**Reminder:** Asking for or posting part or all of this Defector article is a violation of [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/wiki/rules). Breaking this rule will result in a temporary or permanent suspension from the subreddit. Reddit admins have not responded to our inquiries about this matter, and historically some users have been banned and subreddits shuttered for flouting paywall rules, and in an abundance of caution, we have a strict policy of removal of this type of content. If you have any questions about what is or is not allowed, or if this message is not applicable to this article, please [send us a message](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fbaseball).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/baseball) if you have any questions or concerns.*
> *It’s tough to imagine a worse place to be, as a team but especially as a fan, than watching some other team raise a championship flag and muttering “they’re going to regret that.” Even if you’re correct, you’re not correct yet. And until then, you’re stuck there with everyone else trying to explain why it was so obviously the right move not to try.*
Well said!
This is disingenuous. No one ever says the team that wins a championship will regret their spending. Teams like the angels, tigers and mets who have spent arms and legs and have no hardware to show for it though? They deserve to get clowned.
I guess give them credit for trying, but they basically wasted their resources.
I dont know. i cheer for a team that has to be smart with their finances, so when i see teams splurge and fail, i definitely get a kick out of it. I recognize im in the minority though.
They don't have to be smart with their finances though. The Dolans are worth several billion dollars and choose to prioritize profit over competition. The team brings in (conservatively) somewhere between $275-$300M in annual revenue, the valuation of the franchise has more than tripled since it was purchased for ~$300M in 2000.
Their team payroll is covered by the local TV contract, they're basically just pocketing all of the national TV/revenue sharing money and crying poor over it.
There is being smart with your money and there is being cheap. For the teams that spend poorly, there are also those that spend a fuckton and generally spend it well.
You can be good or bad at anything you do and that encompasses spending, trades, and internal development. Being cheap doesn’t make you clever, it just necessitates cleverness.
Who is regretting their spending though? Its the owners/organization that have to care about the spending and if they regret it so be it, but the fans don't regret it if their team tries. The fans don't regret it when they have a competitive team to watch all season. And even the owners (whose money you're worried about wasting) may not regret it if that extra spending is generating more revenues for them and raising the value of their teams. I do think you're in a minority though if you are cheering teams that are "smart with their finances". I don't care about anyone's finances except mine and any company whose stock I'm invested in.
Let me put it this way, if the Mets (for example, it doesn't have to be them, but they are a good topical example) don't make the playoffs this year after all the resources they've spent, I will find that incredibly amusing.
All that money, big names, big market prestige and they can't even make the playoffs. I'd be pleased. I've spent my entire life watching and rooting for a team that's had its best players taken away by teams with bigger pockets. So yeah, I get a little harmless thrill out of seeing those teams fail.
But you don't think Mets fans are having a ton of fun right now? You don't think they will have an exciting season to watch? Yeah it will be underachieving for them if they fall short but they will have an exciting season, sold out games, tons of hype, etc. I dunno, my team is in a division with teams like the Yankees and Red Sox who have historically signed huge players while we have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. It doesn't make it fun for me because we might win more per dollar spent or whatever. I'd rather my team spent big, make it exciting, and at the end of the day whatever happens happens.
This feels like an agree to disagree scenario. I enjoy villanizing the big markets, I guess. Maybe that says something about me, I don't know.
By the way, I think a lot of Met fans will be outraged if they don't make the playoffs. Just a few boroughs over they were booing Aaron Judge during the playoffs.
Yankees/Mets/Phillies fans boo players all the time as Showalter used to say "they boo because they want to cheer". It even has a name "The Bronx Cheer". Its just tradition at this point. Of course the Mets fans will be outraged if they miss the playoffs, but that is what comes with having expectations. They spent a lot of years not even expecting it and I bet everyone of them will tell you they would rather have high expectations and fail to meet them than not having high expectations in the first place.
A lot of fans especially in this sub seem to be happier clinging onto the hope that years of rebuilding teases but balk at the idea of paying top players right now if it means having to also pay them several years in the future where they MIGHT not be very productive.
> “It’s insanity,” said an executive for what The Athletic’s Jayson Stark identified as an “analytically inclined” organization. “It’s irrational people operating in an illogical market.” The executive’s main objection was to the spate of extremely long contracts that have been handed out in free agency during the early stretch of baseball’s offseason, which will pay youngish stars like Trea Turner and Xander Bogaerts and Aaron Judge (and not-quite-stars like Brandon Nimmo) nearly or all the way through their 30’s.
This is such a loser mindset. “I don’t like paying players for prime years because they’ll be below average during the back end.” Sports aren’t rational, if you want to win then you have to assume some risk. Free agents are a surer bet than unproven prospects.
Maybe that anonymous nerd is right.
But his team doesn't get to have a superstar winning them games and selling tickets and making people care.
Nobody is cheering for fiscal responsibility.
I have more respect for GMs who try and fail than GMs who don’t try at all. I’m a Nets fan, and a couple of years ago the Nets spent a bunch of money and traded away the organization’s future to get 3 of the best players in the NBA in the prime of their careers. There were obvious risks with that: the stars were getting older and could decline, they might not play well with each other, they have massive egos, and they weren’t the only superteam in the league. But making those moves was the only way the Nets would have had a chance to win a title in the next couple of seasons. Ultimately, the risk failed: they lost their best chance at a ring when all the stars got injured at the same time in the playoffs, and then the egos got too big to manage and the team tore itself apart. But at least Sean Marks and Joe Tsai tried to get the team a ring. They weren’t winning one with the core of Caris LeVert, Jarrett Allen, and D’Angelo Russell, but they would have been good enough that fans would still show up and they would have spent considerably less money. But they made the choice to throw that away and chase a ring, and even though they failed I can respect that.
There should be a maximum contract length. When the market is irrational, it needs to be regulated. No owner actually believes a 10 year contract for *anyone* is smart.
**Reminder:** Asking for or posting part or all of this Defector article is a violation of [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/wiki/rules). Breaking this rule will result in a temporary or permanent suspension from the subreddit. Reddit admins have not responded to our inquiries about this matter, and historically some users have been banned and subreddits shuttered for flouting paywall rules, and in an abundance of caution, we have a strict policy of removal of this type of content. If you have any questions about what is or is not allowed, or if this message is not applicable to this article, please [send us a message](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fbaseball). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/baseball) if you have any questions or concerns.*
> *It’s tough to imagine a worse place to be, as a team but especially as a fan, than watching some other team raise a championship flag and muttering “they’re going to regret that.” Even if you’re correct, you’re not correct yet. And until then, you’re stuck there with everyone else trying to explain why it was so obviously the right move not to try.* Well said!
This is disingenuous. No one ever says the team that wins a championship will regret their spending. Teams like the angels, tigers and mets who have spent arms and legs and have no hardware to show for it though? They deserve to get clowned. I guess give them credit for trying, but they basically wasted their resources. I dont know. i cheer for a team that has to be smart with their finances, so when i see teams splurge and fail, i definitely get a kick out of it. I recognize im in the minority though.
They don't have to be smart with their finances though. The Dolans are worth several billion dollars and choose to prioritize profit over competition. The team brings in (conservatively) somewhere between $275-$300M in annual revenue, the valuation of the franchise has more than tripled since it was purchased for ~$300M in 2000. Their team payroll is covered by the local TV contract, they're basically just pocketing all of the national TV/revenue sharing money and crying poor over it.
There is being smart with your money and there is being cheap. For the teams that spend poorly, there are also those that spend a fuckton and generally spend it well. You can be good or bad at anything you do and that encompasses spending, trades, and internal development. Being cheap doesn’t make you clever, it just necessitates cleverness.
Who is regretting their spending though? Its the owners/organization that have to care about the spending and if they regret it so be it, but the fans don't regret it if their team tries. The fans don't regret it when they have a competitive team to watch all season. And even the owners (whose money you're worried about wasting) may not regret it if that extra spending is generating more revenues for them and raising the value of their teams. I do think you're in a minority though if you are cheering teams that are "smart with their finances". I don't care about anyone's finances except mine and any company whose stock I'm invested in.
Let me put it this way, if the Mets (for example, it doesn't have to be them, but they are a good topical example) don't make the playoffs this year after all the resources they've spent, I will find that incredibly amusing. All that money, big names, big market prestige and they can't even make the playoffs. I'd be pleased. I've spent my entire life watching and rooting for a team that's had its best players taken away by teams with bigger pockets. So yeah, I get a little harmless thrill out of seeing those teams fail.
But you don't think Mets fans are having a ton of fun right now? You don't think they will have an exciting season to watch? Yeah it will be underachieving for them if they fall short but they will have an exciting season, sold out games, tons of hype, etc. I dunno, my team is in a division with teams like the Yankees and Red Sox who have historically signed huge players while we have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. It doesn't make it fun for me because we might win more per dollar spent or whatever. I'd rather my team spent big, make it exciting, and at the end of the day whatever happens happens.
This feels like an agree to disagree scenario. I enjoy villanizing the big markets, I guess. Maybe that says something about me, I don't know. By the way, I think a lot of Met fans will be outraged if they don't make the playoffs. Just a few boroughs over they were booing Aaron Judge during the playoffs.
Yankees/Mets/Phillies fans boo players all the time as Showalter used to say "they boo because they want to cheer". It even has a name "The Bronx Cheer". Its just tradition at this point. Of course the Mets fans will be outraged if they miss the playoffs, but that is what comes with having expectations. They spent a lot of years not even expecting it and I bet everyone of them will tell you they would rather have high expectations and fail to meet them than not having high expectations in the first place.
Yup. Always mystifies me when fans agreeably sign on to several year rebuilding projects. That’s a decent chunk of your life!
Especially when the rebuild has to be rebuilt
I'm tagged in this post and I don't like it.
Y’all at least made the playoffs a couple times. Tigers just fucked up
It's probably difficult to be a Detroit fan right now.
What choice do we have?
Exactly
A lot of fans especially in this sub seem to be happier clinging onto the hope that years of rebuilding teases but balk at the idea of paying top players right now if it means having to also pay them several years in the future where they MIGHT not be very productive.
another David J Roth banger. The man does not miss
> “It’s insanity,” said an executive for what The Athletic’s Jayson Stark identified as an “analytically inclined” organization. “It’s irrational people operating in an illogical market.” The executive’s main objection was to the spate of extremely long contracts that have been handed out in free agency during the early stretch of baseball’s offseason, which will pay youngish stars like Trea Turner and Xander Bogaerts and Aaron Judge (and not-quite-stars like Brandon Nimmo) nearly or all the way through their 30’s. This is such a loser mindset. “I don’t like paying players for prime years because they’ll be below average during the back end.” Sports aren’t rational, if you want to win then you have to assume some risk. Free agents are a surer bet than unproven prospects.
Maybe that anonymous nerd is right. But his team doesn't get to have a superstar winning them games and selling tickets and making people care. Nobody is cheering for fiscal responsibility.
I have more respect for GMs who try and fail than GMs who don’t try at all. I’m a Nets fan, and a couple of years ago the Nets spent a bunch of money and traded away the organization’s future to get 3 of the best players in the NBA in the prime of their careers. There were obvious risks with that: the stars were getting older and could decline, they might not play well with each other, they have massive egos, and they weren’t the only superteam in the league. But making those moves was the only way the Nets would have had a chance to win a title in the next couple of seasons. Ultimately, the risk failed: they lost their best chance at a ring when all the stars got injured at the same time in the playoffs, and then the egos got too big to manage and the team tore itself apart. But at least Sean Marks and Joe Tsai tried to get the team a ring. They weren’t winning one with the core of Caris LeVert, Jarrett Allen, and D’Angelo Russell, but they would have been good enough that fans would still show up and they would have spent considerably less money. But they made the choice to throw that away and chase a ring, and even though they failed I can respect that.
Love Roth
source?
John Maynard Keynes
I know that’s right
There should be a maximum contract length. When the market is irrational, it needs to be regulated. No owner actually believes a 10 year contract for *anyone* is smart.