(Edit: Orioles get 1st pick after walkoff homer by Diamondbacks)

[Pickles]

5 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Well think about it.  How much could it possibly cost to upkeep it and stuff like that?

Even building it.  How much could it cost?  
 

There are a lot of things they may be paying for but the cost of doing things and the run that down there can’t be that much.  We aren’t talking about $20-50M a year.  

Ten seems completely reasonable for me.  Hell, twenty seems possible.

[Pickles]

Did we ever hear a number on the new project?

I can easily see that project being a ~ 10 mil project.  And then the upkeep? 5%?  10%

I believe it costs real money to have a real international program.

[Sports Guy]

18 minutes ago, Pickles said:

Ten seems completely reasonable for me.  Hell, twenty seems possible.

What exactly do you think they are spending 10-20M dollars on?

And btw, going back to the point of this..even if they are and even if they are spending an additional 5-7M on top of that for Intl signings, they should still be able to spend 130-140M on payroll and that’s how numbers stand now..it’s possible/probable that this number rises if they win, with the new CBA stuff and any other potential revenue generating things they may do long term.

But even if 130-140M is the most they ever spend, that should be good.

[UMDTerrapins]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

What product did the O’s gut?   They won 47 games in 2018.    They didn’t need to gut it, the team already sucked.   

They cut their opening day payroll from $143 million in 2018 to $67 million in 2019. That the team was awful isn't the point. They traded away 5 key players at the deadline from the core of a team that had been very competitive previously. Does a team still have to be good in order to be "gutted"? I never interpreted it that specifically. 

[Pickles]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

What exactly do you think they are spending 10-20M dollars on?

And btw, going back to the point of this..even if they are and even if they are spending an additional 5-7M on top of that for Intl signings, they should still be able to spend 130-140M on payroll and that’s how numbers stand now..it’s possible/probable that this number rises if they win, with the new CBA stuff and any other potential revenue generating things they may do long term.

Well, what do you think the facility costs down there?  I have no idea.  But I could easily see 10 million dollars.  We're talking fields, facilities, and dorms/living space, office space.  Then what's the maintenance on that? 10-20% annually?
How many scouts do you have?  What do you pay them?  How much do are their expenses?  Surely far more theirthan actual salary.  Coaches.  Groundskeepers.  Cooks.  Maids.  Security.  Janitors.

I work in education.  I have spent a long time abroad running operations like this.  Not in the Caribbean however.  What you're essentially talking about is running a prep school, with top-notch athletic facilities.  The way to really evaluate it would be to talk about price per head.

How many players do you want to go?

I could see players costing the org ~50 K annually in such a scenario.  

[Sports Guy]

16 minutes ago, Pickles said:

Well, what do you think the facility costs down there?  I have no idea.  But I could easily see 10 million dollars.  We're talking fields, facilities, and dorms/living space, office space.  Then what's the maintenance on that? 10-20% annually?
How many scouts do you have?  What do you pay them?  How much do are their expenses?  Surely far more theirthan actual salary.  Coaches.  Groundskeepers.  Cooks.  Maids.  Security.  Janitors.

I work in education.  I have spent a long time abroad running operations like this.  Not in the Caribbean however.  What you're essentially talking about is running a prep school, with top-notch athletic facilities.  The way to really evaluate it would be to talk about price per head.

How many players do you want to go?

I could see players costing the org ~50 K annually in such a scenario.  

Well the coaches at the ML level are making what, 250-750k?  can’t imagine the coaches down there make that kind of money and probably not close to it.

Labor is probably relatively inexpensive down there, so maintenance and stuff like that is probably cheap.

I just cant imagine this costs that much.  And btw, when I say, that much, I’m talking relatively speaking.  Like I said before, I think it’s a drop in the bucket for them (and any ML Team) and really should have no factor in what they spend on the ML level.

[UMDTerrapins]

I'm cynical about the future payroll because I don't see us going back to ~30k average attendance again when we're competitive. Maybe ~25k? And I don't see how we'll ever be more profitable with MASN than we were previously. The recent cost cutting measures across the board sure look to me like prepping for team to be sold. So maybe that helps out payroll prospects down the line. But until proven otherwise, I'm not expecting we'll be back in the $140 million opening day range anytime soon. I really hope I'm wrong!

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, UMDTerrapins said:

I'm cynical about the future payroll because I don't see us going back to ~30k average attendance again when we're competitive. Maybe ~25k? And I don't see how we'll ever be more profitable with MASN than we were previously. The recent cost cutting measures across the board sure look to me like prepping for team to be sold. So maybe that helps out payroll prospects down the line. But until proven otherwise, I'm not expecting we'll be back in the $140 million opening day range anytime soon. I really hope I'm wrong!

You make more with TV and radio than ticket sales…plus the revenue sharing.

[Pickles]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Well the coaches at the ML level are making what, 250-750k?  can’t imagine the coaches down there make that kind of money and probably not close to it.

Labor is probably relatively I expected since down there, so maintenance and stuff like that is probably cheap.

I just cant imagine this costs that much.  And btw, when I say, that much, I’m talking relatively speaking.  Like I said before, I think it’s a drop in the bucket for them (and any ML Team) and really should have no factor in what they spend on the ML level.

How many players?  I think that's the question.  How many coaches depends on how many players.

Labor is cheap.  You're right.

As always, you manage to take something that is clearly a matter of degrees and reduce it to a black and white issue.

It takes money to run an International program right.  A lot of it. I just laid out how 10-20 million annually be spent on that.

Money is not fungible.  If you spend it here, you cannot spend it there.

You seem to argue: Regardless of the Davis contract, it's a drop.  We can spend more to win an insiginificant amount more.

Regardless of the cost to build and set up and maintain international facilities- not to mention find and acquire the talent- it's a drop.  We can spend more.

I'm here to tell you: That doesn't comport with reality.  Resources are limited.  And you have to prioritize.  

[UMDTerrapins]

10 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

You make more with TV and radio than ticket sales…plus the revenue sharing.

Sure, but I'm assuming the drop in MASN revenue is worse than the drop-off in attendance. I honestly haven't been following the MASN/Nats debacle closely enough to speak intelligently about it. 

[Sports Guy]

40 minutes ago, Pickles said:

How many players?  I think that's the question.  How many coaches depends on how many players.

Labor is cheap.  You're right.

As always, you manage to take something that is clearly a matter of degrees and reduce it to a black and white issue.

It takes money to run an International program right.  A lot of it. I just laid out how 10-20 million annually be spent on that.

Money is not fungible.  If you spend it here, you cannot spend it there.

You seem to argue: Regardless of the Davis contract, it's a drop.  We can spend more to win an insiginificant amount more.

Regardless of the cost to build and set up and maintain international facilities- not to mention find and acquire the talent- it's a drop.  We can spend more.

I'm here to tell you: That doesn't comport with reality.  Resources are limited.  And you have to prioritize.  

Yea but they were pushing a 170M dollar payroll not that long ago.  Again, if you want to put it altogether in the same budget (not sure if teams do that or not) a 170M dollar budget is significant and there is plenty of money left over for the ML team. That’s all I’m saying.

 

[Pickles]

20 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Yea but they were pushing a 170M dollar payroll not that long ago.  Again, if you want to put it altogether in the same budget (not sure if teams do that or not) a 170M dollar budget is significant and there is plenty of money left over for the ML team. That’s all I’m saying.

 

I think they were losing money when they pushed in then.  But we'll never really know about that.

All we can really know is that money isn't fungible, and the costs of running an international program (not to mention the domestic one) are significant.  

All we can do is speculate and argue mindlessly about money.

I repose the question to you and the board at general as a more interesting one:

How many players should we be running through our academy down their in the Dominican?  

 

[Just Regular]

Asdrubal Cabrera hit 3rd last night and got 2 hits in an 8-7 win.

So naturally today Arizona waived him and he's joining the Reds.

They are not going gentle.

Please don't let anything like this happen to Trey Mancini next August 27th.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, OrioleDog said:

Asdrubal Cabrera hit 3rd last night and got 2 hits in an 8-7 win.

So naturally today Arizona waived him and he's joining the Reds.

They are not going gentle.

Please don't let anything like this happen to Trey Mancini next August 27th.

Yea, it'd be a real shame if Trey got to join a playoff team.  I'd feel bad for him.

[Frobby]

17 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

You make more with TV and radio than ticket sales…plus the revenue sharing.

Yes but these are still big numbers.   And as he said the MASN profits are down, both due to cord-cutting and the arbitration outcome.