Ohtani

He would reject that given what was offered to Mbappé

Comparing MLB standings with payroll, I'm fairly certain the pendulum is going to swing back the other way.  $500M for 10 years is overpriced even by Ohtani standards.  Yes, he is a once in a lifetime talent.  But economics are strong indicators and never underestimate the greed of ownership.   Here is a snapshot of MLB leaders by division at this point in time.  https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/

AL East: Orioles : 29th in payroll, Rays 27th in payroll

AL Central: Twins 17th in payroll, Guardians 26th in payroill

AL West: Rangers 9th in payroll, Astros 10th in payroll

NL East: Braves 8th in payroll, Phillies 4th in payroll

NL Central: Brewers 19th in payroll, Reds 25th in payroll

NL West: Dodgers 5th in payroll, Giants 11th in payroll

What some of these front offices / teams are doing is incredible based on their payroll.   It seems teams are significantly more judicious with their money right now.  The rise and fall of the Mets this year on paper is a great example.  Everybody had them picked as World Series favorites.  Now, they're having a garage sale and can't easily move two of their most expensive pieces due to large, burdensome contracts.

JMO

Most of the team you listed don’t have the ability to sustain their success. If teams don’t spend money they go up and down.

If Scherzer is paid 43M per year isn’t an every day player worth more? Given Ohtani is also a top pitcher theoretically he could be worth about 70M per year. There are only a handful of teams who can afford Ohtani.

If you want to talk absurd pay look at what mediocre NFL QBs are making.

@fenwaysouth posted:

Comparing MLB standings with payroll, I'm fairly certain the pendulum is going to swing back the other way.  $500M for 10 years is overpriced even by Ohtani standards.  Yes, he is a once in a lifetime talent.  But economics are strong indicators and never underestimate the greed of ownership.   Here is a snapshot of MLB leaders by division at this point in time.  https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/

AL East: Orioles : 29th in payroll, Rays 27th in payroll

AL Central: Twins 17th in payroll, Guardians 26th in payroill

AL West: Rangers 9th in payroll, Astros 10th in payroll

NL East: Braves 8th in payroll, Phillies 4th in payroll

NL Central: Brewers 19th in payroll, Reds 25th in payroll

NL West: Dodgers 5th in payroll, Giants 11th in payroll

What some of these front offices / teams are doing is incredible based on their payroll.   It seems teams are significantly more judicious with their money right now.  The rise and fall of the Mets this year on paper is a great example.  Everybody had them picked as World Series favorites.  Now, they're having a garage sale and can't easily move two of their most expensive pieces due to large, burdensome contracts.

JMO

This year is a bit of an outlier though because many high payroll teams a struggling and some teams who build a super farm with years of tanking have arrived.

It's true that there is a lot of other stuff that makes for success but the only low payroll teams who had consistent success the last decade where the rays, guardians, brewers and for some time the As.

The other good low payroll teams were more like tank 5 years, be good 2-3 years than be bad again.

In 2022 7 out of the 12 playoff teams where in the top10 in payroll (two others were 11th and 13th).

In 2021 6 out of 10 playoff teams where top10 in payroll (cards where 11th).

You can be bad with a high payroll of course but for every rays team there are like 2 bad low payroll teams (pirates, marlins, As,royals) who had been consistently terrible.

But yeah it is not enough to spend stupidly like it was 2002 anymore, you need analytics, player dev and so on but the teams who have consistent success usually both are smart and have a high payroll like the dodgers.

The angels have made the mistake of only spending on players while being stingy on other stuff.

With the Mets we will see. Cohen has said he wants to follow the dodgers model and build a player development machine and bridge the time until that works with big spending but we will see how he does it. I know he hired a lot of driveline coaches and at least is interested in the modern data stuff but doing it in another thing.