s Red Sox, and never forget the Boston Americans.
"MLB needs to do something about the crazy imbalance and the polluting effect of money that other sports seem to manage more intelligently." The sports that appear to do that have negotiated revenue splits and a salary cap (hard like NFL, soft like NBA), which the MLBPA has utterly no interest in. There is another sport with similar, if even wilder, economics to MLB - international soccer. Y'all think MLB's economics are bonkers? Lionel Messi makes more salary than ANY other athlete. In any sport. And only the very richest teams have any real hopes for championships. Pray MLB doesn't go there.
International soccer is controlled by graft and corruption. This was well publicized by major mainstream news media when they covered the way Qatar came to host the recent games. We are all shocked, shocked! that money influences sports.
Reading the comments today has been great fun. At first, it seemed as if there were two distinct and totally separate story lines. Not so: whether you're a current mega/billionaire baseball owner like Steve Cohen or a typical fan during the good old days in search of timely sports results, what binds you together is the same impulse: the need for INSTANT GRATIFICATION!
As a Padres fan, it is thrilling to see them in the top 3 in payroll. I just hope it works out, as there still seem to be some holes there, mostly the same ones that were there when the season ended.
Three points, unless they morph into more. The first is that I think it's interesting that Cohen isn't actually breaking the salary structure. For the most part, he's not giving out record salaries, he's just buying more high-priced guys than anyone else. Correa took a salary cut, after all (although we all know why). So, if a salary cap were to be instituted, it isn't obvious that the players should scream and yell and that this would be killing them. Indirectly, it would hurt them, but it's not as obvious as it would be if Cohen were paying 450 million for players while no one else would pay more than 350 million. It does seem like a salary cap might be one way to improve competitive balance.
My second point is that I am losing respect for Cohen's acumen. There was this narrative at first that he was going to be super shrewd and wouldn't just shovel money at guys. I think that is what he implied, and there was an aura around him and his business success. His analytics were going to be top notch, was the thought. Instead, it seems like he's not doing a whole lot of thinking. The pretense is gone. His idea seems to be that even if he gets 15% on investment, that 15% is better than if he didn't spend the money at all.
Thirdly, Giants fans should be patient. So you won't win in 2023. The encouraging thing is that you do have the money to spend. You will do it eventually.
1. No one is "instituting" a salary cap. It would only occur as a result of collective bargaining.
2. Salary caps don't do much for competitive balance. The NBA has had one and it does nothing but make the owners who don't try rich. The NCAA had one until this year.
3. How do you know that Cohen's analytics didn't suggest that Correa would be a valuable investment?
as a Giant fan, i am quite dismayed about this offseason so far- failing to land Judge, not retaining Rodon, letting Correa slide away after supposedly having a deal... unless we manage a blockbuster trade, i fear another sub-par season, certainly a long ways from the early 2010's... ownership claimed they would spend big, and so far we have virtually nothing... to quote Vonnegut: and so it goes...
Nice! I still remember by heart the number for the Washington Post recorded sports scores phone line from about 45 years ago. 223-8060. Back then it was a long-distance call from the Northern Virginia suburbs where we lived, and cost more than a regular call, so I had to be careful about how much I used it. I'm into tennis, and during Wimbledon only the finals were on TV. In 1979, I was desperate to find out the score of the 1979 semifinal between Borg and Connors. I broke down and kept calling. Couldn't take the suspense.
It's amazing when we try to explain how things used to be to our kids, isn't it?
Believe it or not, the first fantasy football league we ever ran was a USFL fantasy league... (Yes, that was in 1985, years before anybody had even heard about fantasy football). And although most of the box scores appeared in the papers, there was always one or two that didn't make it in. We had to wait until the following Thursday when we received the USFL newsletter in the mail before we could finally tabulate all our scores! Now, your fantasy scores are updated online every minute!
Are there any big time owners who might be offended by this spending? Like the Yankees or Dodgers and they are willing to spend a lot, but not THAT much. Such that we might get pressure for a salary cap? It seems like the NFL has “influential” owners, but I don’t know about baseball.
Finally, the Mets have a Steinbrenner-Like owner. LETS GO METS!!!
One point of disagreement. Steve Cohen does care about money. That’s why he has so much of it.
Correct, the Mets will be a hot ticket, expensive commercial franchise. Cohen will make money on the deal.
Any chance the Giants deal was a charade conducted by Boras snd the Giants to drive up the cost to the Mets? Certainly wouldn’t put it past Boras.
I doubt it, for several reasons:
-If the reports about it being due to a 2014 ankle injury are true, it makes the Giants look REALLY bad. I can't imagine them signing up to be the buffoons just to help Boras and Correa.
-I don't think teams generally would participate in schemes to inflate free agent prices.
-Boras is probably wise enough not to do that. If he ever got caught, it would destroy his credibility with teams in future negotiations.
It is funny, they are very similar to the evil empire 20 years ago, right down to signing a SS when they already have one and moving the superior fielder to third base.
So true, Jeter was the most overrated fielding SS ever. Yes, he caught everything hit to him, but didn't get to ball like Jose reyes did. Tony Kubek was a better fielding SS than Derek Jeter., and Clete Boyer was a better fielder than A-Rod at 3B.
All I have to say about Steve Cohen is that he belongs in jail for insider trading. As i log time Indians and Red sox fan, I know hate the Mets as much as the Yankees.
It almost sounds like some of you guys want all the games to end in a tie.
All the "its not fair" whining sounds like a middle school. To be honest, some of you sound more like Karl Marx. No offense intended for any actual middle schoolers.
And yet that's not true for all sports. Look at NFL champs. Baseball can do better, and should. Shouldn't be that hard.
A team led by free agent acquisitions has not won a World Series since 2009, the Yankees with Teixeira, Sabathia, Burnett and Damon.
Maybe, but I suspect that at least part of that is because once you've made a couple large free agent acquisitions, there isn't room in the budget for more. Which inevitably leaves a team with some major holes around those marquee players.
That constraint doesn't appear to be in play with Cohen and the Mets.
Kinda sucks for baseball and for the vast majority of teams. MLB needs to do something about the crazy imbalance and the polluting effect of money that other sports seem to manage more intelligently. That said, there's something poetic about the most obvious cheater going to the team trying hardest to buy a title. Pretty, no. But definitely poetic.
They're all billionaire owners making millions every year. Let them spend some of that money on players. The A's owner is worth 4 billion dollars and has a 30 million dollar payroll. Stop whining. They can ALL afford it.
People were saying this in the mid-1970s when the Yankees got Reggie Jackson & Goose Gossage.
The broke boy owners get the tax check. Maybe they should be forced to invest it on their team instead of pocketing it.
Everyone seems to be reacting like this is some result of the free agent era with big money owners buying their way to winners. Go look at the list of pennant winners from the start of Live Ball to the advent of free agency. In the American League the Yankees won the majority of them. In the NL it was the Giants and Dodgers. The big city/Big money teams have always won, and will always win.
What about the Oakland A's two dynasties? What about the Big Red Machine? What about 1980s Phillies, the 1960s Orioles, The 2000s Red Sox, and never forget the Boston Americans.
"MLB needs to do something about the crazy imbalance and the polluting effect of money that other sports seem to manage more intelligently." The sports that appear to do that have negotiated revenue splits and a salary cap (hard like NFL, soft like NBA), which the MLBPA has utterly no interest in. There is another sport with similar, if even wilder, economics to MLB - international soccer. Y'all think MLB's economics are bonkers? Lionel Messi makes more salary than ANY other athlete. In any sport. And only the very richest teams have any real hopes for championships. Pray MLB doesn't go there.
International soccer is controlled by graft and corruption. This was well publicized by major mainstream news media when they covered the way Qatar came to host the recent games. We are all shocked, shocked! that money influences sports.
Joe,
Reading the comments today has been great fun. At first, it seemed as if there were two distinct and totally separate story lines. Not so: whether you're a current mega/billionaire baseball owner like Steve Cohen or a typical fan during the good old days in search of timely sports results, what binds you together is the same impulse: the need for INSTANT GRATIFICATION!
Instant gratification huh? To Mets fans who have waited almost 40 years for a title your comment is high-larious
As a Padres fan, it is thrilling to see them in the top 3 in payroll. I just hope it works out, as there still seem to be some holes there, mostly the same ones that were there when the season ended.
Can someone tell me what happens to the luxury tax? This is a market in the rise, and I want in on it.
I can only assume that MLB uses it to develop more ingenious ways to blackout local games, but not entirely sure.
Bob Nutting, Bob Castellini, and John Fisher split it up and each buy themselves a Picasso or three, I believe.
Three points, unless they morph into more. The first is that I think it's interesting that Cohen isn't actually breaking the salary structure. For the most part, he's not giving out record salaries, he's just buying more high-priced guys than anyone else. Correa took a salary cut, after all (although we all know why). So, if a salary cap were to be instituted, it isn't obvious that the players should scream and yell and that this would be killing them. Indirectly, it would hurt them, but it's not as obvious as it would be if Cohen were paying 450 million for players while no one else would pay more than 350 million. It does seem like a salary cap might be one way to improve competitive balance.
My second point is that I am losing respect for Cohen's acumen. There was this narrative at first that he was going to be super shrewd and wouldn't just shovel money at guys. I think that is what he implied, and there was an aura around him and his business success. His analytics were going to be top notch, was the thought. Instead, it seems like he's not doing a whole lot of thinking. The pretense is gone. His idea seems to be that even if he gets 15% on investment, that 15% is better than if he didn't spend the money at all.
Thirdly, Giants fans should be patient. So you won't win in 2023. The encouraging thing is that you do have the money to spend. You will do it eventually.
1. No one is "instituting" a salary cap. It would only occur as a result of collective bargaining.
2. Salary caps don't do much for competitive balance. The NBA has had one and it does nothing but make the owners who don't try rich. The NCAA had one until this year.
3. How do you know that Cohen's analytics didn't suggest that Correa would be a valuable investment?
"The NCAA had one until this year."
That made me smile. Yeah, they had one, it was zero.
If you think it was zero, I’ve got some nice ocean front property for you in Iowa.Do you prefer Pacific or Atlantic?
You know what I meant. Legally it was zero. No need to be snarky.
Just having fun
as a Giant fan, i am quite dismayed about this offseason so far- failing to land Judge, not retaining Rodon, letting Correa slide away after supposedly having a deal... unless we manage a blockbuster trade, i fear another sub-par season, certainly a long ways from the early 2010's... ownership claimed they would spend big, and so far we have virtually nothing... to quote Vonnegut: and so it goes...
Nice! I still remember by heart the number for the Washington Post recorded sports scores phone line from about 45 years ago. 223-8060. Back then it was a long-distance call from the Northern Virginia suburbs where we lived, and cost more than a regular call, so I had to be careful about how much I used it. I'm into tennis, and during Wimbledon only the finals were on TV. In 1979, I was desperate to find out the score of the 1979 semifinal between Borg and Connors. I broke down and kept calling. Couldn't take the suspense.
It's amazing when we try to explain how things used to be to our kids, isn't it?
Believe it or not, the first fantasy football league we ever ran was a USFL fantasy league... (Yes, that was in 1985, years before anybody had even heard about fantasy football). And although most of the box scores appeared in the papers, there was always one or two that didn't make it in. We had to wait until the following Thursday when we received the USFL newsletter in the mail before we could finally tabulate all our scores! Now, your fantasy scores are updated online every minute!
Are there any big time owners who might be offended by this spending? Like the Yankees or Dodgers and they are willing to spend a lot, but not THAT much. Such that we might get pressure for a salary cap? It seems like the NFL has “influential” owners, but I don’t know about baseball.