MLB 2021-22 Hot Stove/Picket Line Thread

[BBTV]

7 minutes ago, 8BW14 said:

Not in the marketing profession here, but I have a really hard time believing ads on professional North American sports uniforms actually make the advertiser any money. It’s not like these are sponsorship patches that give the teams the money to buy new uniforms every year.

 

Will anyone see the stupid Purina dog food patch on the Cardinals uniforms and go out and buy more dog food? What’s the upside for the advertiser? I’ve never seen an ad on a professional sports uniform and not been immediately turned off by it.

 

If you don't put your logo on there then your competitor will.

[ManillaToad]

1 hour ago, 8BW14 said:

Will anyone see the stupid Purina dog food patch on the Cardinals uniforms and go out and buy more dog food?

 

American consumers will buy anything you put in front of them.

[Digby]

13 hours ago, BBTV said:

 

I feel the exact opposite - I don't want to see the 68-94 Pirates kick the asses of a 98-64 team.

 

NFL and MLB used to feel like true champions, while NBA and NHL were more like "tournament" champions.  Now it's starting to feel like they're all just tournaments where anyone can win.  IMO the best teams should have to worry about being caught off guard by some team that normally wouldn't have even been there.

 

Traditionally MLB had it right by making the playoffs hard to enter, so no truly garbage teams lucked their way in. But the series were brief enough to feel natural to the sport and give hot teams a puncher's chance of making things interesting. It's a tough balance to strike, to reward a season's worth of quality without making the playoffs an inevitable slog.

 

The one-game thing felt like the most arbitrary of any big playoff structure, at least outside of MLS's one-game playoff rounds. Three-game series is an improvement, but icing the top team with a bye is a monkey's paw moment on that front.

[gosioux76]

2 hours ago, 8BW14 said:

Not in the marketing profession here, but I have a really hard time believing ads on professional North American sports uniforms actually make the advertiser any money. It’s not like these are sponsorship patches that give the teams the money to buy new uniforms every year.

 

Will anyone see the stupid Purina dog food patch on the Cardinals uniforms and go out and buy more dog food? What’s the upside for the advertiser? I’ve never seen an ad on a professional sports uniform and not been immediately turned off by it.

 

It depends on the kind of company you are. If you're an upstart brand without a lot of name recognition, putting your brand in front of that many consumers is hugely effective. Chances are high that most people didn't know what Herbalife was before they stuck their brand on the LA Galaxy uniforms 15 years ago. (And maybe they wish they didn't know, but still, you get the point.) Just being there will prompt people to look you up and explore what you are. 

 

And if you're a more established company -- like, in your example, Purina -- there's value in attaching your brand to something nationally recognized and locally beloved, like the Cardinals. If you're a fan of that team, and making choices on products, sometimes that makes a difference. (Years ago, when I lived in Portland, I was in the market for a new bank. I had no real preference, but the Timbers were new and exciting, and KeyBank had affiliated with them, so I'd been recently exposed to the brand. So I went that way.) 

 

Also, keep in mind, many of these companies over a 12-month period probably pay way more on recurring TV spots that, on the whole, likely expose their brand less than what they get by appearing on the sleeve or helmet of a baseball team that plays 162 games. 

 

Advertising might seem innocuous and easy to ignore, but it's effective.  

[Lights Out]

I'm glad to see baseball back, but it's such a monkey's paw that it's coming with ads on jerseys, universal DH, and a draft lottery. 

[McCall]

I assume ads will have to be on the sleeves of the jerseys. The front right side is already taken up by the swoosh, and some teams don't really have the room on the left. The left side bird on the bat on the Cardinals' jersey goes up kinda high. And it would look really bad (or "somehow even worse", I should say) above a left chest logo like the Yankees or Cubs. I guess it would work for the Angels, since they have an arched wordmark and they're sleeves are already take up by their repetitious logo.

[SFGiants58]

1 hour ago, Digby said:

Three-game series is an improvement, but icing the top team with a bye is a monkey's paw moment on that front.

Well, the three-game series won’t take much more than the normal three day rest that teams got in the 2012-21 period. It’s not like the top seeds will be sitting on their asses for a week.

[McCall]

I've found that most of the "rest vs rust" situations stem from teams winning series' earlier than their opponents and sitting for several days in later rounds. I think rest immediately after the regular season is beneficial. Starting pitchers still get their normal rest, pretty much.

[8BW14]

2 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

 

It depends on the kind of company you are. If you're an upstart brand without a lot of name recognition, putting your brand in front of that many consumers is hugely effective. Chances are high that most people didn't know what Herbalife was before they stuck their brand on the LA Galaxy uniforms 15 years ago. (And maybe they wish they didn't know, but still, you get the point.) Just being there will prompt people to look you up and explore what you are. 

 

And if you're a more established company -- like, in your example, Purina -- there's value in attaching your brand to something nationally recognized and locally beloved, like the Cardinals. If you're a fan of that team, and making choices on products, sometimes that makes a difference. (Years ago, when I lived in Portland, I was in the market for a new bank. I had no real preference, but the Timbers were new and exciting, and KeyBank had affiliated with them, so I'd been recently exposed to the brand. So I went that way.) 

 

Also, keep in mind, many of these companies over a 12-month period probably pay way more on recurring TV spots that, on the whole, likely expose their brand less than what they get by appearing on the sleeve or helmet of a baseball team that plays 162 games. 

 

Advertising might seem innocuous and easy to ignore, but it's effective.  

I know I get it, I just don’t like it. Uniform ads just seem like such a tacky and low rent way to make some cash. We’re not talking about some third tier hockey league in Russia here, this is Major League Baseball.

There has to be some place the teams can plaster more ads around the ballpark right? I don’t care if every inch of the outfield walls are plastered with ads or if Chevy is an “official partner of MLB” I understand the value in those things. I’m really just bummed that nothing is sacred anymore. 

[gosioux76]

5 minutes ago, 8BW14 said:

I know I get it, I just don’t like it. Uniform ads just seem like such a tacky and low rent way to make some cash. We’re not talking about some third tier hockey league in Russia here, this is Major League Baseball.

 

This point is exactly why it's such an attractive opportunity to potential advertisers. Believe me, I'm with you on this. But it was really up to the teams and the league to be the gatekeeper on this and they've just lifted the gate. 

[Sport]

15 hours ago, the admiral said:

Now that I think about it, maybe you could call Bruins over Canucks an upset in 2011 if you're somehow unwilling to concede that Patrice Bergeron is the best defensive centerman of all time, but that was no team of plucky underdogs. Coin flip at worst.

 

The Canucks were the favorites going in thanks to the President's Trophy, but I remember thinking it was evident after the first two games who the better team was (even though that better team lost those first two games). Vancouver eked out three one goal wins while Boston throttled them by scores of 8-1, 4-0, 5-2, and 4-0 in their four wins. The better team definitely won that series. 

 

The only Finals post lockout where I felt like the inferior team stole the cup was the 2019 Blues and the 2009 Penguins. Both of them were outscored by their opponent. Those Penguins only managed 14 total goals in the 7 games. Ugh still makes me grouchy. 

[OnWis97]

3 hours ago, Lights Out said:

I'm glad to see baseball back, but it's such a monkey's paw that it's coming with ads on jerseys, universal DH, and a draft lottery. 

I agree with you on the first two (I could care less about the draft lotto; as there's usually not a LeBron James situation and I don't think teams tank for the draft).

"Regular" fans that don't care about uniforms will probably accept the ads pretty quickly, while even many of our type won't really care. It's gonna really bug me. The NBA ads bug me to this day. Then again, I haven't boycotted or changed any spending/watching habits so the leagues don't really care about people like me.

 

Universal DH seems like the end of something original...kind of like if kickoff returns were taken out of football. If I'd known the last game I went to at an NL park was the last time, I'd have appreciated it more. 

 

As for whether ads work, they must. People make really good salaries to determine that they do. The Wolves used to have Fitbit and I never bought one. Now they have Aura or something and I don't even know what it is. I don't quite understand why they work but if they didn't, this would not be happening.  Also, when the NBA started it, I had this naïve hope that they'd eventually determine that sharing the team brand with some random sponsor right on the chest of the players would not be worth what seemed like a pretty small amount of money. Clearly, I was wrong.

[dont care]

22 minutes ago, OnWis97 said:

I agree with you on the first two (I could care less about the draft lotto; as there's usually not a LeBron James situation and I don't think teams tank for the draft).

"Regular" fans that don't care about uniforms will probably accept the ads pretty quickly, while even many of our type won't really care. It's gonna really bug me. The NBA ads bug me to this day. Then again, I haven't boycotted or changed any spending/watching habits so the leagues don't really care about people like me.

 

Universal DH seems like the end of something original...kind of like if kickoff returns were taken out of football. If I'd known the last game I went to at an NL park was the last time, I'd have appreciated it more. 

 

As for whether ads work, they must. People make really good salaries to determine that they do. The Wolves used to have Fitbit and I never bought one. Now they have Aura or something and I don't even know what it is. I don't quite understand why they work but if they didn't, this would not be happening.  Also, when the NBA started it, I had this naïve hope that they'd eventually determine that sharing the team brand with some random sponsor right on the chest of the players would not be worth what seemed like a pretty small amount of money. Clearly, I was wrong.

Owners don’t care about their brands anymore, only about making more money. Otherwise teams wouldn’t come out with the uniforms they do That totally tarnished their established brands.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

This is Ebbets Field from the 40s or 50s:

 

 

I bet the only reason they didn't put ads on players back then is because they didn't think of it. Because it's not like MLB in its glory days was above selling ad space wherever they could.

[ninersdd]

Carlos Rodon to SF for 2 years.

[dont care]

47 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

This is Ebbets Field from the 40s or 50s:

 

 

I bet the only reason they didn't put ads on players back then is because they didn't think of it. Because it's not like MLB in its glory days was above selling ad space wherever they could.

To be honest that isn’t too different from today, we’ve just gotten use to it

[Lights Out]

3 hours ago, OnWis97 said:

I agree with you on the first two (I could care less about the draft lotto; as there's usually not a LeBron James situation and I don't think teams tank for the draft).

 

For me, draft lotteries are just a lame gimmick that do not actually stop tanking (as we've seen every year in the NBA and NHL). All they do is skew team-building way too much towards dumb luck than skill, which ironically incentivizes longterm tanking programs like The Process, since smart front offices learn to protect themselves from bad luck by stockpiling as many lottery picks as they can until they hit on a few of them.

 

I especially don't see what a lottery adds to baseball when the draft was already a huge crapshoot as-is. The #1 pick already guarantees nothing. How good your farm system is at developing players and how much money you can afford to throw around matters more than who or where you pick. The Mets, Padres, Astros, and Pirates are tied for the most first overall picks in MLB history and none of them have won anything in recent memory without cheating.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

 

14 hours ago, 8BW14 said:

Not in the marketing profession here, but I have a really hard time believing ads on professional North American sports uniforms actually make the advertiser any money.  . . . Will anyone see the stupid Purina dog food patch on the Cardinals uniforms and go out and buy more dog food?

 

A few years ago I had to confront an uncomfortable reality.  When I bought my first mobile phone in 2014 (yes, I was a very late adopter) and my first smart TV, I gravitated strongly towards Samsung.  Only later did it dawn on me that this preference was down mainly to the influence of seeing the Samsung ad on the Chelsea shirts for so many years.  I certainly never consciously decided "I will by Samsung because I support Chelsea".  I bought Samsung because I perceived that company as a high-quality manufacturer. No doubt it is. But that perception was buttressed in my subconscious by the positive associations that came from seeing the company's advertisement on my favourite team's uniform.  It's an insidious process, one that no amount of media savvy (or even hostility towards capitalism) can negate.

And that's not the worst of it.  Think of Tom Seaver.  In the image that comes to your mind's eye, you cannot help but see the word "Mets". Think of George Brett; you see the word "Royals".  Now think of Frank Lampard.  What word do you see? "Samsung".  Think of David Beckham. "Sharp", "Vodaphone".

The companies that place these uniform advertisements aren't really buying space on a uniform; they are buying space in our memories.  It is  pollution of a most intimate kind.

 

 

 

On 3/10/2022 at 7:50 PM, DoctorWhom said:

NFL has already shown why expanded playoffs is dumb. 

 

A sport with a short season has the justification for a large playoff field.

By contrast, in a sport with a long season, there is no good reason to allow excessive amounts of teams into the playoffs, as the season has already clearly sorted the teams. 

 

 

12 hours ago, Digby said:

Traditionally MLB had it right by making the playoffs hard to enter, so no truly garbage teams lucked their way in. But the series were brief enough to feel natural to the sport and give hot teams a puncher's chance of making things interesting. It's a tough balance to strike, to reward a season's worth of quality without making the playoffs an inevitable slog.

 

This is correct.  The ideal format existed from 1969 through 1993.  It had playoffs, and it also had pennant races.  (Indeed, the transistion to having playoffs starting in 1969 was so seamless that the term "pennant race", which had originally described the season-long race to the league pennant before there were playoffs, endured as a term to refer to the divisional races.) A pennant race is made meaningful by the fact that only one team can win. In 1993, the final year of the forman, we had one of the best pennant races ever, the epic battle down to the wire between the Giants and the Braves in the NL West. That race in that year was like Universe going out of its way  to remind us that expanded playoffs are a bad thing which robs us of the beauty of a pennant race.

 

Anyone who doesn't believe this need only to look at 2001.  That year the Astros and Cardinals tied for first place in the NL Central. But, unlike in 1978 and in 1951 and in every other year when teams finished tied for first, no tiebreaker was played, as both teams were going to the playoffs anyway. That's how little the regular season meant; where we had once had the all-important pennant race for the divisional championship, now who won the division didn't even matter.   And the situtation would only get worse; on several occasions, three of the five teams in a division have qualified for the playoffs.

 

The essential point that has unfortunately been lost is that the regular season is the first round of the overall championship competition.  Playoffs ought rightfully to be only for those teams that have won that first round of the competition and have earned the right to advance — in other words: the divisional champions.

When I was a kid sneering at the NBA and the NHL over their absurd playoff systems,  I would never have imagined that Major League Baseball would ultimately copy those leagues and devalue its own regular season.

 

 

On 3/10/2022 at 8:24 PM, SFGiants58 said:

Tournaments are always better than "who had the best record at the end of the year."

 

The regular season provides a great deal of evidence to determine the best teams, which is the entire point of a competition.  A tournament-style playoff devalues the regular season by awarding playoff spots to teams that have proven to be unworthy of the privilege.

 

 

On 3/10/2022 at 8:24 PM, SFGiants58 said:

putting top seeds on-guard for upsets is a good thing. It makes the whole affair more entertaining.

 

True only when the two teams are champions (as in the aforementioned 1988 World Series).  The distortions of a short series are mitigated only by the fact that, in a good format, the inferior team would have had to earn its way there by winning its divisional championship.  Whereas, an upset of an 8-seed beating a 1-seed is a travesty.  Fortunately, it rarely happens; but it should never happen, because the 8-seed should have gone home after the regular season. 

 

 

On 3/10/2022 at 8:24 PM, SFGiants58 said:

Anybody who thinks that there's any real gap between wrestling's approach to sports and the big four's approach is naive.

 

OK, I am all for the occasional hyperbole or rhetorical flourish to make a point. But this is silly, and you know it.  No one apart from the outright loonies thinks that the winners in sports leagues are pre-selected, and that the whole thing is just for show.  No matter how much showbiz glitz and how much hype a league puts into its presentation, what it is presenting is still a competition. That is fundamentally different from wrestling.

 

[SFGiants58]

I’m not saying anything is rigged/pre-selected, I’m saying that big four sports are engineered for maximum entertainment/ratings/social media engagement. The idea that any of this stuff is rigged is laughably absurd.

 

Also, I’ll take NHL/NBA playoffs over any other kind of playoffs. The tournament isn’t a “joke” format, it’s a true test of endurance, luck, and producing engaging contests.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

Thank you for making that clarification.

I don't disagree with the point that leagues engineer their formats for entertainment appeal. Clearly they do it even when that approach comes at the expense of the values of competition.  And I realise that plenty of people like this. For me it's lamentable.