# MLB Off Season/Hot Stove **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** baseball-mlb\ **Created:** [March 11, 2020, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799 "2020-03-11T04:00:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/282 "2020-05-20T09:14:38Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > The NCAA has a $19 billion TV contract. And that’s only for the 68 team tourney in March/April, just 3 weekends. > > Schools make additional money for the regular season. > > [https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/196-billion-edtech-lessons-ncaa-march-madness-tv-contract](https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/196-billion-edtech-lessons-ncaa-march-madness-tv-contract) > > NCAA FB also brings in a lot of cash from TV deals. > > And they still claim this is amateur sports. You mean the 22 year 19 bil contract? Yeah, its worth billions. But that doesnt mean they are a multibillion dollar business. Taxes and expenses will swallow up much if not most of it. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/283 "2020-05-20T09:24:07Z")
NCAA is a 501 c 3 , they don’t pay taxes. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/284 "2020-05-20T22:05:20Z")
and a lot of that $19 bil goes to NCAA schools who also don’t pay taxes ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/285 "2020-05-21T00:36:28Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > and a lot of that $19 bil goes to NCAA schools who also don’t pay taxes > **[Tax-Exempt-Status-of-Universities-FINAL.pdf](https://www.aau.edu/sites/default/files/AAU%20Files/Key%20Issues/Taxation%20%26%20Finance/Tax-Exempt-Status-of-Universities-FINAL.pdf)** > > 159.03 KB > [@](#): > > Tax-exempt private and public universities and colleges are subject to unrelated business income tax (UBIT) and generally must pay tax on income from an activity, trade, or business that is not substantially related to their educational tax-exempt purposes. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/286 "2020-05-21T03:09:10Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Actually it’s not. NCAA basketball apparently doesn’t make a billion a year. I’m sure more than that gets bet on it, but they don’t see it. A lot of people dramatically overestimate the economic size of the spectator sports industry, because they tend to confuse its social impact with its economic impact. There was a Freakonomics episode a while back about pro sports, and a sports economist noted that, if you add up ALL of the major professional sports in North America, and then also add in college sports, you’re left with an economic footprint about the same size as the cardboard-box industry - about $60-70 billion a year. Not peanuts by any means (the peanut industry is only worth about $1.2 billion a year), but nowhere near as economically significant as its social and cultural prominence would suggest. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/287 "2020-05-21T03:39:28Z")
It’s true pro sports don’t have a lot of people but they all make $480k and up. Some make $20 mil a year. They are in the top 1% of US earners. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/288 "2020-05-21T06:36:23Z")
How much do goal posts cost these days? Do you have to pay extra to be able to move them around so often? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/289 "2020-05-22T06:16:53Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > A lot of people dramatically overestimate the economic size of the spectator sports industry, because they tend to confuse its social impact with its economic impact. That’s an interesting point, and one that crosses my mind now and then. Professional sports AREN’T a big industry, money wise, in the grand scheme of things. The comparison to the cardboard box industry is a good one. Or to use another, I work for an Irish company that I am quite confident no one in this thread and very possibly on the SDMB has ever heard of, except me. We are reasonably big on our field, but not the biggest, and it’s likely not a field many people on the SDMB has ever heard of either. We are, however, worth more than any professional sports team that has ever existed, and its not a close call. Or to use other fun examples, the NFL, the richest pro sports league ever, made roughly $14 billion in gross revenue last season. If the NFL were a single company (obviously, it’s really 33 different companies - 32 teams and the league corporation) it wouldn’t be anywhere near being one of the ten biggest companies… IN CANADA. In the USA the last Fortune 100 list I can find says Coca Cola is the 100th biggest company in America, and it had more than twice as much revenue. Pro sports has an astoundingly outsized impact compared to how big it really is as a business, I think because 1. It’s covered as important news, and 2. People who are into it are extremely devoted to it. Even I am often oddly surprised when I discover some quite normal people have no awareness at all of professional baseball or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/290 "2020-05-23T04:51:11Z")
Jayson Stark with a good article in The Athetic this past week about very possible changes to MLB: **1. Universal DH** I am okay with this; I’d prefer it stay this way if the AL/NL split remains in place just because I like the variety, but it’s not a biggie to me. **2. Robot Strike Zone** Stark’s point here is that while we are likely on the way to this, it may require a redefinition of the strike zone; a breaking ball that just barely nicks the front bottom corner of the zone is an unhittable pitch that would be called a ball 95% of the time by a human, but the Statcast or Pitchf/x or whatever the system is called now will - correctly - call it a strike, so maybe the ruled have to change a little. I am 100% in favor of robot umps. Shitty umpiring has changed playoff series. **3. Radio pitch calling between catcher/ pitcher / bench.** Meh, whatever. If cheating has to be stopped this way, as opposed to my currently preferred solution of lifetime bans for a lot of people, so be it. **4. Expansion and Realignment** Stark’s idea here is: a. Expand to 32 teams b. Do away with AL/NL c. Realign to eight four-team divisions I am on record as being in favor of expansion and hell, I’d go to 40 teams. If I were the King of Baseball there would be 40 teams in eight five-team divisions and sixteen of them would make the playoffs. The problem isn’t markets. There are lots of markets; even without getting exotic and going to Mexico, there are a lot of markets larger than the smallest MLB markets now; Charlotte, Montreal, Vancouver, Portland, San Antonio, Austin, Vegas, Nashville and a few others are all bigger than the smallest MLB markets and New York and Los Angeles could each support another team; arguments can be made than Boston/New England could support another. As Stark points out the Rays are an existing problem that may require a new market to fix, but whatever. The problem isn’t markets, it’s owners. MLB doesn’t just drop a team somewhere; they need a billionaire who can convince a government to build a zillion dollar ballpark and who wants a baseball team. If such people already existed, I suspect they’d already be expanding. **5. Shorter regular season** Stark feels this would allow for a proper wild card series and that 162 games is just too many. His playoff idea, predictable on the 8-by-4 system, is 12 teams make it; the two best divisions winners get a bye (or four best if there is no league distinction) and the remaining teams play a 3-game wild card series in which the division champions host all three games, and the wild cards have to play on the road. I am okay with that playoff format, though in my eight-by-five system I’d go to 16 teams. I think 162 games is, to me as a fan, essentially indistinguishable from 154, or 152 or even 144 whatever; it’s not like I’m counting as they play them. Where a shorter season makes sense is in fitting in a fourth playoff series and maybe not having the season start in March and end in November. **6. No games on Mondays** Now he’s getting crazy; Stark suggests all teams take Mondays off during the regular season so people can “look back, NFL-style” at the preceding week of baseball. I think there’s more logistical problems created here. \*\* 7. No really long extra inning games\*\* This has been talked about before, and Stark suggests they may put runners on base to start an inning or allow ties. I’ve never understood the urgency of this. Really long extra inning games are REALLY rare. If 17-inning marathons were happening every week, sure, that’s not okay in a game played basically every day. But that doesn’t happen. Like, what do you think is too long? More than 12 innings? The average team plays a game longer than 12 innings maybe 2-3 times a year. It’s a rare thing. This would piss off purists more than it would make anyone else less bored. **8. Deaden the ball** Stark has no specific plan here but suggets using humidors to prevent balls from getting too dry. I wholeheartedly agree baseball has too many home runs now. 2019 was ridiculous. It also has too many strikeouts, though, and this doesn’t help that directly. **9. Direct MLB involvement with sports betting** As averse as MLB is to gambling, there’s a lot of money in it, and so sooner or later this will happen. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/291 "2020-05-23T05:56:33Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Jayson Stark with a good article in The Athetic this past week about very possible changes to MLB: I am with you on everything with the following notes. > [@](#): > > **4. Expansion and Realignment** I think more teams should be owned by their community, season ticket holders and residents. If the City of Charlotte owned 49% of an expansion team and contributed a stadium while the other 51% was owned by season ticket holders and residents of Charlotte, I think it would be good for the game. This would let MLB expand as much as it thinks is prudent. I am agnostic about how much we expand but we really ought to expand a bit to make the playoff math better. > [@](#): > > **8. Deaden the ball** > > Stark has no specific plan here but suggets using humidors to prevent balls from getting too dry. > > I wholeheartedly agree baseball has too many home runs now. 2019 was ridiculous. It also has too many strikeouts, though, and this doesn’t help that directly. Deaden the ball and move back the mound a bit. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/292 "2020-05-23T05:56:45Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The problem isn’t markets, it’s owners. MLB doesn’t just drop a team somewhere; they need a billionaire who can convince a government to build a zillion dollar ballpark and who wants a baseball team. If such people already existed, I suspect they’d already be expanding. Not only that, but if you make it clear that you’re expanding into a bunch of new markets, it might actually make it harder to bribe or extort host cities into forking over huge amounts of cash for new stadiums. Any existing team trying to negotiate a new stadium deal suddenly has less leverage, because it’s harder to threaten to pack your bags and leave town if a whole bunch of new cities are already in the process of getting their own teams. I guess that the league could try an Amazon-style bidding system for its expansion teams, but I think that voters, even selfish-asshole sports-fan voters, are getting sick of being asked to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars to even bigger asshole billionaire sports-team owners. ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/293 "2020-05-23T07:06:32Z")
The current chief of baseball has said no expansion of baseball until two ballparks are up to snuff. I don’t remember which two. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/294 "2020-05-23T10:26:55Z")
> [@harmonicamoon](#): > > The current chief of baseball has said no expansion of baseball until two ballparks are up to snuff. > > I don’t remember which two. Easy guess: Tampa & Oakland. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/295 "2020-05-23T12:30:50Z")
That would have been my guess. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/296 "2020-05-23T21:11:26Z")
Oakland no longer has the Raiders but it would be very costly to redo that park. Probably easier to build a new place. Tampa should also start over and they need a dome due to the heat. That area is full of retirees who are not likely to go to an outdoor stadium. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/297 "2020-05-23T21:42:41Z")
Tropicana Field is a domed stadium. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/298 "2020-05-23T22:57:06Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > Tropicana Field is a domed stadium. But a crappy one in a very poor location. I’m pretty sure Bijou meant the replacement stadium needs to be a dome. The new stadium if it stays in the Tampa area should be on the East side of Tampa metro area to increase the accessibility to a larger number of fans. We beat this up either earlier this thread or in a recent thread. In a nutshell: St. Pete is the senior’s city, Tampa is the working age city. Current stadium is hard to get to. East side of Tampa would make the trip to see the game doable even to the Orlando metro area. Current Stadium is probably the worst stadium in the MLB. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/299 "2020-05-23T23:58:07Z")
I knew Tampa has a dome now and pretty everyone agrees it’s bad and in a bad location. Tampa Bay lighting played there for 3 years while their current place was built. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2020, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/300 "2020-05-24T04:13:48Z")
Astros manager and GM suspended for a year. > **[Hinch, Luhnow are suspended for '20, then let go](https://www.mlb.com/news/astros-sign-stealing-penalty)** > > Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch were each suspended without pay for the 2020 season by Major League Baseball, which on Monday released the findings from its investigation of Houston’s sign-stealing allegations. > Approximately... ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2020, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799/301 "2020-05-24T04:15:20Z")
The Astros hit with massive cheating penalties. Will lose 1st and 2nd round picks in 20 and 21, fined $5mil. Luhnow and Hinch suspended without pay for 20. > **[MLB To Suspend Jeff Luhnow, A.J. Hinch For One Year; Astros Stripped Of Draft...](https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/01/astros-jeff-luhnow-aj-hinch-suspended-draft-picks-sign-stealing-mlb.html)** > > Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced an unprecedented level of discipline against the Astros organization Monday in the wake … Well done, MLB. Stamp out cheating with real and painful punishment. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-off-season-hot-stove/842799.md?page=16)