bearrock

Yeah, MASN numbers are down by almost 50% from their peak days. Manfred has been on record as viewing streaming as the future. Hopefully all road leads to the demise of MASN.

This is going to be an interesting angle too. MASN owes 100 mil each to Nats and the Orioles because they are obligated to pay both teams the same. So Nats are at around net plus 50 mil (100 mil from MASN, mid 20ish percent contribution of 200 mil for their ownership at the time). O's are gonna be at net minus 50 mil (100 mil from MASN, mid 70% ish contribution of 200 mil). So right now, MASN is a decent bit of negative line on the team's annual (if Nats were in the O's shoes, 10 mil per year expenditure would represent about a one-third hit to the annual operating profit). Then we have a similar payout for 2018-2023, and then a new deal for 2024-2029. It actually moves into double whammy territory as Nats rebuild and O's are contending. Nats are entitled to be paid the same as the O's so now Nationals rights fee would have be matched to the contending O's rights fee, assuming that O's will be higher. Now O's are paying the Nats fees based on their performance despite the fact that Nats are not providing the same viewership they did during the contending years. All this to say that Rubinstein or whoever ends up being the new O's owner may end up concluding the whole MASN mess isn't worth the trouble. That it would be better to go their separate ways or focus on an equitable joint venture if the new Nats owner turns out to be Leonsis. I think smaller piece of a regional sports monopoly like Monumental is more valuable than eventual 66 percent of a baseball only MASN.

It never made sense for the Angelos family to sell before Peter Angelos died for capital gains tax reasons alone. His wife would get a step up in basis upon his death. If they owned it jointly, it's half the value that would no longer be subject to capital gains tax. If Angelos owned it mostly on his own, then almost the whole gain since he bought the team would no longer be subject to taxes. At best, a right of first refusal deal like Leonsis with the Pollin family would've been it. Otherwise, they are leaving several hundreds of million dollars on the table in terms of reducing tax liability.

I really would like to have heard whether mass murder of African Americans would have received the same speech into conduct qualifier. Generally not in favor when congress members cuts off the answers. I am generally for free speech on campus. I think it becomes difficult for universities to police ideas and that's also antithetical to ideals of higher learning and academic discourse in my view. But I don't think it's all that difficult to draw a consistent bright line at calling for indiscriminate violence against a particular group. Also, I don't really see a good faith way to distinguish between genocide of Jews, genocide of Arabs, mass murder of blacks, etc. Either they are all acceptable or they are all unacceptable. I also think these presidents were really ill-prepared for the hearing. They didn't think campus protests and the more controversial chants would become an issue? Did they not have discussions and internal preparations honing their positions? I mean it seems like lot of them came out within a day or two after the hearing and universally condemned calling for genocide of Jews. That really shouldn't have been that difficult a question to prep for and answer.

@Fergasun appreciate the transcribing and had a quick question. Did the Harvard president ever get to answer whether calling for mass murder of African Americans at Harvard was protected speech?

I do wonder what Ohtani's AAV will turn out to be and how that effects Soto. I think Harper approached FA with the expectation that he can break AAV and overall value records (turned out to be totally wrong obviously). Neither Soto nor Boras can realistically expect Soto to break Ohtani's AAV. If Ohtani end up getting less than 50 AAV (most commonly discussed high mark I think) and Yankees offer 40 aav or more, that's could be pretty enticing.

Feels like this answer at the hearing would have been much better received by the public

ChatGPT, make me a glamour shot of Jerome Powell

This article goes in depth with the topic and has examples https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/11055/contractual-matters-restructuring-deals/

Feels like Security Council has to hand down crippling sanctions if Venezuela does that. ICJ just issued an injunction not long ago pending final resolution over tye territory dispute. If UN does nothing, might as well close shop on the international courts (may not make much of a real difference quite frankly). Some experts were thinking Maduro is just sabre rattling to drum up support before next year's election (though I thought elections were a sham in Venezuela anyway).

It's not common, but MLB restructures do happen. Union has to approve as well, so typically players don't end up with a worse deal (pay cut would be paired with a player desired release, something like that). I think few instances where Union approved veterans clearly doing a favor for a team by deferring money. Doubt Harper is looking to restructure to a worse deal than what he has now, so the union will allow the restructure if the team and Harper agrees on something.

Yeah, I was agreeing with you. I think most people thought at the time, Harper had to relinquish player options and take lower aav just to beat the total value. Machado got the better deal.

The Royals are on ES?

Didn't Boras make a big deal about how it was Harper who asked for the no opt out at the time? At least that's my recollection.

I need a barf reaction

I mean I get that universities often try to foster an open environment for free exchange of ideas, but feels like they've been willing to draw lines before (what happened to the whole safe space thing?). Harvard code of conduct does say the following If that's gonna be their stance and they are consistent about it, I guess they are free to set up their own rules. But let's say there's a student group calling for lynching of all black people or rape of all women, the university is really gonna do nothing? Why wouldn't calling for genocide of anyone, be they Israeli, Palestinians, whoever, fall under the same category as calling for lynching or rape of any group? Seems like a weird position for the universities.

But that was before they actually won it!!!!

Kinda in the same boat with others. Ordinarily I would want the ethics committee investigation to be over before removal, but in Menendez's case, the evidence of guilt appears so overwhelming that I wouldn't have an issue with booting him asap. And agree with many that no way any criminal conviction should be the threshold for removal. With respect to the due process argument, I don't think we even need to get into whether a duly seated senator's right to continue serving in the Senate triggers the liberty prong because a senate vote to oust him would amply satisfy the due process requirement. Article 1 specifically gives power to the Senate to oust a member by 2/3 vote and leaves the mechanism to the Senate's discretion. A select committee to hold short hearing and recommend expulsion with a full vote would not be so unfair to traditional notions of fairness to trigger constitutional due process issues. It's been done exactly that way before. In any event, the sooner Menendez is no longer a US senator, the better.

The rule is really stupid because it's not even anti-tanking, but based on revenue sharing payor vs. payee. If you are a revenue sharing payee, you are ineligible to have lottery picks in successive years. But in small markets, there's only so much you can do to increase the shared revenue stream, so a small market team could be trying hard and spending money (even at a massive loss to the owner) and still end up being a revenue stream payee. The logic is that if you try hard and build a successful team, you'll increase your revenue stream enough to no longer be a payee, but I don't think meshes with the reality of some of these teams nor does it make sense with the purpose of the draft, which is to give a competitive assistance to a bad team. A flat rule like a team cannot have a top 5 pick in consecutive years would've been better imo.

Just tell him @TradeTheBeal! got too jealous of your new soul mate and you can't see him anymore.

I left a laughing emoji too and I'm ashamed. But I'm even more ashamed to remove it and pretend it didn't happen. Sorry @TheGreatBuzz, damn.... At the risk of eternal damnation, AITA for wondering, even if for a brief moment, whether Howard would back off after that story?

Yeah, I don't think Kim is really available (I think I only saw Bowden speculate, and even that was major waffling). And even if he was, I think SD would look very hard to see if they can acquire MLB ready arms in exchange first. Not saying likely (not even necessarily saying possible, quite frankly). But spitballing in terms how Nats could leverage unused tax space. For the Nats though, I think it's an issue of price. If the price is right (whatever one defines that to be), he'd be a good fit. If he's gonna cost a lot of prospects, then yeah, obviously it's a no.

No way I do Darvish separately. It's purely as a sweetener to get Kim at good to great value. I do think Kim’s value dwarfs his current contract (7 mil per yr), so while 80 mil for two years of Darvish is a massive overpay to say the least, it is somewhat offset by the massive value Kim offers (not near totally. Just somewhat). Now if Kim is willing to tack on a few years for a 5-7 year overall length extension at reasonable AAV (3-5 on top of the current two), that deal would look really enticing imo. Probably unlikely though. Kim is probably chomping at the bits to hit FA. And all of this is in the context that such use of empty cap space is preferable to doing nothing with it (while I readily agree doing nothing with it is preferable to handing out terrible contracts with it). For me, the deal is off if Darvish's contract can't be shortened. That's a necessary assumption underlying it. I actually like that giveaway. Also nice that it's over the entire weekend series. Sounds like a good series to catch a game with the family.

Yeah, that's why I think for it to make sense for the Nats, the actual contract length would have to be shortened to 2 years, rather than shifting around money during the 5 years. Not certain if shortening with same overall money is allowed and how that effects cap calculations, but if it is, it's certainly interesting. If not, sure, I would be against having 39-41 year old Darvish on the cap for 2026-28 at 18 mil per year. It's uncharted territory as far as I know, but I didn't find anything that would specifically bar this practice. As for whether SD still wants Darvish on the roster, I mean if I were them, I would want go dump that contract. I think they have to move on from Soto anyway and by getting rid of the bad backend years from Darvish, they can use that money to look for pitching help. Realistically, hanging onto Darvish at 18 mil per isn't the best way to reconstruct that pitching staff imo. I'm not sure Kim would be gettable without a hefty price in prospects without some creativity like that. Frankly, he might not be gettable at all or SD may find better offers with pitching help coming back. But doesn't hurt to try at least. He certainly would be a very nice 2nd base solution for Nats.

It would be interesting to at least try and see if we can pry Kim from San Diego using their craptacular financial situation and our tax space. Take on bad contracts, but give us Kim dirt cheap, something along those lines. We could take on someone like Darvish, who still has 5 years and more than 80 million left on that deal at age 37 coming off a elbow stress injury. Maybe see if Darvish would be willing to compress that deal into something like over two years so that the money would be off the books as the team moves into contention territory. Compressing contracts is pretty uncharted territory, but I don't believe it's against the rules as long as the union signs off on it. You could even make it more player friendly by front-loading it with a player option for second year (so something like 50 mil this year, 30 mil player option in year 2. If Darvish bounces back and has a great year, he could go shopping for his last contract instead of opting in). While Kim, if he is willing, would be someone I wouldn't mind giving a decent length contract. But I'm sure Rizzo could find some creative uses with the money if he had the budget.