David Rubenstein 2024

[RZNJ]

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

So yes. 

Can’t wait for this offseason where people are going to expect him to spend money based on nothing other than his last name isn’t Angelos. 
 

Should be interesting. 

That seems like a pretty good reason.  

[baltfan]

I would like to see the Orioles target Westburg.  He seems gettable and maybe starting with him could lead to others. 

[scottbbfm]

10 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

So yes. 

Can’t wait for this offseason where people are going to expect him to spend money based on nothing other than his last name isn’t Angelos. 
 

Should be interesting. 

It’s more than just not being Angelos. 
 

People see the resources this group has relative to the Angelos family.  The stage of life many in the group are in. There’s a lot of people around the city with connections to the ownership group and you hear a very consistent theme of what the group is looking to do.  

[Rbiggs2525]

13 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

So yes. 

Can’t wait for this offseason where people are going to expect him to spend money based on nothing other than his last name isn’t Angelos. 
 

Should be interesting. 

I think most fans are expecting him to incrementally raise the team’s salary. Santander, Burnes and Kimbrel could be all coming off the books. That’s somewhere between 35-40 million dollars. I do not think any of our arbitration eligible players are going to get a big raise. Most fans will expect 50 million spread out this offseason to get our team salary to 120-130 million. Hopefully most of that is on resigning our own players.

[Sports Guy]

3 hours ago, scottbbfm said:

It’s more than just not being Angelos. 
 

People see the resources this group has relative to the Angelos family.  The stage of life many in the group are in. There’s a lot of people around the city with connections to the ownership group and you hear a very consistent theme of what the group is looking to do.  

I think this is the key.  John Angelos was cash poor. These guys aren’t.

[Sports Guy]

I still don’t really believe people understand how the payroll works and how contracts and service time are structured.

When I say people, I’m not necessarily saying people on here (although some don’t imo) but just the general fan.

Its definitely possible the payroll is the same or less in 2025 vs 2024.

[Moose Milligan]

3 hours ago, scottbbfm said:

It’s more than just not being Angelos. 
 

People see the resources this group has relative to the Angelos family.  The stage of life many in the group are in. There’s a lot of people around the city with connections to the ownership group and you hear a very consistent theme of what the group is looking to do.  

It's my hope that he spends money and spends it wisely.

But I'm also not banking on it.  In other words, I'll believe it when I see it.  If you think it's a given that he will, well, that's fine.

[emmett16]

On 5/19/2024 at 1:49 AM, deward said:

I'm looking at the Rays record over the past decade and I'm a bit confused over your definition of "have not won much". However, my argument is simple - teams that don't invest in payroll don't win championships in baseball. Over the past 21 years (I was going to do 20, but added the extra to include Florida's win in 2003), the average payroll position relative to the league of the eventual WS champ was 9th (see below)

Year	WS Champ	OD Payroll rank
2003	FLA	25
2004	BOS	2
2005	CWS	13
2006	STL	11
2007	BOS	2
2008	PHI	12
2009	NYY	1
2010	SF	10
2011	STL	11
2012	SF	8
2013	BOS	4
2014	SF	7
2015	KC	16
2016	CHC	14
2017	HOU	18
2018	BOS	1
2019	WAS	7
2020	LAD	2
2021	ATL	13
2022	HOU	11
2023	TEX	9

 

Only three of these teams had payrolls in the bottom half of league:

Florida in 2003 had by far the lowest payroll, at 25th. Their payroll climbed to as high as 18th over the next couple of years, but they couldn't maintain their success and haven't made the playoffs since, outside of the COVID season.

KC in 2015 had the 16th lowest payroll, barely below the median payroll for the year. They haven't been back to the playoffs since.

Houston in 2017 had the 18th lowest payroll. This was their big breakthrough year after their tanking/rebuild, and they haven't been lower than 11th since, and as high as 4th.

 

The trend is obvious. After the Marlins' miracle run in 2003, no team has won the WS with a payroll lower than 18th, and that team (Houston) is an obvious outlier as they were in the basically the same spot as the O's now (on the upswing from a full tear-down). While KC and Florida both had years where everything came together perfectly, they were unable to sustain their momentum. The O's were 23rd in payroll on Opening Day, and the current roster is good enough to win a championship, but history suggests they'll go the way of Florida and Kansas City if Rubenstein isn't willing to invest in the payroll. Consistently letting the talent drain out of your organization because you aren't willing to pay them won't lead to multiple championships and it won't keep fans engaged.

Great post.  A lot of good info.  
 

My argument is winning builds a brand more than a single player.  I never said anything about low payrolls.  I caution against making emotional decisions by signing fan favorites to long term expensive deals…..Kinda like How KC signed Gordon to a long term expensive deal in 2016 right after winning the WS in 2015.  As stated in your post, it didn’t work out. 
 

Now, if we could somehow pull off the 7 year 26MM deal Perez signed early in his career, sure go for it.  But I don’t think anyone will be willing to do that. 
 

@Yossarian how’d I do? 

[scottbbfm]

36 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

It's my hope that he spends money and spends it wisely.

But I'm also not banking on it.  In other words, I'll believe it when I see it.  If you think it's a given that he will, well, that's fine.

You mentioned people have nothing to base it on besides a different last name.  That's not really correct.   If you look at recent history among all sports - when there is an ownership change, the new owners more often then not make significant investments in the team. 

[Frobby]

16 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Best owner in baseball?

Certainly the one who’s putting himself out there the most.   

[Moose Milligan]

9 minutes ago, scottbbfm said:

You mentioned people have nothing to base it on besides a different last name.  That's not really correct.   If you look at recent history among all sports - when there is an ownership change, the new owners more often then not make significant investments in the team. 

Well I hope Rubenstein knew that when he purchased the team.  

[deward]

19 minutes ago, emmett16 said:

Great post.  A lot of good info.  
 

My argument is winning builds a brand more than a single player.  I never said anything about low payrolls.  I caution against making emotional decisions by signing fan favorites to long term expensive deals…..Kinda like How KC signed Gordon to a long term expensive deal in 2016 right after winning the WS in 2015.  As stated in your post, it didn’t work out. 
 

Now, if we could somehow pull off the 7 year 26MM deal Perez signed early in his career, sure go for it.  But I don’t think anyone will be willing to do that. 
 

@Yossarian how’d I do? 

I wouldn't extend anyone just because they're a fan favorite, but rather because they're also an integral part of the core, and hard to replace. Something like Houston deciding Altuve was indispensable, but letting Correa walk. Those kind of moves both help you keep winning and demonstrate commitment to the fanbase. Gordon was 32 when he signed his extension, not exactly the same situation. 

[Frobby]

I was just looking at the Cardinals and it’s a good reminder of the downside of long term extensions, I.e., the back-end years.  Goldschmidt is in the final year of a 5/$130 mm extension, looking cooked with a 75 OPS+ for $26 mm this year.  Arenado is still decent at 105 OPS+, but including this year still has 4/$109 mm to go and it probably won’t be pretty.  These two finished 1st and 3rd in the 2022 MVP voting, so it’s not like the Cards didn’t get some value from the earlier years of their deals.  And, they went to the playoffs the first three years of the Goldie extension and the first two years after they acquired Arenado and his contract.   Those were fun years for Cards fans and maybe they don’t make the playoffs without those two.  But now the Cards are mediocre at best and these contracts are sucking up a lot of resources.

So, I do want to see the O’s lock up some key guys long term, but I hope they are able to do it without buying too many decline-phase years.  

[scottbbfm]

33 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Well I hope Rubenstein knew that when he purchased the team.  

He’s an extremely plugged in individual. 

[Paul in Virginia]

I forwarded it to the part relating to the Orioles: