Category Archives: Athletics

10.11.13
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A Puncher’s Chance At Best

Sisyphus, by Titian (mid-16th century)

Two weeks from today will mark the 10th anniversary of the last team to win a World Series with a payroll under $70 million. The winner in 2003 was the Florida Marlins, a team chock full of prodigious young talent (Miguel Cabrera, Josh Beckett, Dontrelle Willis) and wily veterans (Pudge Rodriguez, Jeff Conine, Mike Lowell) who shocked the world when they beat the Yankees in six games. In 2003 the Yankees’ payroll was nearly $153 million. The Marlins’ payroll was a shade over $45 million. This year the team the wins it all will have a payroll anywhere from double to more than triple that of the teams that were just eliminated.

Atlanta was the first to go, seemingly powerless against the Dodgers’ Puig-powered juggernaut. Next was Tampa Bay, who fought bravely before succumbing to a superior Red Sox squad. Wednesday night it was the Pirates, who did about as much against Adam Wainwright as the A’s did against Justin Verlander. The Opening Day payrolls for the eight postseason teams were as follows:

  • Los Angeles – $216,753,286
  • Boston – $154,555,500
  • Detroit – $148,693,600
  • St. Louis – $116,790,787
  • Atlanta – $90,039,583
  • Pittsburgh – $66,805,000
  • Oakland – $61,964,500
  • Tampa Bay – $61,928,975

Atlanta’s $90 million is somewhat deceptive. It includes $25 million for Dan Uggla and B.J. Upton. Uggla was left off the Braves’ NLDS roster, and Upton had a grand total of 3 pinch-hitting appearances during the series. Essentially they’re dead money, mistakes made by the Braves’ longtime braintrust. Those mistakes were possible because Atlanta has the revenues to make them. Take the ability to make those mistakes away and suddenly the makeup of the Braves is similar to the other eliminated teams, as is the payroll. The other three teams are small market/have not/50-feet-of-crap-then-us teams. When they make a free agent mistake, it affect everything else. The big market teams not only can afford to mistake those mistakes, they can keep filling their lineups with veterans who habitually have good at bats, and relievers who have tons of experience.

Big markets respond to mistakes or issues by buying depth. Victor Martinez injured for the year? Get Prince Fielder. Dodgers and Red Sox having clubhouse and performance problems among their stars? Bundle them up and trade them for each other. Even a mid market team like St. Louis has options. Don’t think Albert Pujols is worth a long-term deal anymore? Take that money and spend it on calculated risks like Carlos Beltrain and Chris Carpenter, while locking up Yadier Molina.

For have-nots it’s far more grim. David Price expects to be traded from the Rays in a month or two. The Pirates are fortunate to be in their second year of a six-year window, after which they’ll have to figure out how to afford to keep Andrew McCutchen, Gerrit Cole, and Starling Marte. The A’s are in a similar situation, with decisions forthcoming on extensions for Josh Donaldson and the young guys in the staff, including Brett Anderson perhaps as early as in a few weeks. Whether the future with Coco Crisp in green and gold is one more year or three, Billy Beane and David Forst eventually have to find his replacement. The have-nots’ options are more linked to their GMs’ resourcefulness than a smorgasbord of big money, franchise cornerstone players.

Whether you think the A’s postseason came down to one or two plays, the fact is that for the A’s to win any ALDS and then advance to the World Series, everything has to go right. They need error-free ball and a ton of luck. Effectively, all have-not teams have a puncher’s chance of winning it all. Depth-wise they are no match for the haves. Maybe that’ll make it taste sweeter when one of the have-nots eventually gets the baseball gods to shine on them all the way to winning the World Series. It also makes the situation feel more desperate when they get eliminated early.

Why is 2003 important? It’s the first year of the modern revenue sharing agreement among MLB’s 30 clubs. While it has been tweaked in the last two CBAs (2006 & 2011), the fundamentals remain the same. Teams take a third or so of their locally-generated revenues, pool it together, and split it equally. Teams that end up paying the luxury tax see that money redistributed among the have-nots. Teams in the 15 biggest markets are prohibited from receiving revenue sharing receipts (net payment from the pool if the share they paid is lower than expected). 2003’s also the first season after the publication of Moneyball. Since then local TV money has become a much bigger factor, far outpacing the small adjustments being made to the revenue sharing formula to compensate.

Technically, the A’s are one of those 15 big market teams. They get an exemption for now because they play in the Coliseum, a poor revenue generator as a ballpark. Should they move into a new ballpark somewhere in the Bay Area, they would immediately lose the exemption. That realization raises the stakes on the future for the A’s. Like the Giants, they’d have to pay for their own stadium and and can’t rely on revenue sharing. The owners, cognizant of this, purportedly have qualms about the A’s ability to avoid massive debt and manage the club in a sustainable way. Sure, they could dump payroll or make cash calls if things got tight, but that would run counter to the purpose of having the A’s in a new ballpark. MLB’s 2000 Blue Ribbon Panel (not the one working on the A’s) made recommendations that could have helped competitive balance, such as sharing of 50% of local revenue and the allowance of strategic franchise relocations. The owners decided to keep revenue sharing a limited affair.

Yet if MLB is destined to have its top 10-12 franchises in their own contention bucket, shutting out everyone else, then the only way the A’s can truly compete is to get into that group of top 10-12/13 payrolls. Even with a $100 million revenue boost for the A’s touted by Lew Wolff, the A’s would be at the bottom of that list. That might be fine, since the A’s would continue to have spend/rebuild cycles. They’d still have to rely on their resourcefulness. The A’s have a nice boost from CSNCA and they have more national TV money coming, but the biggest windfall would come from that new ballpark, even net of debt service. Without substantive progress made on that front, the A’s will forever remain a team with a puncher’s chance that loses by decision in the end. That’s baseball in the new millenium.

10.07.13
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Time lapse Coliseum conversion

If you attended the game on Saturday, you probably noticed that the only thing faster than the A’s running onto the field after Stephen Vogt’s walkoff single was the Coliseum’s conversion crew, getting ready to do the big switch. As I hoped, someone captured the entire thing on time-lapse video. Claiming credit is SF media company Evolve Media.

The conversion was announced as complete around 3 PM Sunday, 5+ hours before the rescheduled Chargers-Raiders game. That means it took 18 hours to complete the change, a very impressive figure for sure. For now it looks like the crew has been granted a well-deserved break, as they didn’t tear down the seats immediately after the Raiders won. However, a decision will have to made soon on if/when to switch back to baseball, perhaps as soon as after Game 3 ends. The issue for the Coliseum Authority is that there isn’t a Raiders game at home until October 27, a good three weeks from now. If the A’s don’t advance and the Authority decides not to pull the trigger on the conversion, they could save themselves $500,000. If they wait until the last minute and the field ends up extra crappy because of it, the teams playing Game 5 and MLB will not be pleased. Here’s to hoping the A’s can force the issue.

10.05.13
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A’s lease situation looms in the shadows

Lost in all the postgame recriminations from Friday night is an article by the Chronicle’s Will Kane. It’s about the lease extension talks between the A’s and the Coliseum Authority, which to date haven’t yielded a new deal. When we last left off, Lew Wolff indicated that the A’s presented the JPA an offer of a 5-year extension at a higher annual payment, which would cover maintenance and some improvements at the Coliseum. The actual amounts and terms weren’t publicly disclosed. Wolff aimed for an escape clause that would be triggered by the Raiders building a new stadium that would presumably adversely impact the A’s. That was followed by Raiders owner Mark Davis pushing to demolish the old Coliseum and build a new one in its place.

Having this game as one of the last in the Coliseum is surely inconceivable. Right?

Having this game as one of the last in the Coliseum is surely inconceivable. Right?

Oakland City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan, who has been touting the potential for Coliseum City since its public unveiling, believes that the two sides are close to a 6-8 year extension. What’s a little disturbing is this message from Kaplan:

And the six- to eight-year window should give Oakland plenty of time to get serious about building a replacement ballpark and luring the A’s to stay, Kaplan said.

Hold a sec. Plenty of time to get serious about building a replacement ballpark? You’ve got to be kidding me with that. I’m sure that Kaplan was merely referring to the idea of shoe-horning a ballpark into the A lot, a secondary item within the overall plan. It’s the tone that’s disturbing. It places doubt on the idea that Victory Court was serious, and it certainly raises questions on the seriousness of inclusion for the A’s in Coliseum City. Just as the A’s aren’t winning back burned fans by talking about leaving, Oakland isn’t going to win the A’s over by considering them an add-on or second/third phase. Plus the idea of 6-8 years should give anyone pause. For all the talk by Kaplan and Mayor Jean Quan about how projects could be fast tracked or don’t need extensive environmental review, 6-8 years is an awful long time to effect change. Especially if both Coliseum City and Howard Terminal are under site control, Oakland’s favorite new catch phrase. Mark Davis lightly admonished Oakland about showing urgency last month. A move like this shows more of the same lack of urgency from Oakland. How are any of the teams supposed to take Oakland pols seriously if the general feel is that they’re making moves to make it look like they’re making moves?

While Kaplan was quick to say that a deal was close, A’s President Michael Crowley doesn’t see it that way.

“We’ve had some discussions, but we still remain far apart,” Crowley said of the lease talks. “I really don’t want to negotiate in the press. We certainly hope to be playing here in 2014.”

We certainly hope to be playing here in 2014? That’s also a pretty bad tell. Wolff has been careful to talk about playing at the Coliseum for years to come, even talking to a fan about it in Anaheim during the last regular season road trip. But this is not a certainty. And if your argument for the A’s staying is simply, They have nowhere to go, think again. Of course they have somewhere else to go. It’s really a question of how much money they’re willing to pay to make it happen – short and long-term.

Consider this game of musical chairs.

  • The A’s Coliseum lease ends at midnight on New Year’s Eve.
  • Same goes for the San Jose Giants at San Jose Municipal Stadium. Obviously the A’s aren’t going to play at Muni, it’s much too small and is older and more dilapidated than the Coliseum.
  • Raley Field is not old and dilapidated. It has 11,093 seats, plus berm seating up to 14,000. I did some measurements of the berm in RF and some of the other areas, and have concluded that if bleachers were installed atop those areas, the capacity could reach 20,000. Without standing room admissions. The A’s would sell that capacity out for 2-3 years straight, the transition time needed to build in San Jose. That capacity isn’t necessarily too small for MLB since there would be a clear transition path, and the A’s have been playing to an average of 20,000 per game for the last three years anyway.
  • What about the River Cats? Well, Lew Wolff would have to call in a favor. The team is owned by Susan Savage, widow of Art Savage. Art Savage was an executive with the Sharks almost 20 years ago, and Wolff called him and his family good friends. Wolff would have to work with the family, who runs the stadium, to compensate them properly and plan Raley’s temporary expansion. The River Cats could continue to play select games there, or…
  • Move temporarily to San Jose, where city leaders would be happy to kick the intransigent High-A Giants to the curb in favor of a AAA team while waiting for the MLB A’s to arrive. As of two weeks ago, there is no movement on a lease extension for the SJ Giants. Sound familiar?
  • That leaves the SJ Giants without a lease, without a home. That will not go over well with long-time SJ Giants fans, some of whom are part of the Stand For San Jose lawsuit. Sucks for them, I guess. If the Giants started looking for a home somewhere else in the Bay Area or NorCal, trust me, there will be no shortage of smaller cities ready to roll out the red carpet for them.
  • When the temporary arrangement ends in 2016 or thereabouts, Raley Field can be restored back to its previous glory. While there would be a big grassroots effort in Sacramento to attract the A’s full time, much of the available political capital has already been spent on the downtown Sacramento Kings’ arena. We already know that, when Raley was under construction, changes had to be made that dropped the possibility of easy vertical expansion. That makes it difficult to envision Raley as anything larger that 20,000 seats, unless someone’s willing to pay to gut it and rebuild the suites and a new upper deck. Besides, after 2-3 years it’ll become readily apparent how much better Raley is suited to being a AAA park than a MLB park. It’s akin to what happened when Bud Adams moved the Oilers out of Houston, Absent a modern stadium, Adams had his team play in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis for a year, followed one season at Vanderbilt Stadium. Adequate, and definitely not permanent.

Is any of this based on inside information? I assure you, it is not. Rather, it’s an example of a well-conceived Plan B, just in case the A’s can’t work out a Coliseum lease extension. It gives the A’s a decent place to play while they wait out the legal drama, while not infringing on T-rights. The way T-rights are written, Santa Clara County can accept any team it wants provided it’s not a MLB franchise. That’s how Wolff, Davis, and Crowley should be thinking. If they aren’t, then they’re not doing their respective jobs.

10.04.13
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Wendy Thurm’s live tweets from antitrust hearing (Update: link to Fangraphs article)

UPDATE 10/5 9:45 AM – Thurm put out an analysis of the hearing and potential steps forward at Fangraphs. I concur with everything she wrote.

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Fangraphs’ Wendy Thurm will have an article on this morning’s hearing soon. For now, this Storify recap will have to do.

My initial thoughts are that Judge Ronald Whyte was very thorough in picking apart arguments from both sides. He raised the lingering issue of standing for the City of San Jose, and openly questioned the purpose and efficacy of MLB’s long-held antitrust exemption. There’s a sense that Whyte may rule to dismiss the lawsuit based on standing, which would force the City to appeal. If the suit is dismissed, Whyte could choose to leave the matter for a state court to decide, or determine that his ruling covers both state and federal courts. A decision could come around the end of the month.

[View the story “San Jose vs. MLB Antitrust Hearing 10/4/2013” on Storify]
10.03.13
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Hearing and Noise

Got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that due to some scheduling conflicts I won’t be able to attend Friday’s antitrust hearing in San Jose. Stuff happens. Fortunately, Fangraphs and Sports on Earth’s Wendy Sturm (also a lawyer in a past life) will be covering the hearing. Judge Ronald Whyte isn’t expected to rule from the bench, so we probably won’t hear anything right away. Instead, expect to get top notch coverage from Thurm and from a Merc reporter, either John Woolfolk or legal affairs writer Howard Mintz.

The good news is that I will be doing some additional noise measurements while in the Coliseum for Game 1. Unlike last time, when I used a mixture of smartphones and phone apps, I’ll be mostly using a handheld sound level meter. One thing I noticed about using smartphones is that their sensitivity peaks at around 100 dB, making measurements above that level difficult to capture. That’s why I decided not to publish my findings from the final home game of the regular season.

That doesn’t mean that the data isn’t valuable. I’ll run a phone in parallel for logging purposes, and I have a decent idea about how to adjust measurements based on how the meter and phone/app differ.

This is where you get involved. Some of you have been asking to do your own measurements. If you’re going to attend either or both games, I can use your data. The methodology is simple.

  1. Download either Decibel 10th for iPhone or Noise Meter for Android to your phone. Both are free.
  2. Familiarize yourself with your respective app before the game if you get there early. Both have simple interfaces for turning both monitoring and logging on and off.
  3. Send me a log from the ceremonial first pitch. Both apps have direct email capability. Send the log to newballpark at gmail.com.
  4. Send a log from the first A’s rally with at least two runners on.
  5. Send one from the first A’s home run (if that happens) if you can capture it.
  6. Send one from the end of the game.
  7. In the email containing each log, include information about your location in the Coliseum and your phone (model, operating system, app calibration if you chose to use it).

As much as I’d like to get many different data points, I don’t want to stop you from cheering on the A’s. Making sound measurements is not conducive to multitasking, and rooting loudly or clapping can skew results (since you have a microphone right in front of you). If you can, restrain yourself a little. I know, not fun. That’s why I’m not asking you to log a dozen or twenty points. I’m also not asking to log the entire game, as it will most assuredly will kill your phone’s battery. It comes with the territory.

Throughout the night I will tweet readings I get. If I can I’ll post them in a new blog thread as well. Compare and send me tweets if you like. I hope to compile the results and plot them sometime next week.

If you’re interested in participating, reply in a comment here or via Twitter. I’ll try to give whatever support I can. Have fun, and go A’s!

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Note: My meter uses A-weighting for its measurements. Your app should as well. If you’re using your own sound meter and it logs, send me the logs if you can. Please note which make and model meter you’re using.

10.03.13
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ESPN’s Tim Keown pens sobering feature on future of pro sports in Oakland

It’s terrible timing to have a column about Oakland titled “Death of Sports Town” as the A’s jump into the postseason, yet here it is. Written by ESPN the Magazine writer and former Chronicle scribe Tim Keown, the piece tries to codify the meaning and value professional sports teams provide to their home communities.

Keown deftly explains the socioeconomic dichotomy that stratifies Oakland, the lack of outsider faith in The Town, the city government’s ongoing ineptitude, and the greed of owners who already have one foot out the door.

At the end of the column is a plea from Keown for the owners and overseers of these sports to, for once, forgo the extra $$$ and try to keep the community intact.

In the relentlessly monarchical world of professional sports, someone has to be able to forsake a digit or two in the bank account to create a legacy more meaningful than a trust fund that’ll cover a lifetime of BMWs and Botox treatments for the grandchildren of his grandchildren. Someone has to consider the void left behind.

Yet Keown can’t clearly answer the question he poses about gauging the impact of pro sports. I don’t know that anyone can. Yes, they are part of the fabric of any community fortunate to have them there. He drops the Raider-turned-San Leandro-cop Kenny Shedd anecdote. He interviewed Oakland native and NBA rising star Damian Lillard, who grew up near the Coliseum. These are all good, but anecdotes are the worst kind of gauge. There should be something between these feel-good stories and cold political calculation, as was exhibited in the Oakland Chamber’s poll yesterday.

In the poll, 50% felt that it was very or extremely important to keep the franchises in town. 55% of the 500 respondents said that they hadn’t attended an A’s game in the last 12 months. Another 20% only went 1-2 times. Obviously, part of the reason has to be the Coliseum’s dilapidated state. Some may be turned off by ownership. It shouldn’t be the team, since they’ve been meme-ing the sports world for the last 15 months. Someday someone – perhaps multiple people – will write an academic study on Oakland and its relationship with sports. Hopefully it’s not an eulogy.

 

10.02.13
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“This is Oakland” video narrated by Roy Steele posted by A’s

Update 10/3 11:10 AM – As you can see below, the video has been removed. I suspect that it wasn’t meant to be posted there in the first place, since it was nowhere to be found on the A’s homepage. Like the other pregame clips of years past, it was probably meant to live only at the Coliseum.

09.30.13
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First set of MLB Postseason game times out

I predicted this on Saturday:

Well, at least I nailed the sequence. The first two game times will be as follows:

  • Game 1: Detroit at Oakland, 6:30 PM Friday on TBS
  • Game 2: Detroit at Oakland, 6:00 PM Saturday on TBS

Future game times to be released later.

The late Game 2 start also has an effect on the Chargers-Raiders game. Originally scheduled for 1 PM, the game will be moved to 8:30 PM in order to accommodate the football changeover. That will make for a most unusual NFL quadruple-header, with the normal 10 AM and 1 PM slots, the Sunday Night slot featuring the Texans at the 49ers, and then across the bay for Chargers-Raiders on NFL Network. With playoff baseball on everyday this week leading into an epic football Sunday, this has to be one of the best sports weeks in recent memory. See you at the yard.

09.26.13
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Selig announces retirement and transition plan

This release came in this afternoon from MLB:

Baseball Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig formally announced today that he will retire upon the completion of his current term, which runs through January 24, 2015.

Commissioner Selig said: “It remains my great privilege to serve the game I have loved throughout my life. Baseball is the greatest game ever invented, and I look forward to continuing its extraordinary growth and addressing several significant issues during the remainder of my term.

“I am grateful to the owners throughout Major League Baseball for their unwavering support and for allowing me to lead this great institution. I thank our players, who give me unlimited enthusiasm about the future of our game. Together we have taken this sport to new heights and have positioned our national pastime to thrive for generations to come. Most of all, I would like to thank our fans, who are the heart and soul of our game.”

Commissioner Selig will announce shortly a transition plan in preparation for his retirement, which will reorganize centralized Major League Baseball management.

Selig has led Major League Baseball since September 9, 1992, when, as Chairman of the Major League Executive Council, he became interim Commissioner. He was unanimously elected Baseball’s ninth Commissioner on July 9, 1998.

Last year Selig indicated that his time as Commissioner would cease with the end of the current term. Selig has been extended twice at the request of the owners, who are very comfortable with him at the helm. And why shouldn’t they be? Since the 1994 strike, Selig has presided over more labor peace than the other three big leagues, while overseeing an unprecedented economic expansion (for baseball, at least). If we’re looking at the job Selig has done in terms of protecting The Lodge’s interests, he deserves an A. When it comes to other aspects of the game (drugs, replay and technology, rules), Selig hasn’t fared nearly as well.

Despite being left hanging by Selig on the San Jose matter, Lew Wolff continues to steadfastly support his fraternity brother.

“This is absolute confirmation of what I was hoping might not happen.”

Wolff has been consistent in saying that he prefers to act in the interest of the game first instead of his own (the A’s), a stance that keeps The Lodge out of potential infighting but frustrates A’s fans to no end.

Unlike the NBA and NFL, which had successors to David Stern and Pete Rozelle (Adam Silver and Roger Goodell, respectively) groomed for years, there is no obvious frontrunner to succeed Selig. It could be someone within baseball’s upper echelon, whether it’s Selig’s current right-hand man Rob Manfred or a respected former team executive like John Schierholtz. The selection of a new commissioner will require a 3/4ths vote – just like a franchise move – and any number of candidates could potentially have enough votes against them to prevent approval. As we know from Selig’s previous endeavors, he likes to show unanimity among the owners, but it’s hard to see how that will happen because of their divergent markets and circumstances. Selig could form consensus because he showed neutrality to them, often to the point of indecision in some extreme cases. It’s not clear that any other nominee will do the same, and no owner wants the job.

Selig has indicated that the executive level will undergo a reorganization, which makes sense. During Selig’s tenure more power has been consolidated within his office than at any other time in baseball’s history. In 1999 the league presidents were eliminated, and a few years ago COO Bob DuPuy was unceremoniously let go. If the owners don’t trust Selig’s power with anyone other than Selig, then it may be best to to redistribute those powers among multiple individuals. Plus, if The Lodge wants to go with someone who can be a figurehead for the owners and technocrats inside baseball, then the safest path may be to restructure the job so that not so much power is vested within the Office of the Commissioner.

It would seem that Selig will leave the A’s-Giants mess to his successor, except for some choice quotes from a CBS Radio interview with John Feinstein, in which he called the Coliseum a “pit”:

“It’s a pit,” Selig said. “It reminds me of old County Stadium and Shea Stadium. We need to deal with that. I’ve had a committee working on it for two or three years, and there’s no question we’re going to have to solve that problem.”

But hasn’t the committee been working on it for a long time? What’s the hold-up?

“We have, John, but I’ll tell you it’s far more complex,” Selig said. “Look, you have one team that wants to move and the other team doesn’t want them to move, and it’s a very complicated situation. Before I leave, I’m satisfied we’ll work out something.”

We’ve heard assurances from Selig before, so this one carries little weight. Then again, who knows? Selig’s hallmark is his deliberate nature. If the point is to wait to provide a solution that’s satisfactory to Giants and A’s ownership, then on his way out the door makes sense. That said, there’s an awful lot of inertia in this story. I’d be surprised if Selig had this all settled before the end of his term. He still hasn’t come to a good compromise between the Orioles and Nationals over the latter team’s television rights.

Let’s just say that I’m not holding my breath.

09.26.13
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Wolff clarifies what he wants out of Coliseum lease

In a wide-ranging interview with MLB.com’s Barry M. Bloom, Lew Wolff talked about the lease terms he proposed to the Coliseum JPA, and the progress that has been made so far. Some key items:

“We’re willing to sign a five-year lease with three one-year [club] options at a much higher rate than we’re paying now,” Wolff told MLB.com during a lengthy interview this week as his A’s played the Angels at Angel Stadium.

“But more importantly, we’re willing to pay more than we have the last five years, only because they need money to buy a new scoreboard and fix up the facility. And we’re willing to offer that money up front. It’s a negotiation that’s hopefully coming to a close soon. The delay on a decision about moving has even limited those options.”

This reminds me of the deal Wolff proposed to fix up Phoenix Municipal Stadium a few years ago. In the end the City of Phoenix decided it couldn’t afford to spend anything on Phoenix Muni, which convinced Wolff that he needed to look elsewhere. When the Cubs planned to vacate Hohokam Stadium for their new complex on the west side of Mesa, there was suddenly an opening for the A’s, which Wolff took. I point this out to illustrate that negotiating parties can go in with the best intentions and sometimes it still doesn’t work out.

In Oakland there’s more at stake. If the A’s can’t work out a proper deal to stay at the Coliseum, it’s not as if they can move 4 miles away to another MLB-ready ballpark. Plus the Raiders have their own designs on the Coliseum complex, and it’s not clear how much the Raiders’ desires conflict with the A’s. Even with those conflicts, the JPA can’t be crazy enough to let the A’s walk away, right? Their biggest leverage is that the A’s don’t have anywhere else to go, not some competitive advantage. If this drags on through the offseason, it’ll be interesting to see if MLB thrusts itself into the talks.

Not that the two sides are entirely on the same page. Wolff wants an out if the Raiders commandeer the site for a new Coliseum. The JPA wants to lock the A’s in as long as possible. Contrast that with the Raiders, who want their own long lease, but because it’s forcing the JPA to make a bigger commitment, the JPA has been hesitant to finalize anything. Imagine if Wolff offered a long-term deal that competed with the Raiders’ offer. What would the JPA do? Would they be forced to choose one over the other?

For his part, Wolff has characterized the negotiations as anything but contentious, and close to completion. Yet I wouldn’t be surprised if this dragged on well into the fall, at which point a lot of people in and around baseball will start to get very nervous.