RedRamage

I don't there is any reasonable trade that would make the Tigers better this year... but that still doesn't mean a trade might not be the best option for the team. I'd be okay with them trading Skubal if it's the right deal... Heck, I even wanted a trade before. I just didn't want to see his last year (more or less) wasted in Detroit and then watch him walk away for nothing. Now with Valdez signed I'm at least a little more hopeful that we can make some waves in 2026 so I'm not quite on the trade him bandwagon.

Which always made me wonder why the Tigers didn't file at the 19.8 they offered or even bump it up to 20 or 21M. That pushes the line upwards and would make it more likely the arbitrator rules for the team. As @oblong pointed out, they don't need to file for $1 more than they think they can win at, so maybe they're just really confident the can win at $19M. It's just frustrating to me as a fan that there's this whole huge dynamic behind it in terms of how this will shape negotiations and labor deals and whatever beyond simply a guy I root for and the team I root for.

Steaming is way things are headed and as more and more people have grown up on that it will be accepted, and I have no problem with getting my baseball that way. My problem with Bally Sports/FanDuel (and probably with it through MLB as well) is the price point. When regional sports fees were in the $10 range they came out at $20 per month. That just seemed expensive.

I kinda had the same thought... I suppose it depends on how the front office handles this. If the FO is thinking: "Well, we'd got these two guys, so we're set... no need to look at FA for that area." Then it's potentially a problem. But if it's more of: "We're gonna upgrade here, but we're keep these guys are depth or worst-case senario if we can't get the FA we want." In that case I'm not as concerned.

Toll is actually the right word here. I figured it was a typo at first but when reading the story 'toll' is used multiple times and even when quoting the NFL rule book, so I looked it up. Tolling, as a legal principle, basically refers to pausing normal rules regarding time limits. https://thelawdictionary.org/article/legal-definition-of-tolling-agreement/

I don't know that I'm bothered by it, but I do think it's a bit unusual and brings up some conflict of interest issues. From the announcer side: If he's part owner of a team, can we expect him to be fully bias free when evaluating players, teams, and refs? Would not you expect him to be biased towards his team? Would you not expect him to have, in the back of his mind, questions about being to critical of the league or refs with the concern that it might blow back on the league or refs handle his team? Now in the end this is small potatoes. Anyone who puts too much stock in opinions of a color commentator runs the risk of doing something monumentally stupid... like hiring a color commentator as a GM or something. But at the same time it will influence public opinion to a degree and if that commentator has biases that's a conflict of interest. From the owner side: If he's privy to information that's would not normally be shared with other owners, that's information that could lead to an unfair advantage to his team. My understanding is that he's restricted from some of the show prep where teams tell the announcers some of their game planning so that the announcers can call a better game, so I'm not sure how much info he actually may have access too, but again, this could be a conflict of interest issue where he's not as prepared as an announcer and/or getting extra info other owners don't have access to. Let me just restate that this is a minor thing for me. I don't think it's a major big deal, but I can see why some people might be a little uncomfortable with the arrangement.

True, but saying that one team spends a lot without winning isn't evidence that having the extensive funds to purchase talent doesn't give an advantage. In the last six years, yes they have. Between 2001-2019 they've always been in the bottom half, and usually in the mid or low 20s. Regardless, the point here isn't that small markets can't spend more... they can and should be spending more! Rather the small market teams can't equal the amount the major market teams spend consistently. And what handouts are being given to them with the luxury tax aren't controlled in anyway to force them to use that to better their team. Are you saying these are small market teams that also spend? Honestly not sure if I'm understanding that right. If I am I'll run the numbers over the last 25 years for them as well. (For the record I don't consider Detroit really a small market.) My argument is that it's not that simple. I would agree that that is PART of the problem, yes, definitely. But only part. If you and I have a competition to see who can sell more magazine subscriptions but I'm allowed to talk to 10,000 people and you're only allowed to talk to 1,000 people, I'm probably going to sell more subscriptions, even if your sales pitch is better.

I'm assuming your "why?" is in regards to my final statement: Now, imho that range, even at the best of times when it was around 30%, is WAAAAYYYY too big of a gap. What I'm saying here is that I don't think it's good for the league in general if there's big of a discrepancy between the high and low team payroll. I don't think good long term for fans when a number of teams are so very, very far below the others in payroll. It would be more interesting for the league, imho, if the teams were at least closer in terms of competitiveness. (And no, higher payroll does not automatically mean more even talent and more competitiveness, but it does go a long way towards that.) Please two things here: 1. I am NOT saying that baseball players are getting too much money and owners should pay them less. 2. I am NOT saying that the big spenders are the only problem.

Just for the fun of it, while I was looking at those numbers for my previous post, I also looked at the lowest MLB payroll as a percentage of the highest: I expected to see much more of a downward trend, but it it looks like it's stay semi-consistent. I mean, obviously there's a lot of fluctuation year to year, but for the past 25 years, with a few exceptions, it's always been between 10 and 30%. Now, imho that range, even at the best of times when it was around 30%, is WAAAAYYYY too big of a gap.

Obviously this is subjective based on what you want a league to look like or how it should function. To me it's broken. It's become a pay to win league. If you have more money coming in you can buy the best players and you're more likely to win. Some of that "more money" is because you're putting a better product out there and so you get more fans. But a large part is also that major cities have more people so even if a smaller percentage in general are fans, you still have much more money coming in. On the flip side, way too many small market teams aren't even trying, and that's just as bad, if not worse. For the fun of it I looked at the last 25 years of World Series. I checked the two teams that made it and where their payroll ranked for that year using this site: https://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm Over the last 25 years, of the 50 participates, 38 of the teams were in the upper half of payroll for the year they made it to the WS. 15 of those 38 were in the top 5. Only 12 out of 50 of the teams were in the lower half of payroll in the year they appeared. Only 1 time in the last 25 years have we had a WS that featured two teams that were BOTH on the lower half of payroll.

Another thought I had. I'm not sure I like the idea of lost draft picks being a penalty. I'd rather see it as a financial hit for a few reasons. And I know you did mention financial penalties in various forms as well, I'm just saying here that I don't want to see draft picks as a penalty at all, because I think this won't matter as much to the small markets that aren't interested in spending, nor to the big markets who have plenty to spend. If I'm small market owner who doesn't care about being competitive as much as just making money, what do I care if I get dinged draft picks? I'll just keep complaining that I don't get enough revenue so I can't afford to meet the floor and now it's even worse because they're taking away draft picks from me, making my product even worse, so less revenue, less I can spend, etc. etc. etc. If I'm a big market owner who's already using the small markets are a sort of minor league system and then just buying up all the big names when they become FAs, what do I care if I get dinged draft picks? Now, I'd prefer to get my own home grown stars as it's cheaper, but given how few draft picks ever become star MLB players, am I really going to be THAT upset? Will I actually NOT pay extra to get that big name FA because I'll lose a pick or three when that draftee has like a 1:100 shot of even making it to the majors, let alone being a star player?

Two modifications I'd make here... and one crazy idea that I'd be interested in hearing feedback on: For the floor I'd be willing to look at a teams average over the last two or three seasons. What I mean is if their payroll in (2024 + 2025 + 2026) / 3 is over the floor, then they aren't punished. This gives a bit of flexibility in if it's just an off year for a team. Or maybe they were hoping to land big name free agent A, who instead went to a different team... now they have to pay free agent B more than they (or anyone else) normally would or they'll be under the floor. For the cap I guess I'd be okay with going over as long as the penalties scale exponentially. I mean we have the luxury tax right now and teams regular blow WAY past it. There's two teams that are spending more beyond the luxury tax than two other teams are spending period on payroll. The penalties need to scale up sharply as team go more and more over the cap. Here's my crazy idea: If a team is under the floor, they fined the amount they are under, and that fined money is give to the players on that team. This would mean there is zero benefit to the owner to be under the floor as they're going to be paying that money anyway.

I totally agree. A floor is obviously one way to force them to do this, but I'm unsure of other ways to encourage it. Any bright ideas? (Not that MLB really cares about us discussing it in a sports forum... at least now that Dumbrowski isn't a member of the Tigers organization.)

I think it's also a bad sign that Belichick's coaching tree is pretty much non-existent. By itself this isn't evidence that he was or wasn't a bad coach, but I think it does add some weight to the claim that Belichick is over-rated. It obviously isn't a HC's job to train new HCs, so this a small bit of evidence. But It seems like a guy who is touted by some as a Generational HC would have at least some of that knowledge rub off on his assistants.

If they setup a cap/floor, I think there's actually a pretty good way to do this. It's actually and idea I had many years ago with the NFL, and it's pretty simple: For every consecutive year that a player is with a team, 5% of their AAV is not charges against the team's Salary Cap. For a very simplistic example: The Tigers sign a player to a 5 year, 10,000,000 contract. It doesn't matter how much is paid each year, the average is $2M per year, so that players contract would normally charge $2M against the cap. Therefore: In 2026 the cap hit for this player is $2M In 2027 the cap hit is $1.9M ($2M - 5% for one year) In 2028 the cap hit is $1.8M ($2M - 10% for two years) In 2029 the cap hit is $1.7M In 2030 the cap hit is $1.6M Now in 2031 that player is a free agent and the Yankees come in and offer him a 1 year deal for $3M. That would cost the Yanks $3M against their cap for that year. But the Tigers could look at that and counter with $3.5M know that this would only hit $2.625M towards their cap. The percentage off could be adjust to see what makes the most sense of course. And also, of course, this only works in a cap/floor situation where teams have at least similar resources to spend enough towards the caps.

RE: Write off for signing players: While I like the idea of incentivizing teams signing their players long term, I don't see that this change the math much, except for the big boy teams. In some ways it only helps the big teams stay big. If you're a small team that isn't interested in spending big money, this does nothing for you. You're not going to spend big anyway, so who cares? If you're a middle of the road team, you're probably not butting up too much on the luxury tax, so there isn't a huge benefit here. You might have 1 to 4 teams that could look at this and say: "Yeah, we want to sign player X to a contract, but that puts us over the cap, so we're not going too because can't afford the contract AND paying the tax." If you're a big market team, now there's more incentive to sign your players long term, sure... but that just gives you more money under the tax so you have even more funds to spend on other FA. This plan doesn't provide funding for small market teams and it also doesn't provide incentive (or force) those teams to spend more. It does help Big market teams lower their tax burden. RE: Trading "cap space" for players/picks: This at least gives some resources to smaller market teams, but I fear it will only be a smallish help. It might allow the Rays (in the example provided) get more talent into their club, but it isn't going to provide them the revenue to retain those players, especially as we've given the big markets yet another way to avoid tax payments, which means they have more funds to spend on FA again. TL;DR: It's an interesting approach I guess and might help in a few specific areas, but I fear it also exacerbates the existing issue of Big Market out spending the small markets while the small markets have no incentive to actually try to gets better or spend more on their roster.

I don't disagree. But if the argument is that Belichick is a generational HC, why is his record so poor when he doesn't have Brady as his starting QB? If the argument is that Belichick made Brady much better than Brady would have been with anyone else why wasn't he able to elevate any of the other QBs he had? Let's compare Belichick to Reid a moment. I think Reid also benefits from having Mahomes as a QB. Like Belichick, Reid never won a SB before he got Mahomes as his QB. But, unlike Belichick, Reid had substantial success outside of his time as Mahomes' HC. From 2000-2009 in Philly he made the playoffs every year but two, getting to the SB once. This was with McNabb as his QB. From 2013-2017 in KC he only missed the playoffs once with Smith as his QB. Reid has won 11 post season games without Mahomes. Again, this isn't a totally fair comparison because no one is going to say that Vinny Testaverde is the equivalent of McNabb. So Reid had better QBs to work with than Belichick. Now, as much as I do love beating a dead horse, I'll state again that I don't think Belichick should be considered a bad coach nor do I think he shouldn't be in the HOF. I just think his rep as the Greatest HC of this Generation is skewed by him having the greatest QB of... maybe ever?

I would agree that he belongs in the HOF. While I think there is plenty of evidence that Belichick would not have had the success that he did without Brady, he still did have the success and it's impossible to prove how much of that was or wasn't Brady... or how much of Brady's success was or wasn't Belichick. Plus, even if we say that Brady was the major driving force, Belichick was still the coach and GM who was acquiring the talent to put around Brady and making sure it all worked harmoniously. As you say: Ultimately the results are what matters and no coach has more SB rings than him. He belongs in the hall even if I might want to argue that he shouldn't be lauded as much as he is.

Yeah, maybe he could have. But I don't think we're talking about Belichick as the "Greatest Coach of this Generation" if he hadn't lined up with Brady.

He quite possibly should get some credit for Brady. How much will be eternally debatable of course. Did Belichick find the perfect way to use Brady's talent? Did he discover the perfect way to unlock his mental state to so Brady could really understand the NFL game? Would Brady has been nothing more than a Journeyman QB in the NFL without Belichick? It's certainly possible that we could answer all of those with a yes. But, what we don't see is Belichick doing this with any other QB. We see Brady take over for an injured Bledsoe and go on an amazing run that continued for decades and two years after Brady left NE. From the other side we see: '91 Browns QB Kosar has a "meh" season. '92 Browns QB Tomczak has a "meh" season. '93-'95 Browns QB Testaverde has three "meh" seasons. (Testaverde would have two pro-Bowl seasons after leaving Cleveland, so had at least some skills.) '00 Pats QB Bledsoe has a "meh" season. Bledsoe has three previous pro-Bowl seasons before Belichick was hired in NE and one pro-Bowl season after Bledsoe left NE, so again... at least some level of talent. '08 Pats QB Cassel had a good season. '20 Pats QB Newton had a bad season (tail end of Newton's career, so not unexpected) '21-'23 Pats QB Jones has one good season followed by two bad. So what does this tell us? Again, it's very hard to say how much of this was Belichick wasn't a good coach and how much was the QBs in question weren't good QBs. What I think we can glean from this is that with the exception of one year of Mac Jones and one year of Cassel, Belichick was unable to get any other QB to perform anywhere near the level of Brady. So even if we want to credit Belichick with unlocking Brady's greatness it's clear that Belichick could only do this with one QB. Maybe Belichick stumbled on the perfect way to mold Brady, but if he did he's been unable to replicate that trick with any of the other QBs he's worked with.

Quite possibly, yeah. But would he be considered a HOF coach if he had a good run in New England with a couple of SB victories? Would many people be calling it a snub if that coach wasn't voted in on the first ballot? Would people be calling that coach the best coach of this generation? Again, I don't want to say that w/o Brady Belichick would be nothing. I was already a HC before Brady with two different teams, so he obviously has some level of talent. You don't get two shots as a HC without knowing your stuff. You also have to factor in that his first 4 years as a HC was in Cleveland, which would be like being a Lions HC pre-Campbell. So I'm not arguing that Belichick would have been utter trash without Brady. Rather, I'm arguing that Belichick would probably have been just another NFL HC. Some success, some failure, eventually retires, maybe becomes a talking head on a major network. I think Belichick is more like a Bill Cowher type of coach and less like a George Halas.

I still think that Brady made Belichick. I've always maintained that football is the most inter-connected of team sports. A good secondary makes a DL look better, a good defense makes the offense look better, etc. etc. etc. So it's not perfectly fair to really just pull out the QB and say change differences are purely because the QB is now gone. Having said that... I'm going to do just that. But I'm acknowledging up front that there will be other factors and we can't say Brady vs. no Brady is the ONLY reason. Still, given the huge difference here I think it's okay to say it was a big reason. Belichick w/o Brady: 83-104, 1 playoff win Belichick w Brady: 249-75, multiple super bowls

I remain skeptical. I feel like with the big business that the NFL is today that there isn't the room for racism that they may be have been in the 80s or 90s. Teams want to win and I don't think there's the need for interviews to "discover" candidates. I mean look at Blough, for example. He's a guy with very little coaching experience and yet multiple teams were interested in him for an OC position. How did they know about him if he never interviewed for an OC job before? I dunno. I by NO MEANS trying to say that minorities don't face discrimination nor am I saying that there isn't some level of racism in the NFL. IT's also easy as a white guy to sit back and say the Rooney Rule doesn't really do anything. I just feel if I was a minority coach who got interviews part of me would always wonder if they seriously wanted to interview me or if I was just helping them check a box. Still maybe if I really WAS a minority my outlook would be different.

That's a very valid point and I shouldn't be so quick to dismiss that he never faced any discrimination just because I didn't think he was bi-racial.

I dunno... I will say that I do think they've improved the rule in applying to to coordinators and to requiring it be out of team individuals. It's better than when it seemed like Dennis Green was getting interviewed for every HC job out there without ever being a serious candidate. But I still think the rule is flawed. Maybe it's better to have a flawed rule than no rule, but I can imagine there are more situations like what we say with the Giants in 2022. You interview a candidate, who's white... you're blown away and you want to hire him, but you haven't interviewed any minorities yet. You can't officially hire him, but you also don't want to let him go and get hired by someone else, so you essentially tell him the job is his, then you interview minorities with no intention of hiring them. I wonder if it's possible to have some sort of "waiting period" where no new hires can be made? There's potential issues there too, but maybe it solves more problems than it creates? Honestly I much prefer the reward system where teams get draft benefits for developing minority coaches and executives, vs. the punishment system where teams are required to check a box to avoid fines.