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October 21, 2024: Liberty Or Death

42 Comments

Great season by the Lynx. One could argue that they got completely jobbed by the refs last night. I'm not saying that I'm going to argue it, I'm just saying one could argue it.

42 thoughts on “October 21, 2024: Liberty Or Death”

    2. I think this just means that they're now officially a Minnesota sport. No more of that "winning" stuff - we've fully embraced them and they get to contribute to the suffering!

      2. In the Lynx's defense, they were the victims of a screwjob and not purveyors of the "find a way to piss it away" sort of losing other Minnesota teams seem to be masters of

    3. I saw on the app formerly known as twitter that Damian Lilliard and Lebron agreed with Lynx fans. Any replay system that has the game officials reviewing their own calls is suspect at best.

      2. To be fair, this is a matchup of the top team in each league by record. Both teams spent big over the offseason, either money or in trades, and are reaping the rewards.

        2. Los Angeles “spent big” by getting their best player to agree to a contract that blatantly pokes the competitive balance tax in the eye with over half a billion dollars in deferred salary. Yes, I know that both the league and MLBPA approved it, but it’s a blatant flouting of the entire system by the team with sole control of the largest market in the game.

          1. You mean the contract that Ohtani offered to every finalist team because he desperately wanted to win? He even offered it to the Angels. The cost to the Dodgers won't be $700 million so reporting it as such was purely for the round number.

              1. I'm with you here. Even if *technically* it is permitted, it runs directly afoul of the intentions behind the CBT.

                It's also a pretty blatant admission that spending beyond the CBT can wipe away all other competitive factors, and that spending is what determined the "finalists" for Ohtani's services, not anything else. Frankly, I mostly feel the same way about him as I did A-Rod. He's an amazing athlete who wants to win at all costs, and will game the system to help himself do so.

                1. that spending is what determined the "finalists" for Ohtani's services, not anything else

                  That's free agency, isn't it? Correa didn't sign with Minnesota because he really liked it here. The Twins were the final team left willing to offer a lot of money.

                  1. The difference here is that Ohtani was actively influencing how much they were spending on other players too. If he's just trying to maximize his bottom dollar, then, yes, that's free agency. That's what the CBT addresses. But that's not what this was - this was circumventing the usual effects of free agency.

                    1. I disagree because I view his contract as $460* million over 10-year deal. That's what the Dodgers have to pay: $2 million directly to Ohtani and another $44 million by way of a bond he can cash out as $68 million in a decade. It's the marshmallow experiment for Ohtani.

                      * Or whatever that number was. Not the value in 2024 dollars, but the amount the Dodgers have to pay out over that decade.

                    2. You disagree that he was trying to game the system so that they had more money to spend on other players?

                      I don't care how you count his contract, that was clearly his objective and he accomplished it.

                    3. He has the highest annual salary in the game right now. And that's using my math above rather than the $700 million headline total. And considering the previous high was a three-year deal by Scherzer, the better comparison would be Cole's nine-year deal that is $10 million lower per year. I bet Soto will have a higher annual average.

                      Now if you want to talk revenue disparity being unfair such that the Dodgers, etc. can afford multiple of these $30+ million AAV contracts, then yes I probably agree.

                      ETA: If you want to argue this creates an incentive to defer ever more money even longer to create bigger headlines, I probably agree there too. A ten-year deferral isn't enough to trigger any discomfort. I don't have a clear line on what is too much though.

                    4. I think this only holds if you think the Dodgers are paying that $44 million into a bond instead of using it as a marker to say “We get Ohtani for $2 million and can spend $44 million on additional player salary without CBT implications.”

                      They’re getting a massive amount of value from Ohtani’s roster spot, not simply because it combines one of the best hitters in the game with one of the best pitchers, but also because they will actually pay Ohtani less per annum during his prime than the Twins played Randy Dobnak this season, freeing up more money to spread around their remaining roster spots. His claim to “highest annual salary in the game” comes with a massive asterisk.

                      The contract is basically a J. Wellington Wimpy situation once you take into account the current Dodgers ownership might not even have to pay out the deferred money.

                    5. The CBA requires the deferred money to be fully funded by the following season. I guess they could skip out the first year and defer every season by one but that doesn't seem worth it. Their revenues are already so high, and signing Ohtani only helped make it even higher, that I bet they literally have money burning a hole in their pocket. So yes, the current ownership is paying the $46 million every year.

        3. I've been rooting for this match up all post season. Two best teams with baseball's biggest stars head-to-head. If this was NBA, NFL, or NHL, we'd be going gaga over this series. (with complete understanding that the economics in MLB are completely different than those other leagues)

    1. My guess from my observations watching the games is that the difference I think between the NBA's fixing and the WNBA's fixing is its for gambling reasons in the men's game whereas I believe last night was in service of specifically getting a NY team a title, so the refs were less subtle about it because its not illegal.

      1. I have a friend who watched this game and somehow doesn't think the travelling was extremely obvious and also that there was a foul. I don't know how you watch that ending sequence and come away with that opinion no matter which team you were rooting for.

  6. I'm actually a little upset that Watson is out for the season. I wanted the Browns to have to deal with every dollar they committed to in that terrible contract. Honestly, this helps the them as they likely have insurance on him which also will give them more cap space now. Not to mention they no longer have to deal with all the calls to bench him.

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