“Get all 30 teams to compete every season”

[Moose Milligan]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Was it?  I didn't watch, it looked like hackney Boomer crap.

Cool that it was actually cool.

It was kinda cool, but yeah it was overall hackney Boomer stuff too.  They took an MLB game and put it in a cooler setting in an attempt to tug on heartstrings.  Looks like SG has some kind of a heart after all  

7 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

But the boringness of the sport is why its becoming increasingly harder to marker it.

 

What MLB did last night was phenomenal.  But they don't know how to carry that over to the players.  

 

And that's the catch, it's a boring sport with boring players doing relatively boring things.  You can't market it.  You can't make it cooler than football or baseball.  You said it yourself, you think they did something phenomenal last night.  They relocated a boring product to the middle of a cornfield and threw a dash of Kevin Costner on it.  That doesn't change the root of the problem.  

What they can do is try to get more bats, balls and gloves in the hands of younger kids, get them to play and hopefully they'll want to watch.  But just straight up tune into a game?  Good luck.

JFC, if you can't market Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, what can you do for the rest?  

[Can_of_corn]

I have no idea how they can't do something with Ohtani.

What more could you possibly want? 

[Moose Milligan]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I have no idea how they can't do something with Ohtani.

What more could you possibly want? 

Exactly.  If they can't do it with Ohtani, there's no hope for them to figure out marketing for the rest.

I mean, home run title belts are kinda fun but whatever.  

[Moose Milligan]

20 minutes ago, NCRaven said:

And, yet, you watch it.  I don't mean that as a knock.  I think I know what you're trying to say.  It is certainly played at a different pace than basketball or football.  But, the fact that you're a regular here even seems to indicate that you still like it a lot, despite the pace.  I know I love baseball.  I used to umpire and I had to pay attention to everything all the time because something is always happening if the ball is in play.

Of course I love it.  Unfortunately I grew up in an area where this was the only team to root for and now like a case of herpes, I can't get rid of it.

But that's the thing, you gotta grow up playing it, IMO.  It's very hard to get into a sport as an adult as a spectator.  I have no interest in watching hockey despite many attempts because I didn't grow up playing it.  My dad didn't care about it, there was no need for me to care about it.  On a similar note, I have absolutely no interest in boxing, MMA, NASCAR, etc.  

All my life, going back to the 80s when I was a kid, I've heard that soccer was going to take over.  I'm hoping that's not coming true because that's another sport I have no interest in.  But living here in the Mid-Atlantic region, a lot of kids play it.  Kids are playing lacrosse, too.  Baseball is getting pushed to the margins at the youth levels and not surprisingly it's getting pushed to the margins at a viewership level.  IMO, that's not a coincidence.  

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, wildcard said:

Tampa is currently leading the AL East by 5 games.   They have figured out how to have  a magical pipeline and have one of the lower payrolls.  But 4 years to FA will hurt them as much or more than the O's.

Tampa would have to trade a big chunk for their team at 3 years of service.   That includes Glasnow, Lowe, Margot, Yarbrough, Wendle, Kittredge, Diaz,  Anderson, Phillips, Meadows and more.

Tampa's management is a in a class of their own. They are playing 3D chess while the rest of the league plays checkers. Can't judge by them. 

[NCRaven]

I agree that having kids play the game is huge.  For what it's worth, I've seen a bit of a resurgence in Carroll County where I live.  Fields in my neighborhood that were empty for the last few years have had games the last two.  The absolute definition of small sample size!

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, eddie83 said:

When you play 162 games there are going to be teams in August and September that have nothing to play for. No system will ever fix that. 

That's not true at all.  There are ways to incentivize winning throughout the year.  The problem is that there are 30 teams and one trophy.  Everyone is playing for one thing, and when that one thing is out of reach they pack it in and fake it the rest of the year.

You have to have other incentives.  In most soccer leagues there's promotion/relegation.  I've seen games where there are teams that go down swinging in front of 50,000 rabid fans for a game to see if they get relegated from the 2nd tier to the 3rd tier.  Obviously promotion/relegation is a non-starter in closed North American sports leagues.

You can have competitions outside the league.  For example, you could have a tournament like the WBC where the O's are way out of it in the league, but still fighting for the WBC club trophy.

You can use a reverse-order draft, as mentioned in the article, where the best team that doesn't make the playoffs gets the #1 pick in each round.  You'll probably try harder if finishing with 50 wins gets you the 18th pick in the draft.

We in the US are so used to single-trophy closed leagues that we can't imagine teams like the O's trying in August in September.  But that's just our tiny little slice of the world, and its poorly thought out structures.

[OriolesMagic83]

5 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/32008247/the-end-tanking-how-make-every-mlb-team-try-win-every-year
 

Interesting stuff here.

I don’t know how I feel about things but I certainly agree with trying to get teams to be more competitive although I don’t mind a tear down every once in a while.  Sometimes, it’s just something you need to do.

Only makes sense if revenue is near equal for all teams.  No way that teams that can't support a $100 million payroll (I don't believe that includes the O's), can compete every year w/ teams that can support $250-300 mill payrolls, like the Dodgers and Yankees. 

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Tampa's management is a in a class of their own. they are playing 3D chess while the rest of the league plays checkers. Can't judge by them. 

Didn't Elias mention the Tampa model specifically? 

[forphase1]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

Btw, another huge problem that the players face is that their teams and the league have no idea how to market them.  Because of that, they don’t see the endorsement money other sports see.

This is something that has to be improved on, for many reasons.

I've heard this argument many times, and while I get it, I just don't think marketing baseball players works in the same way it does in other sports.  Mike Trout is a generational player, and arguably already one of the best to ever play a game.  But when you go to an Angels game you will see him with the bat in his hand about 4-5 times.  A total of about 10 minutes in a 3 hour game.  Sure, he will also make some plays in the outfield, and maybe a couple of those will be impressive plays, but much are routine and nothing to really get excited about.  The facts are that unless you are talking a starting pitcher, most players have a small chance to really impact on a game by game basis.  If you go to an NBA game, their stars will touch the ball on about every play, and they can have a HUGE impact on both sides of the ball.  You watched the Bulls back in the day because Jordan was going to have a huge impact on the game both on offense and defense.  In the NFL a QB touches the ball on almost every offense play, and a good WR can get thrown to a dozen times.  A defensive end can pressure the QB on every play.  But the best players in MLB only get a few chances to impact the game with their bat, and may only get a chance on defense to make a WOW play a couple of times.  I think baseball has always marketed the teams above the players for that reason.  Can they do more?  Sure.  But I think the dynamic difference between the games makes it harder to really promote the heck out of the players.  I've been a baseball fan my whole life, and the only time a player has made me turn on the TV is when a record is being made, like McGuire and Sosa back in the day.  But on a game to game basis there just isn't enough impact by the stars to really get folks to tune into the game, thus the promotions of the teams first.  It'll be interesting to see how it plays out, as MLB is certainly trying to market the young stars...just don't know how impactful it'll be.  

[DrungoHazewood]

58 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

The union wants salaries driven up and they're getting it, IMO.  We've seen record contracts handed out over recent years.  I'm too lazy to check but I'm assuming the median salary of a baseball player has increased over the past 10 years, too.

But they also don't want a salary cap.  And I'm assuming if they had their druthers, there'd be no luxury tax, either.

I don't mind not having a cap as we're in a division with the haves (Boston, NY) and the have nots (Tampa) and somehow the have nots are finding ways to win.  High payroll doesn't equal winning.

You are correct, IMO.  Signing players who are on the clear downside of their careers to sizable contracts isn't fun for anyone.  If that's the guise of "competing," it might make the average fan interested but count me out.  

Salaries have gone up.  But at least pre-COVID the players' percentage of revenues had fallen from nearly 50% 15-20 years ago to 42ish percent.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

Only makes sense if revenue is near equal for all teams.  No way that teams that can't support a $100 million payroll (I don't believe that includes the O's), can compete every year w/ teams that can support $250-300 mill payrolls, like the Dodgers and Yankees. 

Which team do you think can't afford 100M payroll?

[NCRaven]

When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball players, the toughest boxers.  Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.  Americans play to win all the time.  Now, I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed.  They why Americans have never lost and will never lose.  Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.  This soccer talk makes me sick. 

 

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, NCRaven said:

When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball players, the toughest boxers.  Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.  Americans play to win all the time.  Now, I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed.  They why Americans have never lost and will never lose.  Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.  This soccer talk makes me sick. 

 

Man I thought I was kinda old but you are waxing poetic about a marble shooter?  What about the kid that was the best with the hoop and stick?

[DrungoHazewood]

2 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

Only makes sense if revenue is near equal for all teams.  No way that teams that can't support a $100 million payroll (I don't believe that includes the O's), can compete every year w/ teams that can support $250-300 mill payrolls, like the Dodgers and Yankees. 

They can't.  So you need to give teams more than the World Series to play for.  Make the regular season 100 games, and then every third or fourth week you're playing a number of regional tournaments and international competitions.  Maybe you finish 40-60 in the league, but you win the Eastern Championship Cup, or the US-Japan Showdown.