@dylans Did he get a job? I haven't heard anything about him having a job. I would find it hard to believe that he would land a job after a quick google search.
Kcmatt7
11050 posts
@JayHawkFanToo It is bad business to use all of your cash and assets to have one good year. It is stupid to do it and not expect to lose money later. And, you have a false narrative that "we can't afford to keep our own players." It's 100% false. FAKE NEWS.
If the Royals make no trade after the Greinke trade, they are a competitive bunch right now.
Starting Pitchers:
- Duffy
- Odorizzi
- Montgomery
- Lamb
- Manaea
Pen:
- Junis
- Herrera
- Finnegan
Lineup:
- C Salvy
- 1B Hos
- 2B Whit
- 3B Moose
- SS - Esky
- LF - Gordo
- CF - Cain
- RF - Myers
- DH - Bonifacio/Dozier
- 4OF - Dyson
All of that could be had for $110M. That would be a team ERA under 4.00, 6 players with an OPS above .750 and a significantly better defensive team. This is with several players having career down years and, not hitting on our top draft pick in 8 straight years. 4 of which were top 10- picks. If we hit on any of those drafts, we are talking a legit division contender with a real shot at a pennant.
- 2009 Draft: Royals Select Aaron Crow - No longer with team. Could have picked: Shelby Miller, Kyle Gibson, Mike Trout
- 2010 Draft: Royals Select Christian Colon - No longer with team. Could have picked: Drew Pomeranz, Mat Harvey, Yasmani Grandal, Chris Sale, Chris Yelich
- 2011 Draft: Royals Select Bubba Starling - Not made it to the pros yet. Could have picked: Archie Bradley, Anthony Rendon, Javy Bayez, Cory Spangenberg, Francisco Lindor, George Springer, Jose Fernandez, CJ Cron, Sonny Gray, Kolten Wong, Joe Panik, Jackie Bradley Jr., Michael Fulmer
- 2012 Draft: Royals Select Kyler Simmer - Not made it to the pros yet. Could have picked: Addison Russell, Corey Seager, Michael Wacha, Tyler Naquin, Lucas Giolito, Marcus Stroman, Lance McCullers Jr.
- 2013 Draft: Royals Select Hunter Dozier: Just made it to the pros. Could have picked: Austin Meadows, Dominic Smith, Hunter Renfroe, Tim Anderson, Marco Gonzalez, Aaron Judge, Corey Knebel, Cody Bellinger
- 2014 Draft: Royals Select Brandon Finnegan - No longer with team.
- 2015: Draft: Ashe Russell - No longer playing baseball.
- 2016 Draft: No first round pick due to signing Kennedy.
Imagine being able to let Hosmer walk because you have Bellinger coming behind. Or Gordon for Springer. Or Cain for a panned out Bubba. Or Replacing esky with Ashe Russel or Francisco Lindor or Corey Seager. Imagine having Baez at 2nd and being able to have a true utility guy in Whit. I mean, the possibilities are endless if we can hit on one or two of these picks in 8 years.
If you hit on just one of those guys, we are able to spend $20M in free agency, or $20M to keep one of our own players. But drafting and keeping your own players is absolutely affordable and sustainable. You just have to hit on them more consistently than we are.
The perfect storm that got us to the WS is NOT sustainable or even able to be replicated imo. Think about the things that had to go right to get there. First, Greinke had to become a potential HOFer after almost leaving baseball. The trade we made produced Cain, Esky and Odorizzi. We flipped Myers and Odorizzi to get Davis and Shields. Davis was a throw in piece who became an elite closer, not something that we planned. We were the first team to form the super bullpen, giving us a distinct competitive advantage. However, that pen was formed out of pure luck from failed starters. Add in the Morales had a career year with us, as did Volquez and I find it almost impossible for us to ever repeat a WS in that fashion.
It has to be through retention and development of our own players. And, as I pointed out above, that is actually affordable. It may even be the most profitable option than an up and down payroll combined with and up and down on field performance that makes attendance nearly impossible to predict. The Royals CAN be consistent.
@HighEliteMajor While I don't agree with that, at all. I also feel like you're inserting a broad thing into a very specific case just to say something political and attempt to rile up "leftists."
@mayjay Then I don't know what you do with him. He will cost the tax payers millions of dollars living off of government programs because no matter how good of a person he is from here on out, he will probably never be given a 2nd chance if he isn't given one now.
@dylans Ok, so we should just kill him then right? Instead of having him be a drain on society and collecting welfare for the next 40+ years.
@BShark What do we as a society do with someone like him? If he is never going to be given a second chance, why don't we just have Child Sex Abuse become a capital punishment?
@JayHawkFanToo You are acting like I'm trying to say the Royals can be exactly as successful as the Cardinals. That's really not what I'm trying to say.
I'm simply stating how they are able to outperform their market through smart investing and maximizing their own roster and farm system. I'm comparing how they are able to win against the big boys year in and year out despite not being one of them.
I'm not stating that I think the Royals can BE the Cardinals and win 88 games on average during the same time period that Glass has owned the Royals.
I'm stating that the Royals could average 80 wins. That is slightly below a winning record, but good enough to be interesting through July a majority of the time. I'm stating that I believe they can have seasons in the high 70s and seasons in the 80s, consistently. That is not unattainable.
As far as seeing another team outperform their market, it absolutely is apples to apples. The Rays do it too, averaging 83 wins for a 10 year stretch now, with a Hockey and Football team in the same town, no fan support, no history, a teeny tiny payroll, and playing in a stadium that everyone hates. But, but but but but but but but...
Enough. Quit making excuses for the Royals ownership and executives and ask yourself two very easy questions.
- Do the Royals maximize their own payroll every single year?
- Are the Royals developing quality MLB players a rate similar to their peers?
Those are the only two questions that matter.
@wissox We will see. I don't know that I buy it quite yet. Abreu is getting older and the rest of your infield is very average. Giolito was supposed to be an important piece of all of this and he has struggled.
If you can't get your rotation in better shape, I just don't think you have a playoff team. The Royals WS team had 6 guys with an OPS over .800. White Sox project to have only 3-4 barring drastic improvement or career years from some guys currently on the roster.
@JayHawkFanToo the Cardinals, up until two years ago, had a football team AND they have a hockey team competing for dollars.
AND they still put up crazy revenue, ticket sales, and had a top 10 payroll back then.
@wissox AND they have been around for forever. Current owners are big cheapos for sure.
While I do admit it is hard to compete with the Cubs, the owners seem to care less about trying to change any persona or reach a new audience at all.
@justanotherfan I don't that has anything to do with it.
Ownership is what makes that difference. Commitment to winning. Under Kauffman, the Royals averaged 83.7 wins. Even as an expansion team they almost immediately became successful. After his death, that number fell to 72 wins. (excluding all shortened seasons). Of course this had everything to do with the fact that Glass would have fought you for a penny from 1995-2007.
The Cardinals have had owners that cared about St. Louis and winning it's entire lifetime. Yankees have too. When the Royals were good, Kauffman would do anything to win. Period..
Absolutely apples to apples.
Old CBA ranked STL and KC as the 26th and 27th markets based on their own formula. But besides that, the Cardinals don't have a top 10 MLB market, size wise. The highest I've seen them ranked is 19th. So, in theory, they shouldn't have the 10th highest payroll year in and year out. Yet they do...
They don't have a top 10 market share, yet they have a top 3 attendance number and a top 3 TV ratings number.
They are 19th in market size, but they just got a $1B TV deal... Certainly not the 19th worst TV deal.
You've proved my point. Cardinals are able to outperform their market size by investing in their own players and maximizing the money they do spend. They have the Warren Buffett of Payrolls. They do not waste a dime and are able to compete with the big boys year in and year out because of it.
The Royals could absolutely outperform their market size with a similar approach.
Pure stroke. NBA ready body. Only 19. At 6'6 and 220 LBs he can play a stretch 4 and be a mismatch offensively. Has great court vision. Able to finish through contact. Decent rebounded.
I see a guy with a high floor and a low ceiling. But, in today's NBA, he seems like a great fit for that stretch 4 spot.
@approxinfinity Bingo. Sure, big market teams can buy an extra guy or two. But, the best Yankee squads came from in house prospects. The Royals just won the WS with "home grown" players. The Cardinals almost exclusively and consistently win with guys they develop themselves.
Now that every team has the ability to have a payroll over $100M, there is no reason for a team to not be able to compete besides cheapo ownership or poor building of the organization from the GM.
I just can't look at what the Cardinals do, in a marginally larger market, and believe that small market teams "can't afford to be consistently good." It's baloney. Cardinals have won 80 games in 18 of the last 20 seasons and been to the playoffs 12 times. You just have to have the commitment to the farm system and not the Major League ball club. That has to be priority one. Priority two is keeping your own players that do break through to the majors, providing that contract won't turn into a burden on the team.
The Cardinals may spend $170M on payroll, but at the same time, they don't waste any of it. They only have $6M in "dead" salary. That is only 3% of their payroll. So they are effectively using the other 97%. The Royals have $26.5M in "dead" salary and that is 19% of their $139M payroll.
And that, above, is the difference between a long-term approach and a short-term approach. That is how you consistently win 80 or more games and make the playoffs consistently. That is how you win 19 pennants and 11 World Series.
@justanotherfan I just can't buy those arguments. Not since revenue sharing started in 1999 and the draft changed to allow teams to actually sign the best players. Small-Market clubs have seen more success than ever since those rules were put in place.
@justanotherfan It is a personal preference for sure. I'd rather watch good baseball year in and year out than be a 90+ loss team a majority of the time, with only brief moments of a good team.
There is something about KC in the summer when the Royals are good, or even mediocre honestly. The town is painted blue. Everywhere you go, people are dressed head to toe in Royals gear. The stadium has a real roar to it. Everyone has a sense of pride about themselves. That was the fun part about baseball to me. I loved watching us win the WS. But, I loved watching the entire city have a sense of pride for an entire Summer, much, much more.
@justanotherfan Feels a lot like the early 2000s Royals type of a return...
Right now is exactly why selling out for the WS was not worth it. At least to me it wasn't.
It looks like another long drought of 90+ loss seasons is coming, when, had we kept all of our own homegrown players, we would be a competitive group still.
Cardinals and Rays do it right. They don't make deadline acquisitions. They don't undervalue their own players in trades. And they put all their time and effort into the development of players so that when one leaves, someone is ready to take their place.
And, what's worse, I just can't stand the Glass family as the owners. They make it extremely hard to stay a Royals fan.
Depends what Royals scouts saw. But I don't like that we ended up with a 10th ranked prospect. Nor do I have any faith in Dayton or our scouting department anymore after an atrocious 10 year stretch of poor drafts, worse trades, and even worse FA signings.
However, I'm happy to see us sell off players. Hope they sell everyone and get some fresh blood in the system. Would like to see 10-15 new faces come into the organization through trades. Between that and the draft we should have about 30 new prospects in the system.
I want to see the team succeed. But, man, I really am ready to end the Beaty experiment and go for a homerun hire after this season. Football only brought in $3M in ticket sales this season... Basketball made $15M.
And, looking at the financials of the athletic departments, KU vs KSU, man we need to do better. It is critical to the athletics department that football makes a turnaround asap. We are talking about an extra $10-12M a year in organic revenue growth if the team can win 6-8 games a season. Contributions would probably increase by another couple of million as well. The next AD and the next Head Coach need to be big hires, and at any cost. We are officially no longer paying Weiss, so there is money to pay someone top dollar.
@BShark Most interested in how KJ looked.
@approxinfinity Oh yea. Go check it out. I don't know that there is a song on the entire album that I don't like.
Just a few bands that I feel are good examples of good music being created today.
- Greta Van Fleet: They sound like a 70's or 80's rock band. Upbeat and fun to listen to.
- Arctic Monkeys: Just a purely unique sound. The new album they just released is awful. But, I do like a lot of their older music. Florescent Adolescent is one of my all-time favorite songs.
- Cold War Kids: Again, a more 70s or 80s sound. Love their songs. Going to see them in KC on Friday!
- Misterwives: A rock band and a 90s girl pop sound blended together into something uniquely great. Their newest album is amazing imo.
- Dirty Heads: A raggae/rock/rap hybrid that consistently puts out good music and has evolved quite a bit with each album. Takes a couple of listens, but they are clever and fun.
- Houndmouth: A folky sound, mostly slower music.
- Jukebox the Ghost: Lead singer sounds scary close to Freddy Mercury from Queen. Listen to the song "Jumpstarted" and you will think that Freddy came out of the grave and Queen put out a new song.
These are just some of my favorites right now. I could name dozens more putting out music that simply doesn't get the appreciation it deserves. I also love the New Post Malone album though so I kind of listen to it all.
@dylans I don't like advanced stats in this arguments at all simply because the two are so hard to compare due to Jordan's strange career.
And with that, I think I'll go back in to "hibernation" until October if I can make it that long.
@dylans Your PER argument when broken down completely simply isn't a very good argument.
First, Jordan wasn't in the league until 21. A huge advantage for Jordan.
Second, PER is subjective in the way in which the formula for it is written. The way it weights things completely changes the output. Had it been weighted heavier for assists or rebounds, LBJ would be the leader.
Third, They are within one-tenth of a standard deviation from each other. Meaning, the smallest variable (rules) could sway it one way or the other. A standard deviation in this data set is roughly 2.34 PER points. They are .23 PER points from each other.
Fourth, PER has no way of calculating the impact of a teammate's ability. Nor the GM or Coach's ability at finding, developing or gameplanning.
Fifth, because of Jordan's strange career path, you can hardly compare the two fairly. Jordan's decline could have easily brought his PER down enough to make a difference. We only have the two years when he was with the Wizards. He could have posted in the upper 20s, but just as easily he could have posted several years of 25 or worse, lowering his career PER.
Because of this, the PER argument is simply not a good basis for comparing the two against each other.
I do think it shows just how much better they were than the rest of the field. I also think it shows just how close the two are to each other, and how I can see why people think one may be better than the other. It is amazing how dominant they both were in their own era.
Imagine 76ers lineup with LBJ next season...
- PG: Simmons
- SG: Reddick
- SF: James
- PF: Saric
- C: Embiid
Bench:
- 10th overall pick
- McConnell
- Fultz
- Illyasova
I'm drooling. If I am interpreting rules correctly, the 76ers could sign LBJ and then use the mid-level exception on JJ Redick and the only thing they would have to do is find a way to get someone to take Jerrod Bayless' contract.They could probably package it with the 26th pick and get a taker. I believe that at that point they would be able to get a Bird exception on JJ, Designate LBJ and do an Early - Bird deal with Simmons to keep that core together for years. Losing on Saric at a time where LBJ would naturally slide into the 4 as he ages.
If LBJ wins this finals, he probably stays in Cleveland. If not, I would be he ends up in Philly. And I would love every second of it.
LeBron is the best player, coach and GM in basketball. Traded away half of the team mid-season, missing K-Love and still got this team to the Finals for the 8th straight time. Just unreal.
Every great player is a jerk or a complainer on the court. LBJ is no different. And he is a better person off the court than 99% of the greats. He is a jerk to the media and he is hard on his teammates. That doesn't make him a bad person, but feel free to think differently.
I'm glad that we actually have a great athlete for young people to look up to who isn't a womanizer, seems to be a great father, appears to be generous, and attempts to stand up for what he sees as equality. I feel the exact same way about Steph. These guys have more exposure and are put under a microscope at the same time. Yet, from what I can see, they appear to be morally upstanding individuals.
I honestly can't find any reason why people find LBJ to be more of a jerk than any of the other greats. Sans Tim Duncan, who seems to be the nicest and most humble player ever.
Screw it. Make the players pay to play. Nope. Not far enough.
I say we enslave any kid that projects to be over 6’3 at birth and force them to play for our pleasure for free until they are worthless to us. In which case, we freeze their sperm to procreate more basketball slaves. Afterwards, we euthanize them, so we do not burden the tax payers.
@Buster-1926 I’m not going to argue about this. There are far more things to be concerned with from waste of taxpayer funds from Universities than athletic scholarships. Or crushing 18 year olds for a major commitment. Much more of one than the average student.
I’m ok with making them pay it back I guess, but only if you take out at least $8.00/hr of the time they spent playing basketball.
I played baseball in college for a semester. Hated it. Hate the coach. Hated my teammates. Hated the school. Hated everything about it. It was completely different than what I was told it would be like by the coaches and players while I was being recruited. And unless you have ever been in that environment, you would never understand. Class is hard enough, putting a job that you absolutely hate on top of it kills you.
It isn’t the same as paying a car loan. It just isn’t.
It’s pretty simple. There are people who don’t like change. And there are people who are open to it. You will never be able to convince those scared of change of anything. They like THEIR life with no regard for anyone else’s. They would rather someone else be poor, when they don’t have to be, because it will effect them in the tenny tiniest way.
It’s a sad, but fair, way of looking at things.
@BShark Yea and then you'll bring it here like the great human being you are.
@dylans Can you elaborate how this would ruin KU Basketball?
What draws you to it? That the corruption goes on in the background and you can pretend that it isn't happening?
That is quite an imagination you have...
Imagine how fair that would be... Set the cap at $200k/year. Pretty much everyone in the country could come up with that kind of cash for a single player. If you knew you could only make $200k for the year, why wouldn't you just pick the school you actually wanted to go to?
That right there, is far more fair than the current system.
@BShark I mean it is what it is. I was about 99% sure I was going to drop before, and now we literally don't have anyone even trying to be an insider. I don't know what would make it worth paying for.
@dylans Just me personally, it isn't like I am saying just let them fetch endorsements with no rules.
There should be rules in place for this. And perhaps a cap that a player could take each year.
I am definitely not saying let's turn this in to the Wild Wild West. I'm just saying that there is a way to do this where everyone wins.
@BShark I wish I was sad to see him go. But he really didn't provide much new information. Any that he had he was too scared to say.
Well I'm confident that Matt was overpaid.
@dylans I doubt it could get worse. I honestly don't see how it could get worse than the same team winning half of the Football Championships and 3 or 4 other teams scooping up the entire top 25. It can't get much worse if it didn't actually get better.
And this would obviously have to be regulated. But I'd rather we have basketball players get paid and be more likely to stay and graduate and be productive members of society in the future than unpaid guys desperate to leave who could end up being a drain on society in 10-15 years.
@BShark And I honestly wonder where they think they will get the money to do it.
@BShark Well coming up with ideas that could actually be implemented would make it look like they were actually trying to change something.
They aren't going to risk driving money out of CBB. The NCAA makes 81% of their revenue from the March Carney. Ratings have only gone up since the OAD rule was put in place. I just don't believe that they ACTUALLY want to get rid of players who give them tons of hype year after year.
@dylans What level playing field do you see right now?
13 of the top 25 players went to 4 of the Blue bloods. That isn't a balanced level by any means.
I could argue that endorsements for players, through a regulated NCAA agency, could actually balance out college sports even more.
But it certainly can't make them less competitive than they are now. Alabama has won half of the NCAA Championships the past 5 years.
I don't see this level playing field.
@REHawk The only problem I see is a player leaving for not one of the reasons you mentioned. Academics. Legal issues. Just quits and decides he doesn't want to play basketball. All kinds of things.
@wissox Why would you receive pushback from them for that? You don't see that from Olympic athletes.
@wissox The question is, would you rather see the "corruption" in front of your face? Or would you rather just know it is going on behind your back?
The next question, why could any other person at KU receive an endorsement deal based on their likeness EXCEPT the athletes. Does that not seem strange?
We are already clearly in a state of competitive imbalance. 13 of the top 25 players in the country went to Blue Blood schools this season. AFTER the FBI bust. Either paying them fixes nothing or it does in fact spread the wealth out. But it can't get any worse than it already is.
I worked a full-time job all 4 years of school to pay for rent, gas, insurance, phone, and tuition. I can appreciate being poor in college as well as anyone. But they aren't a normal student, so comparing them to one is useless. Either they are treated like every other student and can make money off of their likeness or they aren't and they can't. But you can't have it both ways. You can't say, "this is what college is like" on one hand and not give them the same rights as the rest of their "peers" on the other.
What is wrong with the Olympic model? Most of the Olympic athletes get peanuts. But the best and most famous ones make whatever the market is willing to pay them. It has only made more money for the IOC because it has allowed famous athletes to compete in the Olympics drawing more of a crowd and better TV ratings. I feel that a very similar thing would happen for the NCAA if they did this with football and basketball.
@Woodrow So what?
Again, if all the signs point to them not getting drafted, and the player and coach talked about how if he doesn't get drafted he will return, what is the issue?
@justanotherfan I would be interested to hear how they think the logistics will work behind hosting their own tournaments.
Basically, they think if they don't let the coaches go to the AAU tournaments, that will end them.
I just think that is an oversimplification of it. They can just put in a little bit of extra money and broadcast these games to the coaches instead.
The Shoe Companies won't be fast to give up control of players they have invested money in already.
@Woodrow I really don't see how it is a cluster in that case. If the player is 99% to not get drafted and knows it but just leaves their name in because they can, I don't see the negative.
Especially if their camp and the coach are communicating throughout the process.
People in the "real world" don't have to quit their job everytime they take an interview. This is essentially the same thing. The applied and interviewed, just didn't get the job. Doesn't mean they should be forced to quit their current one.
@tis4tim It does seem like a tough problem. But I'm sure the coaches and players are honest with each other as the year goes on, there shouldn't be much of an issue.
@dylans It was probably the worst 5 minutes of his entire coaching career. Really ruined the other 35 minutes of great coaching.
I wouldn't dump Adidas. If meaningful change actually does happen, KU will start landing kids that WANTED to come to KU but ended up getting paid. I'm not worried about it.
Could have just as easily been Nike. Might still happen.
@HighEliteMajor we should have moved it over to the political area once we got to that point. Out of respect for the board and those that come here to just talk hoops and get recruiting updates.
I didn't want the conversation to stop either, but I also didn't want it to continue where it was at.
Now we have tried to move it to another thread it doesn't belong instead of just starting a new thread to continue the conversation in the correct spot.
If you want to continue the conversation, feel free to start your own thread in the politics section. But please don't derail this thread. This one still has some talking points and others won't want to participate if it is full of political feelings.