Category: Management Bullshit

The Orioles won’t ‘set the minors on fire’ by making a deadline deal

Prospects are there to fill holes, whether by promotion or trade, and don’t let Mike Elias’ preemptive defenses for standing pat tell you otherwise.

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Remember when teams really loved to brag about the importance of having financial flexibility so they could someday make moves when they truly needed to? It allowed them to care more about the flexibility to do hypothetical things than to actually do the things they were supposed to do with said flexibility. Craig Goldstein’s piece on the subject from 2019 remains vital, but it’s worth pointing out that “flexibility” isn’t always just about space on the payroll. Or, at least, that’s not the only thing that the word is used for.

Having a deep farm system can also be a kind of flexibility, and just like with payroll space, you’ll see general managers saying it’s important for them to have a strong farm system for when they need it. What do they need it for when they say this? To fill holes, of course, but when a defense like this one comes out of the mouth of Orioles’ general manager Mike Elias…

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Rob Manfred will be re-elected as commissioner (and that’s okay)

Rob Manfred is good at the things the owner wants him to be good at and bad at the things I want a commissioner to be bad at.

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Per The Athletic, current MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is expected to be re-elected for a third term at some point this week. While I understand the grumbling and gnashing of teeth and all that over the imminent re-election of a man who has to be constantly given column space to assure us that no, he actually does like baseball, the reality of things is that this is good news. No, really!

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Notes: MLB airing D-Backs’ games, more bad Las Vegas journalism

Another team dropped by Bally, and another piece of “journalism” on the Las Vegas A’s ballpark.

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MLB announced on Tuesday that they are taking over the production and distribution of Diamondbacks’ games. A bankruptcy judge approved Diamond Sports Group’s request to “shed” their contract, as ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez put it, making Arizona the second club to have their broadcasts become MLB’s responsibility: less than two months ago, the Padres became the first.

Blackouts for fans in the “home television territory” have been eliminated for Diamondbacks’ games in the process, by way of a few different options. A “direct-to-consumer” streaming plan through MLB.tv is available, for either $19.99 per month or $54.99 for the rest of the 2023 season: it should be pointed out that this is a separate charge from the usual MLB.tv subscription, so if you’re in Arizona, for instance, and wanted to watch Diamondbacks’ games on the service you previously could not since they were blacked out, that’s still designed solely for out-of-market games.

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A’s ‘not likely’ to hit public funding cap with Las Vegas ballpark, says people who are new at this

We’re gonna need some better journalism than this.

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Good news, everyone! The CEO and President of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said that the A’s aren’t likely to use all $380 million in public funds that they’ve been allotted for a new ballpark in Vegas. The Las Vegas Review-Journal relayed the news in the way only an outlet that regurgitates authority figures without checking them can: by quoting them extensively and never raising an eyebrow about it.

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Educators against the Las Vegas A’s

The A’s stadium is probably happening, but there’s a new hurdle to clear, at least.

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If you’re still holding out hope that the Athletics are stymied in their quest to take up residence in Las Vegas, then you’re not alone. The Nevada State Education Association (NSEA) has formed a political-action committee called “Schools Over Stadiums,” with the aim being pretty clear from that name. From the Los Angeles Times’ story:

[Alexander] Marks said his organization is concerned about the more than 3,000 statewide vacancies for teachers and educational staff and is outraged that a stadium is being presented as a financial benefit for the people of Nevada.

“Our priorities are misguided,” Marks said. “If stadiums were the fix, I don’t know why we wouldn’t build 10 of them.”

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Notes: MLB commissioner, Royals’ stadium, media and sports gambling

You don’t want a better liar even if you think you do, what’s going on with the Royals’ stadium search, and when a reporter also partners with a gambling site.

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“Surely things will be different with a new commissioner,” you think. No, no they will not. Maybe you’d be a little less angry at a new commissioner’s general public attitude, but their job is to be the representative of MLB’s 30 owners, which is to say, the job is to lie. To you, to local, state, and federal governments, to the players, to anyone who needs to hear the lies that would benefit the owners if they’re heard.

I got into this at Baseball Prospectus last week, in the wake of Rob Manfred basically making fun of A’s fans for getting together for one last home game to tell John Fisher where he could shove the Las Vegas stadium legislation. People dislike Manfred very much, and think things would be better with a new commissioner, but that’s just not how it goes by design:

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Notes: A different MLB salary cap, Barbara Lee’s ‘Moneyball Act’

The A’s might have opened up quite a few cans of antitrust-flavored worms, and MLB has new ideas for curbing spending.

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There won’t be a salary cap instituted for spending on players, no matter how many times someone leaks to the press that the owners want a salary cap. They always want a salary cap. The luxury tax system exists because of that desire for a salary cap, and it already effectively works like one to a degree — that’s as far as the Players Association is willing to go on this particular matter, and it’s not like they actually meant for things to get the way they did, either.

A salary cap on non-player spending, though? Oh you know MLB can get away with that. Or at least, institute it without a fight, since front offices, scouts, and so on aren’t unionized, and therefore can’t actually fight that sort of thing. Which is exactly why this appears to be the next area of spending that MLB is looking to cut. Per Evan Drellich:

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The A’s relocation and MLB’s antitrust exemption don’t fit together

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Remember the summer of 2022, when MLB had to turn its attention away from the lockout and the then-finalized collective bargaining, and toward Congress, which was questioning the league about its antitrust exemption? Remember, too, that one of commissioner Rob Manfred’s defenses of the antitrust exemption — which was under scrutiny in no small part due to the mistreatment and exploitation of minor-league players — was that its central purpose was to keep teams from relocating, taking baseball away from the communities that had it in the process?

The receipts are out there, so let’s start going through them. Here’s Manfred speaking with Bill Shaikin at The Los Angeles Times, from July 15:

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The A’s Las Vegas stadium bill is dead, unless it isn’t

The A’s stadium bill didn’t make it through the normal legislative session, so now it’s on to a special session, which doesn’t guarantee anything, either.

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The legislative session that included the Memorial Day weekend Las Vegas stadium bill for the A’s has come and gone, and without the bill being passed. A’s supporters in Vegas were always up against the clock here, so the session ending, bringing on the need for a special session this summer, was a likely possibility from the start. The thing is, a special session can’t just be called by anyone, which is how we ended up in situations like the one the A’s and their supporters are in now.

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Dodgers’ stadium workers protest, threaten strike

Dodgers’ stadium workers — not the concessioners from last year — are threatening a strike while working under an expired contract.

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Back in April, stadium workers at the Pirates’ PNC Park threatened to go on strike if their demands weren’t met. The Pirates had stopped negotiating with these employees, so this was the last recourse available to the ushers, ticket takers, and ticket sellers: the team averted the strike by reaching a tentative deal before it was set to occur, and while I didn’t love said deal, the threat at least got the team to respond.

Now, Dodgers’ stadium workers will try their luck with a similar tactic, which also follows Dodger Stadium concession workers successfully negotiating a new deal in 2022. Those workers, part of UNITE HERE, threatened to strike the All-Star Game, which would have been a serious issue for the Dodgers as hosts, given the magnitude of the midsummer classic on the schedule. The strike threat convinced someone on the management side to get back to the table, whether it was Compass/Levy, the concessioners that employ the union members, or someone from the Dodgers screaming in someone from Compass/Levy’s ear about it since it was going to impact them — either way, it worked.

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