Trades, Trades, Trades, and Capitalism. - Marty K’s Unfiltered Sports Takes Episode 2

Trades, Trades, Trades, and Capitalism.  - Marty K’s Unfiltered Sports Takes Episode 2

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Welcome to Marty K's Unfiltered Sports Takes, where opinions and facts intersect. This is yours truly, Marty Kaiser. Be there. Happy Tuesday, everyone. This is Marty Kaiser with our second episode of Marty Kaiser's Unfiltered Sports Takes. Hope everyone had a great weekend and is ready to rock and roll this week. Got a couple really interesting topics to go over, and I'm looking forward to giving some excellent information. The first thing I wanted to go over was baseball's trading deadline actually ended last evening at 6 p.m. So as you can imagine, there was a lot of wheeling and dealing going on. This year was a very active trading deadline. For those of you that haven't followed the trading deadlines that that much in the past, they've increasingly gotten more popular because a lot of the benchmarks are how many teams are in playoff contention. And so some years, all the teams that are close to having a chance for the playoffs will be active in trying to acquire new talent. Other years, teams that are sort of close decide to be sellers and not buyers. Sellers means that they trade off some of their veteran players to accumulate younger prospects or future talent. So it really just depends. And this particular trading deadline was no exception. Let me go over a few things with the trend with the deadline. Let me go over some of the bigger moves and who I consider, in my opinion, the winners in the trading deadline. Definitely the biggest winners were the Los Angeles Dodgers. They acquired Tarek Scuble, who was by far the top player that was dealt over the past deadline. And Scoobyl, arguably, if not the best pitcher in baseball, is one of the top three, but he's he's been tremendous the past few years, and he's just entering his prime years. He's 29 years old, so he should have, at the very least, three to five top years, assuming that he doesn't have any serious arm injuries. He was acquired by the Dodgers from the Detroit Tigers. The Detroit Tigers are one of the teams that I mentioned in my introduction. They were only about two or three games out of the wildcard chase, but they chose to be sellers in this particular go-round, not buyers. Can't really tell you why they decided that. I guess they felt that their roster as constructed was just not going to make a big run this year. And I think the biggest reason was with Scoobyl, they felt they were going to lose him as he will become a free agent after this year. And I just I guess they just didn't feel they could afford to pay him or didn't want to pay him. So that was their reason for dealing him and a couple other players that they got rid of. They traded him to the Dodgers for three of the Dodgers prospects. Most folks that are experts in the prospect field feel that they got some pretty good prospects, but that they possibly could have gotten better because it didn't really weaken the Dodgers at all, and it wasn't the Dodgers' premium prospects. They were good solid prospects, but not the premium prospects. So what did the Dodgers get? Well, they got the best pitcher, and they didn't really give up anything that's going to weaken them. So it's kind of the old adage: the rich get richer and the have nots stay have nots. Now there's been a lot of conjecture about the Dodgers, a lot of jealousy for a couple reasons. Number one, the Dodgers have been the most dominant uh baseball franchise over the past three to four years, and they've outspent everybody. So a lot of the fans and competing teams feel it's not a level playing field, and this is one of the reasons why they're using that Major League Baseball wants to institute a salary cap uh in 2027. So it's conjectured by most parties that because of this proposed salary cap, Major League Baseball is gonna go on strike because the players simply are not gonna agree to a cap. It's like a major reform in the way that sports are conducted, and a cap really limits not only what teams can uh pay out, obviously, but how much the top players are gonna make. It's really a huge change. And if they do put a salary cap in, how are they gonna implement it? Because some of the higher paying teams, of course, the Dodgers and then the New York Mets are the two highest paid teams this year. Are they gonna have time to implement this over a period of years? Because if they put a firm cap that's gonna kick in sooner rather than later, these teams just won't be able to function properly. They just have to dump players. So it's gonna be interesting to see how they do that, if if a salary cap, in fact, comes into play. And the Dodgers have been more creative, so they've paid some of these big contracts and they they've paid them off more like annuities. So they put money in an escrow account, but for players like Sohei Otani and a couple other players they have, a lot of these salaries uh are not coming due for years. For the time being, they're paying these players just fairly moderate salaries, and then they're investing their money and accumulating it's kind of the uh the rollover effect. So when you when you put a dollar away and you don't do anything to it, 10 or 20 years from now it's worth far more than that. And that's kind of what the Dodgers have done. And the players willingly agreed to this, but it was a creative method not utilized much by teams in the past. So it should be very interesting. I think at the very least, baseball's gonna get delayed in 2027, because this is gonna be uh just a brutal battle. The players have a lot to lose, and the owners have a lot to gain. Um I know the average fan's gonna have an opinion on this, but it's kind of like who do you root for? The the billionaires or the millionaires. Uh a lot of these owners in baseball are billionaires, and they own these teams for really two reasons. Number one, it's an ego trip. A lot of these owners are sports fans. Uh, and number two, it's future value accumulation. Most of these teams don't generate uh significant operating profits during the years that they own, but when the teams go to sell, uh the value of the teams just goes up astronomically. Um, you know, for example, there's been some franchises recently in like basketball and football that have sold for uh seven to ten billion dollars, and they were purchased by their current teams 10, 20 years ago for way less than that. I mean, the the amount of value that these franchises gained is just incomprehensible. And it's hard to feel for the players too, because these players are are making multi-million dollar contracts. Some of the top salaries in baseball now are multi-year contracts where the players are getting upwards of 30, 40, even 50 million dollars a year. And those are just salaries. That's not counting all the endorsement revenue and ancillary income that players generate. I'm all for when it comes to uh free markets, you know, the capitalistic approach. You should be able to make as much money as you can as long as you're doing it legally. Uh, but it's hard to feel sorry for either party. So it's gonna be really interesting, but you definitely should follow that. I'm sure it's gonna be as we get into the baseball offseason, which starts in the latter part of October, this is gonna be a huge topic on uh not only on sports media, but on all these different podcasts you hear, ESPN, etc. And I'm sure you're gonna get bored hearing it, but you'll you will hear different takes. I'm sure some of the commentators are gonna feel that the owners have a right to do this. Other commentators are gonna feel that it's a free market and the players should generate as much income as they can. So we'll just have to wait and see for that. I am gonna come back to this topic in a different format, whether it's at the latter part of this show or in future podcasts, so stay tuned for that. Uh, secondly, let's go over how these trades actually are viewed. Um, every if you go on media today, everybody has a different opinion of which teams benefited and which teams suffered. But here's my chart of the teams that were winning teams in this. By far the biggest winning team, as I mentioned, was the Los Angeles Dodgers. They're definitely a favorite to repeat as the World Series champions. And if they do it, it would be what they call a three-peat. They would have won three in a row. And this hasn't been done in Major League Baseball since the latter part of the 1990s when the New York Yankees were a three-preet in 1996, 97, and 98. And those were the great teams headed by their famous shortstop Derek Jeter. Some other teams that rolled the dice and by a lot of accounts did a great job in terms of strengthening their team, not only for the balance of this year, but hopefully for next year too. The Boston Red Sox. The Boston Red Sox are kind of a very interesting story this year. Up until about six weeks ago or eight weeks ago, they were probably one of the two worst teams in baseball, way underperformed and were just playing terribly. And their um their manager, um, Alex Kora, uh, he was uh terminated by the Red Sox because they had done so bad, even though Cora in previous years was considered one of the better managers of baseball. When a team dramatically underperforms like the Red Sox did, the manager is going to suffer uh the guillotine, so to speak. But all of a sudden the Red Sox got hot. Out of nowhere, they won 15 games in a row, and over the past uh month and a half or so, their records 25-5, uh the best record in baseball. And they've now put themselves not only in uh a good spot to be a wild card team, but they actually have a chance to win the American League East Division that they're in. They're only five and a half games behind the league leading Rays, and they're only about three games behind the New York Yankees. So they're definitely in contention. So they made a couple of huge deals. Um, the biggest deal probably, they they got a catcher named Ashley Rutman from the Baltimore Orioles, and about six or seven years ago, he was the number one player in the Major League Baseball draft or teams draft younger talent, either out of high school or college. So he came out as the number one prospect. And he got called up to the majors fairly rapidly and um did great for the Orioles for a few years, but his play has tailed off a little bit the last couple years. He also suffered some injuries, and the Red Sox were in dire need of catching. Their catching production was just really poor this year. So they traded a number of prospects for him. So that trade by a lot of experts was looked upon as a win-win situation. It really helped the Red Sox, but at the same time, the uh Red Sox gave away a lot of their top future talent. So they think that the Oriol made a good acquisition by trading him. Also, the Orioles have a top catcher that's injured right now, but he's going to be coming up, and he supposedly was the future of catchers for the Orioles anyway, so uh Rutman's value to the Orioles was a lot less than it had been in previous years. So the Red Sox were one team that's looked on favorably. Another team is the hometown team, the Tampa Bay Rays. The Tampa Bay Rays arguably have been the biggest surprise in Major League Baseball, and the team that has performed uh far above their expectation. As I've mentioned in last week's introductory sports podcast, the Rays are a team that has financial issues. They always are very budget conscious, but they've done a great job with analytics and player development. So the Rays really have a chance to go far this year, and so I was curious to see how they were going to do it because they usually don't want to pick up many salaries. So what they did this year is they made three big acquisitions. Uh the first acquisition was they they acquired a starting pitcher called Freddie Peralta from the Mets. Now he arguably was one of the two most sought-after pitchers last year, and he signed as a big um free agent with the New York, or he was in a trade, excuse me, where the New York Mets acquired him from Milwaukee. But he's had a really poor year this year for different technical reasons, and the Mets have been horrible. They've been the the most underperforming team in baseball with the second highest payroll. So they've done a terrible job this year. But so they they dumped a bunch of players, Peralta being the highest profile. So the Rays traded a few of their prospects for them, uh, but none of their prospects were super high prospects. So most experts feel the Rays definitely made the better of the deals between them and the Mets on that. Now, Peralta is somewhat of a gamble for the Rays because he hasn't pitched that well this year, but the Rays have had a habit of maximizing underperforming players like Peralta, tinking with their with their pitching mechanics and coming up with a better strategy on how they should attack hitters. So it's going to be very interesting. From a financial standpoint, the Rays didn't pick up a huge amount of payroll because they're only going to be paying Peralta for another two months or so, and then he's going to be a free agent. So the Rays probably will not re-sign him just because of their budgetary constraints. But he should definitely, hopefully, help them in the stretch run. They also acquired a younger catcher from the Florida Marlins, who's had a really good uh season so far at bat. Um, Hicks is his last name. And the Rays have mediocre catching. That's always been a spot where they've been weak over the years. So Hicks should definitely help them because the Rays are top-heavy right now. They have three tremendous hitters, and then the rest of the hitters are very mediocre. So Hicks should give him a good fourth bat, and he'll probably be primarily used against right-handed pitching, as he's a left-hander, and he's far better against left-handed pitching, uh, I mean, against right-handed pitching than he is against lefties. And one of the Rays catchers they have is an adequate hitter, and he'll typically hit better against left-handers, so they should form an effective platoon. Uh, the Rays also acquired a relief pitcher who should be a good, what I call setup man coming in the seventh or eighth innings, because the Rays do have a top ninth inning closer and Baker. So we'll keep a close eye on the Rays. Some other teams that that strengthened their rosters were the Chicago Cubs. They made a couple of aggressive acquisitions, and the Cubs have a good team, and it should be interesting to see how they do. Another team in their division, who's got a very aggressive management staff and made some very aggressive acquisitions were the Philadelphia Phillies. So the Phillies have definitely uh improved their roster on paper. One of the gambles they're gonna make is since they acquired uh some additional hitting, it's requiring them to shift a couple players around to different positions. So one of the big changes is gonna be one of their star players, Bryce Harper, has played the infield for the last three or four years due to injuries and whatnot. So he's gonna go back to the outfield. So before he got injured, he was a good outfielder, but he hasn't played the outfield really in four years, and now he's 33, 34 years old. So it should be interesting to see how his transition takes place. But I think overall is the Phillies have strengthened themselves. Uh, a couple other teams that have really strengthened themselves are the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates have been one of the most more what we call more a bun franchises the past few years. They've been just a very poor team, low budget team, always out of contention. Well, this year they're they're close to a wild card spot. There are only a couple games out of one. And so they made some aggressive acquisitions, uh, heightened by getting two uh good relief pitchers because their sore spot this year was relief. So it should be interesting to see how the Pirates uh do. And last but not least in the American League are the Cleveland Guardians. They're always a team that's a relatively low budget team, and they usually rely on good pitching and timely hitting, but they don't usually have a lot of top-flight day-to-day players. But they acquired some good players in the um in the trading deadline, so it should be interesting to see how the Guardians do. And last but not least, the most controversial team in the trade deadline is the New York Yankees. The Yankees are always a high-profile team. People either love them or hate them. And they've always been a team that has spent a lot of money, even though the last couple of years they've gotten a little bit more frugal by comparison. So they made a couple of acquisitions that should be interesting. They got a couple of pretty good hitters. The trouble with what they got is both hitters are what I call platoon players. The best acquisition, Walker, is a left-handed hitter who hits far better against right-handers. And he plays at a position where the Yankees have a glut of players at DH and first base. So they're going to have to juggle some players around and see if their fielding suffers. And the other player they got was Ramos from the San Francisco Giants, who's a hitter that's better against left-handers, and will probably be a platoon player in the outfield. The reason the Yankees were so desperate for hitting was they've suffered a lot of injuries. Their superstar Aaron Judge has been out for a while, may or may not be back in September. Giancarlo Stanton, who's a high-profile power hitter, has been out for a long time, may or may not be back by the end of the year. And Corey Bellinger, who is their third best day to day player, recently got injured, and he's going to be out at least another four weeks. So the Yankees desperately needed to get some more bats in their lineup because they do have very quality pitching. So it'll be interesting to see how the Yankees do. The Yankees have had a problem over the Years in that their general manager, Wayne Cashman, has just not done a good job in acquiring what I call table setters, players that get on base a lot. I thought the Yankees were going to make a big move for second baseman Luis Arias, who's a tremendous uh hitter in terms of being on base. But that was another acquisition the Philadelphia Phillies got, which is going to strengthen the Phillies. So that's a little bit about the trades. I could go on and on with that, but there was a lot of teams. There was probably, when you actually go through and review, Major League Baseball has approximately 30 teams, and probably three-fourths of those teams were either trading players or receiving players. So it was a very active trading deadline. And it's always interesting to see. You won't really know how these trades pan out. Part A will be at the end of this year which teams improved with these trades and which teams suffered. And then in the future, over the next few years, how many of these short-term acquisitions will stay with their teams? And then more importantly, for the teams that traded away these guys, how were these prospects they acquired? Are they going to end up being good players? So you can't really give a full grade on that type of thing for another two to three years at the very minimum. But it's always fun if you're a sports fan to kind of follow this stuff. So let's keep a close eye on that. Um the second thing I wanted to go over a little bit today, and I'm gonna set this as a table setter for next uh sports podcast, but I'll also go over this a little bit. Are sports hypocritical in the 21st century? And what I mean by that, it seems like on the surface, what's controlling sports and all the major sports, baseball, football, and basketball, are really three things money, which you can put an exclamation mark on, repeat it, and say that's tied into, of course, our capitalistic way of doing things. Gambling, which is probably the most hypocritical thing, and we're gonna cover that really extensively in our next podcast. And loyalty. There is no loyalty in sports, it's all about money and greed. But of course, you could correlate that to society. If you think about corporate America, what kind of loyalty do companies have to their employees? And because of the way companies treat employees, what kind of loyalty do the employees have to the company? So those are all tied in. I can also equate those to how our government functions, but I'm not gonna get into that because uh talking about governments just uh a losing proposition, are our governments increasingly failing our citizenry. And last but not least are how are these issues gonna play into what I referenced at the beginning of this podcast, which is the potential strike in baseball. So think about those things, and then we'll we'll talk about those our next podcast. Keep in mind our podcasts are always gonna be uh dropped on Tuesday afternoons, and and my take on these is I want to talk about things that are pertinent to today's sports. Uh if they're controversial, we will talk about them. I'll give you my unfiltered takes. I will also directly comment on some people that I think are good and bad in sports, whether they're players, whether they're front office people, whether they're managers. So that's all for today. Everybody stay safe. If you're gonna do any outdoor activities over the weekend, stay hydrated. And this is Marty Kaiser out of the way.