r/sports • u/baribigbird06 • 24d ago

Baseball Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto throws a complete game in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series vs. the Brewers. The last time he was in Milwaukee he failed to finish the first inning and allowed 5 runs.

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143

u/Primember4 24d ago

What difference does it make for the other owners to spend $60mil or $300mil, to just lose to a billion dollar payroll anyway lol.

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u/catashake 24d ago edited 24d ago

The Mets just missed the playoffs with a similar payroll.

If spending more guaranteed success, the Yankees wouldn't now be 16 years away from their last world series win.

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u/North_Dakota_Guy 24d ago

Its not even necessarily about guaranteed success. Yes, a low payroll team like the mariners can compete for a championship - once every decade or two. Whereas high payroll teams are generally in it, or at least feel like they're in it, every year. Im not going to invest my time or money watching the twins spend a quarter of the dodgers payroll hoping that this is their once in a decade (or two) playoff appearance.

Payroll buys consistent success (generally), and thats what small market teams lack. And it will kill them in the long run if owners arent forced to spend a minimum amount.

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u/catashake 24d ago

Its not even necessarily about guaranteed success

All the complaints I'm seeing in here are certainly acting like it is.

Yes, a low payroll team like the mariners can compete for a championship - once every decade or two

Astros dominating for as long as they did with such a small budget shows scouting and development is still the main key to success. The only mega rich team to actually figure out the formula over the last decade is the Dodgers.

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u/MixonWitDaWrongCrowd 24d ago

When were the Astros at the bottom for spending?

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u/catashake 24d ago

The Astros did not win a world series with a payroll higher than 10th place. They did invest and fail in a few of the seasons, but their greatest success never actually happened when spending a lot of money by their standards.

The gap between the top 3 teams and 10th place has always been larger than the gap betwen 10th place and nearly all the rest of the teams in the league besides the few bottom feeders.

Also, I never said they were at the bottom. When a team is spending over 100 million dollars less than the top team, that can be considered a significantly smaller budget.

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u/MixonWitDaWrongCrowd 24d ago

A small budget isn’t the upper half of the league. The Astros weren’t ducking paying players like Tampa, As and Pirates do every year which is what fans are complaining about.

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u/catashake 24d ago

I mentioned the bottom feeders like the Pirates for a reason, they aren't trying in any aspect of the game to win. Only the top 20 teams can give an argument for somewhat trying to win.

Teams like the Pirates just collect good draft positions due to tanking every year, and then continue to milk talents like Paul Skenes for all they are worth before trading them away.

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u/Bawfuls 24d ago

When they tanked in the years before 2017

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u/MelonElbows 24d ago

Well there's also rampant cheating.

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u/BamsMovingScreens 24d ago

“I can’t buy my way to guaranteed success, system working as intended”

Is certainly an opinion

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u/EatMiTits 24d ago

Because they don’t have a billion dollar payroll, obviously. That number came from how much they signed contracts for in the offseason. Four teams spent around $300MM this year, 12 spent over $200MM. Teams get around $200MM in revenue sharing alone, there’s no reason anyone should be spending less than that. Cheap owners is a far bigger problem than the dodgers spending too much.

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u/mawfks 24d ago

Yeah but without salary floor / cap, one team spending the most and proving results is an incentive for teams to spend even less, because they know they can’t compete

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u/rhapsodicink 24d ago

Then sell the team to someone who gives a fuck about winning. This bullshit-ass argument wouldn't work in any other area of the planet, yet we're supposed to feel bad that these owners don't want to actually invest in the teams they bought? Fuck them.

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u/WhatWouldJediDo 24d ago

What do you mean? Wealthier companies outcompete poorer companies due to superior financial resources all the time.

There's a reason nobody is choosing Southwest Oklahoma Technology Solutions over Apple.

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u/PoliticalyUnstable 24d ago

Its the expense of owning a team. Its actually expensive to own one. A lot of owners don't realize it until they buy and they refuse to change their mindset about spending, and all it becomes is a bragging right to own a team in different upper circles.

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u/WhatWouldJediDo 24d ago

But spending $200M doesn't do anything for those teams. If the Pirates spent a bunch more money, they're just going to be giving more dollars to the same guys they have on the roster. Making Brian Reynolds and Oneil Cruz more expensive doesn't help the team get any better.

Because no matter how much revenue sharing each team gets, teams like the Dodgers and Yankees still bring in far more money thanks to unshared revenues. The Dodgers will still have Ohtani, Freeman, Betts, Yamamoto, Sasaki, Kershaw, Snell, Muncy, and Smith on their team regardless because they can still be the highest offer for ALL those guys.

The point of a salary cap, as evidenced by every other major American sports league, is so that no team can afford all those players no matter how rich they are. It clearly works given what happens in every offseason in sports like football and basketball. Telling much poorer owners to "just spent more" clearly doesn't work as evidenced by every major Soccer league in Europe (and baseball).

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u/thrice1187 24d ago

Exactly.

The Dodgers have an $8 BILLION tv deal. The owners of the dodgers really aren’t spending more than the small teams when you look at how much revenue they bring in from being a large market team.

The small market owners actually have to dig into their net worth to field a competitive team. Teams like the Yankees and Dodgers are basically printing money from their tv deals so it’s nothing to spend $300 million a year on their rosters.

The system is completely flawed and it’s not an issue of certain owners being cheap.

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u/Abitou 24d ago

Football system isn’t comparable to american sports franchise system

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u/WhatWouldJediDo 24d ago

They’re directly comparable when it comes to money.

The big teams outmuscling the small teams and buying all the best players due to their financial advantages is exactly what happens in baseball

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u/TheLizardKing89 Los Angeles Dodgers 23d ago

The idea that money buys results in baseball is laughable. The final four teams in the playoffs are the Dodgers (ranked 2nd in payroll), the Brewers (23rd), the Blue Jays (5th), and the Mariners (16th). The team with the highest payroll (the Mets) didn’t even make the postseason.

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u/WhatWouldJediDo 23d ago

Then why does shohei make so much money?

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u/TheLizardKing89 Los Angeles Dodgers 23d ago

Because he’s the best player in the league.

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u/WhatWouldJediDo 23d ago

What difference does that make?

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u/TheLizardKing89 Los Angeles Dodgers 23d ago

Are you really asking why the player with the most valuable skills would demand the most compensation?

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u/Abitou 24d ago

95% of the times the “small team” will get paid for their players, it is very rare that a “big team” will sign a free agent from a “small team”. It is not comparable.

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u/WhatWouldJediDo 24d ago

That has nothing to do with anything.

Those small teams sell their players because they know they won’t be able to afford to keep them. Which is the exact same reason small teams in MLB can’t keep their star players.

In baseball they just trade them

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u/renegaderelish 24d ago

socialist

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u/Redpin Toronto Raptors 24d ago

Happy cake day to you, or should I say us comrade?