Are the Rockies and Pirates bad for the sport of baseball

[Splendid Splinter]

You can merge this with the off-season thread if you wish, but I thought it deserved its own discussion. Pirates have been trading their “star” players for years now and the Rockies just traded a top five player in the game for a bag of baseballs. Do you believe there are some teams bad for baseball on how the keep trading away their players every year or two.

 

[heyabbott]

You can merge this with the off-season thread if you wish, but I thought it deserved its own discussion. Pirates have been trading their “star” players for years now and the Rockies just traded a top five player in the game for a bag of baseballs. Do you believe there are some teams bad for baseball on how the keep trading away their players every year or two.

Garbage teams like the Orioles would love to trade away talent. But they never have it.

 

[Junkie]

The Indians have been doing this for two decades and have stayed mostly competitive. Moves have panned out. Do those other teams just make bad moves?

 

[HanSenSE]

Add the Athletics to the list. They've lost their closer and half of last seasons infield since the season ended.

 

[User 149557]

The Indians have been doing this for two decades and have stayed mostly competitive. Moves have panned out. Do those other teams just make bad moves?

It helps when every five years or so the Mariners trade them a future all-star for a pile of magic beans.

Also they have to produce stars at an early 1990s Montreal Expos rate to compensate for their cheapskate owners.

 

[bigpern23]

I think we’ve seen teams compete using the same model (the Royals, Rays and Twins jump to mind), but it takes really smart people in the front office and really good talent evaluators.

The Rockies and Pirates don’t have that.

Are they bad for baseball? I dunno. The sport was pretty healthy before the pandemic wreaked havoc on finances. I don’t think they’re necessarily bad for the sport, but they certainly aren’t good for it.

 

[outofplace]

I think we’ve seen teams compete using the same model (the Royals, Rays and Twins jump to mind), but it takes really smart people in the front office and really good talent evaluators.

The Rockies and Pirates don’t have that.

Are they bad for baseball? I dunno. The sport was pretty healthy before the pandemic wreaked havoc on finances. I don’t think they’re necessarily bad for the sport, but they certainly aren’t good for it.

The Pirates have been doing it this way for 30 years. They have had smart people in the front office at times. It isn't enough if ownership refuses to let them do their jobs. This idea that teams like that only lose because they never have smart baseball people simply isn't true.

Notice how other posters quickly brought up other organizations that do similar salary dumps. That is because the problem is systemic, not just restricted to a few organizations. The financial system in MLB encourages trades that are made to dump salary. The Arenado deal is particularly egregious. The Rockies just trade away one of the top five or 10 players in the game. They sent a huge chunk of money to the Cardinals in the deal to help offset some of Arenado's contract, and they still got **** in return in terms of talent. That is not good for the game.

Some franchises do it in cycles. I would argue that Oakland and Cleveland are examples. Then you have an organization like the Pirates. They are always selling. Even the rare times they find a GM who can overcome the system and ****-poor ownership to put together a decent team, they keep selling. When they broke a string of over 20 seasons of losing records and made the playoffs, Nutting's response was to make his team cut payroll and raise ticket prices. When you are playing in a ballpark paid for, even in part, by public money, that is despicable. Sadly, there are still loyal Pirates fans who actually defend Bob Nutting. I do not understand these people. The Pirates will occasionally trade for a veteran or two if they are in contention. Of course, they are praised for stepping up and spending a little money in those moments, but those are always short-term expenses or deals for players with team-friendly contracts.

Take the trade for Chris Archer in 2018. At the time, the Pirates were on the fringes of the playoff race. Their pitching staff was sorely lacking an ace because they had traded away Gerrit Cole before the season started. Of course, their return on that deal was also poor, but I digress. They signed Archer theoretically to step up and lead the staff on a playoff run. The problem is he cost them dearly. They overpaid badly in terms of talent, primarily Austin Meadows, because Archer's contract was team-friendly. Archer was in decline, mostly due to injury, and he has largely been terrible since. The Pirates made a **** deal because they were thinking about money first even when adding a veteran to try to make a run.

 

[Octave]

I don't think the Rockies have ever had any excuse for not being a top-15 organization in baseball.

That said, Arenado did not wish to honor his contract so he was shipped out. It was bad judgment on both sides of that contract. He had to have known they would have bad teams when they're giving him the money they could have given other parts.

The Orioles to me are a bigger joke than Pittsburgh or Colorado. This was once an elite franchise - other teams across sports would copy the Orioles. They have become such crap, and they were crap for a long time before their brief window of competitiveness.

 

[bigpern23]

While it’s easy to crap on these teams, pointing out their ****ty approach doesn’t really the answer the question posed in the original post. Is this approach bad for the sport?

 

[Octave]

I think the opener is bad for baseball, yes (if not brilliant). It was smart because the Rays could say they invented something that does indeed work, when the truth is they just didn't feel like paying another starting pitcher.

The economics of MLB have forced these strategies, but that doesn't mean all of them are good for baseball.

 

[goalmouth]

Teams have been making bad deals as long as there have been teams. The last time a deal was voided, IIRC, was by Bowie Kuhn. So the lords of baseball have answered your question.

 

[DanOregon]

How about the Mariners, they were heading toward being a competent club but then tore it all down and started over again, I'm guessing, because they knew they still wouldn't be close to the Astros. So they "moved back" their timeline to being competitive to a time when the Astros would have some free agency issues. The mantra for most GMs is if you don't have a real shot at winning a league champsionship, you may as well tank.

 

[outofplace]

While it’s easy to crap on these teams, pointing out their ****ty approach doesn’t really the answer the question posed in the original post. Is this approach bad for the sport?

Of course, it is bad for the sport. Every year that a team tanks is a year that franchise can bleed off fans or fail to attract new ones. Before some smarts ass starts talking about baseball revenues before COVID, I'm not saying it going to kill the sport, but it is bad for interest in the game. That may be even more important now that fans have gone a year without a 162-game regular season. Maybe some of them have less interest in the long haul after seeing a shorter season.

I am a good example of this. I was once a passionate Pirates fan. To be clear, I barely remember the 1979 World Series. I really started following closely in the '80s. Then I realized that brief moments like the playoffs teams from 90-92 are always going to be the rare exception. The Pirates were always going to be playing against a stacked deck and they weren't even really going to try to win most of the time. They were going to do what they do now, try to create the illusion of trying here and there so that fans will still buy tickets rather than actually building toward something. I've been to a smattering of games since then, but I haven't really had any interest in rooting for them since Sid Bream slid across home plate to eliminate them from the 1992 NLCS. I simply no longer care if they win or lose.

I do, however, care that they don't try. I do care that they are wasting one of the best ballparks in the game, one built primarily with public money. Accepting that ballpark meant entering a trust that they would at least try. Bob Nutting has been violating that trust since the ballpark was built. I care that they aren't doing right by my hometown.

 

[bigpern23]

Teams have been making bad deals as long as there have been teams. The last time a deal was voided, IIRC, was by Bowie Kuhn. So the lords of baseball have answered your question.

A-Rod to the Red Sox.

 

[outofplace]

Teams have been making bad deals as long as there have been teams. The last time a deal was voided, IIRC, was by Bowie Kuhn. So the lords of baseball have answered your question.

The question is how do we define what is good or bad for baseball? Are we talking about what the owners want for themselves? Are we talking about the fans? Are we talking about the long-term health of the sport, which relies upon bringing in new fans and keeping a significant percentage of the ones who already love the game?

You are talking about what the owners want for themselves. That is not my definition of what is good or bad for baseball.

 

[bigpern23]

Of course, it is bad for the sport. Every year that a team tanks is a year that franchise can bleed off fans or fail to attract new ones. Before some smarts ass starts talking about baseball revenues before COVID, I'm not saying it going to kill the sport, but it is bad for interest in the game. That may be even more important now that fans have gone a year without a 162-game regular season. Maybe some of them have less interest in the long haul after seeing a shorter season.

I am a good example of this. I was once a passionate Pirates fan. To be clear, I barely remember the 1979 World Series. I really started following closely in the '80s. Then I realized that brief moments like the playoffs teams from 90-92 are always going to be the rare exception. The Pirates were always going to be playing against a stacked deck and they weren't even really going to try to win most of the time. They were going to do what they do now, try to create the illusion of trying here and there so that fans will still buy tickets rather than actually building toward something. I've been to a smattering of games since then, but I haven't really had any interest in rooting for them since Sid Bream slid across home plate to eliminate them from the 1992 NLCS. I simply no longer care if they win or lose.

I do, however, care that they don't try. I do care that they are wasting one of the best ballparks in the game, one built primarily with public money. Accepting that ballpark meant entering a trust that they would at least try. Bob Nutting has been violating that trust since the ballpark was built. I care that they aren't doing right by my hometown.

But you’re not really a good example. You’re anecdotal evidence, while metrics such as attendance, revenue and TV contracts are objective data to the contrary. TV ratings are probably a better argument for you to make than the fact that you’re no longer a die hard.

And, if they have been so bad for the sport for going on three decades, one wouldn’t expect record attendance and revenues like MLB had been experiencing before 2020.

At best, the Pirates and Rockies are merely an afterthought on the MLB landscape. They aren’t materially hurting the game.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

I know there are tons of owners who feel completely otherwise in every sport, but I really don't get the "muh profit margin" model of sports franchise ownership. 1. It's bad business. Ask Jeff Bezos. 2. Why do it? If you are rich enough to buy a professional sports franchise, you are rich enough to make a guaranteed profit in a hundred safer ways. Why would you buy a team if you weren't in it for the wins? In my experience, really wealthy people are very competitive. Why turn that off in the most openly competitive business of all?

 

[Scout]

Relegation

 

[Songbird]

"Good for baseball" flew out the window with the advent of the DH and soon, maybe next year, pitchers won't hit at all.

So just sit back and enjoy the ballgame.

 

[DanOregon]

I know there are tons of owners who feel completely otherwise in every sport, but I really don't get the "muh profit margin" model of sports franchise ownership. 1. It's bad business. Ask Jeff Bezos. 2. Why do it? If you are rich enough to buy a professional sports franchise, you are rich enough to make a guaranteed profit in a hundred safer ways. Why would you buy a team if you weren't in it for the wins? In my experience, really wealthy people are very competitive. Why turn that off in the most openly competitive business of all?

But that's a big part of it though - I think there are numerous examples of rich people who cash in everything to buy a team - or at least put their wealth up as collateral - with the expectation that team ownership will give them leverage to make a real estate killing or through other means. Go through Big Four ownerships and I think you would be surprised that the sports teams are the central asset that many owners have. This isn't some plaything to them - its central to their wealth. Without the team they would not have access to various other parts of their portfolios. Shoot, they're all making huge profits - just check out the GB Packers books.

For Packers, a Huge Profit and ‘Uncharted Waters’