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Chris Davis, 2019


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16 hours ago, Roll Tide said:

I don't think we disagree all that much. I think himbeing told he's either not going to play or play very rarely is leverage. Have you ever played organized ball. Not playing sucks! Knowing you have to go to the park, travel , and do other activities but aren't going to be used. For most players it would be painful and could hurt his pride....but maybe not

Sort of.I played high school ball and American Legion (AL) ball in the summer. We did some traveling for AL (Tennessee comes to mind), but most of it was local / adjoining states). In terms of the bench time, I kind of began to experience that too (in high school) because I transitioned to more of just a pitcher than an everyday player. The big difference is that I was getting paid in orange slices and Gatorade ;)

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12 minutes ago, wildbillhiccup said:

Sort of.I played high school ball and American Legion (AL) ball in the summer. We did some traveling for AL (Tennessee comes to mind), but most of it was local / adjoining states). In terms of the bench time, I kind of began to experience that too (in high school) because I transitioned to more of just a pitcher than an everyday player. The big difference is that I was getting paid in orange slices and Gatorade ;)

I didn’t really experience playing time issues in baseball, football, or soccer.

i ran into it when I started playing very competitive softball. We played 2-3 nights per week and weekends for tournaments. They happened to be all over the place.

Teams were ran by a player and were very much a click. The guy played his buddies first no matter their skill level. 

I think sitting is painful regardless of being paid or not. If you are a competitor you want to play.

i think Chris is one of those .

Can he sit for two years to collect the money? That’s the big question 

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18 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

It's higher than zero.  The process of traveling generally sucks, even if you're flying charters it's probably not great.  You do it because you have to or there's something cool like a vacation on the other end.  If hauling a suitcase around to hotels and airports, sitting the bench and occasionally getting into a game to strikeout is all that's there after a few years he might decide the $100M he's already earned in his career is enough.

Its such a hard life staying in 5 star hotels, flying on fancy private jets, and having a huge per diem to eat wherever you want. I wonder how they can get coaches to do it for such low salary year after year. 

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51 minutes ago, atomic said:

Its such a hard life staying in 5 star hotels, flying on fancy private jets, and having a huge per diem to eat wherever you want. I wonder how they can get coaches to do it for such low salary year after year. 

I'm not saying it's breaking rocks on a chain gang, but once you already have many millions in the bank your perspective might change.  The coaches generally don't have giant nest eggs, nor the background to go out and get lucrative jobs outside of baseball.

And maybe a few of them actually like the 1000-person queue of bitter, tired, sick people at passport control at the airport every time they come back from Toronto.

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20 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I'm not saying it's breaking rocks on a chain gang, but once you already have many millions in the bank your perspective might change.  The coaches generally don't have giant nest eggs, nor the background to go out and get lucrative jobs outside of baseball.

 And maybe a few of them actually like the 1000-person queue of bitter, tired, sick people at passport control at the airport every time they come back from Toronto.

There is no 1000 person queues at customs at BWI.  I just flew into PHL from Europe and there was a zero person queue.  Unless you fly into DC or NYC you aren't getting the big queues.  And they most likely all have Global Re-entry so they wouldn't have to wait in line.

Most of the flights they are going to take are 2 hours or less:  Chicago, Detroit, NYC, Boston, Toronto, Tampa, DC, Cleveland  I can't imagine that would bother them much on a fancy custom jet.   

Plus you discount the camaraderie of hanging out with other players. 

 

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3 minutes ago, atomic said:

There is no 1000 person queues at customs at BWI.  I just flew into PHL from Europe and there was a zero person queue.  Unless you fly into DC or NYC you aren't getting the big queues.  And they most likely all have Global Re-entry so they wouldn't have to wait in line.

Most of the flights they are going to take are 2 hours or less:  Chicago, Detroit, NYC, Boston, Toronto, Tampa, DC, Cleveland  I can't imagine that would bother them much on a fancy custom jet.   

Plus you discount the camaraderie of hanging out with other players. 

 

Hint: that was just an example of the headaches of spending half the year living out of a suitcase.  Even a gold-encrusted one.

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12 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Hint: that was just an example of the headaches of spending half the year living out of a suitcase.  Even a gold-encrusted one.

They don't spend anywhere close to half a year out of a suitcase. THey are off 5 months.  Then they spend a month in Florida.  And they have half their games at home. All Star Break.  Plus some in DC.  And most of their road games are teams really super close like Boston and NYC.  Hour flight time.    You are trying to make the super comfy major league lifestyle something that its not. 

The guys in the minors have it super rough. Just driving back and forth to Norfolk is harder than any flight the Orioles will go on. Then the bus rides and the cheaper hotels in places you wouldn't want to be. 

 

 

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8 minutes ago, atomic said:

They don't spend anywhere close to half a year out of a suitcase. THey are off 5 months.  Then they spend a month in Florida.  And they have half their games at home. All Star Break.  Plus some in DC.  And most of their road games are teams really super close like Boston and NYC.  Hour flight time.    You are trying to make the super comfy major league lifestyle something that its not. 

The guys in the minors have it super rough. Just driving back and forth to Norfolk is harder than any flight the Orioles will go on. Then the bus rides and the cheaper hotels in places you wouldn't want to be. 

 

 

I am not crying for these major league players, and honestly I think it’s unlikely Davis will walk away from any of his money.    But there’s one thing that sucks about being a major league player if you are family-oriented, and that’s being away from your family 80-90 days a year at least.    And if a guy has $100 mm banked, and is traveling around and going through the motions of playing while sitting on the bench, knowing all the while he’s hurting his own team, there’s at least (as Drungo said) a non-zero chance that he might decide it’s not worth it and he’d rather be home with his family.   

And yes, I know there are lots of people who spend 80-90+ days a year away from home, and even longer.   I did it myself for many years, on the road for my various clients.    To say nothing of guys like Tony who spent years overseas serving their country.    But we didn’t have $100 mm sitting in the bank.

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13 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I am not crying for these major league players, and honestly I think it’s unlikely Davis will walk away from any of his money.    But there’s one thing that sucks about being a major league player if you are family-oriented, and that’s being away from your family 80-90 days a year at least.    And if a guy has $100 mm banked, and is traveling around and going through the motions of playing while sitting on the bench, knowing all the while he’s hurting his own team, there’s at least (as Drungo said) a non-zero chance that he might decide it’s not worth it and he’d rather be home with his family.   

 And yes, I know there are lots of people who spend 80-90+ days a year away from home, and even longer.   I did it myself for many years, on the road for my various clients.    To say nothing of guys like Tony who spent years overseas serving their country.    But we didn’t have $100 mm sitting in the bank.

Yeah, the being away from the family would be the hardest thing for me.  I traveled a lot for work when I was younger and it was fun when you don't have kids.  Staying at 5 star hotels in NYC and San Francisco with the company paying for everything is fun when you are right out of college. 

But my manager at the time who had 4 kids and he said he liked to travel so much to be away from his kids.   He spent most of his per-diem on beer. 

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7 minutes ago, atomic said:

Yeah, the being away from the family would be the hardest thing for me.  I traveled a lot for work when I was younger and it was fun when you don't have kids.  Staying at 5 star hotels in NYC and San Francisco with the company paying for everything is fun when you are right out of college. 

But my manager at the time who had 4 kids and he said he liked to travel so much to be away from his kids.   He spent most of his per-diem on beer. 

Yeah, I know people like your manager.    But I’m definitely not that way.   I traveled a ton when my kids were small, and while I enjoyed many of the trips themselves, I really hated being away from my family so much.   Plus, I used up all my political capital with my wife.    It’s not like I could be on the road two weeks, come home and then say, “I’m going out to play poker with my buddies!”    No sir.

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