Here’s the rundown.
- MLB and MLBPA are investigating two playoff format changes. One would make the Divisional Series all seven games instead of five. The other, arguably more controversial concept, would add an additional round. The former makes sense, and can be done in conjunction with the new scheduling format taking place in 2011, when Opening Day falls on Thursday or Friday instead of Monday or Tuesday. The latter would require reducing the regular season to 154 games, or some other concession to keep the calendar from running into mid-November. The tradeoff involves four home dates worth of revenue for enhanced playoff dollars, which could be shared to an extent. Doing some rough math, I figure that each team would leave an average of $3.5 million on the table from in-stadium sources alone by eliminating those four home dates. Can’t see it happening.
- CNBC Sports Business reporter Darren Rovell interviewed the Giants’ Larry Baer yesterday (video). They discussed having 40,000 seats as an ideal ballpark size, plus the benefits of dynamic ticket pricing.
- ESPN NY columnist Ian O’Connor thinks new Mets GM Sandy Alderson should apologize to baseball for the steroids era. Really?
- The media is surprised at all the weed wafting through the South Beach air this week. Again, really?
- After Wolff/Fisher gave Don Perata $25k for his mayoral campaign, Rebecca Kaplan just got $214k from a Hollywood producer and the California Nurses Association. Tuesday may be very interesting, indeed.
- State legislators are wondering about the impact to California and San Diego-area schools after approving a bill that eliminated SD’s $2.9 billion cap on redevelopment investment. An analysis shows that to get a downtown Chargers stadium and enhancements to downtown streets, parks, and the convention center would cost $9 billion. Wow.
- Just to the north in Escondido, the City Council will decide by the end of November whether or not to invest $50 million of its own redevelopment funds in a AAA ballpark for the Padres. The project could stretch the city’s RDA budget, leaving nothing behind for other projects all the way until 2020.
- If you want to see the new arena standard is for the NBA, watch an Orlando Magic game at Amway Center. Or if you can’t, download a copy of the arena’s promoter guide (PDF).
- Another tour of the Diridon ballpark site was rescheduled for Saturday, October 30 at 10 AM, outside the train station. I will not be there, as I will be checking out something else.
Okay, I’m gonna call it. Congratulations to the 2010 World Champion San Francisco Giants. It’s been a long time coming.
newballpark.org 
@ML–since you mentioned steroids–interesting that Jose Guillen was pulled from the gints playoff roster since he is being investigated for HGH—ironic in that he was one of the players mentioned in the Mitchell report—just shows that the steroid issue isn’t going away anytime soon–
i’m still not giving up on the rangers.
go rangers!
dammit
Letsgoas,
I think its obvious that the Giants have everything going for them right now. I don’t think they were the best team going into the postseason, but when you’re hot, you’re hot!
The Padres are probably kicking themselves in the rear watching the Giants current run/pending championship. I thought Bennie Molina was going to provide the Rangers with an edge; boy was I wrong,
I thought, at the beginning of the series, that the Giants would have to win both of Lincecum and Cain’s starts to win the World Series. They are half way there.
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The Rangers will have to beat Sanchez and Bumgarner, which is entirely possible, but they still need to win one against Lincecum or Cain and then Sanchez. At this point, I’d say Lincecum looks entirely beatable, Cain not so much. If Cliff Lee fails to show up again, forget about it.
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I don’t see the Rangers pulling it off. Anything is possible.
That is one fancy video board they have there at Amway Center. Surprisingly though it’s actually a fairly small venue by modern standards too. Only 18,500 for basketball and 17,200 for hockey which means it is much smaller than Oracle Arena and indeed is smaller than HP Pavilion as well. Also can’t say I’m all that impressed with the Staples Ctr inspired mid-level luxury boxes. They push the common folks on the upper deck way too far up and away from the action. Not unlike several other arenas already in service like the a fore mentioned Staples Center and the Duck Pond down in Anaheim.
yeah sd and atl have to be kicking themselves, both had a chance to know sf out of the playoffs. course we all know about sd’s infamous 10 game losing streak to begin sep but they also lost 3 out of 4 to the cubs late in the month and atl themselves lost a series against a bad wash team the last week or so of the season.
still holding out hope. remember this is the same franchise that blew a 5 run lead with 8 outs to go in game 6 in 2002. i know not the same players but there still imo a dark cloud around that franchise that i hope continues a week from now if tex somehow pulls this series out.
remember it ain’t a series until the home team loses. so much for sfg fans thinking that they’re one of the “flagship franchises” in all of mlb as the ratings at least in game 1 was pretty bad. where was this national fan base we all heard about in recent years for their org? 5th largest market in the country and this team hasn’t won a world series in 50+ years, 3rd longest ever streak, yet i doubt the country knows or cares about it.
again go rangers!!!!
World Series ratings down 25%.
Ratings is why MLB needs the Yankees to be strong. The game’s peak popularity was from Babe Ruth to Mickey Mantle. All those Yankee haters out there (including me) pay for tickets and watch on TV.
The post-offense era won’t excite anyone but the most brainwashed homer cultists. Most of America doesn’t care much for games decided by errors, walks and seeing-eye grounders. It’s sloppy destiny for the Giants.
That’s correct – baseball has to cater to the shallow fans who want to see nothing but the long ball. I had an idea once to actually make baseball more exciting – any ball hit over the fence automatically retires the side. That’ll sure keep steroids out of the locker rooms.
Barry Bonds transformed himself from one of the greatest all-around players ever to nothing more than a one-dimensional power hitter and he became the game’s marquee player.
When the A’s win the World Series in 2011 (and they will), the TV ratings will be even worse. It won’t matter to me one bit. I, for one, am enjoying every minute of this World Series. If you’re a baseball fan, this will be the last MLB action you’re going to see until 2011.
Also, the Dallas news reporter getting giddy over smelling some mj in pubic is what I love about the City. I live a few blocks from the Lower Haight (Alamo Square), and the sight of tourists doing double takes at people publicly smoking gange is very common. I appreciate that the Dallas news reporter kept things positive and didn’t spin a moral or legal angle from it. San Francisco, Bay Area, whatever. We live in a pretty cool place. For those who see the Bay in terms of rival regions(East, Pen, South), that’s your business. I have a suggestion though. Try moving out of state or even out of the country and see how relevant your regional rivalry is.
Reveling in the cheap shock value of something so pedestrian is simply amateurish. It just makes Giants fans that much more annoying.
@Nam Turk
Haters gonna hate. When the A’s win their next World Series, I hope the haters from the Giants fanbase use the same stilted phrasing.
pjk-The article says “Modern Family” beat the Word Series in the ratings.
The Giants held serve at home. No surprise there. No series gets interesting until Game 4.
Maybe overall interest in MLB is down because the league is stupid enough to set up a system that favors a few big-market teams and leavies the rest with minimal chance to win. And if they do win, the Yankee$ will drop by to collect your best players by paying salaries your small market team can’t hope to pay. A nation of front-runner Yankee fans doesn’t want to watch the Texas Rangers in the World Series.
pjk… you realize, in the past 10 seasons, all but 5 teams have made the playoffs? All but 8 have won a playoff series? 2 teams have won the first World Series in their franchise history? 5 teams have been to the first World Series in their history? 2 teams ended 80 year title droughts? Only 1 team has won 2 world Series (2 teams if you stretch it over 11 seasons)? After this series, either another team will have won it’s first or a 50 year drought will have ended? A team from every division has won the World Series in the past 10?
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The system is working out pretty well, all things considered. The A’s have just been left behind by the new stadium boom. Once they find a way into that revenue stream, they will be right there with everyone else in terms of keeping a young core together past their arbitration years.
The Yankee$ in that time have made the playoffs every year but one. The Red $ox and Yankee$ have 4 World Series titles in the past 10 years. The A’s no longer have the pitchers they used to have because, well, they couldn’t afford them. It is apparently a given that Carl Crawford will be leaving the Rays to go to a Big $$ team.
Under the current system, any team can win – for a short time. until the Big $$ teams swoop in to take your best players.
I like to tease Giants fans about what they will do when the Yankee$ offer Lincecum $35 mill a year.
bring back regularly scheduled double-headers. maybe create a taxi-squad roster spot for an extra arm to bring up from the minors that won’t count against options or the 40 man roster.
i miss the start times of 12:35 businessman specials in oakland from back in the day. saturday double-headers would be a lot of fun.
The A’s still have 12:35 starts.
Which Big Money team took the A’s pitchers again? The Giants, Cardinals and Braves are not the Red Sox and Yankees. The A’s couldn’t have kept all 3 even with a new stadium. No team could have, except the maybe the Yankees. And anyteam that did would have been sacrificing the rest of the roster.
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The Rays are the other team that is sans new stadium. They won’t be able to keep any of their core players… But the Giants will. They seem to have chosen Matt Cain over Tim Lincecum, considering that the Giants have $55M spent for 2012 on four players with Wilson ($8M) Rowand ($13M), Cain ($15M) and Zito ($20M) all sucking up way too much money. It isn’t the economics of baseball that will cost them Lincecum… It is their own bad management.
@Briggs, all part of why I voted no on 19. No way and hell I want to smell that crap any more than I already do when I have to walk around SF. Bad enough you can’t got a concert anymore without someone lighting up a blunt and forcing the rest of us to smell it. Frankly I found his reaction refreshing.
As for parity, I have to agree. Yes the Yankees make it in alot, but at the same time quite a few first timers or long timers have made it into the playoff in the last decade. I mean hell, we had both Sox teams win the series in the last decade after 80+ year hiatus’, the Phils won after a nearly 30 year break, and we had a pair of first timers win in the Angels and Diamondbacks.
the league that nobody complains about but should is the nba.
over the past three decades, they have had the fewest amount of different champions. lakers, bulls, celtics, pistons, spurs, rockets and sixers. both mlb and nfl probably have double that amount?
with the way nba players are ganging up, that the league where no middle of the road org will ever win a world title unless they get very lucky like the spurs did when the lucked into duncan.
I think the playoffs should stay the way they are. If it wee bumped up to 6 teams from each league, almost half the league would make the playoffs each year. However, I’m in favor of cutting the season down to 100 games. Don’t get me wrong, I soak in all 162 of them, but May and June are dead months. They can go. It’d reek havoc on all sorts of things but in the long run, I think it’d make rRNA more compelling product.
The NBA skirts criticism by having a farcical luxury tax. The Lakers went $30M over the cap last year.
I think they should keep the playoffs as is. Add more teams and you cheapen the regular season and it’s more likely an undeserving team will eek in and “get hot” in the playoffs. The best teams should be in, period, and they are under the current system. As for shortening the season, no thanks. Part of what makes baseball great (and separates it from the other sports), is that one can decide to go to a game on short notice some afternoon and be watching a game live that night. You can’t do that in any other sport. Plus ESPN would crap a brick. Baseball gives them tons of fresh material to talk about each week. Meanwhile they sit here during the baseball off season talking about the same stuff over and over again…
The NHL puts 16 out of 30 teams in the playoffs, making the regular season little more than a very long pre-season. The Sharks had the top record in the league two years ago but lost in the first round to a team that squeaked into the post season with the 8th-best record in the conference. Talk about a meaningless regular season. Let’s not let baseball expand the playoffs anymore than it already has. It went from 2 teams in the old days (no playoffs, just World Series) to 4 teams and now it’s 8 teams. Plus, do they want the World Series to conflict with NFL games on Thanksgiving Day? They’re already getting perilously close.
How about a late-November World Series in Minnesota?
@Jeffrey
With $55m taken up by only 4 players in 2012, I wonder if the Giants can even risk the budget uncertainty by entering into arbitration with Lincecum for 2012 & 2013. I’m guessing they avoid arb and get inventive with a contract– then again this is Brian Sabean.
Do you think the certainty of a new ballpark anywhere would allow the A’s to keep Gio and Cahill until free agency? I appreciate Billy Beane’s knack for trades (Swisher, Haren), but it’d be a tough pill to swallow if the A’s lost one or both of them by 2014.
i think gio is signed thru 2015?
hopefully cahill is signed thru one year of his fa like they did with anderson which would make all three of anderson, cahill, and gio signed thru 2015.
you hope by that time the a’s will have a couple of arms either close to being major league ready or maybe somebody like ynoa finally lives up to his potential and is up already with the big league team.
Gio and Trevor are both going year to year. I imagine Beane will approach those two, starting with Trevor Cahill this year and Gio either early next or in the next off season with team friendly deals similar to what Brett Anderson signed.
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The only players signed beyond 2011 are Kurt Suzuki and Brett Anderson, both are signed through 2013 with options/buyouts for 2014.
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Things are eerily familiar to the 2000 era Oakland A’s. When the team started signing guys through the first season of free agency with team friendly deals and then augmented the core with trades for a season or two of players in their prime and free agent signings of valuable, yet unheralded complementary parts. I expect the first real push to be this off season, most likely via trade.
@letsgoas
The A’s have control over Gio and Cahill until the end of the 2014 season, I believe. But there’s the issue of arbitration that’ll cause their salaries to jump up after their 3rd season in the bigs.
I’ll be at the Rally in SF too ML…can’t wait!
Briggs,
I am eagerly awaiting what the Giants will do with Lincecum. If I was Brian Sabean, I would be looking to deal Jonathan Sanchez this off season (because there is no way they will keep him past 2012). I’d be looking for a corner infielder with POP! and a middle infielder who is MLB ready. I haven’t looked to see which teams even be a match for that kind of deal, but I imagine there is one.
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Their only real option, as I see it, is to negotiate some kind of deferred payment schedule to Zito, they won’t get out of paying him the $64.5M they owe him through 2014. Maybe they can spread it out or get Lincecum to take a pay cut (right) in 2012 to make the books work out. Tim Lincecum will make $13M next season. I imagine he will be looking for $15M in 2012 at a minimum. The Giants could try to sign him long term with a lower base pay in the first 2012… I have no idea how they make it all work. But if you assume Lincecum makes $15M, that means they have 5, of 20, players under contract for a total of $70M. That would leave them $35M or so to round out the roster with little help, on the offensive side of the game, coming from the minor leagues. Unless you think Brandon Crawford and his .729 minor league OPS is going to translate into something better at the big league level (as an example, I could have gone with Nick Noonan and his .704 career minor league OPS).
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They have Thomas Neal, an outfielder, who they could reasonably count on to be ready by 2012. They really have to win it this year if they plan on doing it soon.
Way OT,
Check out the Baseball San Jose and the latest entry by editor Paul Higgins. A true Giants fan who’s working hard to get the A’s to San Jose. A very interesting read.
A bit off topic but if anyone is going on the walking tour of the SJ ballpark site this morning it would be great to get an update on the proposed Autumn reconfiguration—is the city trying to get federal funds…what is the impact of redevelopment financial challenges on completing this portion–since this will happen regardless of the ballpark being built is there a near term timeframe for construction—-wish I could be there but out of town for college football–
@ML–you called the Giant’s winning the WS a tad too early. I’m hoping for a SF meltdown like Atlanta did in 1996 against the Yankees.They won the first two games 12-1 and 4-0, and then lost 4 straight.
And if it’s truly “World Champions”, shouldn’t they being playing teams from Japan, Mexico, Cuba, China, Europe, etc..?
@jk-usa
Happy Halloween. Lighten up.
@ all
Just sharing, but I have a kickass Canseco costume lined up for tonight. It’s gonna be off the hook.
@Briggs–Happy Halloween to you too.
If you can take a pic of you as Canseco and put it online, I’d like to see it. Great memories with him of better times with the A’s, when we actually got a few front page headlines.
Briggs, does it include syringes?
@Jeffrey–I bet it does!!…lmao.