Redsfan1507
It is what it is
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I need to vent.
Lifting the true financials from a privately owned business is like demanding Hillary Clinton for records from Whitewater or e-mails from her personal account, what you get is what they are willing to give you, when they're ready to give it to you. In business, "trust" is a legal document, not a suggested relationship.
Forbes says the Reds make money- at the current unremarkable attendance and payroll rates. They don't say how much, or what investors have paid for whatever that return is.
A question many fans don't consider is, how much less would the Reds shareholders be willing to accept ? None, is usually the most correct answer, in fact, they want to make more. Only the NBA Players Union believes employees should make more than employers....amazing that holds any water, considering the bankruptcy rates of those NBA millionaire players is 50% within 10 years of leaving the NBA.
While winning is important to fans, it doesn't have to be the overriding factor for a successful balance sheet..In fact, if they had to increase payroll by another $30-$50M a year to win, that could be all (or more than) the the minimum Return on Investment Reds ownership requires to spend their money on the Reds, instead of Pork Bellies or Pfizer or their 335th KFC franchise. Regardless of what some fans think, not any/many sports franchises are just expensive hobbies for their idle rich owners that just want to throw daily parties for 35,000 strangers with mustard on their shirts and snot on their kids faces, for the chance at winning a big trophy once every 4-8 years.
Businesses either make money or disappear. like investors in them. Personally, I'm not looking forward to the next Karl Linder or similar non-sports fan penny-pincher to get Castellini & Co. back in the black by buying them out. In case no one noticed, there is no Ted Turner, Mark Cuban or Magic Johnson of Cincinnati waiting to revive the Reds former glory with a river of money. In fact, I think the Castellini family has been very generous to Cincinnati...they just need to get more for what they're paying for- from the front office that finds and signs players, the dugout staff that manage them, the med staff that is supposed to protect their investments instead of shredding them, and the players themselves, who seem to think it's someone else's responsibility to pay them like druglords even when they lay on their azz like junkies.
I've heard "Fair Market Value" defined as "whatever the market will bear for a willing buyer and willing seller". The sad fact is, Reds aren't willing sellers of Johnny Cueto, Johnny Cueto is. The free agent market will bear somewhere in the $150-$220 Million dollar total contract range for Mr. Cueto I'd say, and he will be willing to sign for that. That limits the teams that CAN sign him considerably, and will exclude many teams that would love to have him, but can't afford him, the Reds among them. Those same teams are going to throw in a rosin bag and a couple of dissappointing players from positional strength as token exchange and the Reds get to go back to the same drawing board they found Cueto with. Unfortunately, before Cueto, Tom Browning was the last homegrown pitcher of that quality. They don't come along every year or 20.
The Cardinals did fine not paying Pujols a quarter Billion. The Rangers let Hamilton go at a good time. The Brewers let both Prince Fielder and C.C. Sabathia escape, and have the solace that even though they haven't won without them, they have lost cheaper. The Royals let their franchise player, Grienke go several years ago because they couldn't afford him, and won at least once without him. The Phillies are regretting paying all those perennial Series stars what they were "worth" at the time, now. I'm hoping we aren't saying the same things about Votto, Bruce, Phillips and Bailey 5 years from now.
I hate the whole thing, as a fan. I hate that the Reds and Cueto are both lying.
Anyone that has already made $40M can play where ever they want, for whatever they want. They aren't trying to meet grocery bills, buy a kidney for grandma or rescue trapped miners with the extra $150M. On the flip side. if I had invested $100-300M in money 4 generations of my family had scraped and stolen to accumulate and inherit to me, in a difficult, complex business where my consumers mostly just complained and refused to pay full price, I'd probably want at least a 5% return per year, or I could have kept the damned money in an offshore account near my yacht and private island, and employed no one but a few deckhands half a dozen naked female personal assistants. Players and owners are usually both sanctimonious greedy bastards coherced by a thousand parasites with similar intent.
I don't disagree with the MLB free agent system, just the financial baseline of it. Lets face it- the only people invested literally or figuratively in baseball that aren't making a lottery sized fortune are the fans....and they pay all the bills...and by definition, we must be willing victims.
It pisses me off.
Lifting the true financials from a privately owned business is like demanding Hillary Clinton for records from Whitewater or e-mails from her personal account, what you get is what they are willing to give you, when they're ready to give it to you. In business, "trust" is a legal document, not a suggested relationship.
Forbes says the Reds make money- at the current unremarkable attendance and payroll rates. They don't say how much, or what investors have paid for whatever that return is.
A question many fans don't consider is, how much less would the Reds shareholders be willing to accept ? None, is usually the most correct answer, in fact, they want to make more. Only the NBA Players Union believes employees should make more than employers....amazing that holds any water, considering the bankruptcy rates of those NBA millionaire players is 50% within 10 years of leaving the NBA.
While winning is important to fans, it doesn't have to be the overriding factor for a successful balance sheet..In fact, if they had to increase payroll by another $30-$50M a year to win, that could be all (or more than) the the minimum Return on Investment Reds ownership requires to spend their money on the Reds, instead of Pork Bellies or Pfizer or their 335th KFC franchise. Regardless of what some fans think, not any/many sports franchises are just expensive hobbies for their idle rich owners that just want to throw daily parties for 35,000 strangers with mustard on their shirts and snot on their kids faces, for the chance at winning a big trophy once every 4-8 years.
Businesses either make money or disappear. like investors in them. Personally, I'm not looking forward to the next Karl Linder or similar non-sports fan penny-pincher to get Castellini & Co. back in the black by buying them out. In case no one noticed, there is no Ted Turner, Mark Cuban or Magic Johnson of Cincinnati waiting to revive the Reds former glory with a river of money. In fact, I think the Castellini family has been very generous to Cincinnati...they just need to get more for what they're paying for- from the front office that finds and signs players, the dugout staff that manage them, the med staff that is supposed to protect their investments instead of shredding them, and the players themselves, who seem to think it's someone else's responsibility to pay them like druglords even when they lay on their azz like junkies.
I've heard "Fair Market Value" defined as "whatever the market will bear for a willing buyer and willing seller". The sad fact is, Reds aren't willing sellers of Johnny Cueto, Johnny Cueto is. The free agent market will bear somewhere in the $150-$220 Million dollar total contract range for Mr. Cueto I'd say, and he will be willing to sign for that. That limits the teams that CAN sign him considerably, and will exclude many teams that would love to have him, but can't afford him, the Reds among them. Those same teams are going to throw in a rosin bag and a couple of dissappointing players from positional strength as token exchange and the Reds get to go back to the same drawing board they found Cueto with. Unfortunately, before Cueto, Tom Browning was the last homegrown pitcher of that quality. They don't come along every year or 20.
The Cardinals did fine not paying Pujols a quarter Billion. The Rangers let Hamilton go at a good time. The Brewers let both Prince Fielder and C.C. Sabathia escape, and have the solace that even though they haven't won without them, they have lost cheaper. The Royals let their franchise player, Grienke go several years ago because they couldn't afford him, and won at least once without him. The Phillies are regretting paying all those perennial Series stars what they were "worth" at the time, now. I'm hoping we aren't saying the same things about Votto, Bruce, Phillips and Bailey 5 years from now.
I hate the whole thing, as a fan. I hate that the Reds and Cueto are both lying.
Anyone that has already made $40M can play where ever they want, for whatever they want. They aren't trying to meet grocery bills, buy a kidney for grandma or rescue trapped miners with the extra $150M. On the flip side. if I had invested $100-300M in money 4 generations of my family had scraped and stolen to accumulate and inherit to me, in a difficult, complex business where my consumers mostly just complained and refused to pay full price, I'd probably want at least a 5% return per year, or I could have kept the damned money in an offshore account near my yacht and private island, and employed no one but a few deckhands half a dozen naked female personal assistants. Players and owners are usually both sanctimonious greedy bastards coherced by a thousand parasites with similar intent.
I don't disagree with the MLB free agent system, just the financial baseline of it. Lets face it- the only people invested literally or figuratively in baseball that aren't making a lottery sized fortune are the fans....and they pay all the bills...and by definition, we must be willing victims.
It pisses me off.
