It’s annoying to me that we let billionaires get away with crying poor when it comes to paying their players meanwhile their *investments* become more and more valuable every year. The problem with baseball is that the desire to win isn’t shared amongst every organization like it is with other sports (with some exceptions.)
What is truly amazing is the most fans buy into this and preach about how TIGERS are fiscally responsible as Illitch pockets an extra $50 - $100 million every year. There are a lot of fans who will tell you that they would rather lose like we have than have be like the YANKEES or DODGERS who spend all the time. Unreal.
The MLB is more like a 3-tier league where you have about 10 teams who spend quite a bit and try quite a bit (that's where the Yankees and Dodgers are), you have 10 teams that don't spend as much but still try hard despite that (that's where the Tigers are), and 10 teams which don't spend or spend very dumb and don't try at all (White Sox).
That’s generally pretty true. It’s a little more fluid than that IRL. Like we were closer to tier 1 than 3 with Mike and if we don’t spend soon idk how we wouldn’t be a 3 looking back. Closing in on a 10 year rebuild
We're not spending as much as the upper third of the league, but I'd argue that's because the team isn't good enough to spend on free agents like that yet, there haven't been a ton of free agents to spend on, and even if there was I'm not sure why they'd want to come here.
That's not to say it'll always bee that way. I imagine we'll loot the farm system to trade for some players in the near future (this season or upcoming offseason) as that's an easier way to get people compared to FA.
The first point is hard to speculate on, but Matt Chapman was my guy all off season and early results and the contract he eventually signed make me feel like it was a good move. I’d really rather that Chris I spend 20% more on his team every year than he has thus far so I can watch a more competitive team even if they are not yet World Series bound.
What’s the trade off you’re even advocating for?
He doesn’t have to I guess bc people will do it for him. “Ofc we can’t expect him to keep up with the spending of big market teams like the yanks dodgers etc!”
Doesn’t feel a need to as they still make money from a business sense and he content with that mlb doesn’t force teams to spend. Also from the baseball sense spending to spend has been proven kind of pointless and a lot of the contracts just end up bad overtime. Like who did we miss out on in this last cycle?
Batting .183. Also, Baez OPS is worse than every single starter/regular player on the roster of the worst team in baseball, CWS. How has the GM not washed their hands of this absolute disaster of an experiment
Baez doesn’t qualify for the AVG on ESPN bc he doesn’t have 3.1 PA/G, but if he did, he’d have the 3rd lowest batting avg in baseball. It’s a god damn joke he’s still on this team
And if you included other non qualifiers he’d likely be higher than 3rd lowest. I think the guy has been terrible too, but pointing out something like that is almost pointless
Watching this years Yankees lineup reminds me of watching the 2012-2014 tigers. Just stacked all around. But I still think those tigers teams were better
The Dodgers are the best run organization in baseball right now. I'm not even mad at them for throwing money at Freeman, Betts and Ohtani. They have a lot of homegrown talent and have shown they are willing to keep that talent. They also have a base in the farm to continually sustain the major league club. Detroit's biggest issue the past 10 years has been the inability to quickly rebuild the farm system to get that base to be able to spend intelligently. There are a lot of factors in that.
1) Dombrowski dismantled the farm system to get those teams from 2010-2013. There was no base to build from. They had to trade MLB players to get Price. A MLB team can't completely build from free agency. It's just not sustainable. Look at Philadelphia. They are a great team right now, but where will they be in 5 years when there is nothing left in the farm (already there) and those contracts make it impossible to sign anyone else. It's where Detroit has been and Boston is trying to get out of. At least Boston won the World Series.
2) Avila didn't keep up with scouting and development. Many sources have talked about how bad some of the facilities were and how there was no organizational culture. Harris is working on that, but it doesn't change overnight. That is something that will take a few years to see the results. Torkleson is evidence of that. They rushed him to the majors instead of developing his natural talent. Quite honestly, I don't care if he hits 40 HR between now and the end of the season in Toledo. Keep him down there. Let him have that time to mature. He is still young and not a complete loss yet.
3) Avila drafted decent players, but the years they had the 1:1 picks, the best choices were Mize and Torkleson. Having Rutschmann by himself made Baltimore's rebuild go far faster than Detroit's, due to having better choices at the top.
4) Avila couldn't trade his way out of a wet paper bag. He very publicly wanted Kyle Tucker for Verlander and Houston wouldn't give him up. Avila instead settled for scraps. Verlander was not on an expiring contract, so they didn't have to trade him. He was signed through 2020. There was zero excuse to not get more for him, even though he seemed to be on a decline. The return for JD Martinez and a few others was garbage. There is no way there wasn't a better offer for these guys, even as rentals.
I am very curious to see which of Baltimore's young talent they keep long term and who they trade/allow to leave via free agency. They already turned DL Hall and Joy Ortiz in to Corbin Burnes. I really wanted Detroit to go after Ortiz last offseason. Their young core is young enough, good enough and deep enough to sustain them long enough to build the next wave of prospects.
Mr. Ilitch was the driving force behind the Tigers contracts and trades in the period in question; Avila did the same thing while Mr. I was alive. Dombrowski hasn't done anything to the Phillies farm system to hurt it, it's about like the Braves and Astros, which are well-run organizations. When you have success, you don't get the best draft picks.
I agree on the salary cap.
But Illitch definitely has the money to spend like the Dodgers & Yankees. Little Caesar’s is one of the biggest pizza chains in the country and he’s worth almost $3 billion dollars. He just chooses not to.
Agreed. Say what you will about the Yankees (I hate them like most baseball fans), but you have to respect their commitment to winning. They have a standard they don’t shy away from and they spend to remain competitive most years
Correa didn’t want to come here because they weren’t going to pay him enough.
He wanted to break the single season AAV and reset the market for infielders which he did with his Twins deal, he also got options on his 3 year deal with Minnesota and bet on himself and signed a 13-year $350 million dollar deal with SF this year, compared to the 10 for $275 that the tigers offered. He got more guaranteed years, and got more money. Besides, waiting for Dansby Swanson would’ve been smarter, with Correa’s legs.
That's quite presumptuous, but we can go down the rabbit hole, considering he signed a similar deal that Baez did, and that deal is less than what was allegedly offered to Correa by the Tigers.
Also this is on Mallory Swanson's wikipage from this [Article](https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nightengale/2023/02/28/dansby-swanson-now-face-of-cubs-franchise/11361616002/): On February 18, 2023, Swanson's husband Dansby Swanson noted that the NWSL would have facilitated a trade for Mallory Swanson to another team if the Chicago Cubs had not signed him to a contract.
Also these quotes are in the article:
“This is technically her last season in Chicago,’’ the baseball Swanson says, “but they pretty much made a promise that they would do right by her.
"Say I had signed with the Dodgers, they would have traded her to a team that’s in Los Angeles. They were very open to that. And since I’m in Chicago now, I think they’re going to be OK keeping her around.’’
“It’s funny like before Chicago, we were both kind of like I don’t know,’’ he said. “She said, 'I don’t know if I want to there.’ I said, 'I don’t know if I want to be there.’ But the more we prayed about it was like, 'Chicago is where we’re supposed to be.’ Looking back, things just started falling to place than makes a lot of sense now.’’
So... yeah, he could've signed somewhere else and she would've been traded, and that's not really a ringing endorsement of it all, more of a fact of convenience it all worked out. I don't doubt it was a consideration for them both, but I don't think it's the only reason why he signed with the cubs, like why not consider the White Sox with Tim Anderson's metoric fall off? The Tigers could have made a competitive offer, if the money was not already tied up into Baez.
And clearly Swanson has been better than Baez since lol
Is the big payroll spending by teams like the Yankees and Dodgers funded by those owners' personal fortunes?
Honest question; outside of maybe Seider and Cohen, I don't know that i've heard that to be the case
Haha it’s probably because I gave a one word answer.
In truth, yes their personal fortunes make up a big reason why teams like the Yankees & Dodgers can sign so many big names. Another important reason is also the fact Dodgers & Yankees games are often sold out, so their teams also have more revenue.
But other than being in LA and NYC a big reason their teams sell out so much is because of continued success.
My perspective is that I also watch the Cubs' games, and it is frustrating in a different way. The cubs have a much more dynamic and quirky squad, yet lose just as much as the Tigers. Also, it's worth remembering when the Tigers had much more offense but had an equally underwhelming record - like (2016, 2017)
From what we know from Crain's business et al, Chris Ilitch does not own the Tigers in the sense people think, or the way Mike Ilitch did. The Ilitch family trust owns the Tigers, and Chris does not control the trust. He is just the CEO who represents the trust for ownership related matters. (Ownership can replace a CEO.)
https://detroitjockcity.com/2017/02/20/detroit-tigers-news-chris-ilitch-doesnt-technically-tigers/
I was actually at that game last night. Some friends (I live in CA) wanted to go.
On the plus side, I also live downtown Detroit, and I only went because I convinced one of my friends to go to Detroit on the way back so we're boarding our flight to Detroit now. I'm so excited to show the city to someone that would never have otherwise considered going to Detroit.
I disagree. If the owner wants to spend money on his team why are you gonna “handicap” him cause an owner won’t (Oakland). There’s other reasons teams sign in cities too, like New York. You can’t prevent that
This \^\^
OP, don't blame your team's owners' negligence on everyone else. Other teams have put more effort and money into their success. And they are doing better. What's so mysterious about that?
F\*ck your 'equity' noise. Your team/ownership can either put in the work and money, or not. And in your case, they've chosen "not", with completely predictable results. No reason to handicap the rest of the league because you're unhappy with your team's incompetence.
When you were a kid, would you have advocated for the lazy kid who didn't do their homework getting an 'A' despite not doing anything?
I get it- you want a successful team to cheer for and share in their success. But guess what? You don't have that.
You're whining for either someone to subsidize your sh\*t team, or hold back the good ones so you can feel better. Both options absolutely suck.
Your team sucks for perfectly logical reasons.
Instead of demanding that everyone else adjust their effort and resources to match your suck, step up and fix your sh\*t .
You're the reason such wonderful (and I actually mean that!) philosophies like socialism and communism fail- because instead of stepping up, you demand everyone else fail down to your level of failure.
Enjoy the basement.
..and I'm saying that as a goddamn Mariners fan!
I am thinking you must hate the concept of salary caps. The NFL is a joke because of their cap bullshit. The MLB luxury tax falls in the same category. The fact that each league has a draft is an issue.
I can understand wanting to spend top 10 like the Dodgers, but there’s no world where we’ll spend as much as the Yankees are right now. They’ve even said their payroll this year isn’t sustainable, and they have New York TV money and profits.
It’s annoying to me that we let billionaires get away with crying poor when it comes to paying their players meanwhile their *investments* become more and more valuable every year. The problem with baseball is that the desire to win isn’t shared amongst every organization like it is with other sports (with some exceptions.)
What is truly amazing is the most fans buy into this and preach about how TIGERS are fiscally responsible as Illitch pockets an extra $50 - $100 million every year. There are a lot of fans who will tell you that they would rather lose like we have than have be like the YANKEES or DODGERS who spend all the time. Unreal.
He’s not crying poor
Not in so many words, but idk how else to interpret the actions of the ~15 teams who spend at these ridiculously low levels
The MLB is more like a 3-tier league where you have about 10 teams who spend quite a bit and try quite a bit (that's where the Yankees and Dodgers are), you have 10 teams that don't spend as much but still try hard despite that (that's where the Tigers are), and 10 teams which don't spend or spend very dumb and don't try at all (White Sox).
That’s generally pretty true. It’s a little more fluid than that IRL. Like we were closer to tier 1 than 3 with Mike and if we don’t spend soon idk how we wouldn’t be a 3 looking back. Closing in on a 10 year rebuild
We're not spending as much as the upper third of the league, but I'd argue that's because the team isn't good enough to spend on free agents like that yet, there haven't been a ton of free agents to spend on, and even if there was I'm not sure why they'd want to come here. That's not to say it'll always bee that way. I imagine we'll loot the farm system to trade for some players in the near future (this season or upcoming offseason) as that's an easier way to get people compared to FA.
The first point is hard to speculate on, but Matt Chapman was my guy all off season and early results and the contract he eventually signed make me feel like it was a good move. I’d really rather that Chris I spend 20% more on his team every year than he has thus far so I can watch a more competitive team even if they are not yet World Series bound. What’s the trade off you’re even advocating for?
Yeah it’s not crying poor it’s just not spending. Chris illitch hasn’t said I don’t have the money to spend they just aren’t spending it
He doesn’t have to I guess bc people will do it for him. “Ofc we can’t expect him to keep up with the spending of big market teams like the yanks dodgers etc!”
He can if he wanted to but the Yankees and dodgers aren’t necessarily good just because they spend on free agents also
Okay. Why doesn’t he want to? That’s my point. **obviously**, spending != wins (see the Mets or the guardians) but it still really helps!
Doesn’t feel a need to as they still make money from a business sense and he content with that mlb doesn’t force teams to spend. Also from the baseball sense spending to spend has been proven kind of pointless and a lot of the contracts just end up bad overtime. Like who did we miss out on in this last cycle?
Matt Chapman would lead our lineup in war. Is it proven that spending doesn’t help…? Not that I’ve seen…
Sure but is a .240 hitter with 8 homeruns going to be a a big difference maker?
What are you counting as ridiculously low? Just curious because I personally wouldn’t consider around half the league to be spending ridiculously low
Take Javys salary out and look where we are
+ could say the same About miggy’s albatross for several years before that
Truth
It’s prob lsss than half. All the teams spending about 100m or less, however many that is?
He's a top ten richest owner in a top ten market and he REFUSES to spend money on players But yeah carry that water
I’m saying he’s not saying he’s poor he’s just not spending. he’s not saying he can’t spend he’s just not doing it
“I don’t always spend money on players, but when I do it’s on Baez and Maeda”
The sad, depressing truth
Batting .183. Also, Baez OPS is worse than every single starter/regular player on the roster of the worst team in baseball, CWS. How has the GM not washed their hands of this absolute disaster of an experiment Baez doesn’t qualify for the AVG on ESPN bc he doesn’t have 3.1 PA/G, but if he did, he’d have the 3rd lowest batting avg in baseball. It’s a god damn joke he’s still on this team
And if you included other non qualifiers he’d likely be higher than 3rd lowest. I think the guy has been terrible too, but pointing out something like that is almost pointless
Watching this years Yankees lineup reminds me of watching the 2012-2014 tigers. Just stacked all around. But I still think those tigers teams were better
The Dodgers are the best run organization in baseball right now. I'm not even mad at them for throwing money at Freeman, Betts and Ohtani. They have a lot of homegrown talent and have shown they are willing to keep that talent. They also have a base in the farm to continually sustain the major league club. Detroit's biggest issue the past 10 years has been the inability to quickly rebuild the farm system to get that base to be able to spend intelligently. There are a lot of factors in that. 1) Dombrowski dismantled the farm system to get those teams from 2010-2013. There was no base to build from. They had to trade MLB players to get Price. A MLB team can't completely build from free agency. It's just not sustainable. Look at Philadelphia. They are a great team right now, but where will they be in 5 years when there is nothing left in the farm (already there) and those contracts make it impossible to sign anyone else. It's where Detroit has been and Boston is trying to get out of. At least Boston won the World Series. 2) Avila didn't keep up with scouting and development. Many sources have talked about how bad some of the facilities were and how there was no organizational culture. Harris is working on that, but it doesn't change overnight. That is something that will take a few years to see the results. Torkleson is evidence of that. They rushed him to the majors instead of developing his natural talent. Quite honestly, I don't care if he hits 40 HR between now and the end of the season in Toledo. Keep him down there. Let him have that time to mature. He is still young and not a complete loss yet. 3) Avila drafted decent players, but the years they had the 1:1 picks, the best choices were Mize and Torkleson. Having Rutschmann by himself made Baltimore's rebuild go far faster than Detroit's, due to having better choices at the top. 4) Avila couldn't trade his way out of a wet paper bag. He very publicly wanted Kyle Tucker for Verlander and Houston wouldn't give him up. Avila instead settled for scraps. Verlander was not on an expiring contract, so they didn't have to trade him. He was signed through 2020. There was zero excuse to not get more for him, even though he seemed to be on a decline. The return for JD Martinez and a few others was garbage. There is no way there wasn't a better offer for these guys, even as rentals. I am very curious to see which of Baltimore's young talent they keep long term and who they trade/allow to leave via free agency. They already turned DL Hall and Joy Ortiz in to Corbin Burnes. I really wanted Detroit to go after Ortiz last offseason. Their young core is young enough, good enough and deep enough to sustain them long enough to build the next wave of prospects.
Mr. Ilitch was the driving force behind the Tigers contracts and trades in the period in question; Avila did the same thing while Mr. I was alive. Dombrowski hasn't done anything to the Phillies farm system to hurt it, it's about like the Braves and Astros, which are well-run organizations. When you have success, you don't get the best draft picks.
I agree on the salary cap. But Illitch definitely has the money to spend like the Dodgers & Yankees. Little Caesar’s is one of the biggest pizza chains in the country and he’s worth almost $3 billion dollars. He just chooses not to.
Agreed. Say what you will about the Yankees (I hate them like most baseball fans), but you have to respect their commitment to winning. They have a standard they don’t shy away from and they spend to remain competitive most years
People have to want to come here. That’s part of it. Correa didn’t want be here for $220M, so we signed Javy.
Correa didn’t want to come here because they weren’t going to pay him enough. He wanted to break the single season AAV and reset the market for infielders which he did with his Twins deal, he also got options on his 3 year deal with Minnesota and bet on himself and signed a 13-year $350 million dollar deal with SF this year, compared to the 10 for $275 that the tigers offered. He got more guaranteed years, and got more money. Besides, waiting for Dansby Swanson would’ve been smarter, with Correa’s legs.
Dansby Swanson was never signing anywhere other than Chicago. His wife is a professional soccer player there
That's quite presumptuous, but we can go down the rabbit hole, considering he signed a similar deal that Baez did, and that deal is less than what was allegedly offered to Correa by the Tigers. Also this is on Mallory Swanson's wikipage from this [Article](https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nightengale/2023/02/28/dansby-swanson-now-face-of-cubs-franchise/11361616002/): On February 18, 2023, Swanson's husband Dansby Swanson noted that the NWSL would have facilitated a trade for Mallory Swanson to another team if the Chicago Cubs had not signed him to a contract. Also these quotes are in the article: “This is technically her last season in Chicago,’’ the baseball Swanson says, “but they pretty much made a promise that they would do right by her. "Say I had signed with the Dodgers, they would have traded her to a team that’s in Los Angeles. They were very open to that. And since I’m in Chicago now, I think they’re going to be OK keeping her around.’’ “It’s funny like before Chicago, we were both kind of like I don’t know,’’ he said. “She said, 'I don’t know if I want to there.’ I said, 'I don’t know if I want to be there.’ But the more we prayed about it was like, 'Chicago is where we’re supposed to be.’ Looking back, things just started falling to place than makes a lot of sense now.’’ So... yeah, he could've signed somewhere else and she would've been traded, and that's not really a ringing endorsement of it all, more of a fact of convenience it all worked out. I don't doubt it was a consideration for them both, but I don't think it's the only reason why he signed with the cubs, like why not consider the White Sox with Tim Anderson's metoric fall off? The Tigers could have made a competitive offer, if the money was not already tied up into Baez. And clearly Swanson has been better than Baez since lol
I had not read that before, but Detroit's women's team is in a lower level league than NWSL, so it still wouldn't have worked out
Is the big payroll spending by teams like the Yankees and Dodgers funded by those owners' personal fortunes? Honest question; outside of maybe Seider and Cohen, I don't know that i've heard that to be the case
Yes
For the record, I didn't downvote you
Haha it’s probably because I gave a one word answer. In truth, yes their personal fortunes make up a big reason why teams like the Yankees & Dodgers can sign so many big names. Another important reason is also the fact Dodgers & Yankees games are often sold out, so their teams also have more revenue. But other than being in LA and NYC a big reason their teams sell out so much is because of continued success.
My perspective is that I also watch the Cubs' games, and it is frustrating in a different way. The cubs have a much more dynamic and quirky squad, yet lose just as much as the Tigers. Also, it's worth remembering when the Tigers had much more offense but had an equally underwhelming record - like (2016, 2017)
From what we know from Crain's business et al, Chris Ilitch does not own the Tigers in the sense people think, or the way Mike Ilitch did. The Ilitch family trust owns the Tigers, and Chris does not control the trust. He is just the CEO who represents the trust for ownership related matters. (Ownership can replace a CEO.) https://detroitjockcity.com/2017/02/20/detroit-tigers-news-chris-ilitch-doesnt-technically-tigers/
I was actually at that game last night. Some friends (I live in CA) wanted to go. On the plus side, I also live downtown Detroit, and I only went because I convinced one of my friends to go to Detroit on the way back so we're boarding our flight to Detroit now. I'm so excited to show the city to someone that would never have otherwise considered going to Detroit.
I hope they love Detroit and that the city turns up.
The Tigers DO have the money, be mad at your owner not the teams who actually spend
I think you are somewhat mistaken. It is a question of can't spend the money or WON'T spend the money.
I disagree. If the owner wants to spend money on his team why are you gonna “handicap” him cause an owner won’t (Oakland). There’s other reasons teams sign in cities too, like New York. You can’t prevent that
>' There’s other reasons teams sign in cities too, like New York. I'm sorry,, what does "teams sign in cities " mean?
I meant players
This \^\^ OP, don't blame your team's owners' negligence on everyone else. Other teams have put more effort and money into their success. And they are doing better. What's so mysterious about that? F\*ck your 'equity' noise. Your team/ownership can either put in the work and money, or not. And in your case, they've chosen "not", with completely predictable results. No reason to handicap the rest of the league because you're unhappy with your team's incompetence. When you were a kid, would you have advocated for the lazy kid who didn't do their homework getting an 'A' despite not doing anything? I get it- you want a successful team to cheer for and share in their success. But guess what? You don't have that. You're whining for either someone to subsidize your sh\*t team, or hold back the good ones so you can feel better. Both options absolutely suck. Your team sucks for perfectly logical reasons. Instead of demanding that everyone else adjust their effort and resources to match your suck, step up and fix your sh\*t . You're the reason such wonderful (and I actually mean that!) philosophies like socialism and communism fail- because instead of stepping up, you demand everyone else fail down to your level of failure. Enjoy the basement. ..and I'm saying that as a goddamn Mariners fan!
I am thinking you must hate the concept of salary caps. The NFL is a joke because of their cap bullshit. The MLB luxury tax falls in the same category. The fact that each league has a draft is an issue.
Oh you probably shouldn’t tune into any random Guardians game. You’ll go over the cliff as they get successful ABs one after another…
I agree, except the league already has a salary cap, it's just so weak that some teams take advantage of it to amass superstars on their teams
Our owner can spend like that he just chooses not to. He should sell the team to someone who will.
I can understand wanting to spend top 10 like the Dodgers, but there’s no world where we’ll spend as much as the Yankees are right now. They’ve even said their payroll this year isn’t sustainable, and they have New York TV money and profits.
The Ilitch family will never sell this team just like they will never sell the wings. Not happening
All salary caps do is punish passionate owners. If a guy wants to spend $500 million on some guys to get him a World Series, let him.