Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
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Go Phillies…
I asked a question that didn’t get answered so I figure I will just ask you guys here and see how it goes:
I’m all for the Braves re-signing Freddie Freeman but shouldn’t the Braves think twice before offering him some 9-digit mega-contract? Big contracts for first baseman never seem to work out. GoldSchmidt and Votto haven’t been terrible but they definitely have not worked out as hoped. Mo Vaugh, Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez, Miguel Cabrera, Albert Pujols and Chris Davis were the other 1st baseman to get 9-digit contracts and all of them literally ended up being terrible. When are teams going to finally realize that these mega-contracts never work out for 1st baseman and they need to stop offering them?
It’s an obvious point but it depends on how much ATL is going to let Freeman’s next contract affect the rest of the roster and what the term will be. I’m a Cards fan and while I wish Goldy was producing at the same level he was five years ago, which he isn’t, I’m happy with both the trade and the contract. Plus it was only a five-year deal. I don’t expect Goldy will ever be a drag on the franchise, even if he’s going to be overpaid by St. Louis.
Please keep the west coast teams on the west coast — coming from an east-coaster. Travel schedules suck enough — relocate them to Vegas, Portland, Vancouver — if any of those cities puts up a nice bid. The Rays should be next up on MLB’s menu to force cities to put up or shut up, then east coast cities like Nashville, Charlotte, etc. can entertain and you wouldn’t be messing markets up too much.
Agreed
But half the West Coast teams were originally from the east coast and Milwaukee – haha
What West Coast team was originally from Milwaukee?
None. The Atlanta Braves were originally from Milwaukee. The Milwaukee Brewers were originally the Seattle Pilots.
Oakland to Vegas and Tampa to Nashville would seem appropriate. I do think Tampa can work if they had a stadium located in Tampa and not St Pete’s.
Loving Steve’s response in the chat, I sincerely hope that MLBTR doesn’t even make a post about that absolute non-story. They have done this several times already and it means nothing. A’s will be in Oakland for the next 50+ years for sure. Portland doesn’t deserve a MLB team and neither does Las Vegas. San Jose actually has more people, industry and money than all these places combined and they aren’t “allowed” more than an single-A team – what’s up with that? It’s almost 90 minutes drive between SF and SJ these days, that’s too far to claim a “territory” but also the concept of “territory”s in MLB are ridiculously stupid and dated. Move the A’s to SJ if you have to, but otherwise just give them the waterfront park in Oakland already.
I might be wrong but I always thought San Jose only had such a high population because it is such a large spread out city. Aren’t the city limit borders pretty huge relative to some other cities. It doesn’t seem like the number of people in the city would matter so much if people still have to drive a really long way to get to the stadium.
Territory isn’t about drive time. It’s about TV, which is the lion’s share of a team’s revenue. Whether the territory was granted to the Giants fairly is a moot point. At this point it is Giant’s territory. So, asking the Giants to “give” SJ to the A’s is the same as asking them to give tens of millions of dollars, every year, to the A’s. No team, including the A’s, would do that.
But I think that’s exactly what happened in the late 80s early 90s. A’s gave SF the rights (or agreed for SF to own it) to keep SF in the bay area.. they were planning on moving to Tampa(?) At the time the A’s were the best team in baseball and then ……… well we won’t go there.
A’s won’t leave Oakland, this is just a empty threat to get the city to move the approval process.
But the revenue situation is much different now than it was in the ’80’s. Teams relied more heavily on the gate in those days, and the TV money wasn’t as much. A lot of teams did not broadcast every game, or to see every game, you had to pay a fee to get a cable channel.
The financial repercussions of the Giants giving SJ to the A’s would be far greater now than they were when MLB granted them to the Giants.
As I said earlier, whether the awarding of the territory to the Giants was fair or not, is irrelevant. The TV revenue from the SJ area is a gold mine, and no team is going to give up a gold mine to another team.
Then if the SJ
fans are so
diehard the
Giants will
not lose
anything…..
tad2b13, the A’s already play right next door. What extra TV millions are they grabbing if they move a few miles south?
What a waste of time. 10 questions and all answered about 45 year old Albert Pujols. Why would you continue to post these questions.
national pastime:
Yeah, I agree. I think I’m a bigger Steve Adams fan than most, but this wasn’t one of his better chats.
Salaries aside, if you are starting a team today, who do you take – Acuna, Soto or Tatis?
Acuna. He’s definitely outperforming the other 2 right now. Soto isn’t a good defender and both he and Tatis have already had shoulder injuries. That’s never a good sign. I think Tatis is actually going to have to have offseason surgery on his shoulder. Acuna just seems like the safer bet on top of the fact that he is out playing them both right now.
Soto, mostly because of his better walk rate/career OBP. I think that suggests a better knowledge of the strike zone, which means his bat will age pretty well.
Soto.
He’s a solid ML player that understands the game and makes adjustments to do what he can during a game to help his team win. The other 2 are already narcissistic head cases – when the league catches up to them they’ll be closer to Yasiel Puig than a solid ML star, which Soto already is and will continue to be as he gets better.
Postscript…..
About 2 weeks ago when Tatis hit a HR the opposing teams broadcaster noted – “He now has as many hits as errors”.
As for Acuna, his disrespect for everything in the game is getting him shafted by umps on close calls. It’s obvious. Other batters (including on his team) get those calls. Right now opposing pitchers are accepting him showing them up – but when that tide turns…….and it will……..
“The other 2 are already narcissistic head cases” – this is pure biased opinion, an outright lie. Worst, dumbest comment ever made on this site by a long, long way. You have the coldest, least relevant takes on baseball everyone has ever seen. Go away forever.
A serious request!
Not many questions that hour. I didn’t notice any “What’s your favorite color” question though… must have made him work hard this time.
Those questions usually go to Conner…..
But I think that’s exactly what happened in the late 80s early 90s. A’s gave SF the rights (or agreed for SF to own it) to keep SF in the bay area.. they were planning on moving to Tampa(?) At the time the A’s were the best team in baseball and then ……… well we won’t go there.
A’s won’t leave Oakland, this is just a empty threat to get the city to move the approval process.
Not sure why this posted here…. was in response.
But what happened in the 80’s is irrelevant. SJ was not the huge revenue source then that it is now. Had the situation been the same, with SJ generating huge revenue, the A’s would never had agreed to MLB awarding it to the Giants.
But they did, it turned out to be a huge windfall for the Giants, and it isn’t fair to ask any team to walk away from all that money.
I do not think the affection with Pujols is fully unwarranted. Not because he’s good at hitting any more, but rather he has promotional value even if he’s hitting 200. Some AL owner is going to see his 5 bombs in 1/7th the season and hope he can be a solution at DH and chase 700, bringing fans in with that process
The Rockies. They need something for fan interest, a storyline. They have an opening at 1B. We all want to see Albert hitting at the Mile High altitude.
I think deGrom is showing himself to be a HOF talent, and will eventually get there since he’s not slowing down, but I disagree with Steve’s response that most voters would view or vote for him as a HOFer now, or with a couple more 2-3 WAR years to get to the required 10. He’s been pitching like a HOFer for the past four seasons, no doubt, but one of those seasons was last year’s 60-game season, and another is this year, which is only 30 or so games in. Let’s pump the breaks. He has about 40 career rWAR, and is still 27 wins short of 100.
If he adds a third CY Young this year or next, makes it to 10 seasons, he’ll likely be viewed as having a Sandy Koufax-like peak and will have a strong shot, but he’s not there yet.
DeGrom is not slowing down, so I expect him to add in another one or three Cy Young’s, or top finishes. He could pitch until he’s 40 and make 200 wins with good Mets teams behind him. Yet, that’s all projection. He still has work to do. A quick fade from peak and/or injury can still doom his chances. Just ask Johan Santana.