Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number one eighty seven of the Marine
Speaker 1: Layer Podcast. We welcome on David Sampson, former baseball executive
Speaker 1: and host of Nothing Personal. We'll talk with him about
Speaker 1: the dynamics of owning a baseball team, whether or not
Speaker 1: teams make money, and how this all relates to the Mariners.
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Speaker 1: Let's get it rolling and we welcome you to this
Speaker 1: episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just
Speaker 1: Baseball podcast network. Recording on Monday evening, December second, while
Speaker 1: who is holding up the hot stove of this offseason?
Speaker 1: Nothing is happening.
Speaker 2: Nothing well, actually no, not nothing. Blake Snell signed, so
Speaker 2: that was something.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so Seattle area people are allowed to sign
Speaker 1: with the super team of deferred money, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: Blake Snell gets a lot of deferred money in that contract. Surprise, surprise, hmm.
Speaker 2: I just think it's hilarious. By the way, quick side
Speaker 2: note that everybody knows he wants to be a Mariner,
Speaker 2: but he has to pick a different option because the
Speaker 2: Mariners will not offer him the money. Like everybody know,
Speaker 2: if it was up to him, he'd be in Seattle.
Speaker 1: The Mariners could defer his money into twenty eighty two.
Speaker 1: I don't think he'd care great.
Speaker 2: By that point, there'll be a new ownership group. It's
Speaker 2: not the problem of this current one.
Speaker 1: It's like the Dodgers, like the does the Dodgers current
Speaker 1: ownership group actually plan on paying this money out of
Speaker 1: their own pocket?
Speaker 2: That's a great question. Nobody's gonna want to buy the
Speaker 2: Dodgers ten years from now. So this ownership group, for
Speaker 2: their sake, I hope they stay because they're not gonna
Speaker 2: sell this team.
Speaker 1: Well, they're not gonna they wouldn't make money off So there,
Speaker 1: I would say, revenue wise, I'm gonna take a guess
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about this a little bit with David
Speaker 1: Sampson coming up. But operationally, the Dodgers do make money
Speaker 1: and due to a number of factors or television deal,
Speaker 1: their relationships with brands in Japan now, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But you're right, teams don't owners or perspective, owners don't
Speaker 1: want to buy teams that have outstanding debt. It's like
Speaker 1: buying a business that it's losing money. It's the same
Speaker 1: idea of that. So that'll be interesting. But that's the
Speaker 1: Dodgers problem, not the Mariners. We just missed. The Mariners
Speaker 1: would make a move right now. I mean we've passed
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving this past week and Jerry to Poto didn't make
Speaker 1: any moves. He must have actually been focused on cooking
Speaker 1: this time.
Speaker 2: It's December, Ameriics haven't made any moved by December. This
Speaker 2: never happens. They're always active. They're always right on the
Speaker 2: ball with this stuff. Yeah, who's holding it up? You
Speaker 2: could say one Soto, but I don't think it is
Speaker 2: because how many teams are really in on one Soto.
Speaker 2: I don't even really think the Dodgers are in on him.
Speaker 2: I think it's really the serious players, Red Sox, Yankees, Matts.
Speaker 2: If you want to throw the Blue Jays in, I
Speaker 2: guess the blue Jays.
Speaker 1: Is it because those are the team only teams that
Speaker 1: really want to spend money this offseason because most of
Speaker 1: the league is still in some some version of TV flux.
Speaker 1: Maybe he could be It could be it. I think
Speaker 1: of it in the Roki Sasaki since too some teams
Speaker 1: might just want to keep a roster spot open given
Speaker 1: that he won't sign until mid January, and teams, if
Speaker 1: teams think they could sign him, their priorities of signing
Speaker 1: elsewhere on their roster change with that. That could be
Speaker 1: a case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true. The other part of this is I
Speaker 2: don't know the quantity of moves the Mariners are going
Speaker 2: to make those offseason. The quantity maybe down. Maybe they
Speaker 2: only make a couple. Hopefully the couple they make are
Speaker 2: of significance and impact. AKA, if they were to trade
Speaker 2: for Alec Bohm, that could take a while to come together.
Speaker 2: If that's who they're really focused on. If that's what
Speaker 2: they're working toward. Rather than a lot of other off seasons.
Speaker 2: They make a bunch of moves and they kind of
Speaker 2: flow in time after time. Maybe this year it's only
Speaker 2: gonna be a couple.
Speaker 1: Isn't it weird to think about it? This time last offseason,
Speaker 1: the Mariners had already traded Auhennihoswaras away, and it was
Speaker 1: this past weekend, a year ago. Lau, if I have
Speaker 1: my timing right, they traded away Kelnick? Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? What great vibes that was speaking of Gino.
Speaker 1: So from a content perspective, selfishly, i'd rather have that again.
Speaker 1: From a ViBe's perspective, you're right sucked.
Speaker 2: And from the perspective of wanting the team to be good,
Speaker 2: it sucked. Hey, you know who could use a third
Speaker 2: basement right now? The Mariners? You know who went thirty
Speaker 2: and one hundredast year and was one of the seven
Speaker 2: most valuablet third basement of baseball last year? Oh? That
Speaker 2: was that was Gino. Despite a really tough first half.
Speaker 1: It's funny today that they're on Monday. There's a Rosenthal
Speaker 1: article that gets published that's reporting that the Mariners were,
Speaker 1: in his words, looking to upgrade at third believing that
Speaker 1: after the Mariners had previously asserted at the GM meetings
Speaker 1: earlier that they were looking to upgrade second. If they
Speaker 1: were going to pick a position, they were going to
Speaker 1: pick second to upgrade. But Rosenthal's here saying they're looking
Speaker 1: at third base. What do we choose to believe here?
Speaker 2: I don't know if I can choose to believe anything
Speaker 2: until they actually physically transact and make moves. I don't
Speaker 2: know what to believe. I think we know they're going
Speaker 2: to try and upgrade on the infield. Do I like
Speaker 2: how they're operating this offseason? No, that's no secret. Everybody
Speaker 2: who listened to this podcast knows that. Anybody who knows
Speaker 2: me knows that. You know that you feel the same way.
Speaker 2: Operating with a sixteen million dollars payrolls a joke. That
Speaker 2: being said, if the Mariners are going to make impact
Speaker 2: moves this winner now focusing just on the Rosenthal report,
Speaker 2: doesn't it make more sense to actually gear that focus
Speaker 2: towards second base? And I know I just said that
Speaker 2: the Mariner's training for Alec Bohm would be great. I
Speaker 2: think it would be the problem is, once you get
Speaker 2: past Alec Bohm, who are you acquiring to play third base?
Speaker 2: There's way more options over at second whether it's Niko Horner,
Speaker 2: whether it's hass On Kim, whether it's others. At third base,
Speaker 2: it's Booneman then.
Speaker 1: What That's what the Mariners say in their farm system too.
Speaker 2: Though.
Speaker 1: If you list out the options the Mariners could play
Speaker 1: at second it's Dylan Moore, Ryan Bliss, and you could
Speaker 1: put Leo Revos at second base, and you can put
Speaker 1: Cole Young at second base. Right They have the options there.
Speaker 2: And that's why they The Rosenthal report likely has that
Speaker 2: they are more interested in third base. And Rosenthal mentions
Speaker 2: that in his report that the Mariners feel better internally
Speaker 2: about out what they have at second than what they
Speaker 2: have at third. And look by the letter of the
Speaker 2: law and by definition, I understand what Rosenthal is saying.
Speaker 2: If a ground ball was to roll the second base
Speaker 2: or to roll the third base, where do you have
Speaker 2: more depth? Right now? Second base are either good options
Speaker 2: for everyday players? No, but they do have more options
Speaker 2: at second base by definition, yes, Dylan Moore can play
Speaker 2: plenty at second base. I also think Dylan Moore is
Speaker 2: much better suited in a utility role than he is
Speaker 2: in an everyday role. But yeah, if they have to
Speaker 2: find options at second base, they can do it. I
Speaker 2: don't know what they're going to do at third base.
Speaker 1: I think it was for end of the Pod. Jason
Speaker 1: Churchill was tweeting about this earlier and noting that as
Speaker 1: the offseason rolls along and team's canvas for what's actually
Speaker 1: available needs do change. It could very well be that
Speaker 1: when Justin Hollander mentioned at the GM's meetings that the
Speaker 1: Mariners were focusing on second base, they spent the last
Speaker 1: few weeks calling around about second baseman, checking on the
Speaker 1: availability of free agents second basement, and realized, huh, I
Speaker 1: don't think that's realistic. It's more realistic to go after
Speaker 1: third base. That's a real thing right there. So when
Speaker 1: you look at it that way and you look at
Speaker 1: what the Mariners have internally, it clicks that if that
Speaker 1: is true the first part I mentioned what I think
Speaker 1: Jason mentioned on Twitter. If that part is true, then
Speaker 1: this part makes a whole lot more sense. I don't
Speaker 1: think Mariners fans really care which position the Mariners go upgrade,
Speaker 1: because they're not gonna be able to truly upgrade at all.
Speaker 1: Three positions given the budget they have. But you just
Speaker 1: want one, right, You just want one serious acquisition at
Speaker 1: these positions. That's all you want. It can't be in
Speaker 1: three weeks from now. It's like, oh, we're gonna pivot
Speaker 1: onto the first base market now because we don't like
Speaker 1: what we see at third. It's like, that's not giving
Speaker 1: us very much confidence because now you've gone in a
Speaker 1: circle around the entire infield, which, if we're being realistic
Speaker 1: lyle where there is the most options is at first base.
Speaker 1: Yet it has not been mentioned.
Speaker 2: No, they need to upgrade at two positions. Are they
Speaker 2: gonna do that? That's a different question. They need to
Speaker 2: upgrade at two positions. I think what Mariners fan should
Speaker 2: be settling on not one.
Speaker 1: Oh and bullpen by the way, yes.
Speaker 2: But you mentioned, but you mentioned I think Mariners fans
Speaker 2: just want to see one upgraded. No, I think they
Speaker 2: want to see at least two upgraded. It's just the
Speaker 2: team has yanked down the expectations so low that people
Speaker 2: have settled with one.
Speaker 1: I'm seriously upgraded at multiple positions since what.
Speaker 2: I don't even know, right, So that's why I just
Speaker 2: want one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So because people don't even have the confidence they're
Speaker 1: going to do one right.
Speaker 2: Because what you're saying is they haven't done it in years,
Speaker 2: years and years.
Speaker 1: So I mean after the twenty two offseason it was
Speaker 1: ta Oskar Hernandez was the upgrade. That was a serious
Speaker 1: outfield upgrade?
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Where was the other one? They didn't do another serious
Speaker 1: one It Colton long as we could tell DFAED midseason,
Speaker 1: was not a serious upgrade. I think the idea was
Speaker 1: a serious upgrade, but the execution of it was not right.
Speaker 2: For Hey, Polanco last year was supposed to be a
Speaker 2: big one, didn't happen.
Speaker 1: Didn't happen. Mitch Garver was supposed to be a big one,
Speaker 1: didn't happen, got to mote it. They have not been
Speaker 1: able to do two serious acquisitions. So that's why when
Speaker 1: you when you look at this one would be a
Speaker 1: great start because people people were paranoid. Read our comments
Speaker 1: to all of you that listen and don't spend time
Speaker 1: commenting on our things and might just think a while,
Speaker 1: and I reiterating some of these points to try and
Speaker 1: hammer home, especially about the relievers. By the way, they
Speaker 1: do need a reliever really bad in that bullpend high
Speaker 1: leverage would be great. Some of I know some of
Speaker 1: you listening don't read our comments all the time, but
Speaker 1: there is a paranoia out there from a large swath
Speaker 1: of people that they're not going to do anything. That's
Speaker 1: why I think one is just so important because one,
Speaker 1: even if it's not perfect, well even if it's not perfect,
Speaker 1: one serious upgrade in the offseason and a bounce back
Speaker 1: across this roster leads to a potential play opposition.
Speaker 2: How do you think those calls went between Jerry and
Speaker 2: Justin when they were trying to figure out how to
Speaker 2: upgrade at second base? Do you think they called has
Speaker 2: Song Kim's camp? It was like, Hello, they were interested
Speaker 2: in Hassan Kim a ten million a year. Now we're out, Bye,
Speaker 2: hang up the phone.
Speaker 1: Well, now they should go to Heisung Kim.
Speaker 2: No, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: I'm play shouldn't, but that's in their budget.
Speaker 2: While we're on this topic, I'm spending thirty seconds on this.
Speaker 2: I think Haisan Kim is Josh Rojas, who, by the way,
Speaker 2: they just let go. I think he's a good defender
Speaker 2: and isn't gonna hit in the big leagues. I will
Speaker 2: be shocked if his WRC plus in his first year
Speaker 2: is over ninety five. In other words, that is Josh Rojas.
Speaker 2: And if you spend real money on that, I'm not.
Speaker 1: Gonna be happy, and it's gonna cost more.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Again, I think Hay Song Kim is Josh Rojas.
Speaker 1: Can you not wait for Winter meetings? Jerry's gonna trade
Speaker 1: for someone while we're at Winter Meetings?
Speaker 2: Are we gonna make a scene while we're there in
Speaker 2: the ballroom or wherever the main common area is.
Speaker 1: Well, just depends what it is, am I we me? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I can be tame emotionally in public.
Speaker 2: Yeah, TJ TJ one T doesn't quite get worked up
Speaker 2: as worked up as I do. He'll get worked up
Speaker 2: and not to my level. And yeah, he's probably better
Speaker 2: about keeping it together in public. If if the Mariners
Speaker 2: do something stupid while we're at the Winter meetings, I
Speaker 2: cannot guarantee I won't just be unhinged.
Speaker 1: What's gonna be the best thing, though, is like Jerry's
Speaker 1: finishing at walking down the hall, like across the hotel,
Speaker 1: but we're all gonna be on the ground level, so
Speaker 1: he's gonna make the trade. Rosenthal or Paston's gonna tweet
Speaker 1: it out You're gonna go far and Jerry's gonna be like.
Speaker 2: Oh, what was that?
Speaker 1: Was that because of me? Oh?
Speaker 2: Is that those? Is that those Mariners? Podcasters? Oh boy?
Speaker 1: But then we're gonna walk over to him too. Mic
Speaker 1: into jerry first reaction.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Would you like would you like our rec
Speaker 2: action into the trade?
Speaker 1: Not really guys. What it's like, can you give me
Speaker 1: twenty can you give me fifteen seconds?
Speaker 2: Well, it's like it's like, why don't you want our reaction?
Speaker 2: Well I heard you across the hall from all these people.
Speaker 1: I'll be calm. It's like, I don't think so right.
Speaker 2: Speaking of which, another reminder of you guys are going
Speaker 2: to be at the Winter Meetings next week. For any
Speaker 2: of you that might be listening, please let us know.
Speaker 2: We'd love to meet up. We'd love to come say hey,
Speaker 2: we'd love to talk ball et cetera. So a couple
Speaker 2: of you already, a couple of you have already reached out.
Speaker 2: If there's more of you that are going to be there, seriously,
Speaker 2: please let us know.
Speaker 1: So we'll talk about some of these It's I'm so yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to it. So please please reach out
Speaker 1: to us, send us a DM at us. If you're
Speaker 1: going to be there in Dallas winter meetings, that would
Speaker 1: be that would be awesome. Yeah, I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: this conversation with David Samson Lyle really fun former executive
Speaker 1: for sixteen years with the Marlins h under Jeffrey Lauria,
Speaker 1: also a former executive of the Montreal Expose. He does
Speaker 1: a great job of explaining the dynamics between front offices
Speaker 1: and ownerships, which I know is a hot topic this offseason.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to get into it, and let us
Speaker 2: preface it a little bit more here in just a minute.
Speaker 2: Before that, let's take a pause. We're gonna talk to
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Speaker 2: Those are three and four dollars drinks during Happy Hour
Speaker 2: from two to six pm on Monday through Fridays. So
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Speaker 2: All that is over at Pagatcha's Pub eighty five in Kirkland.
Speaker 2: Yet we wanted to have David on because, yet again,
Speaker 2: for the second off season in a row, the biggest
Speaker 2: headline in Mariners world seems to yet again be ownership
Speaker 2: and their commitment or lack thereof, to fielding a successful
Speaker 2: on field product that is capable of truly being a contender,
Speaker 2: and a powerhouse that seems to be the overarching headline
Speaker 2: yet again. We talked about it a bunch last offseason.
Speaker 2: The two of us discussed it plenty. We had a
Speaker 2: couple people on some reporters on last year to help
Speaker 2: try to contextualize it to some extent. But we really
Speaker 2: wanted to get David on this offseason because he is
Speaker 2: somebody who's been in front offices, been in ownership groups.
Speaker 2: He's been in these meetings. You get a sense of
Speaker 2: how he thinks and how owners think with this. I
Speaker 2: can guarantee you this. I don't think you guys are
Speaker 2: gonna agree with all of it in terms of what
Speaker 2: he says, but it's fascinating and we didn't agree with
Speaker 2: all of what he says. We were fascinating to listen
Speaker 2: and we'll react to some of this after the interview.
Speaker 2: But hearing what he said, there were things that were
Speaker 2: clicking in my head that didn't click before.
Speaker 1: Look, guys, this is gonna be a different perspective. I
Speaker 1: just want you guys to gear up for that as
Speaker 1: you listen to this interview, a different perspective from people
Speaker 1: we have had on in the past to talk about that.
Speaker 1: And that's why I'm not gonna hold you guys up
Speaker 1: any longer. Let's get you to that interview with David Samson.
Speaker 1: All right, We've got David Samson on with us. Former
Speaker 1: executive for the Miami Marlins and the Montreal expos He's
Speaker 1: also the host of Nothing Personal with David Samson, part
Speaker 1: of Metal Arc Media. David, thanks so much for taking
Speaker 1: some time to join us. I wanted to start off
Speaker 1: sort of tying in your old career and your now
Speaker 1: current career because for some of our listeners who might
Speaker 1: be unfamiliar with your work. You served in a pretty
Speaker 1: high up level of the Marlins and the Expos organization,
Speaker 1: and now you're just like kind of like Klaloney and
Speaker 1: you do a show every single day. So how unique
Speaker 1: is it for someone that held a position like you
Speaker 1: held to be doing such a front facing up show
Speaker 1: like you currently do.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: I was president of the Marlins for sixteen seasons, and
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen when I got fired by a text
Speaker 3: alert from ESPN that Derek Jeter was firing me, I
Speaker 3: was the second longest tenured president in all of baseball,
Speaker 3: and I would say twenty four hours after I was
Speaker 3: let go, which I knew I was going to be
Speaker 3: because I had orchestrated the sale of the team to
Speaker 3: Derek Jeters, so I knew I wasn't he wasn't going
Speaker 3: to keep me, and when his first box arrived in
Speaker 3: my office, I knew that something was a miss. But
Speaker 3: I immediately knew that I wanted to get into media
Speaker 3: because I had been front facing and sort of the
Speaker 3: public face of both the Expos for two seasons and
Speaker 3: then the Marlins for sixteen, and I was ready for
Speaker 3: the next career, and I immediately started with CBS Sports
Speaker 3: right after early two thousand eighteen, and then I was
Speaker 3: approached to start a show, and I thought of an
Speaker 3: idea called Nothing Personal and Nothing Personal with David Sampson
Speaker 3: is a daily show, and it really gives people insight
Speaker 3: into demystifying what goes on in front offices around sports,
Speaker 3: and I tell stories and sort of analyze what's happening
Speaker 3: when people are talking to the media, because I did
Speaker 3: that for eighteen years, and I always had an agenda,
Speaker 3: and there was a lot of bait and switch and
Speaker 3: misleading that I was doing purposefully both to get better players,
Speaker 3: to get better players cheaper, to get our fans to
Speaker 3: buy tickets as much as they could or would, to
Speaker 3: give hope, however false it may be. And so this
Speaker 3: is a show that's dedicated to just a lot of
Speaker 3: truth telling. And I'm a pretty forward person and when
Speaker 3: I got the invite to come on your show, I
Speaker 3: was happy to do it. As you know, it's hard
Speaker 3: to do a daily show, it's hard to do a
Speaker 3: show of any kind. And I've been doing Nothing Personal
Speaker 3: for five years and it continues to grow and it's
Speaker 3: a fantastic stick be fun, but daily grind.
Speaker 1: The name of it nothing personal, I think ties back
Speaker 1: to sort of the main subject of I think what
Speaker 1: we'll talk about today with the dynamics between ownership and
Speaker 1: front office and fans. But the title itself nothing personal.
Speaker 1: I would imagine the idea behind that is how a
Speaker 1: lot of teams operate are saying, look, it is nothing
Speaker 1: personal to all of you. This is business. Is that correct?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I end every show with the line, it's just business,
Speaker 3: this is nothing personal, And I use that line a
Speaker 3: lot during my career. You're crushing a lot of dreams
Speaker 3: as a team president, whether it is fans when you
Speaker 3: don't win and there's twenty nine losers every year, or
Speaker 3: whether it's players who you're releasing or sending back to
Speaker 3: the minor leagues. There's always some negativity that you're associated with.
Speaker 3: But on the other hand, I loved what I did
Speaker 3: because we were in the memory making business and we
Speaker 3: did a lot of cool things like winning a World
Speaker 3: Series and getting in ballpark and hosting an All Star Games.
Speaker 3: So there's all sorts of great dichotomies when you're the
Speaker 3: president of a team, and if you're going to be
Speaker 3: someone who's front facing. You've got to be there when
Speaker 3: things are bad and when things are good. And that
Speaker 3: was my specialty through my eighteen seasons, and that's what
Speaker 3: I continue to do on the show and that's.
Speaker 4: What we should talk about here today if you want
Speaker 4: to that.
Speaker 3: There's so much that goes into making a team, and
Speaker 3: it is hard to be a fan of a sports
Speaker 3: team because you are signing yourself up for disappointment because
Speaker 3: there's only one winner at the end of every season.
Speaker 3: And so when your customers, by definition, are going to
Speaker 3: be disappointed with your product, but you want them to
Speaker 3: keep engaging with it and keep spending their money and
Speaker 3: their time. It's a very interesting relationship that you have
Speaker 3: with the media and with the fan base and with
Speaker 3: people really around the country or the world. And I
Speaker 3: like digging into that and talking about that.
Speaker 2: So I want to dig back into something you just
Speaker 2: said after I ask you this about your show, about
Speaker 2: the information you've brought to people since joining the media.
Speaker 2: What is something that you've shared that you feel like
Speaker 2: fans really didn't know about how sports teams franchises are
Speaker 2: run until you shared the information, and people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of what I do is when
Speaker 3: there are press conferences and press releases, I translate them
Speaker 3: and explain to people why teams are saying what they're
Speaker 3: saying when they're firings of coaches or general managers, or
Speaker 3: the process of signing a player. I was responsible for
Speaker 3: signing gian Carlos Stanton at the time, it was the
Speaker 3: biggest contract in North American sports. And talking through how
Speaker 3: that process is, how you deal with things throughout the
Speaker 3: course of a year. I had a death, you know,
Speaker 3: Jose Fernandez tragically died, and talking through that. They're just
Speaker 3: really every sort of experience, from losing one hundred games
Speaker 3: to winning a World Series, from trading away all your
Speaker 3: players to signing a bunch of the best free agents
Speaker 3: and explaining how all those processes work. I think it's
Speaker 3: important for fans and listeners, and it's been born out
Speaker 3: by the size of the show. People want to hear this,
Speaker 3: they want to hear the stories. And I've always told
Speaker 3: people I'm not curing cancer, I'm not splitting the atom.
Speaker 3: I'm merely telling people how things really worked and trying
Speaker 3: to take some of the mystique away from what people
Speaker 3: perceive is these very secretive things and brilliance of sports people,
Speaker 3: when in fact we're really just like everybody else.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned signing up to be a sports fan
Speaker 2: is extremely hard. The two of us could sit here
Speaker 2: and tell you absolutely, we go through it every day
Speaker 2: with a team that's never made the World Series. But
Speaker 2: I've wanted to have this question answered for so long.
Speaker 2: I'd probably sit around and think about it way too often,
Speaker 2: and you feel like somebody that would be a great
Speaker 2: person to ask it to. So here we go, why
Speaker 2: do owners and these billionaires that own teams decide to
Speaker 2: get into it? And it's a little more of a
Speaker 2: deep question than that, because I'm sure you're going to
Speaker 2: respond and say, well, money, it's super profitable. You can
Speaker 2: make a lot owning a team. But these billionaires, well,
Speaker 2: one their rich to begin and number two, there are
Speaker 2: a lot of ways post careers for whatever these guys
Speaker 2: have done for most of their lives, to continue to
Speaker 2: make money as they go on through life. But I
Speaker 2: guess I've always looked at owning a team as something
Speaker 2: that was supposed to be a way to give back
Speaker 2: to the community, give back to your fans, to try
Speaker 2: to really invest in something for your city. But as
Speaker 2: we all know, there's a lot of owners in the
Speaker 2: game that don't really operate like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't want to burst your bubble, but let
Speaker 3: me start at the beginning of your question and tell
Speaker 3: you that many of the owners who got into the
Speaker 3: game in the nineties and early two thousands, they got
Speaker 3: in at pretty low prices, and when you call them billionaires,
Speaker 3: their assets may be worth billions, but they are not
Speaker 3: actual liquid at all. They've got a lot of their
Speaker 3: money tied up in teams, and the teams many of
Speaker 3: them do not make money operationally, and they're forced to
Speaker 3: borrow money or pledge their other assets, or use their
Speaker 3: savings in order to operate teams.
Speaker 4: And of course you can get it all back when
Speaker 4: you sell.
Speaker 3: But the reason why very many owners don't sell and
Speaker 3: they hold for a long time, and the main reason
Speaker 3: they get in was perfectly stated by Steve Balmer when
Speaker 3: he bought the Clippers, and he had a great story
Speaker 3: that he told and it is exactly spot on. He
Speaker 3: was one of the founders of Microsoft. He was an
Speaker 3: actual liquid billionaire, and he said, I can't get into
Speaker 3: any restaurants in LA I bought the Clippers, and I
Speaker 3: can do whatever I want. Whenever I want to, I
Speaker 3: make a call and say it's Steve Balmer. I want
Speaker 3: to have dinner at eight twenty two, and they will
Speaker 3: open the red carpet and he'll have a table wherever
Speaker 3: he wants. And there is such ego involved because there's
Speaker 3: so few opportunities to own teams, and when you're an
Speaker 3: owner of a team, you're just treated in a way
Speaker 3: that you were not treated even if you started or
Speaker 3: worked in a huge company. There was an owner of
Speaker 3: the Astros. His name was Drayton McClain, very successful businessman,
Speaker 3: and he and I would talk often about how funny
Speaker 3: it was to own a team and how you would
Speaker 3: try to take the lessons that you basically did to
Speaker 3: build up your company or to build up your other
Speaker 3: business and apply them in baseball, and it doesn't work,
Speaker 3: and owners get super frustrated by that. Ted Lerner of
Speaker 3: the Nationals rest in Peace, one of my mentors, another
Speaker 3: great example, a hugely successful real estate man. He tried
Speaker 3: to run the Nationals like his organization and it totally failed.
Speaker 3: And so owners are very interesting creatures. And the one
Speaker 3: adjective I would use to describe almost all of them
Speaker 3: they're incredibly thin skinned. They're not used to being in public.
Speaker 3: They don't like being criticized. They want all of the
Speaker 3: accolades they loved when their hands are shaked and they're
Speaker 3: asked for autographs and pictures. They don't like reading bad
Speaker 3: stuff about them. They don't like any negativity, and they
Speaker 3: always believe that they're right because they're powerful. So it's
Speaker 3: a very interesting dynamic that happens in ownership and even
Speaker 3: down to a team president, where you're used to getting
Speaker 3: what you want when you want it, and then you
Speaker 3: realize that the vagaries of the game on the field
Speaker 3: are totally beyond your control. And just last thing, the
Speaker 3: reason why you see managers get fired and gms get
Speaker 3: fired is because owners are thinking that there's a fix
Speaker 3: to everything, that there's a logical reason why you lose
Speaker 3: a game, and therefore if you just fix it, then
Speaker 3: you won't lose a game. And it takes a long
Speaker 3: time as an executive to understand that there are just
Speaker 3: certain things that are what they are.
Speaker 1: So then what are the traits of an owner that
Speaker 1: is largely successful.
Speaker 3: I would say the biggest trade is to let people
Speaker 3: do their job. But I would say that's the trade
Speaker 3: of a successful CEO of any company. And the thing
Speaker 3: about owners is that you think that your owner medals.
Speaker 3: And I don't know if you think your owner does medal,
Speaker 3: but I'll tell you thirty owners medal. And it may
Speaker 3: be degrees of medaling. But don't kids yourself every time
Speaker 3: an owner tells you that, hey, you know my GM,
Speaker 3: just I let him do what he wants. I give
Speaker 3: him the payroll and the rest is up to him.
Speaker 3: It's total horse hockey. The owner knows everything that's going on,
Speaker 3: doesn't read anything in the paper about his team. And
Speaker 3: we'll call up his GM and say, I want to
Speaker 3: sign this guy, trade that guy, do this, call the
Speaker 3: manager and say, why didn't you hit and run? And
Speaker 3: these owners think they're baseball people and the majority of
Speaker 3: them simply are not.
Speaker 1: You mentioned something in your second to let your two
Speaker 1: answers ago, where you mentioned that not all these teams
Speaker 1: operationally make money. I'd like to dive into that a
Speaker 1: little bit more. Where are the shortcomings for some of
Speaker 1: these franchises that they see their bottom line going to
Speaker 1: the red? Where are they missing out where other franchises aren't.
Speaker 3: So the rule that I was taught my first day
Speaker 3: by Bud Selig is that if your player payroll is
Speaker 3: fifty percent or greater of your revenue, you are going
Speaker 3: to lose money. And he's who is right twenty five
Speaker 3: years ago, he's right today.
Speaker 4: And that is the general rule of thumb.
Speaker 3: No coincidence that if you look at a salary cap
Speaker 3: league like the NBA, there's a general rule of a
Speaker 3: fifty to fifty split for revenue for payroll because that's
Speaker 3: about as high as you can go. But there are
Speaker 3: owners who go higher. I can tell you the New
Speaker 3: York Mets are a great example. They get crushed, operationally crushed.
Speaker 3: And you think that because he's a billionaire, he'll keep
Speaker 3: doing it forever. He won't number one, but number two.
Speaker 3: His payroll is so high that he doesn't have the
Speaker 3: revenue to cover it, but he's willing to do it
Speaker 3: because he's a new owner and very much wants to win.
Speaker 3: But what you've been noticing is that there's not a
Speaker 3: direct correlation between size of your payroll and winning. Despite
Speaker 3: the fact that the Yankees and Dodgers were in the
Speaker 3: World Series recently and they were two of the top
Speaker 3: three payrolls. It really hasn't been like that, And so
Speaker 3: I would just tell you that every owners meeting we
Speaker 3: would see on the screen, they would just show us
Speaker 3: the team, the teams ebadas, the industry ebadas, which means
Speaker 3: whether a team is making money or losing money, and
Speaker 3: the cash flow of teams, and the overwhelming majority of
Speaker 3: teams did not make money. And Bud Selig would say
Speaker 3: to us, what are you guys doing? And we were
Speaker 3: It was all men at the time, and maybe Pam
Speaker 3: Gardner of the Astros was the one woman in the room.
Speaker 3: You put yourself through hell for one hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: two days a year. You're gonna lose at least sixty
Speaker 3: games every year if you're the best team, and then
Speaker 3: you're gonna lose money at the end of the year.
Speaker 3: What's wrong with you people? And he would do it
Speaker 3: with a little more swearing and a die coke in
Speaker 3: his hand. But his point was always listened to by
Speaker 3: owners but never followed.
Speaker 1: Does that mostly the does it mostly come back to
Speaker 1: TV money? Like we've seen the last year plus with
Speaker 1: some of these rsns, where that gap is where the
Speaker 1: teams that make money separate themselves.
Speaker 3: Well, not necessarily because they're teams with great broadcast revenue
Speaker 3: that don't necessarily make money.
Speaker 4: The Yankees are a great example.
Speaker 3: They used to take out a lot of money from
Speaker 3: the Yes Network, and so their team would lose money,
Speaker 3: but the owners would be fine because Yes Network was
Speaker 3: throwing off so much cash. But then they sold off
Speaker 3: a bunch of Yes Network. They took a payment and
Speaker 3: spent that and they've been running huge payrolls to no avail,
Speaker 3: as Yankee fans know, and so eventually you just realize
Speaker 3: that you've got to run a break even business if
Speaker 3: you've run out of the ability to borrow money and
Speaker 3: you don't want to put your own money in. The
Speaker 3: disruption of the rsns is a huge deal because your
Speaker 3: TV revenue is a huge percentage of your overall revenue
Speaker 3: for all of the teams, and when it is in
Speaker 3: jeopardy the way it is now, and when the value
Speaker 3: of the owned networks goes down like for Yes Andnessen
Speaker 3: and Massin and SNY, it really does eventually impact your
Speaker 3: team and your team payroll.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned Steve Cohen, I have two questions about
Speaker 2: and things surrounding him. Number One, you sound like you
Speaker 2: don't think he can operate like this forever, which maybe
Speaker 2: sounds obvious because he spends like crazy, But is it
Speaker 2: as short term as you're kind of eluding it to be.
Speaker 2: Is it only going to be for another couple of
Speaker 2: years you think that he can do this before it
Speaker 2: catches up to him.
Speaker 4: It depends when he wins.
Speaker 3: But I'll tell you, when you buy a team, you
Speaker 3: get five years of amazing tax benefits because of amortization
Speaker 3: and depreciation of the assets that you've purchased.
Speaker 1: It.
Speaker 3: It's a technical thing, but the bottom line is that
Speaker 3: you can stand to have losses because you can use
Speaker 3: those losses. But when that five years runs out, your
Speaker 3: financials look completely different. Steve con very easily with what
Speaker 3: he spent on the Mets, could have had in his
Speaker 3: mind that he was buying them really for two seven
Speaker 3: and that he was going to lose six hundred million
Speaker 3: dollars and just bounce that off as as purchase price.
Speaker 4: Frankly, so there will be a limit.
Speaker 3: You just don't know when it is, but I would
Speaker 3: say that it's not this year, but I would say
Speaker 3: I can see it from here.
Speaker 1: How much do owners look at the balance between some
Speaker 1: of the money they lose and then how much their
Speaker 1: team appreciates every year.
Speaker 3: It's a great question. So I'll tell you what I
Speaker 3: did with our owner, because we lost money every year
Speaker 3: of my eighteen years, which isn't a great reflection to
Speaker 3: me except for maybe three of them. And what I
Speaker 3: would say to the owner is, why don't you reallocate
Speaker 3: your assets, sell one of your pieces of art, borrow money,
Speaker 3: use your cash, because if we lose twenty million by
Speaker 3: having a payroll where we have it, I promise you your
Speaker 3: team is going to go up in value by more
Speaker 3: than twenty million.
Speaker 4: So if you can.
Speaker 3: Handle the short term cash loss, then it's worth it
Speaker 3: because you'll get it back on appreciation. And for our owner,
Speaker 3: that made sense because his entry price was low enough
Speaker 3: that he was making money on a sale whenever that
Speaker 3: would come, even if it would come with his estate
Speaker 3: after death, which it didn't turn out. He sold the
Speaker 3: team in seventeen after Jose Fernandez died. But for many
Speaker 3: of these teams their entry price. Now take a look
Speaker 3: at at the recent deals where the price is higher,
Speaker 3: like Bruce Sherman of the Marlins paid one point two billion.
Speaker 3: He's been losing money since twenty seventeen, and he's not
Speaker 3: seen a return on that money at all, because the
Speaker 3: team isn't worth more than one point two. As a
Speaker 3: matter of fact, he'd sell it today at one point two,
Speaker 3: but no one would give him that.
Speaker 4: So it depends what your entry price is.
Speaker 1: Are these teams just compiling up outstanding debt with like
Speaker 1: banks or so they were, like you said, borrowing against
Speaker 1: other assets they own, like for the Mariners, who would
Speaker 1: if if this was the case for them, it would
Speaker 1: be root sports, I would imagine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's several places where you get debt. The first
Speaker 3: is there's industry debt, which is a line of credit
Speaker 3: or a borrowing that Major League Baseball does and uses
Speaker 3: its national TV deals as collateral and allows each team
Speaker 3: to borrow an amount of money based on that as collateral.
Speaker 3: Then you've got owners who borrow money with the team
Speaker 3: as collateral. Then you've got owners who borrow money with
Speaker 3: their other assets as collateral, and then.
Speaker 4: You have a cap.
Speaker 3: There's something called the Debt Service Rule in Major League
Speaker 3: Baseball which limits the amount of debt that you can
Speaker 3: have on your team, and if you're in violation of it,
Speaker 3: you've got to put money into your team. And baseball
Speaker 3: has many teams in violation, and it forces owners to adjust.
Speaker 3: So let me give you the best example. The Padres
Speaker 3: total violation of the debt service rule, a totally irresponsible payroll.
Speaker 4: And guess what their.
Speaker 3: Payroll went down significantly from two years ago to last year.
Speaker 3: And I would bet you it goes down again because
Speaker 3: while they sell out and they have a waiting list
Speaker 3: for season tickets, they're not making money.
Speaker 4: They're bleeding money, and so you have to adjust your payroll.
Speaker 3: By the way, one more thing, sorry, look at the Achillies.
Speaker 3: John Middleton just sold maybe ten percent of the team.
Speaker 3: You can sell, oh your shares in the team to
Speaker 3: bring in money, and it's not being used to get
Speaker 3: Juan Soto. It's being used to pay down debt in
Speaker 3: order to get your balance sheet in order. So that's
Speaker 3: another way that owners can raise money for their team.
Speaker 3: If you own eighty percent, you can sell ten percent.
Speaker 3: But you'd be shocked at the number of owners and
Speaker 3: the faces and names that you know, and how much
Speaker 3: of the team they actually own.
Speaker 2: This is all really interesting, speaking of ownership stake. The
Speaker 2: other Steve Cohen question I wanted to circle back to
Speaker 2: is when it comes to decision making by an ownership group.
Speaker 2: How much easier is it when you are in a large,
Speaker 2: large majority owner like Steve cohen is, where he owns
Speaker 2: roughly ninety five percent of the New York Mets compared
Speaker 2: to the Mariners, where there's roughly fourteen to eighteen people
Speaker 2: on this ownership group. And I would imagine I'm not
Speaker 2: a fly on the wall in there, but i would
Speaker 2: imagine it's hard to make decisions and to get eighteen
Speaker 2: people to come together on an agreement. So how much
Speaker 2: harder is it when it's one person versus a group?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's nothing so limited as being a limited partner
Speaker 3: in a baseball team. You're not getting any say over signings, trades, anything.
Speaker 3: You may get a few board meetings a year, you
Speaker 3: may get a little nosh, and you may get a
Speaker 3: you know, a Mariner's cap. But there is a control
Speaker 3: person and that control person is in charge of the
Speaker 3: team and every decision the team makes. And the control
Speaker 3: person gets his power from his partnership agreement with his
Speaker 3: other partners with the other owners. So you do you
Speaker 3: never and every partnership agreement may be different. So there
Speaker 3: could be a partnership agreement where there's a clause that
Speaker 3: says you can't sign a free agent for over five
Speaker 3: hundred million dollars without permission of a majority.
Speaker 4: Of the partners.
Speaker 3: So there can be examples, but the overwhelming majority of
Speaker 3: decisions are made simply by the control person and the team.
Speaker 1: Why is a team like the Dodgers able to be
Speaker 1: such an anomaly when it comes to spending habits and
Speaker 1: it just it feels more sustainable with what they're doing well.
Speaker 3: Out The number one thing is when Mark Walter bought
Speaker 3: the team, something happened. Remember they bought the team from
Speaker 3: Frank McCort, who had to sell the team because of
Speaker 3: a divorce. And it was a very interesting sale process.
Speaker 3: It was an auction, but it was fixed and it
Speaker 3: was going to Goggenheim Partners Mark Walter and what they
Speaker 3: did to get the sale price up. And if you
Speaker 3: recall way back when they bought it, it was a
Speaker 3: record at the time, but it was really an inflated
Speaker 3: number because what Baseball did is they had a pre
Speaker 3: arranged deal for a new TV deal with Comcast that
Speaker 3: gives them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in
Speaker 3: broadcast revenue that other teams simply don't have, and when
Speaker 3: you have that amount of revenue and your local TV deal,
Speaker 3: it enables you to be separate from the pack. And
Speaker 3: that's what the Dodgers are. They're well run, don't get
Speaker 3: me wrong, but they have a huge revenue advantage that
Speaker 3: was given to them. They had a huge revenue sharing
Speaker 3: advantage that was given to them in a last minute
Speaker 3: deal as well, in terms of what would count for
Speaker 3: revenue sharing and what wouldn't, and all of it was
Speaker 3: so the Dodgers sell price would be higher, so that
Speaker 3: bud stealer could say, hey, look, we're a healthy league.
Speaker 3: Our teams are selling for a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Since you've had direct experience with something like this, I
Speaker 1: want to run it by you because a lot of
Speaker 1: Mariners fans think Marror's ownership should sell and think that
Speaker 1: would solve the problems when it comes to how the
Speaker 1: Mariners spend, how they operate all these things. So, as
Speaker 1: Lyell mentioned, the ownership group is large. How complicated of
Speaker 1: a process would that be for the Mirrors to truly
Speaker 1: be sold?
Speaker 4: Not at all.
Speaker 3: There's tag along rights, which means that the general partner
Speaker 3: has the right to sell the partnership and the other
Speaker 3: partners would come with him. But I guess I would
Speaker 3: ask you to go back to when I first got
Speaker 3: in the game. Can you think of and I'll ask
Speaker 3: you this question.
Speaker 4: Who the richest.
Speaker 3: Owner was when I joined the game on December ninth
Speaker 3: of nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 4: Who was the richest owner at that time?
Speaker 2: Was it George Steinbrunner?
Speaker 3: Nope, it was Carl Pohlad. He was the owner of
Speaker 3: the Minnesota Twins. The Minnesota Twins were up for contraction.
Speaker 3: They couldn't get a ballpark done. Wayne heizinga hugely rich
Speaker 3: man when he owned the Marlins, couldn't get a ballpark
Speaker 3: deal done, cut his payroll, did a fire sale. There
Speaker 3: really is no direct correlation other than Steve Kohene right now,
Speaker 3: to wealth and how your team is operated. So that
Speaker 3: is one of those things that people believe. The grass
Speaker 3: is always greener. Believe me, people in Miami know about it.
Speaker 3: When our owners sold to Bruce Sherman and Derek Jeter,
Speaker 3: they thought they had gotten a gift from heaven and
Speaker 3: now it's like they want us back or something.
Speaker 2: So these teams that you talked about do spend a lot.
Speaker 2: And we talked about Steve Cullen for a bit already.
Speaker 2: But you mentioned the Phillies, you mentioned the padres. If
Speaker 2: it's so financially irresponsible, do you have a take on
Speaker 2: why they continue to do it?
Speaker 4: Oh, because they want to win.
Speaker 3: They because they an agent who says, hey, you're an octogenarian,
Speaker 3: you have no ring. It's super fun to win a ring.
Speaker 3: And you know what's more fun than winning one ring,
Speaker 3: it's winning two rings. And so even once you win
Speaker 3: your first like we did in three, we spent the
Speaker 3: next fourteen years chasing Amy trying to get the second ring.
Speaker 4: And it makes you do.
Speaker 3: Weird things because you feel like that you're invincible. When
Speaker 3: you're a world champion, it's the greatest.
Speaker 4: Feeling in the world.
Speaker 3: And once you're world champion, you're always a world champion.
Speaker 3: And then it becomes sort of a contest in the
Speaker 3: owners meeting. These owners are very competitive with each other.
Speaker 3: Don't kid yourself. And when you have a bunch, I'll
Speaker 3: tell you one funny thing. Lon Trust I love me.
Speaker 3: He's the CEO of the Yankees. Long time he went
Speaker 3: to owners meeting, He's wearing every one of his Yankee rings.
Speaker 3: He had him on every finger and he'd walk into
Speaker 3: the meeting room like that, and that just sort of
Speaker 3: exemplifies the sort of competition. So owners want to get
Speaker 3: rings if they can, but they realize that it's way
Speaker 3: harder than they thought.
Speaker 1: Fans want team I think fans across the league want
Speaker 1: teams to spend more money. And if we're talking about
Speaker 1: teams across the league losing money, how are they going
Speaker 1: to how do in this day, with Rison's falling through,
Speaker 1: how are they gonna start generating more revenue here for
Speaker 1: the future. So hopefully some of the fans can get
Speaker 1: what they want.
Speaker 3: Well, you're seeing what MLB is trying to do with
Speaker 3: nationalizing the digital rights in order to share more revenue
Speaker 3: and take some away from the larger markets and give
Speaker 3: it to the smaller markets. But again, I would say
Speaker 3: to fans, would you And I've asked fans this, so
Speaker 3: I'll ask you, guys, do you like Steven Ross owns
Speaker 3: the Dolphins spends money hand over fist. They haven't won
Speaker 3: a playoff game since two thousand. Does he get a
Speaker 3: pass for that level of incompetence. It's not like the
Speaker 3: Mariners never spend money. It's not like they don't sign
Speaker 3: free agents. It's just that they haven't been hugely successful.
Speaker 3: So is it that you want to win or do
Speaker 3: you want to win with some sort of weird notion
Speaker 3: of spending more money and more money. I've always found
Speaker 3: that confusing. I would think you just want to win.
Speaker 3: Would you trade places with the Tampa Bay Rays? Low
Speaker 3: pay roll, no attendance, but they're in the World Series
Speaker 3: or in the playoffs almost every year.
Speaker 1: I take the results. I think if I would to
Speaker 1: speak for Mariner fans currently, the state they're in is
Speaker 1: that they have tried almost everything else except spending, and
Speaker 1: it hasn't worked. So it's how do you take that
Speaker 1: next step forward?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'll give some context to it. David, You're
Speaker 2: absolutely right. The Mariners over the last twenty years at
Speaker 2: points have spent on free agents Cano Beltrey, Richie Sex,
Speaker 2: and there's others. Since the new ownership group took over,
Speaker 2: they gave Julio Rodriguez the big extension. But when you
Speaker 2: look at position player free agents, which have been a
Speaker 2: glaring need in terms of offense for this team over
Speaker 2: the last few years. The biggest contract they've ever handed
Speaker 2: out in free agency was two years and twenty four million,
Speaker 2: and that that surpassed a one year, seven million dollar contract.
Speaker 2: So over the last few years they're not exactly investing
Speaker 2: in their bats. You know.
Speaker 3: It's it's interesting you say that because I am not
Speaker 3: a big fan. You know are you would you rather
Speaker 3: be a San Francisco Giants fan? And they had the
Speaker 3: dynasty in ten, twelve, and fourteen, but they spend money
Speaker 3: handover fist. You know, Matt Chapman, they extended him and
Speaker 3: brought in Blake Snell and Solaire and it just doesn't
Speaker 3: always work. And the thing about bats and players in general,
Speaker 3: if I'm Jerry Depoto, I don't want to be asked
Speaker 3: to sign Sodo or to sign Bregman because I'm not
Speaker 3: in that market and I don't add value with those signings.
Speaker 3: Whoever gets Soto Bregman, you know, Christian Walker, who'd be
Speaker 3: a good fit for Seattle. But I want my GM
Speaker 3: to find the next seth Lugo. I don't want him
Speaker 3: signing Robinson Cano. Find me a guy, give give him
Speaker 3: forty five over three who no one wants and let
Speaker 3: him be a cy Young fin finalist. Find me a
Speaker 3: bat who's gonna be a return on the investment, who
Speaker 3: will outperform a contract that nobody else wants because we've
Speaker 3: got the best baseball people. And so what a lot
Speaker 3: of owners are doing is now spending a lot of
Speaker 3: money on their analytics and on how they evaluate players.
Speaker 3: But it's gone too far and now you're losing out
Speaker 3: on the ability of baseball people to identify value. Now
Speaker 3: it's just computers identifying the value. And you don't really
Speaker 3: win with just doing that. So to me, it's a combination.
Speaker 3: And you know free agent spending. Man, you guys got Cano.
Speaker 3: You don't think that still hurts even though he's a
Speaker 3: new owner. That's sort of signing where there's all this
Speaker 3: excitement during the off season and it ends up being crap.
Speaker 4: I would know.
Speaker 3: I've won an off season or two and ended up
Speaker 3: being a crappy team. It's fun to win the off season,
Speaker 3: but I'd rather win the season.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, go, So I quickly say, if the Mariner's
Speaker 2: one with a fifth team million dollars pay roll and
Speaker 2: they won the World Series, I wouldn't say a word.
Speaker 2: It's all about winning andrega. Yeah, like TJ said, what
Speaker 2: does it have to what do they have to do
Speaker 2: to take the next steps?
Speaker 4: Anyway, go have to make better decisions. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 4: that they're not spending money.
Speaker 3: If you look at what they did last year, they
Speaker 3: signed players that if they hit, he'd be a genius.
Speaker 3: You'd be calling for the extension. They just didn't hit,
Speaker 3: and that's part of the game. It is impossible people
Speaker 3: say that their own team has they draft terribly. No
Speaker 3: one ever makes it. They get screwed on trades, and
Speaker 3: look at how good the players are when they're traded away,
Speaker 3: and then they come here and they regress. All thirty
Speaker 3: fan bases say that same thing.
Speaker 1: David, this has been awesome. We appreciate you sharing some
Speaker 1: of your insight here with us. It is. It has
Speaker 1: really been an eye opening, eye opening experience here for
Speaker 1: us today, and we hope some of our listeners learned
Speaker 1: along as well. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: I appreciate it. Have a great day.
Speaker 2: Well, that interview was certainly interesting. We learned a lot.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you learned a lot. We're gonna spend a
Speaker 2: few minutes you're reacting to it before we wrap up
Speaker 2: the podcast. So your biggest takeaway was what.
Speaker 1: As I said before, it is a different perspective. It
Speaker 1: comes from someone who is in ownership meetings, who's seen
Speaker 1: books before, who's seen how these teams work operationally, where
Speaker 1: the cash goes, and apparently where it doesn't go when
Speaker 1: the teams, as he said, don't make as much money
Speaker 1: as you think, and lots of them actually lose money.
Speaker 1: But let's let's pick the simplest thing I would say
Speaker 1: to react to, because there are some complicated things. He
Speaker 1: brought up where he referenced Steve Cohen, for example, who
Speaker 1: gets these big tax breaks as an owner for the
Speaker 1: first five years. I'm not gonna sit here on this
Speaker 1: podcast and explain tax code. If you want to go
Speaker 1: back and listen a little bit closer and do some
Speaker 1: googling and see what exactly he gets from that and
Speaker 1: the benefits new owners get, feel free to go do that.
Speaker 1: I think it would be a little monotone for us
Speaker 1: to do that. But let's focus on one thing. Let's
Speaker 1: let's pick a simple number. David said, the easy number
Speaker 1: to look at when it comes to baseball teams and
Speaker 1: if they're profitable or not is the comparison of revenue
Speaker 1: and payroll. That player payroll should be fifty percent of
Speaker 1: your operating revenue. If it is more than that you're
Speaker 1: losing money. If it's less than that, you're making a profit. Now,
Speaker 1: that stuck out to me because there has been this
Speaker 1: chart floating around about twenty twenty three revenue and twenty
Speaker 1: twenty and then twenty twenty four payroll. We'll use that
Speaker 1: example on Twitter from all the teams in baseball, and
Speaker 1: I don't know, I will just clarify Lyle, I don't
Speaker 1: know how accurate all of these revenue numbers are, if
Speaker 1: they're accurate to the number, if there's a margin of
Speaker 1: error or whatever, because these teams aren't very transparent with
Speaker 1: these numbers. But these are the numbers. It is these
Speaker 1: numbers that we have.
Speaker 2: It's what we have access to, right right, So.
Speaker 1: There's some numbers out here of these teams where we
Speaker 1: can take a look and use the information David gave
Speaker 1: us to to contextualize this. What do you now contextualize
Speaker 1: from this?
Speaker 2: So when you crunch those numbers from the graph based
Speaker 2: on the Mariner's earnings and how much should be spent
Speaker 2: on payroll. If it's fifty percent, like David said, wow,
Speaker 2: that means the Mariner's payroll should be one hundred and
Speaker 2: ninety million dollars I have that right correct, Yes, I say, yes,
Speaker 2: it's TJ's coughing and turned his mic off.
Speaker 1: So what a shot anyway, let me yes, he's about
Speaker 1: one hundred and ninety million dollars because it says.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let me let me keep going here. Just
Speaker 2: to put that into perspective, if the Mariners were going
Speaker 2: to own up to that and actually do that, what
Speaker 2: could they do with that this often Well, they could
Speaker 2: sign one Soto, but you know what, we'll put that
Speaker 2: one to the side. Even that one aside. They could
Speaker 2: go sign William Thomas, they could go sign Christian Walker,
Speaker 2: and they could go trade for Devin Williams and be
Speaker 2: within the budget.
Speaker 1: And you could trade for Nika Horner. Two.
Speaker 2: Great, that sounds like an awesome offseason. And they're not
Speaker 2: going to do that because oh no, we only have
Speaker 2: fifty million dollars. About always fifty million dollars.
Speaker 1: Then, So what this chart does if we want to
Speaker 1: look at it a little bit closer to contextualize what
Speaker 1: you're saying. So you said it should be about one
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety maybe a little bit higher for what
Speaker 1: the Mariner should be based off of that number, David
Speaker 1: gave us because this list tells us and it ranks
Speaker 1: teams in terms of percentage of revenue spent. The lowest
Speaker 1: team is the Raise. The top team is the Mets.
Speaker 1: That should surprise absolutely nobody. It says the Mariners here
Speaker 1: generated three hundred and ninety six million dollars of revenue
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three, and their payroll of for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, they say one hundred and sixty million dollars,
Speaker 1: and that equates to about forty percent or twenty third
Speaker 1: in baseball in terms of percent percentage spent, meaning they
Speaker 1: have about ten percent to work with before they start
Speaker 1: actually losing money. So if that number is true, lyle
Speaker 1: they have like a ten percent profit margin.
Speaker 2: Also, it still rains true that even if you get
Speaker 2: close to that fifty percent mark, the better product you
Speaker 2: put on the field, more money you'll make, and then
Speaker 2: the numbers go up, you make more money.
Speaker 1: Crazy pretty sad to look at, and I will so
Speaker 1: if we're looking at this. So according to David, twelve
Speaker 1: teams lose money. Rockies, Braves, Cardinals, Giants, Phillies, Astros, Rangers, Dodgers, Padres, Diamondbacks,
Speaker 1: Blue Jays, Mets. God, I'm looking at the Mets. They're
Speaker 1: such an outlier. Eighty seven percent is what they are
Speaker 1: payroll the revenue. So this chart isn't too hard to
Speaker 1: find if you go look just look up revenue and
Speaker 1: percentage and take a look at it for yourself, and
Speaker 1: think about what David said when it comes to those
Speaker 1: teams and which teams are willing to take risks when
Speaker 1: it comes to losing money versus which teams are not.
Speaker 1: The Mariners and not shocking fashion, are not willing to
Speaker 1: take a risk losing money.
Speaker 2: It's how they've operated for years and years and years. However,
Speaker 2: they could operate with the goal and you know goal
Speaker 2: in blueprint of not losing money but still spend a
Speaker 2: lot more. I like. So having David on right, it's
Speaker 2: very clear that his thinking well well thought out, sound,
Speaker 2: there's real perspective to it, and he has he has
Speaker 2: been in those walls more than just about anybody listening
Speaker 2: to this podcast, certainly more than us. But it's very
Speaker 2: clear that that thinking is very much along the lines
Speaker 2: of how Mariner's ownership probably thinks. This is probably how
Speaker 2: a lot of the dialogue goes in their meetings. Similar
Speaker 2: to what David said to us. Looking at the teams
Speaker 2: that lose money. It correlates with the teams that spend
Speaker 2: the most money, at least according to David. Not wanting
Speaker 2: to get up against the budget, not wanting to take
Speaker 2: risks a lot of this, and what David said does
Speaker 2: lines up with the Mariners. So we like, obviously we
Speaker 2: don't agree with what the Mariners are doing. I don't.
Speaker 2: I haven't heard one person, period being saying I love
Speaker 2: what this ownership group's done. I have not heard a
Speaker 2: single person say that. But if you want perspective from
Speaker 2: how they think, I think David gave us a decent
Speaker 2: example and a decent simulation and replica of what that
Speaker 2: looks like.
Speaker 1: So we're just gonna have to see. And I'll say
Speaker 1: my last thing on this is that what David is
Speaker 1: saying in terms of fifty percent, and he used other
Speaker 1: leagues as examples of this for being true. In other
Speaker 1: cbas that have straight rev shares and have salary caps
Speaker 1: and all this, the split is fifty to fifty between
Speaker 1: players and owners because that's a profitability point for a
Speaker 1: lot of these franchises fifty percent. And Major League Baseball
Speaker 1: has a different structure with not having a salary cap
Speaker 1: and not having a salary floor, so there's a little
Speaker 1: bit more of a fluctuation with this. But even if
Speaker 1: the owners really are losing money, I'm just gonna note this,
Speaker 1: fans don't care because they want to win and they
Speaker 1: want to see the team and the community brought together
Speaker 1: with a good product on the field, whether or not
Speaker 1: the people who are one percent or of one percent
Speaker 1: lose some money on their business.
Speaker 2: But then time is a flat circle because fans don't
Speaker 2: care about owners and billionaires losing money, but the owners
Speaker 2: don't care about the fans getting mad, So time's a
Speaker 2: flat circle. Fans want the owners to care and don't
Speaker 2: care if they lose money. Owners don't care if the
Speaker 2: fans are unhappy. They just want people in the ballpark
Speaker 2: and buying their product.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What a dynamic, dog, What a dynamic I'm glad
Speaker 1: we had David on though, because it is as different
Speaker 1: a perspective as we've had on this topic as the
Speaker 1: almost two years of this podcast that we've done. Very
Speaker 1: very It was good to have it on.
Speaker 2: Extremely interesting. I'm going to guess a lot of you
Speaker 2: got to learn more than you ever knew about ownerships
Speaker 2: and how they operate before listening to this or after
Speaker 2: listening to this interview, because I know that we did
Speaker 2: again were there. I said it before the start of
Speaker 2: the interview. There were things that did not click in
Speaker 2: my head that David helped us contextualize and say, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: we might not agree with this, but this is why
Speaker 2: sometimes they do what they do. Now, I'm sure there's
Speaker 2: very smart people out there that have the exact opposite
Speaker 2: opinion about this. We'll have to try to get some
Speaker 2: of those people on in the future too, if we
Speaker 2: can find them. But yeah, extremely interesting. If stuff comes
Speaker 2: up again about the Mariners and their ownership, which sure
Speaker 2: it will, I'd be fascinated to have David back on
Speaker 2: again because most of the questions we had he answered,
Speaker 2: and he had well thought out reasoning behind it all,
Speaker 2: even if you don't agree. So I'm hoping he can
Speaker 2: be kind of a springboard for us moving forward in
Speaker 2: terms of if we have more questions. Oh, by the way,
Speaker 2: last quick thing he mentioned the Robinson Cano contract being
Speaker 2: a bad contract. We were up against the clock with
Speaker 2: David a little bit because he's a busy guy, only
Speaker 2: had X amount of time, so I didn't get the
Speaker 2: chance to say, well, we thought that was a good contract.
Speaker 2: We did not think that was a bad contract in
Speaker 2: any way. But I guess that goes back to what
Speaker 2: we've been talking about, where our perspective is going to
Speaker 2: be different than his.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I mean the question it just is based
Speaker 1: on all the winning that you had in the increased
Speaker 1: the increased attendance you got from Robinson can oh, why
Speaker 1: was that a bad contract?
Speaker 2: Right? Exactly? Again, we didn't quite have the chance to
Speaker 2: ask him that because he had been nice enough to
Speaker 2: already give us a nice chunk of his time, and
Speaker 2: again he's a busy guy. But maybe next time that'll
Speaker 2: be something we have to circle back to. All Right,
Speaker 2: that'll just about wrap up this edition of the Marine
Speaker 2: Layer podcast. You guys know the drill. You want to
Speaker 2: listen to the full form podcast, you can do so
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Speaker 2: YouTube shorts, blue sky at Marine Layer Pie. That's TJ.
Speaker 2: I'm Lyle. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in.
Speaker 2: We'll talk to you soon.