MLB '24 Regular Season Thread

I knew that have seen the concept photos. But I never heard if it was a done deal. I thought it kinda died when the Vegas mayor said they should stay in Oakland.

 

I'm not sure it is anywhere close to a done deal. If Sacramento could build a field I think they'd get the A's to stay.

 

I’m finishing up reading “The Power Broker” and if I’ve learned anything from Robert Moses, just start building the stadium and they’ll be forced to put the baseball team in it.

 

Well yeah, in NYC.

 

The NL was always going to return to NYC. Always, despite what that idiot Warren Giles said about the NL not "needing" a franchise in the country's largest city. But Moses made sure whatever team was gonna play in NY did so on his terms.

Meanwhile, Dodger Stadium lives on, paying millions in property taxes every year, costing LA County nothing in maintenance costs, while the city of New York has spent billions on refurbishing the Polo Grounds for 1962-63; tearing down the Polo Grounds; building and maintaining Shea Stadium; building and maintaining Citi Field, and then demolishing Shea Stadium.

All because Moses wouldn't work with O'Malley to commit $6-7 million in urban renewal funds and allow him to build a stadium on the Atlantic Avenue site.

One of the stupidest decisions in modern municipal government.

Well I guess NYC was always going to build some sort of stadium for the Jets. But without the Mets, it could have been football-only and probably included the Giants at some point instead of losing both teams to New Jersey.

 

I've been avoiding KFAN lately because they get insufferable when the Vikings are playing well, but Dan Barreiro's afternoon drive show had a good breakdown of things with Aaron Gleeman of the The Athletic.

A couple takeaways:
1. They're "exploring a sale." I personally wouldn't be shocked if they did this to get the fans off their backs and, six to 12 months later, the Pohlads take it back because they can't get their overinflated valuation, or they do like Glen Taylor and ask for takebacks midway through the process.
2. This sale is going to be very interesting because it'll be the first in the post-cable era. Bally dumped them last week and they're going the MLB route going forward. They tried to create their own regional network in the 90s and it failed miserably. But will the Twins' lack of a TV situation hamper their sale? It was cited directly as the reason they cut payroll after making the playoffs in 2023.
3. Though Target Field being fairly new (and very nice) generally precludes the idea that a new owner would try to move them, there's no guarantee said owner will be benevolent, generous with his money or even good. After all, Dan Snyder doesn't have anything to do these days.

 

This is somewhat uniformed speculation, but you wonder if the rest of the Pohlad family, none of whom are baseball fanatics, decided the one who they put in charge was showing signs of having Fredo Corleone's competence and that it would be a good time to get out of the business. He was purportedly the only grandson of Carl who had a strong interest in eventually taking over, so they set him up with a stream of jobs to get him the requisite experience; however, he allegedly mismanaged the family's radio station business in an earlier gig, and it certainly doesn't seem he's covering himself in glory in running the baseball team.

 

The Pohlad family had already set a pretty low bar for running a baseball team competently.

 

Maybe, but I don't think I would describe what the Pohlads have been doing as "mismanagement." If anything it's overmanagement. They're a mid-market franchise that took a significant haircut on the Bally deal and, despite having a strong team, reduced payroll to match, which bit them on the ass when depth was probably exactly what caused the team to fall apart in September.

The knock on the Pohlads has never been that they're incompetent, it's that they're cheap. For various reasons, Minnesotans are extremely conscious of money. Joe Mauer may have been "One of Us (TM)" but he was also very well-paid, which is why things got downright resentful when he was shut down with "bilateral leg weakness" or two years into his $23M a year extension, he can't play catcher anymore because his head hurts.

The Pohlads made their bones foreclosing on farmers during the Great Depression, and according to Forbes, the family was worth $3.8 billion in 2015. So even though I'd say their running of the club has been logical and not mean-spirited, their fanbase is angry that net worth has not translated into net spend.

As mentioned before, I'm not convinced they'll really sell, nor am I convinced that who they sell to will be an improvement.

 

Of course, they were following the Griffiths, who had 75 years of experience at that.

 

Maybe they'll contract? (Runs away before someone kicks my ass ...)