Alan Torres

A’s baseball. Old millennial. Traveler. My food opinions are actually good.

[Bill Shaikin @BillShaikin]

Today’s Pat Murphy soliloquy.

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

@confusion_reign @nickygsmustache You just want to have your cake and eat it too. The Dodgers won’t spend less unless you make them by rule *and* mechanically by media revenue sharing. Same goes for the Pirates spending more.

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

@AndrewStoeten @nickygsmustache Any redistributive mechanism means the Dodgers et al pay players less and the Pirates et al play players more. It will have a quashing impact at the top end and a positive impact at the bottom end.

But that’s life if, like me, you want the majority of players to be paid more.

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

@nickygsmustache If we made an analogy to housing, it’s like the anti-cap folks are denying the reality that a doctor can afford a more expensive house than a cashier. If they instead submitted offers for the same house, the doctor would get it every time. That’s not how MLB should be.

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

@apxmindset It’s really about teen boys vs. teen girls. I would argue the former having a relationship with an adult have fewer long-term deleterious effects than the latter.

But romantic relationships should really be within peer groups. Teens with teens, adults with adults. No crossover.

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

@MSSmith76 ONT for me today. He asked if I’d rather be patted down in private and I replied “are you buying me a drink first?”

He didn’t laugh

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

The best part of waking up, is Folg..

Actually I guess it’s getting felt up by TSA 👎🫠🫣

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

I always wonder how Hampton Inn stays in business. Always about $40-50 higher than a Courtyard or HI, but not meaningfully better.

[𝕘 𝕥 𝕨 𝕪 @Gtwy]

why don't people understand unsalted butter

do you cook with salted lard, salted beef tallow?

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

The Dodgers did not earn being in LA any more than the Pirates earned being in Pittsburgh.

[Nick Gonzales’ Mustache @nickygsmustache]

Anything I missed?

- It doesn't guarantee competitive balance
- It's a money grab for owners
- Baseball already has parity / money doesn't buy rings
- Just do a floor, no cap
- It's not worth losing a season
- Let the Dodgers spend, they earned it
- Caps break up good teams
- Capped leagues still have dynasties
- LA is a destination and players will take discounts
- Bottom teams still won't get stars
- It won't fix bad management or ownership
- Owners will game it with loopholes
- Players make less
- Owners are greedy

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

@nickygsmustache Outcomes are not guaranteed. What you can guarantee is that large markets don’t just outspend small markets because they can and always will without a cap and floor system. Everything is just silliness.

[Ethan Hullihen @EthanHullihen]

This has been a part of my problem for a while.

Empirically, there is no correlation between spending and winning. Exactly the same with the shift.

Fans just want to *feel* better...but remember, the shift did nothing to fix that problem, as the league acknowledged it wouldn't

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

@killershot20 On paper, this looks like a fairly evenly matched series and that’s why it’s going to be a gentleman’s sweep lol

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

Baseball is way more random the other sports and it’s hard to account for that. Part

[Evan Drellich @EvanDrellich]

Competitive balance sits at the heart of the fight that will soon shut down MLB. So @TheAthletic took a deep dive into what the state of parity in MLB really is.

@enosarris ran the numbers, the league and union were interviewed — and two takeaways stood out.

Unlocked: https://t.co/Yntz2fstn8

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

@ColiseumSewage They are. The Dodgers will give money to the Rays. The cap and floor are merely the downstream result.

FWIW, I don’t think the individual contract max will ever come to pass.

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

There are a lot of really smart guys out there who continue to conflate “owner problem” with “market size problem”. The revenue delta between LA and Tampa Bay will never be fixed organically, period.

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

@ColiseumSewage There are other markets besides the top 5 that have to exist too. The teams are literally in league with each other. Otherwise it’s just WWE but with baseballs: fake af. Star teams and everyone else.

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

@ThatBootlegGuy Of course not. But saying it’ll be a great partnership makes it hard to later say “Meh this guy sucks”

[Alan Torres @cuppingmaster]

Unbelievably, Kotsay may yet live another day

[Martín Gallegos @MartinJGallegos]

Taylor Smith and A’s manager Mark Kotsay will have dinner tonight in Vegas. Smith: “From my conversations with Mark so far, he seems like a great guy. Someone who's hungry for all the information we can get [the coaching staff], and I think it'll be a great partnership.”