Peeling the Onion

I find it humorous that some of you think I was hiding yesterday after the Ohtani signing was announced. I would urge you not to judge me by your proclivity to hide when you are faced with what you may believe is adversity. First of all, this is baseball… not real life! Nobody died, and nothing terrible happened. The Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani, and that is it. I did not think it would happen because of … well, we will get into that in a moment. But yesterday, in what is a Christmas Tradition for our family, we all attended “A Christmas Carol” at the Indiana Repertory Theater in Indianapolis. My wife’s great-niece, Juniper, was Tiny Tim, and she stole the show. You can see her in this clip:

It turns out that we had no cell service inside (probably by design) and so I only learned of the signing when we came out of the theater at about 5 PM EDT. Then, the whole family came over to our house for a typical Filipino Feast and hung around as we watched the Pacers get shellacked by the Lakers. It was a good day… all around… and family always comes before baseball. However, there are a lot of layers to the Shohei Ohtani Saga, and I will attempt to address them.

Shohei Ohtani and his Agent, Nez Balelo, Were Playing Chess While the Dodgers were Playing Checkers. – On his best day, Scott Boras is a piker compared to these two. Scott Boras’ biggest contract was the Aaron Judge deal for 10 years and $360 MM. Nez Balelo blew that out of the water as he doubled Boras’ Best Deal! $700 Million for 10-Years! Balelo likely even planted the fake story that Ohtani was going to sign with Toronto and used poor JP Hoornstra as his pawn to relay the fake news. Nez knew that the Dodgers were “all in” on Ohtani and would pay “anything” for him, so he drove up the price even higher. It might have even been by $200 MM – we may find out someday.

Scott Boras negotiates in the media, while Nez Balelo is cloaked in secrecy! Boras can learn a thing or two from Balelo! Nez is the new King of Agents – Period! He out-negotiated the entire Dodgers’ front office. Game – Set – and Match!

The Dodger’s ownership did not care what they had to pay for the team when they bought it. A $2.1 Billion Investment made no sense on paper at the time. However, they knew that they had a brand that was iconic and would grow exponentially over time. They also know that baseball is becoming an International Game and that they need some diversity as they grow it around the globe. Do not be surprised if the Dodgers also WAY overpay for Yamamoto, Imagana, and Lee!

Yes, I understand the time value of deferred money, and the Dodgers will likely make the same kind of deals with the aforementioned players. They will do this because it will enable them to sell the team to International Investors for as much as $10 to $15 Billion in the next couple of years. They are poised to take the team to the highest valuation of any sports team – EVER! You will not hear about this right away, but it will happen soon enough.

Andrew Friedman did not Approve this Deal. This deal was driven by the front office types who do not run the baseball side of things. From a baseball standpoint, this deal is flat-out felony stupid! However, the deal is not about baseball as much as it is about getting a huge evaluation of the Dodgers. Guggenheim and Company are, first and foremost, and always, businessmen who seek to maximize their investment. That’s a fact of life.

This deal was driven by Mark Walter, Stan Kasten, and a cadre of lawyers and international marketing specialists. I wonder what impact it will have on Andrew Friedman’s relationship with the front office. Baseball has changed immensely and will continue to change. Under Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers have had the best record in baseball. They should have won two World Series but were cheated out of one. The playoffs have become a crapshoot as evidenced by what happened last season. I wonder how all of this will go down with Friedman?

What is Good for the Dodgers’ Owners, may not be good for Baseball. – According to Sportico, the average MLB team is worth $2.36 billion, according to data compiled by Sportico. The New York Yankees rank first at $7.13 billion, while the Miami Marlins rank last at $1.07 billion. The value of the Free Agents signed by the Dodgers this season could be larger than the entire valuation of the Marins, Rays, Royals, Pirates, Athletics, and Diamondbacks! For baseball to survive and even thrive internationally, it is going to take some type of salary cap. What that looks like, I cannot tell you. The Dodgers’ current valuation is $5.24 Billion. It will likely double in the next two or three years.

We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know. – We don’t know how healthy Ohtani will be. What if he never pitches again? That is a distinct possibility! What if he has chronic injuries? What if teammates are jealous of him? I simply cannot predict what will happen. Some of it could be quite good, and some could be predictably bad! There are more layers to this onion and we will peel them away as they become apparent.

Future Value

I recently started reading this book and am about halfway through it. At this juncture, I have to say that it is the most fascinating and informative book on baseball that I have ever read.

On Amazon, it describes the book like this:

An unprecedented look inside the world of baseball scouting and evaluation from Fangraphs’ lead prospect analysts

For the modern major league team, player evaluation is a complex, multi-pronged, high-tech pursuit. But far from becoming obsolete in this environment⁠—as Michael Lewis’ Moneyball once forecast⁠—the role of the scout in today’s game has evolved and even expanded. Rather than being the antithesis of a data-driven approach, scouting now represents an essential analytical component in a team’s arsenal. 

Future Value is a thorough dive into the world of the contemporary scout—a world with its own language, methods, metrics, and madness. From rural high schools to elite amateur showcases, from the back fields of spring training to major league draft rooms, FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel break down the key systems and techniques used to assess talent. It’s a process that has moved beyond the quintessential stopwatches and radar guns to include statistical models, countless measurable indicators, and a broader international reach. Practical and probing, discussing wide-ranging topics from tool grades to front office politics, this is an illuminating exploration of how to watch baseball and see the future.

by Eric Longenhagen (Author), Kiley McDaniel (Author), Keith Law (Foreword)

This book will forever change your ideas of how baseball works behind the scenes and what roles scouting and analytics play. Hint: You can’t do without either one, and arguing that one is better than the other is absurd!

You can find the book on Amazon or eBay. I very much recommend it to any baseball fan.