I’ve been having some right elbow pain the last couple weeks – even doing normal stuff like picking up a cup – and I can’t quite seem to shake it. Which now means I get to go through a joyful period of trying to limit usage to see if it’s just inflammation that needs to calm down. I am a nobody, and it ticks me off that I can’t lift with that arm for a while, so I can only imagine how frustrating it is for pro athletes when they have to get shut down and just rest a part of their body. I’m like, noooo, my tiny little bicep is going to waste away over the next couple weekssssss … shut up, nerd.
An ice cold list from Ryan Davis over at Forbes: the 10 worst Cubs of the last 10 years. The “winner” was infamous back-up catcher Koyie Hill, who we long suspected must simply have been the best teammate in the entire universe, given that he was shockingly bad at the plate (.207/.266/.287, 41 wRC+ for his unnaturally long career), AND he rated as a negative behind the plate! How exactly does that guy hang on as a back-up catcher for so long on so many playoff-caliber teams? Worse, for the two years he qualified as a Cub in the last decade (2010 and 2011), he was worth a combined -2.7 WAR … as a back-up catcher in just two years worth of work. Truly incredible.
(But, hey, in all seriousness: kudos to the guy for hanging on as long as he did, especially after he sawed off three fingers and his thumb in an accident in 2008. They were surgically reattached, and he made the big leagues less than a year later.)
(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
Another back-up catcher came in for the 4th spot on the Forbes list, but I will absolutely tolerate no John Baker slander, Mr. Davis. That guy is a hero.
Driveline’s Kyle Boddy is also now the Reds’ minor league pitching coordinator, so it’s not a surprise that we’re going to get glimpses into what he’s doing with the organization (he’s not going to give away proprietary info, mind you, but he’s just a guy who is pretty open about philosophies). It’s also not necessarily a surprise that the coaches under him are going to wind up graded in a very data-driven way, just like the pitchers (Boddy, via Baseball America): “Our coaches are graded on skills progression,” Boddy said. “This guy came in throwing 90. At the end of the year, he averages 93. What did you do to do that? This guy had a 30 grade slider based on our data scientists, he now has a 65 grade slider. Why did that happen? How did you do that? What are we doing to make that happen? We are holding coaches accountable. And we are promoting them and celebrating them based on the work that they do.”
Part of that accountability? Videotaping every single meeting and conversation between coaches and athletes, and then transcribing those conversations to make them searchable so that words and phrases can be targeted (the example Boddy gives is the word “extension,” which apparently is not something he believes in).
I really enjoyed – well, appreciated – this read at Beyond the Box Score about how MLB teams have continued to increase ticket revenue even as attendance has slid. How do you do that? Well, it comes from pricing strategies that should be pretty apparent to you if you’ve gone to a game in the last five years – it’s getting a lot more expensive, particularly for customers who are less price-sensitive (and those increases more than make up for the lost attendance from lower-paying, more price-sensitive customers who walk away). Heck, why do you think luxury suites have become so important? The strategy has been good in the short-term for teams, but I continue to question whether it’s a good financial strategy in the very long term when you think about the fans that might not be there in 10 years if you keep squeezing them out.
As BTBS puts it: “But that doesn’t mean it will be like this forever. Price skimming is not meant to be long-term strategy and can be sensitive to consumer demand that becomes more elastic over time. There’s also an issue of why teams should be able to pursue a strategy that allows for the goal to be centered around generating higher revenue from attendance than a goal centered on higher attendance itself. How does it help further long-term growth if MLB’s desire is to price out certain segments of the population for marginally higher revenues?”
In theory, the teams with long-term family ownership (like the Ricketts Family and the Cubs) should be *MORE* concerned about long-term growth of the sport, and *LESS* concerned with wringing out every incremental dollar if it comes at the expense of two dollars 10 years from now. The time horizons are obviously very long when you’re on this topic, so we’ll see how things play out with the Cubs – and other clubs – over the coming decade. I hope more teams recognize (and more owners care about) the long-term value of keeping more fans engaged in the sport, including by attending affordable games.
The Cubs have seen their attendance decline each year since 2016, and even that magical season didn’t match the 2008 peak of 3.3 million.
Carlos Correa on Mike Fiers making the allegations: “It was surprising because we were a team. We were a team. We were all together. We had a bond. We won a championship. But is America. It’s the land of the free. You can say what you want to say.”
Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here.
Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.
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