2019-2020 MLB Offseason Thread

[dfwabel]

5 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

So you see, we got a baseball and some bats, plus Orlando so you know the city. Then, I added some fins to lower wind resistance. And this racing stripe here I feel is pretty sharp.

 

Agreed. First prize!

Blues, Reds and Gold, just like something from a state fair....

 

Or a store brand mayonnaise label

[TBGKon]

10 hours ago, dont care said:

It does make it more accessible to people that aren’t west of Orlando. And the drive from Tampa to  Orlando isn’t that bad. 

 

5 hours ago, dont care said:

Driving from Orlando is to St Pete is bad, the other way isn’t because you can get on the turn pike and avoid traffic

I'm confused, people in St Pete still have to go thru Tampa to get to the Orlando area.

 

Speaking from experience, there's always a stretch of road on I-4 eastbound between Lakeland and Disney where it can take 20-30 minutes to go 10 miles no matter time of day (unless maybe the middle of the night)m and that doesn't count the drive time from Disney to wherever the ballpark is constructed (I assume they'll build it near downtown away from the parks/tourist districts) which is another 20 miles north. (Disney is around Exit 64, Downtown is approx Exit 82)

[dont care]

1 hour ago, AstroBull21 said:

 

I'm confused, people in St Pete still have to go thru Tampa to get to the Orlando area.

 

Speaking from experience, there's always a stretch of road on I-4 eastbound between Lakeland and Disney where it can take 20-30 minutes to go 10 miles no matter time of day (unless maybe the middle of the night)m and that doesn't count the drive time from Disney to wherever the ballpark is constructed (I assume they'll build it near downtown away from the parks/tourist districts) which is another 20 miles north. (Disney is around Exit 64, Downtown is approx Exit 82)

Which is why I mentioned the turn pike. 

[Crabcake]

That logo looks like something I would’ve designed had I been told to come up with a logo for an MLB team. 
 

There’s a reason I don’t post logo concepts. 

[TBGKon]

56 minutes ago, dont care said:

Which is why I mentioned the turn pike. 

Floridas Turnpike doesnt even come near Tampa so thats not an option...It's terminus is about an hour north of Tampa and it progresses southeast thru Orlando on its way down to South Florida.

 

 

[The_Admiral]

 

No one should be allowed to use that movie for inspiration ever again after what happened last time.

[dont care]

4 minutes ago, AstroBull21 said:

Floridas Turnpike doesnt even come near Tampa so thats not an option...It's terminus is about an hour north of Tampa and it progresses southeast thru Orlando on its way down to South Florida.

 

 

SR 429, it is a toll road that takes you around the majority of the traffic. I also don’t see the stadium being down town. It most likely would be either north near Altamonte or west near clemonte or Kissimmee which conveniently where 429 connects to I4. Also the only areas with with enough open space that a stadium could be built. There is no area that I know of in down town Orlando that’s large enough to build a stadium without tearing other stuff down.

[Utilis]

7 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

More branding done by 80-year-old white guys. I’m not suggesting the players should name the teams, but it’s 2019, and only a marketing team of old white men would come up with “dreamers”, or “pioneers”, or “explorers”, or half the names that get suggested every time there’s a potential expansion team. 

 

What kinds of names would players come up with?

[Walk-Off]

On 11/20/2019 at 11:26 AM, Maroon said:

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh

 

 

In the span of a relatively small number of hours, Pat Williams and his lieutenants have not only devised that seemingly lazy choice of nickname and that hideously clip-art-like logo for their proposed team, but have also set up a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter feed, and an Instagram feed for their campaign.

 

Also, according to this article on TampaBay.com, Williams has made an apparently face-saving claim that he and his organization would rather land an MLB franchise for Orlando via an expansion than through a relocation of the Rays.

 

With apologies to any ordinary resident of Central Florida who really wants a local MLB club, I find it way too easy to take a skeptical view of this whole effort.

1. Even with more well-thought-out proposals for both a nickname and an emblem, an Orlando MLB franchise initiative still faces daunting questions as to whether the Orlando area -- a smaller media market than either the Tampa-St. Petersburg area or the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area -- could be and would be demonstrably better at supporting an MLB franchise than either (let alone both) of the sections of Florida that already have regular-season big-league baseball.
2. The fact that Central Florida in general has such a seemingly horrible history with both minor-league baseball teams and spring training facilities is another problem that Williams and those working with him need to overcome if they are to realize their dream (pun somewhat intended) of an Orlando team in North American baseball's uppermost echelon.
3. Just as I fear that anyone seeking an MLB franchise for the Las Vegas area is overestimating the ability of such a team to sway lots of tourists to pay profitable sums of money to attend games during their trips to that region, I am concerned that Williams et al. are letting themselves be afflicted with a naïvely grandiose expectation that an Orlando-based MLB club can depend enough on sales of game tickets to vacationers to make up for any difficulty in convincing the locals to spend adequate amounts of money to attend those same games.
4. Then there is that X factor ... that wild card ... that is The Walt Disney Company.  With more than sixteen years having passed since Disney sold the Anaheim Angels to Arte Moreno and with the Atlanta Braves no longer conducting spring training at the Walt Disney World Resort's ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, how willing would Bob Iger and his minions at The Mouse House be to add a major-league-specification and major-league-capacity baseball park to the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex -- even as an on-speculation endeavor akin to the St. Petersburg ballpark known now as Tropicana Field -- and do so with only the company's own money, but without any cooperation with or other participation from Williams and his particular group?

[Wings]

MLB will never expand to Florida again. Tampa Bay or Miami relocating to Orlando is the only option and I don't see that happening at all. 

[The_Admiral]

2 hours ago, Utilis said:

What kinds of names would players come up with?

Dreamers for Christ, Pioneers for Christ, Explorers for Christ

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Sample Instagram comment:

 

Quote

manny___c

ONE OF MY FATHERS WISHES WERE FOR ORLANDO TO HAVE A MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM AND HE PASSED AWAY THIS PASS DECEMBER ON CHRISTMAS. WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS SINCE 1990 WHEN WE MOVED FROM NEW YORK. HOPEFULLY THIS CAN FINALLY HAPPEN AND ILL BE ABEL TO TAKE MY SON NOW THAT IS TURNING TWO, TO BASEBALL GAMES ALL THE TIME. IT’S SOMETHING MY FATHER AND I LOVED SO MUCH AND IT WAS OUR SPECIAL BOND. THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN FINALLY, I’M ALL FOR IT. WISH YOU WERE HERE TO SEE THIS HAPPEN DAD, REST IN PEACE.

4h

 

 

I feel like Pat Williams knows his audience.

[Kramerica Industries]

18 hours ago, dont care said:

SR 429, it is a toll road that takes you around the majority of the traffic. I also don’t see the stadium being down town. It most likely would be either north near Altamonte or west near clemonte or Kissimmee which conveniently where 429 connects to I4. Also the only areas with with enough open space that a stadium could be built. There is no area that I know of in down town Orlando that’s large enough to build a stadium without tearing other stuff down.

 

I'm not sure what SR429 has to do with the Turnpike or anything Tampa Bay-area related, though. 

 

There's only one major roadway alternative to the various interstates that gets you from St. Pete to Orlando, but you still have to go through Tampa on that one as well (US 92). It's hardly a great alternative because, whatever time you might save in avoiding traffic ("might" being an operative word because I've never done US 92 from one place to the other so I have no clue how traffic is) is very likely lost due to the added travel distance, lower speed limits, and stop lights/signs. 

 

I have to side with @AstroBull21 on this one. If the travel from Orlando to St. Pete is bad, then the other way is also bad. And if there's an alternative path that can help you avoid downtown traffic, which there is, well, the alternative exists going both ways. That alternative, btw? If you're coming from Orlando, you take the I-75 junction at Exit 9 coming east west towards Tampa, travel ~30 miles and take Exit 228 (I-275N junction) and come across the Skyway and enter St. Pete from there. Travel-wise, it's a little longer, but avoiding the traffic is completely worth it during the busy times of the day. Did that several times between July of last year until May of this year during my ill-fated "living in Orlando" experience*. Easy to reverse engineer this from St. Pete to Orlando. If you want to avoid Tampa, that's how you do it. There are no other roadway alternatives that do this.

 

Regardless, downtown Tampa is right around where the I-4/I-275 junction is. The I-4/275 junction is 10 miles east. Downtown Orlando is still a good 70-80 miles away from that on a problematic highway in the middle of the day; I'll never forget a miserable August afternoon where it took four hours from leaving St. Pete to get to Orlando. As far as getting regular attendance, you can try to get it from the Tampa Bay area, or you can try to get it from the Orlando area. You can't get it from both. 

 

*I have nothing bad to say of Orlando other than that it's a landlocked city in Florida. It's a fine city, but I hated living there. Will gladly visit again, but no interest in moving there ever again. 

[Digby]

What is the argument that Orlando would succeed where Tampa Bay and Miami have not? It's got the worst of both of those markets, at least for baseball.

[dfwabel]

1 hour ago, Digby said:

What is the argument that Orlando would succeed where Tampa Bay and Miami have not? It's got the worst of both of those markets, at least for baseball.

Largest media market in the US without a MLB team (18th) and 75 million tourists visit annually.  If 2% of those visitors go to a game, it would be 1.5M from visitors alone and more visitors than Miami and Tampa Bay combined.

 

Aside, here's video of Pat Williams yesterday and granted, he is nearing 80, but he sounds terrible or like a bad Chris Berman impression.  It is the same bits he did 40 years ago.  It's sad. 

[Digby]

3 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

Largest media market in the US without a MLB team (18th) and 75 million tourists visit annually.  If 2% of those visitors go to a game, it would be 1.5M from visitors alone and more visitors than Miami and Tampa Bay.

 

Fair enough, but I remember the last time my family made me go to Disney World in the early 00s, we went to an Orlando Rays game and there were so few people that we felt the need to whisper so as not to disturb other fans or players.

[dfwabel]

13 hours ago, DG_Now said:

Sample Instagram comment:

 

 

I feel like Pat Williams knows his audience.

 

[Maroon]

1 hour ago, dfwabel said:

Largest media market in the US without a MLB team (18th) and 75 million tourists visit annually.  If 2% of those visitors go to a game, it would be 1.5M from visitors alone and more visitors than Miami and Tampa Bay combined.

 

Aside, here's video of Pat Williams yesterday and granted, he is nearing 80, but he sounds terrible or like a bad Chris Berman impression.  It is the same bits he did 40 years ago.  It's sad. 

 

If anything, this is more of a reason for Orlando to not have an MLB team. I mean, maybe the MLB team would make money, but if tourists are providing $1.5 million in revenue to the Orlando Dreamers, that's also $1.5 million not being spent by tourists on other attractions in the city. People have limited money that they'll be willing to expend, and if tourists shift that money to a different attraction it's not actually new economic activity for the area... just shifted economic activity.

[tp49]

Do they actually think that anyone visiting Orlando for the theme parks will have any money left to go to a baseball game?  By the time you're done paying for tickets and food, etc, you're darn near close to having spent a mortgage payment especially if you combine it with a second or third park.  (Says the guy who paid $200/person to go to Disney World for a day next week.)

[waltere]

Yeah Orlando may get a lot of visiting tourists but I'd imagine few of them are going to Orlando, they're just going there because its where all the theme parks are