Laika

MLBTR presents some skepticism: Talk of revenue losses throughout the sport has been prominent since the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, but commissioner Rob Manfred put some more concrete numbers on the concept this week. In an interview with Barry M. Bloom for Sportico, Manfred claimed that the league’s 30 teams have amassed a collective $8.3 billion in debt and will post anywhere from $2.8 to $3.0 billion in combined operational losses. Manfred’s comments come at a time when many clubs throughout the league have made sweeping layoffs to both business-side and baseball operations employees. The Athletic’s Alex Coffey reported last week that the A’s, for instance, are preparing to lay off upwards of 150 employees who were furloughed throughout much of the 2020 season. They’re far from the only club making such broad-ranging cuts, although Oakland certainly figures to be on the more extreme end of the spectrum. Evan Drellich of The Athletic wrote yesterday that a league official claimed Major League Baseball’s EBITDA — earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — showed a loss of $2.7 billion but also noted that with the league’s books closed, such numbers can’t be independently verified. A league official claimed to Drellich, perhaps more dubiously, that even under normal conditions the league would have expected $10 billion in revenue against $10.2 billion of expenses — a rather eye-opening and frankly questionable assertion when considering last year’s widely reported $10.7 billion of revenue for MLB. In that sense, the claims put forth by Manfred and the unnamed league official(s) who spoke to Drellich on the condition of anonymity call back to the ugly standoff between MLB and the MLBPA during return-to-play negotiations, wherein the players repeatedly called for ownership to open its books and provide quantitative evidence of the extent of the damage they were facing. Detractors will surely question the veracity of the league’s figures, which Drellich notes do not account for “ancillary” revenue streams like stakes in regional sports networks. Regardless, there’s no doubting that revenue losses felt by clubs in the absence of fans is enormous. The job cuts throughout the sport are but one way for ownership to soften the blow, but the most direct means of correcting course for owners is expected to be via club payroll. For months we’ve heard expectations of a bloated group of non-tendered players and a tepid market for free agents. To that end, Bloom notes that some club executives have already signaled that they won’t be able to commit salary to players this winter. Some clubs will surely still spend money. The purported $2.8 to $3 billion in operating losses isn’t necessarily divided evenly among the league’s 30 clubs, and tolerance for loss varies from owner to owner (or ownership group to ownership group). Still, on a macro level it’s wise to anticipate large-scale reductions in team payrolls. Most concerning for players, remaining club employees and the health of the sport is the potential for additional revenue losses in 2021. While the obvious hope is that fans will be back in the park for a full 162-game slate next season, that’s wholly dependent on the status of the coronavirus and the associated public health guidelines in place. To this point there’s no clear timeline on when a vaccine will be produced, approved, scaled and distributed such that clubs could expect business as usual. And while Manfred has previously taken an optimistic tone on that front, he struck a different chord in speaking with Bloom this week. “t’s going to be difficult for the industry to weather another year where we don’t have fans in the ballpark and have other limitations on how much we can’t play and how we can play,” Manfred told Bloom. “…It’s absolutely certain, I know, that we’re going to have to have conversations with the MLBPA about what 2021 is going to look like. It’s difficult to foresee a situation right now where everything’s just normal.”

I guess he's not going to be a CF... probably not even a good OF with that body. Tank!

It’s a cutter and I think it might suck? Hasn’t looked great this playoffs at least

Alright, I'm in. I have not watched much hockey in the last few years but I'll probably still be awesome at this so look out.

I think this was a good idea but when we do it next year I will give owners a limited number of transactions to replace players. Say, 12 add/drops for the entire playoffs, or something like that.

This is actually a very tight finish between Pendleton and TheHurl. Both have: Smith Lowe Bellinger Betts Seager Arozarena Kershaw Glasnow Anderson Just Pendleton: Jansen Just Hurl: Buehler McGee It's going to come down to ERA and K/BB. Hurl trails in both categories by a hair. Or are the stats just completely out of date? Not sure how that Fantrax drama has played out.

I was messaged about this. What's the deal? You need one more owner and there will be a dispersal draft?

Really not enjoying this older, wiser version of Spanky who shows up tuned every night and then makes no fantasy baseball trades.

Highlight plays, I guess. His arm was on display this year and he made a bunch of diving catches.

not really!

Only if you have moved

Yes, you probably did quite well. You may rub your nipples if you want. Basically turned May into a few good assets of arguably slightly lower value. I think everybody would still take May over any one of those players.

Similar packages but I think Sixto has more in the bag. Better secondaries IMO. May seems too dependent on his horizontal moving FB.

Big gap between Sixto and Jhoan Duran, lol

Phew. I was worried I’d accidentally end up owning him

I don’t think that is exactly what happened! You must be misremembering both trades there. You got Corbin and Davis for May. Then I traded you Marsh and Duran for Corbin. Then I traded Corbin for Marco Luciano (in a bigger deal). Corbin got traded three times last offseason

Dustin May kind of sucks. I would be selling so hard if I owned him in any dynasty leagues. It’s the Aaron Sanchez problem

Spanky how are you doing tonight I sent you an actual fair trade in LoD. Now that you are sober you should take it

I don't think it's THAT doom and gloom. MiLB is shrinking but only by something like one affiliate per organization, at this point. Baseball is the type of sport that takes years to develop in. There isn't a chance the general structure of MiLB will change in any drastic way; there should at least be AAA/AA, A ball, short season, and rookie ball. Organizations need different levels and multiple affiliates for various systemic reasons. What has become obvious over the last few years is that MLB organizations and MLB generally are not capable or willing to provide adequate resources and compensation to all participants in their MiLB system. You can argue that it's actually ETHICAL to employ less MiLB players. If long-shot prospects want to pursue their MLB dreams, there has never been a better time to do that through Independent baseball leagues. This was true before the contraction of MiLB and it was based on technological advancements. Team can "scout" data-based factors like exit velocity, spin rate, pitch velocity no matter where a player is playing. We have seen players get signed from viral tweets of their bullpen sessions.

Sucks for Toronto but it seemed very likely once it became apparent that MiLB was shrinking. I'm just happy than Vancouver will still be an MLB affiliate.

Legit shocked that the Tampa Bay Rays of all teams would leave a SP in too long.

don't worry, beer. i'll never leave you.

Ah, I see the World Series schedule has 2 off days. It's the normal non-Covid format.

Just to double down on this... almost everyone who likes baseball enough to post here has played baseball or other sports, often at a pretty high level. Just because a lot of people here are smarter than you does not mean that you have some type of special insight into an athlete’s mindset. And you specifically said that Tampa has not done things to benefit players careers, which is demonstrably false. What players like is not strictly relevant... players can be stupid

Many, many of them go on to make many millions of dollars post-Tampa that they would never have made if the Rays did not inject their careers with relevance. And the lame nerd takes can eat my ******* with a spoon.