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After treading water in Double-A Montgomery for parts of the last two seasons, here’s a hot take: Brayden Taylor appears ready for a promotion to Durham.

If you look him up, his 99 wRC+ through 14 games doesn’t jump off the page, but the underlying data suggests he’s ready for a new challenge.

Taylor was not performing well in his first full season in Montgomery last year. Through his first 64 games, he produced just a 64 wRC+ driven largely by elevated swing-and-miss, as his contact rate was sitting at just about 70%. He was removed from games for a few weeks in July to reset and adjust his swing. After he returned to action, his production improved to 97 wRC+ across his final 44 games, and his contact rate rebounded into the mid 70s.

One of the key adjustments Taylor made was reducing the hitch in his swing while getting stacked on his back leg. He still has a bit of a bat wrap and average hand speed so some swing-and-miss will likely always be part of his profile, but it’s now seemingly more manageable.

Taylor didn’t sacrifice his average power with this change either because he still holds his weight back fairly well and he’s always had a knack for getting the ball in the air pull-side. There may have also been an adjustment to his bat angle or tilt as it appears slightly flatter than in the past. That would align with the improved contact rates, though it’s difficult to confirm given the limited minor league data and video available.

While Taylor may not be filling up the box score just yet this season, his underlying data looks encouraging; his contact rate is up over 76% so far. He’s also hitting line drives and fly balls over 70% of the time in this small sample. It’s a rate that will almost certainly regress, but one that reinforces a meaningful trend: he’s continuing to get the ball in the air even with a shorter swing.

Maintaining near-average contact rates and consistently elevating the ball pull-side will allow Taylor to out-slug his roughly average exit velocities. The Southern League is a notoriously pitcher-friendly environment, so getting to Triple-A could help that underlying performance translate more consistently.

If these contact gains are sustainable, Taylor’s combination of solid defense at 2B and 3B and above average base running can help make him a productive major league player. He’s been notably passive early and taking his walks, so a promotion to Triple-A — where pitchers are in the zone more — would be a more appropriate test for his new mechanics.

Overall, his profile still looks similar to what it was coming out of the 2023 draft: a bulk platoon second baseman with no major holes in his game who can also fill-in on the left side of the infield if needed.

At the lower end of outcomes, Taylor profiles as a versatile up-and-down option. But with the swing changes, defensive value, and track record against right-handed pitching, there’s a strong case for a more meaningful role. His development against left-handed pitching may ultimately determine whether he reaches everyday status. The key question now isn’t whether Taylor can produce in Double-A; it’s whether these underlying gains will hold against more advanced pitching.

April 24th kicks off the 2026 edition of Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame Induction weekend as the Reds are in town playing host to the Detroit Tigers. This year’s class is particularly star-studded, as each of Brandon Phillips, Reggie Sanders, Aaron Harang, and manager Lou Piniella will enter the Hall with resumes that are more than well deserving.

The Reds have announced the details for the weekend, including the daily meet and greets that will be hosted at the Reds Hall:

The Reds also announced that Phillips, who has more hits, homers, runs batted in, and doubles than any other 2B in team history, will sign a one-day contract with the club on Saturday and official retire as a Cincinnati Red.

Phillips, to his credit, seems pretty damn pumped about it all.

The foursome will head into the Hall with an on-field induction before first pitch of the Saturday, April 25th game against the Tigers, with a Gala at the First Financial Center in downtown Cincinnati set for Sunday night after the end of the series.

The Reds sit at 16-9 overall after their recent 5-1 road trip, and are in 1st place in the National League Central division at the moment.

On Wednesday morning, I thought about writing a story advocating for the Mets to promote Ronny Mauricio, who was coming off a three-homer game for Triple-A Syracuse and had been tearing the cover off the ball for most of the season -- with a slugging percentage north of .600.

But there really wasn't an angle.

If Mauricio came up, he would need regular playing time.

The Mets couldn't offer that to him at designated hitter, since they'll be using Juan Soto there frequently with the superstar having just returned from a calf injury.

Mauricio has some experience playing corner outfield, but hasn't spent a regular season inning out there since 2023. Beyond that, the Mets are still providing Carson Benge an opportunity to show he can stick. 

As far as the infield, it was locked up.

That changed on Wednesday night, in almost impossible to believe fashion for a Mets team that had already dealt with enough bad luck this season.

Francisco Lindor, while scoring from first base on a double in the fourth inning, came up lame near third base and grimaced as he slid in safely at home. He walked back to the dugout, down the steps, and straight to the clubhouse. His night was over.

During the game, the update came: Lindor left early due to left calf tightness, the same initial diagnosis (though it was the right calf) Soto got before he landed on the IL and missed 18 days.

It is indeed unusually cruel that on the night the Mets got Soto back, they lost Lindor to the same injury. Of course it happened that way. Of course there was something that added a sour note to the club finally breaking its interminable losing streak. 

Adding insult to injury (literally) is the fact that Lindor had been heating up and starting to look like himself after missing most of spring training due to hamate surgery. In the eight games he played before getting hurt, Lindor had an .829 OPS. And he had hits in his only two at-bats on Wednesday.

To hear manager Carlos Mendoza speak after the game, it was clear that Lindor would need an IL stint, with the only question being how long he'd miss.

It will be another challenge for the Mets to overcome, and they'll have to wait even longer to have their full lineup back together. In the meantime, New York must tab a replacement for Lindor at shortstop.

It was Bo Bichette who got the call to finish Wednesday's game, sliding over from third base.

The Mets could conceivably make Bichette the regular shortstop in Lindor's absence, but that didn't seem to be the way they'll turn, with Mendoza noting after the game that they would likely call up an infielder from the minors. And Mike Puma of the New York Post reported on Thursday afternoon that Mauricio is on his way to New York to join the team.

If the plan is to insert Mauricio as the regular shortstop and give him a serious chance to stick there while Lindor is out, it's hard to argue with the logic.

Bichette, who has been getting acclimated to third base since signing as a free agent during the offseason, has looked much smoother and more comfortable there since a few early hiccups. His throws have been truer, and his range strong. And although it's a small sample size, Bichette has graded out as above average at third when it comes to OAA.

He should stay there, which would open up the full-time shortstop gig for the switch-hitting Mauricio, whose ability to put a charge into the baseball remains tantalizing.

In parts of three seasons in the majors, Mauricio -- who turned 25 years old earlier this month -- has shown flashes but not yet proven he has what it takes to be a regular at the level. He also lost more than a season of development time due to a knee injury he suffered while playing Winter Ball after the 2023 campaign.

So it's difficult to look at Mauricio's output in 2025 -- a .226/.293/.369 triple slash in 184 plate appearances over 61 games -- and make any conclusions.

For one, the sample size isn't big enough. Secondly, it was Mauricio's first big league action since returning from his knee injury.

With Lindor out, it's time to see if Mauricio can limit his free swinging enough to allow his potential to be realized.

In 19 games last season in Triple-A, Mauricio had an .891 OPS.

In 63 plate appearances over 15 games this season in Triple-A, Mauricio has hit .293/.349/.638 with six homers, two doubles, 13 RBI, and 12 runs scored. And he has been absolutely stinging the ball.

There is absolutely no way to paint Lindor's injury as anything but a painful blow for the Mets, especially considering the timing. But a silver lining could be the potential emergence of Mauricio, if he takes his chance and runs with it. 

We have made it back from Japan. It was a wonderful holiday. Thanks to Tom M for doing a great job of running things while I was gone.

The last few days we saw a fair bit of sports. We went to a:

• Sumo wrestlers’ house. It wasn’t the season for sumo, but the wrestlers train together and we got to see them train. Their workouts were very tough. Strength plus flexibility and balance. It did amaze me that these rather large men were way more flexible than I am. I had a tough time sitting on the floor for the two hours they trained. And they did some exhibition type matches for us. Leg strength was a large part of the training, lifting one leg high and doing squats on the other leg. It was more interesting than I thought it would be, but they need more clothing and/or lots of waxing.
• A baseball game. Swallows vs. Tigers. It wasn’t a great game. The Tigers scored 7 runs in the first three innings. But fans for both teams cheered and chanted and sang all the way until the last out. No one left early. The best part, for us, was that we were sitting beside two guys from Switzerland who had never watched baseball before. Spent time chatting and we went for supper with them after.
• A soccer game. Also fun and also fans for both teams cheering, singing and chanting all game. Good play, not premiership level or anything but a lot of fun.
• And lucked into watching basketball, which again, with the fans being so into it, was a lot of fun.

Wearing Blue Jays caps got me into a lot of conversations. Everywhere we went people wanted to talk about the Jays.

Beyond that, food was great, there was beer, and Japanese whisky is very good. And we went to a saki tasting. Went to many Shinto Shrines and Buddhist Shrines. Played drums, watched people who knew how to play drums. Got a sword lesson and watched people who knew how to use swords. And many many other things.

I was feeling a bit cut off from the Jays as most games were happening while we were sleeping. They aren’t having the start to the season we were hoping to see. And many guys are injured:

• Trey Yesavage: Pitched yesterday. I see mention that he hit 96 mph on the fastball. Had some troubles with walks. Might make one more appearance in the minors.
• George Springer has a broken toe, but should be back soon.
• Addison Barger is working his way back from an ankle sprain. He’s working his way up to running at full speed.
• José Berríos made a rehab start yesterday, throwing 55 pitches. 4 innings, 3 hits, no walks. He’ll need a couple more rehab starts.
• Yimi Garcia is still 4 weeks from returning from elbow surgery. He has been throwing.
• Shane Bieber is starting to threw bullpen sessions. But he won’t be back until late May at best..
• Ricky Tiedemann is out with elbow soreness.
• Cody Ponce is out for the season.
• Alejandro Kirk had a screw put into his broken thumb. He’ll miss all of May.
• Anthony Santander likely won’t be back until the end of the season at best.

And the active roster has guys who I haven’t heard of:

• Lenyn Sosa has a higher batting average than on base percentage.
• Joe Mantiply hasn’t been all that bad, 4.50 ERA in 8 innings, with 12 strikeouts.

I have heard of Eloy Jiménez and he’s had a good time of it, .409/.462/.462 line in 22 at bats.

And some guys aren’t hitting:

• Tyler Heineman has a .219/.265/.219 line.
• Kazuma Okamoto has a .207/.289/.333 line, but has been a bit better the last few games, .278/.381/500 in the last five games. Hopefully it will continue.
• Nathan Lukes has a .235/.273/.294 line, but is .500/.524/.650 in his last six games.
• Davis Schneider has a .176/.333/.324 line. At least he’s getting on base a bit. He’s hitless in his last 10 at bats.

And, of course, Hoffman has been awful. I don’t know how he can be that bad with 24 strikeouts in 10.2 innings. 24 strikeouts out of 32 outs, seems like a good thing. But, of course, 16 hits against, with 2 home runs. I don’t know what the answer is, but he doesn’t look confident (and I can understand why). Pitching scared isn’t a good way to do things.

But then Louis Varland hasn’t allowed an earned run yet.

I’ve seen more about Bo Bichette’s troubles than anything else. He has been a slow starter the last few seasons, but it is tough when you are on a new team, after signing a big contract. And worse when your team is losing. Lucky for him, New York baseball fans are well know for their patience.

No game today, which is good because I’m dealing with jet lag. I was so tired yesterday and then, about 2:00 am I was wide awake. But it should only last a couple of days and I’ll be back feeling normal.

Losing streak at nine as Phillies go down in extra innings to Cubs originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

CHICAGO – The Phillies’ losing streak is growing like an insidious tumor. Things have gotten so bad that now even Cristopher Sanchez is getting rocked.

Sanchez, runner-up for the National League Cy Young award last season, was tagged for 12 hits, including two scorchers that cleared the bricks and ivy, in an 8-7 loss to the seemingly unbeatable Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on Thursday afternoon.

The Phillies, losers of nine straight, were swept in a four-game series at Wrigley for the first time since 1973.

The final loss was extra painful. In a show of life, the Phils rallied for four runs in the late innings to come back from a 6-2 deficit and tie the game on a pinch-hit single by Edmundo Sosa in the top of the eighth.

The lead did not last long as Brad Keller, returning to the stadium in which he pitched for the Cubs last season, surrendered a leadoff homer to Seiya Suzuki in the bottom of the inning.

The homer was Suzuki’s third of the series.

But the Phils tied the game again on a pinch-hit homer by Adolis Garcia leading off the top of the ninth, only to leave runners on the corners after putting two men on base with no outs after Garcia’s homer.

The Phils lost it in the bottom of the 10th when the Cubs pushed across the game-winning run on a hit by Dansby Swanson against Tanner Banks. 

The loss was the Phillies’ 13^th in the last 15 games as they plunged to 8-17 on the season. They are 9 ½ games behind the division-leading Atlanta Braves in the NL East. If the Cubs, winners of nine in a row, are the hottest team in baseball, the Braves aren’t far behind. They’ve won eight of their last nine and 12 of their last 15, hardly a comforting thought for the Phillies as they head to Atlanta for a weekend series beginning Friday night.

Zack Wheeler will make his return in Saturday night’s game, but can one man make that much difference, especially with the way this thing is going?

Time will tell.

In the meantime, the Phils will turn their desperate eyes to rookie Andrew Painter in Friday night’s game and it would sure help if the bat rack continued to stir as it did in the late innings Thursday.

Brandon Marsh had a big day with a pair of solo homers and an RBI single, but he took a third strike with the potential tying run at third to end the top of the. ninth. The Phillies entered the day hitting .218, second-to-last in the majors.

Starting pitching continues to be a surprising issue for the Phillies. The starting staff entered the day ranked 28^th in the majors with a 5.37 ERA. (Last year, they were second at 3.53). Sanchez was hit hard in 5 1/3 innings of work. The 12 hits he allowed tied a career-high, reached in August 2024. He gave up six runs, walked two and struck out just four. Over his last four starts, Sanchez has given up 37 hits.

The big blow against Sanchez was a three-run homer by Michael Busch to dead center in the third inning. Busch hit a 95-mph fastball that was right down the middle. An inning later, Ian Happ clubbed an 0-2 Sanchez slider over everything in left field to give the Cubs a 5-2 lead that they built to 6-2 with a run in the sixth.

The Phillies’ offense showed some fight against Cubs’ starter Edward Cabrera and made it a 6-5 game with three runs in the seventh. Marsh hit his second homer and Bryson Stott (single) and Alec Bohm (double on a ball that was not caught at right-field wall) had hits. A run scored on an infield error and another on a sacrifice fly.

An inning later, the Phillies rallied to tie … then they tied it again, only to see the losing continue.

After a seven-game road trip facing National League West teams, the Dodgers are back home to start a weekend series against the Chicago Cubs beginning Friday night at Dodger Stadium. Kyle Tucker will face one of his old teams for the first time since signing with the Dodgers.

Emmet Sheehan gets the ball for the Dodgers in the homestand opener, while Jameson Taillon pitches for the Cubs.

This is the Dodgers’ first game on Apple TV this season, an exclusive broadcast which means no SportsNet LA for the series opener. The Dodgers have three Friday night games on Apple TV in the first half of the season. Wayne Randazzo will call the game alongside analyst Dontrelle Willis, plus reporter Heidi Watney.

Friday game info

• Teams: Dodgers vs. Cubs
• Ballpark: Dodger Stadium
• Time: 7:15 p.m. PT
• TV: Apple TV
• Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)

In 2022, the “It’s Not My Moneyball” series was created in response to the owners’ lockout, which disrupted Spring Training and arguably cost Clayton Kershaw a perfect game in Minneapolis (I had fun). As the season starts, the World Baseball Classic concludes, we must revive this series as trouble looms in the distance, hanging in the air, exactly in the way a brick does not.

This trilogy in four parts (it’s yet another Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy joke) was initially conceived from a single essay that ballooned in size to the point where a split was necessary. As I worked on Pandora’s Boxand MLB’s Dirty Dozen, I realized that there was a deeper story than skinflint owners and a perception problem that the Dodgers are more than happy to lean into…and then Sam Blum of The Athletic blew it all up with an excellent essay about a mostly fraudulent yogurt company, which is so good, it broke this essay in half.

Perception problem versus the actual problems

There are two cancers slowly metastasizing into the sport: the emergence of private equity into MLB ownership and the embrace of gambling. Both of these cancers are fueling the rationale for a hardline position during the upcoming labor crisis.

The perception problem baseball labors under is the bright, shiny object that is catching reporters like Jeff Passan’s attention. Reporters, like Mr. Passan, remain perplexed about how the sport that is riding all the momentum to regain the second spot in the American pantheon of sports is likely going to set it all ablaze in less than eight months’ time.

Each of these final subjects will get its own essay. Today, we give a crash course on private equity in baseball, starting with an update to a story that drew my attention like a moth to a flame.

The San Diego Padres are selling for how much?!? How?!?!?

The San Diego Padres are expected to sell for just shy of $4 billion to Jose E. Feliciano, managing partner of Clearlake Capital, a private equity firm in Santa Monica, and his spouse, Kwanza Jones, ending the recent ownership turmoil caused by the untimely death of venerable owner Peter Seidler.

That amount is also a record sale for an MLB franchise, eclipsing the $2.15 billion the Dodgers sold for in 2012 and the $2.42 billion Steven Cohen paid for the New York Mets in 2020. Talking about lighting a fire! In all seriousness, this sale shatters all expectations. Forbes valued the Padres at around $3.1 billion at the start of 2026, and potential sales in Anaheim and Minneapolis were thwarted, even if temporarily, because presumably the market was not there, fueling the owner’s argument going into the next round of labor talks.

With no disrespect to the Padres, I have the following response to the sale: Really?!?

The Padres have a lovely, if slightly overpriced and conceited, ballpark, and while the franchise is in a better position than the Dodgers were when emerging from bankruptcy, the ceiling for the Padres is inarguably lower than the Dodgers’ was when they exited bankruptcy. Even though we are now almost fifteen years later from the Guggenheim purchase of the Dodgers, you’re telling me that a team that is infinitely inferior in just about every facet is worth more than the Dodgers were back then?

When the Padres actually meet baseball expectations exactly once, I’ll revisit and possibly retract the snark.

Brittany Ghiroli of The Athletic has some excellent reporting on the expected sale, with quotes that are simply eye-popping (paywalled):

“The smaller markets are selling for twice what the large markets are,” said agent Scott Boras. “An outlier? I would say the truth is (the Padres valuation) outs the lies that baseball isn’t at the most prosperous point of its existence.”

Added another agent: “These guys opened the books, saw everything and bought this for $3.9 billion as we go to a (potential) work stoppage? These are smart, savvy business owners. They are in the process of buying undervalued assets.”

The Padres are in a position to benefit massively from the new CBA, should the league meet its goal for a national media rights deal that could pay each club hundreds of millions annually starting in 2029. The Padres rank among the smallest in the league in local media revenue.

“I hope they aren’t an (outlier),” said another industry executive. “I hope it’s an example of what small-market teams can do with the right ownership. For years, there’s been people saying, ‘How can they keep spending?’ or ‘It’s going to massively crash on them,’ but kudos to them. They invested in the product and have been rewarded.”

(Emphasis added.)

In a rational universe, this sale would kickstart an honest negotiation that largely keeps the peace so that all parties can benefit from the new media deal likely to come in 2028. A larger pie feeds all comers, but instead, we will be led off the cliff by those who ignore this data point and focus on the hardline position like a rabid dog chasing a car, which usually ends badly for everyone involved.

The Padres had at least $300 million of debt on their books per The Athletic. The amount is substantial, especially given that the Minnesota Twins had $500 million in debt on their books and could not secure a $1.7 billion sale price. The Twins added minority partners in 2025 to help erase the debt.

Considering that these are the transactions we know about, if one were not paying attention to financial trends in baseball, one might be tempted to accept the owner’s claims of seemingly self-induced poverty.

After all, it takes a certain type of anti-talent to bankrupt a casino, or in this case, a major league franchise. Make your own Frank McCourt joke here.

However, it is difficult to accept the owners’ argument of poverty in the upcoming labor negotiations (especially when one examines the books of the Atlanta Braves) when the average franchise value has seen the biggest jump since 2021, with the average MLB franchise valuation now at $3.17 billion.

The Dodgers franchise is somehow worth around $9 billion now, per Sportico. Again, without a public accounting, the figure feels more vibes-based than evidence-based. To be fair, this point is a feature rather than a bug of the market, and it applies to sectors other than baseball. Never forget that office space rental company WeWork was valued at $47 billion in its last funding round, before sanity returned and crashed the company’s value back to earth.

How the world thought an office-shared-space rental company was a software company is something I still cannot understand. Hopefully, when we look back on this period in baseball, no one is asking similar questions about how we all looked bad for not seeing the trends coming.

When the average franchise exceeds the record sale of marquee franchises just fifteen years later or five years later (if we are being generous to our cousins in Queens), alarm bells should be ringing.

Either baseball as a whole is just killing it, or something else is going on. Maybe both.

As if to give the game away, private equity firms have been more involved with buying stakes in MLB teams, more so than in other leagues, begging the obvious question to the average fan.

What is private equity?

A private equity firm is an investment partnership in which private investors buy struggling private companies and try to restructure and improve them so they both grow and operate more effectively, before the acquired company is either sold or transformed into a publicly traded company.

In theory, that description is perfectly benign and acceptable. Capitalism must capitalism, and the money, like the sands of Arrakis, must flow.

So why raise a stink, as the Padres’ news is entirely coincidental? In practice lately, the involvement of private equity amounts to the financial kiss of death for acquired companies.

What generally ends up happening is that the acquired company is loaded with debt and hollowed out, with all the subtlety of someone being busted out by the mob, before the acquired company goes bankrupt, with all the employees losing their jobs.

Remember when Red Lobster went bankrupt? Common wisdom said the company was felled by customers ordering too many shrimp during the Endless Shrimp promotion. Personally, guilty as charged, as I love shrimp, which actually explains a lot.

The truth was far more predictable and had nothing to do with consumer behavior. When Red Lobster was acquired by a private equity firm, the company was directed to sell its locations and then lease the buildings back to keep operating, among other short-term moves that torpedoed the future of the seafood restaurant.

It’s not just restaurants either. But if one has been to Jersey Mike’s lately, there’s a reason one’s Jersey Mike’s orders have gotten noticeably worse (higher prices, smaller portion sizes) since the company was acquired by private equity. Or put another way, if you are wondering why Toys R Us returned and then quickly disappeared again, thank private equity.

Therefore, private equity firm involvement is generally a giant red flag because of its well-earned reputation for sundering struggling businesses in the name of short-term profits.

Private Equity in Baseball

In 2019, MLB opened its doors to investment by private equity firms. Brendan Coffey of Sportico reported on the initial rules established by the league:

…These days MLB doesn’t allow corporate ownership–current exceptions like the Blue Jays are grandfathered in—but the league’s comfort with institutions as owners could come from its long history of corporate ownership of franchises, with the Angels, Braves, Cardinals, Cubs, Mariners and Yankees among the teams that were mostly well-run under institutional oversight.

• Under current rules as reported by Sportico, a private equity fund can own up to 15% of a franchise, with no limit to the number of clubs a fund can invest in.
• It’s not known if there is a minimum dollar investment or percentage ownership requirement for institutional investors.
• On the team side, no franchise can sell more than 30% of its equity to PE.

(Emphasis added.)

Other sports leagues have followed suit. Private equity firms have become involved with 18 out of the 30 teams, including the Dodgers. Arctos Sports Partners is believed to have invested in six teams, including the Dodgers: the Chicago Cubs, the San Francisco Giants, the San Diego Padres, the Houston Astros, and the Boston Red Sox. From Luisa Beltran of Sportico:

A handful of private equity firms have taken stakes in MLB teams. This [involvement] includes Arctos, Sportsology Capital Partners and Sixth Street. RedBird Capital, the PE firm from Gerry Cardinale, backs Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Red Sox. Silver Lake owns Diamond Baseball Holdings, which has amassed a collection of 48 minor league teams. (Marc Lasry’s Avenue Capital is an investor in the Baltimore Orioles, but Avenue is a hedge fund and not private equity.)

(Emphasis added.)

Why are these firms investing? Simply put: to make money. Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times explains:

Firms such as Arctos are not about civic involvement, or the joy of ownership. They evaluate opportunities on a “Can we make money?” basis. The data showed that Arctos and similar firms invested nearly $2 billion into stakes in pro sports teams last year.

“These are strong, recurring revenue businesses,” [Jordan] Solomon, [co-founder of Arctos] said.

The owners get a guaranteed share of growing league revenue, including national broadcast revenue — and not just from television networks, as Wednesday’s deal between Apple and MLB shows. The average annual value of the MLB national broadcast deals, according to Forbes: just shy of $2 billion, or about $66 million per team. That is guaranteed revenue, without even accounting for local cable rights or selling a single ticket or T-shirt.

And what are these firms’ money being used on? Ancillary measures per available reporting from last year by Lillian Rizzo of CNBC:

Private equity’s capital and influence often goes toward expenses surrounding teams, such as stadium and hospitality improvements and digital enhancements. This [capital] frees up more room for payroll spending, too.

“It is also interesting to watch as baseball works to introduce new rules, products and in-stadium experiences to connect with a younger audience,” said [Michelle McKenna, a senior advisor in Evercore’s strategic advisory practice], noting private equity’s expertise in a lot of those areas. “PE investment in sports isn’t your grandfather’s PE. These are longer-term partners with well-honed strategic advice in addition to capital.”

Whether teams are actually spending money on players is an open question, but if one proceeds as if the teams were assets trying to control costs and profits, the slow winters of the past few years both make sense and develop new meaning.

Accordingly, a majority of teams have let in outside capital, with a deserved reputation of torpedoing long-term stability for a quick buck, but with safeguards to keep them from sinking teams like Red Lobster or Toys R Us. What is the actual problem?

They were invited, and they are unlikely to leave.

The problem, or why we are here today, is that there is now an outside force, ancillary to ownership, that will be pushing for a hard salary cap, emboldening the more radical voices that threaten to stand atop the sport and drive it into a ditch. Why?

I have long maintained that baseball is smack in the middle of a valuation bubble.

Owning a team has value, but that value largely rests on factors that cannot be objectively verified unless one is talking about the Atlanta Braves. It would not be entirely incorrect to say that vibes are a component of what a team is worth, and honestly, when one looks at the numbers over the past couple of years, they no longer make sense.

Private equity firms have concluded that MLB teams are undervalued in part because there is no hard salary cap. Once again, Ms. Beltran from Sportico:

When it comes to valuing a club, many professional sports teams operate with negative cash flows, so traditional valuations metrics like EBITDA are useless, according to the Corporate Finance Institute. This [reason] is why MLB teams are often valued as a multiple of revenue. Using a revenue multiple allows clubs to capture revenue from local media and the intrinsic value of each team.

Valuing teams with an EBITDA multiple also doesn’t allow teams to include their scarcity value. “Sports team ownership, for an individual, in many ways is more analogous to the ownership of a valuable piece of art than it is to cold economic rationality,” said Stephen Amdur, a partner with law firm Fried Frank, who has advised on sports transactions such as the sale of Chelsea FC and the San Francisco Giants’ partnership with Sixth Street. “I don’t know how a person ultimately decides exactly what a Picasso should be worth, just as I don’t know how a person decides exactly what the Chicago Bears should be worth. It all depends on the team, the situation and your own personal enjoyment of the sport.”

The average MLB team is worth $3.17 billion…[This value] translates to an average multiple of about 7.2x revenue. This low valuation is mainly due to the league’s looming labor issues. The current collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the MLB Players Association is set to expire on Dec. 1, and many expect a work stoppage.

A major point of contention is the salary cap….“Leagues that have salary caps like NFL have more predicable costs, which is helpful for investors in long-term planning,” [Aaron Mulvihill, global alternatives strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management] said.

(Emphasis added.)

Once you realize people are largely just guessing at what an MLB team is worth, you should realize that you have heard a version of this argument before: the 2008 financial crash. The system in place works, assuming franchise values continue to increase. If the music were to slow or, God forbid, stop…heaven help everyone.

Unlike the financial crisis, if you know where to look, you could see the storm coming. Here, all the books but one are closed. Before anyone thinks that this conclusion is benign need only continue to wait for representatives to say the quiet part out loud. For a final time, Ms. Beltran of Sportico:

Broken player economics, including the lack of a salary cap, is suppressing MLB multiples, according to one private equity executive, who declined to speak on the record.

A second PE exec, who also asked not to be named, thinks there will be a delay to the 2027 season with games likely starting in June.

Some bankers and PE executives believe all this volatility makes MLB a great place for private equity to invest right now. They say there are some longtime owners with majority stakes who are economically exposed to baseball’s volatility and would welcome taking money off the table.

Once MLB fixes its problems, including clinching a new CBA, team valuations are expected to jump….

(Emphasis added.)

In the least charitable light, you potentially have a cadre of owners and private equity firms essentially incentivized to hold a hard line to keep this bubble going. After all, “stable labor costs” (known to others as depressed wages, regardless of what pundits like Brodie Brazil say) likely means more private equity investment, from the same types of people who drove Red Lobster et al. into the ground, more acquisition of commercial land by using the franchise value as collateral, and on and on the cycle goes.

Or put another way: If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for milk. And then demand it. Teams like the Dodgers are likely able to resist any turbulence, but smaller teams (especially ones that seemed to rack up mountains of debt — looking at the Twins here) seem likely to bear the brunt of whatever is coming.

Or if you want a joke to tweak our northern cousins: Why did the San Francisco Giants need to buy the Curran Theater? Because the money had to go somewhere other than the team.

Remember, about 10 owners contributed more to the “we’re going to lock out the players’ fund” than to free-agent acquisitions this year. What could possibly go wrong in this scenario, especially if the owners get what they want and get a protracted lockout?

In fact, we have a current example of a large market team that started operating as if governed by the Excel spreadsheet rather than as a competent franchise.

Cautionary tale: From darling to dud

If one were to ask what team was the model baseball franchise of the 21st century, and they asked before 2020, one would be hard-pressed not to say the Boston Red Sox. Four titles in 20 years after almost 90 years of futility, an owner beloved by the fanbase, a fanbase basking in glory, most recently with the Mookie Betts-led 2018 championship squad.

As Joon Lee from More Perfect Union demonstrates, the arc from darling to dud can often be swift, tragic, and ultimately foreseeable in hindsight. The main villain? Going too far.

Owner John Henry brought a new philosophy to the club, combining scouting and analytics with financial muscle. In a sport where you can be rich, smart, or good, the Sox were flirting with being all three, leading to gutsy moves to fund this system, like trading Nomar Garciaparra.

But if this era started with a gutsy trade that made baseball sense, it ended when the Red Sox traded Mookie Betts…to the Dodgers. And looking back, that one move is the rock on which this dynasty’s foundation was laid.

Rather than a move to make the Red Sox better, the move was financial. There was no legitimate baseball reason to make that deal, especially by dumping Betts and David Price for salary relief and prospects Alex Verdugo, Connor Wong, and Jeter Downs. Six years later, only Wong is still with the Red Sox in a regular role. Verdugo is now on his third team since leaving Boston. Downs has been out of baseball since 2024.

From this point on, the Red Sox underwent a slow march and went from the centerpiece of Fenway Sports Group to just another cog, along with Premier League football club Liverpool, the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins, and RFK Racing. And if you are starting to realize that the Dodgers’ current ownership group, Guggenheim, owns the Dodgers, has a majority ownership of the Los Angeles Lakers, the Los Angeles Sparks, and is a part owner of the Chelsea Football Club…the realization I might be throwing a rock from a glass house hits like a brick.

It’s best to view the Red Sox now as a financial asset masquerading as a baseball team, rather than as a baseball team that happens to be a financial asset. That distinction might seem minor, but once that line is crossed, all sorts of terrible moves make a lot more “sense,” like doing nothing in San Francisco, especially after forcing the Athletics out, like banking on the severity of a self-imposed lockout with a warchest of $2 billion.

If private equity has accelerated a trend catering to the 1% of bank accounts, trying to monetize every last dollar (be it paying for FanFest, a $70ish dollar souvenir cup, increased parking, etc., etc.), the Red Sox might have just gotten to the destination first, after having a head start.

In a sport where you can be rich, smart, or good, the Dodgers are ultimately and inescapably all three. Enjoy the current campaign, everybody. I predicted we would lose at least half of 2027, largely based on initial research that informed this report. I would truly, desperately love to be wrong. In the end, it’s not my Money(ball).

Right now, everybody’s talking about bullpens. Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Dodgers put newly signed closer Edwin Diaz on the injured list after a disastrous start to his LA career, as he undergoes surgery to remove loose bodies from his elbow. Over in Queens, their two new bullpen arms, Devin Williams and Luke Weaver, have been major contributors in what was heading into last night’s action a 12-game losing streak. And of course, here at Pinstripe Alley, there’s a good chance you’re already sick and tired of hearing about Camilo Doval, Jake Bird, and, to be honest, every reliever except Tim Hill, Fernando Cruz, and, somehow, Brent Headrick.

At this point, the narrative is pretty clear. For many years, the Yankees invested heavily into their bullpen, signing big name closers and top-shelf relievers to set up for Mariano Rivera (e.g., Tom Gordon, Kyle Farnsworth, Rafael Soriano), spending big money on closers following Rivera’s retirement (e.g., Andrew Miller, Aroldis Chapman), trading for closers to set up for other closers (e.g., Zack Britton, David Robertson, Tommy Kahnle), and signing top relievers on the free agent market to fill out the ‘pen (e.g. Adam Ottavino, Darren O’Day, Justin Wilson). They did this while developing a parade of bullpen arms that would be closers elsewhere, including Dellin Betances, Chad Green, Jonathan Loáisiga, and Michael King (before he became a starter, of course). And the Yankees — particularly during the Baby Bombera era, from 2017 to 2021 — saw major return on that investment: their 33.0 fWAR in that span ranks first, four runs ahead of the second-place Rays (whose 29.3 fWAR is artificially inflated by their liberal use of openers, who are officially classified as relievers) and well ahead of the third-place Dodgers.

Since 2021, however, the Yankees have taken a very different approach when it comes to building their bullpen. Rather than signing the top of the market players, they have opted to look in the bargain bin to find relievers — some of whom have worked out, and others who have not. The few top-level arms they do acquire have been brought in via trade, not signed as free agents, and are generally still arbitration-eligible. No matter how they’re acquired, however, when these relievers reach free agency, they have, for the most part, let them walk: since 2021, Aroldis Chapman, Chad Green, Wandy Peralta, Tommy Kahnle, Clay Holmes, Devin Williams, Luke Weaver, Jake Cousins, and Jonathan Loáisiga have all been allowed to leave in free agency, and Ian Hamilton, Scoff Effross, Mark Leiter Jr., Ron Marinaccio, Michael Tonkin, and more have been designated for assignment and released despite providing key innings. In fact, over the last few years, only Tim Hill, Ryan Yarbrough, and Paul Blackburn have been retained, and the latter two were brought back specifically because they also serve as rotation depth.

This philosophical shift has unsurprisingly generated some frustration among fans, especially when the bullpen has floundered (as it has so far this season). And I’m not going to argue with the idea that, maybe, just maybe, the team should have invested a tad more into the bullpen over the winter, instead of running out a bullpen that was clearly insufficient at the end of last season (no, Angel Chivilli and his career 6.18 ERA heading into the season doesn’t count as reinforcements, despite his young age) — there’s a sound logic to how they’ve treated the bullpen in recent years.

The traditional maxim has been that relievers are volatile, but in the mid-to-late 2010s, it seemed like that was no longer the case. While relievers did continue to rise and fall regularly, the race for spin rate on the fastball, and the apparent direct correlation between spin rate and bullpen success, meant that it was easier than ever to predict which relievers were a flash in the pan and which would continue to be dominant. And in that world, if you were absolutely certain which relievers were good, then it made sense to invest heavily into the bullpen and build a super-pen.

Once the sticky stuff crackdown occurred, however, relievers became more volatile once more, as the chase to increase spin rate… didn’t exactly stop, but wasn’t able to be as reliably intensified. This crackdown represents the turning point where the Yankees as an organization seem to have de-prioritized the bullpen in order to bolster the rotation: in that same span of time where they have not heavily pursued relievers in free agency, the Yankees have added a pair of top-of-the-rotation starters in Max Fried and Carlos Rodón, spent money on Marcus Stroman, and wooed Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Rōki Sasaki. There’s a clear logic to this strategy: it’s easier to rework a bullpen than it is to find a top starter in the middle of the season, and on the whole, top starters age more gracefully than top relievers (an ace who declines typically becomes a bottom-of-the-rotation starter, while a reliever who declines is usually destined for mop-up duty).

And while it can be annoying at times, this strategy has clearly worked for the Yankees. For all the handwringing about the bullpen this year, they are tied for seventh in baseball in fWAR with 0.9, fourth in ground ball percentage, and top-10 in FIP, xERA, and left on base percentage. Do I wish that Bednar didn’t require emotional support runners on the basepaths in order to lock in? Would I prefer to have a setup man who didn’t stress me out as much as Doval? Of course! But then again, as I look across the city to Queens, or to the other coast in LA…well, maybe the grass isn’t always greener.

Detroit Tigers (13-12) vs. Milwaukee Brewers (13-10)

Time/Place: 1:10 p.m., Comerica Park
SB Nation Site: Brew Crew Ball
Media: Detroit SportsNet, MLB.TV, Tigers Radio Network
Pitching Matchup: LHP Tarik Skubal (3-2, 2.08 ERA) vs. RHP Brandon Sproat (0-1, 6.88 ERA)