Dodgers sign Blake Snell. Forget Soto - this is a signing that would have actually made a lot of sense for the Mets. It's pretty clear what is the #1 destination in baseball right now.
I just had this conversation with a friend of mine who’s a Yankees fan. I told him Dodgers is the place most baseball players want to be.
What do you guys think of what the Dodgers have been doing? They’re circumventing a flaw system to the detriment of the sport. There’s 30 teams in baseball. There has to be some viability in markets that aren’t just a handful of teams. For the health of the game there has to be a cap or at least put a stop to this defer money nonsense.
It’s been like this forever though. Not saying it’s a perfect system but baseball actually has a lot of parity. The Astros won their first WS in 2017 with a middle of the pack payroll. Same with the Royals back to back appearances in 2014-2015, the Diamondbacks last year, etc. The disservice they do is not incentivizing players to stay with their homegrown team. It’ll be a shame when Bobby Witt Jr. leaves KC. No way they’ll be able to afford what he’ll demand on the open market.
Did you guys hear about the Golden At-Bat rule that Rob Manfred apparently has pitched? I thought it was satire at first. If they did this, this isn’t hyperbole I would stop watching. I mean how unserious does this man want this sport to be?
I just googled it.... holy shit what a stupid idea.... These guys are watching too many cartoons and playing too many video games..
According the Mark Feinsand, Soto isn’t signing without taking that final deal back to the Yankees. Who knows if this is true so much nonsense being reported but I think the Mets should give their final offer and put a time limit on it.
Severino is apparently signing a 3-year $67 million deal with the A's. He bet on himself and won, but this seems like a completely insane deal for the A's. The Mets were certainly not going to commit that kind of money to him, so that's one more starter that they need to replace. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/42796448/sources-athletics-luis-severino-reach-3-year-67m-deal
If the Yankees pay him $650 million, this might just be the most damaging thing the Mets have ever done to the Yankees, since without Cohen being in the market, I don't see the number for Soto getting that high.
Why though? I get the 2-way appeal of Ohtani and the bullshit deferral but he just got $700 million. I don’t think $600-$650 million is that out of the ball park. Maybe a little but there aren’t many players that hit the market in their age 26 season.
You can't just dismiss the deferral, though - Soto is going to get his money up front, the old-fashioned way, and I don't think Hal can afford that without selling a piece of the team, which I don't see him doing, or taking it from salary he won't pay to other people. More to the point, Soto doesn't bring the monetary benefit to any team he signs for that Ohtani did - estimates are that the Dodgers got $120 million in merchandising deals just this year from signing Ohtani. Supposedly 80-90% of Japanese tourists who come to LA stop at Dodger Stadium. (https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...t-dodgers-world-series-exclusive/76771449007/) This may all blow up in their faces when they have to pay the bill in six years, but they're building up an absurd war chest before then. Soto is already on his third team in seven years, and hasn't made any discernible marketing impact in any of them. You're paying him to be a baseball player, and no baseball player is actually worth remotely close to what he's going to get in terms of value to a team.
I’m not denying any of that at all. What I’m saying is, I’d estimate Soto’s market value is likely pretty close to where it would be regardless of the Mets being aggressive for him. He was going to have a huge market value anyways. And I’m sure he brings more eyes and merchandise sales but what’s it matter if a high percentage of fans from Japan go to games? Their attendance remains steadily very good year over year. Slightly up from the previous two years, slightly down from their high mark in 2019. https://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance Is their revenue way up? I’d like to see those year over year numbers or actual merchandise year over year numbers to be convinced the impact has been that large other than a lot more Japanese folks watching games/more specifically playoff games.
Well, the Dodgers aren't going to share their merchandising figures with you, but I'll trust the professionals who say that it, along with corporate sponsorships, have gone up by tens of millions of dollars. According to USA Today, just the advertising on the outfield walls generated $6 million more for them this season than last season. A couple of months ago Bloomberg released a report estimating that Ohtani made an economic impact of roughly $600 million this year in the US and Japan. Obviously most of that isn't going to the Dodgers, but it makes obvious the point that anyone using Ohtani as any sort of guideline for anyone else, including Soto, is ignoring the actual situation. And I don't think for a second that if Cohen had said from the start that the Mets were out of the Soto sweepstakes that Soto would end up getting the same amount of money. There was a number that Cohen was willing to pay, and everyone else knew they'd have to beat it (they didn't know the number, but they knew there was one, and it could very likely be more than they'd prefer to pay). The ante went up as soon as the Mets said they were in, and that raises the pot immediately.
They share revenue numbers and valuations. We can probably tell something from that year over year, no? Why would they say they’re out right away when they weren’t and aren’t? Obviously a bunch of teams were going to be in on signing a player of his calibre at his age. I don’t know why you think the Mets specifically being in drives his market value to some asinine value like you’ve alluded to. He was probably getting in this range regardless if the Mets were in or out.
I really don't understand why you keep focusing on this. Are you seriously claiming that Soto can be worth as much to a team monetarily as Ohtani is to the Dodgers? And that the Dodgers didn't take that into account in their wooing of Ohtani? Because that's simply absurd. Well, we'll never know, and I truly don't care enough to argue about it.
I’m not focusing on it. You claimed it, not me. I’m just saying the numbers we have in front of us don’t show some absurd increase that you’re claiming other than a phantom USA Today quote that throws $120 million out there from “industry experts” with no citation. And then a bunch of quotes of his agent saying how he’s very much worth it. And all I was saying is that Soto’s market value was probably in the $600-$650 million range regardless of what the Mets did. Again, something you claimed. It’s not like he ran up the score on the Yankees anymore than any other team.
My family is team getting Soto. They’re like girl it ain’t your money! Jon Heyman is claiming Yankees , Mets, Jays, Redsox are in the $710M to $730M range. If the Yankees are swimming in the 700+M range I think he’s staying a Yankee.
Juan Soto, Mets agree to 15-year, $765 million deal, sources say https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/juan-soto-yankees-mets-iuhng93e https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/42864917/sources-mets-land-juan-soto-15-year-765m-deal
I have tbh leaving emotions out of it I don’t think resigning Alonso is wise. Not when Guerrero jr is just around the bend.
