Robbie Ray cruised through the Padres road lineup for 5 innings and the Giants hung on for the win. Key Lines:
Lamonte Wade Jr 1B- 1 for 3, BB. BA= .219. In 45 PA's this spring, LMWJ has 7 H, 3 XBH, 10 BB, 11 K's, .422 OBP, .860 OPS. Dude is carving out a unique batting profile.
Willy Adames SS- 2 for 4. BA= .375. Another guy who is cruising through spring training.
Mike Yastrzemski RF- 2 for 4, 3B. BA= .265. YtY is having a solid spring with an OPS of .951. The challenge for him is to stay healthy.
Patrick Bailey C- 3 for 3, BB. BA= .300. Can Bailey avoid the month-long slumps? If so he could be a 6-WAR player.
Sabin Ceballos 3B- 1 for 1. BA= .600. Stay hot kid! Ceballos continues to make the most of his limited opportunities but it's probably a good sign for him the Giants keep giving him about as many of those PA's as a non-camp player can get.
Robbie Ray LHP- 5 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K's, 9/4 GO/AO. ERA= 1.26. Matt Chapman made a couple more errors. Probably just the dog days of spring training. I seem to remember he had a few gaffes early in last season then settled down and was almost perfect over the last 4 months. This seemed like more of a tune up start for Ray who probably does not have to prove anything to make the rotation.
Casey Schmitt IF was a late scratch at 2B with back tightness. Hmm....I was not aware that back tightness was a contagious disease. Do they need to check the beds these guys are sleeping on?
Yesterday morning the Giants announced that they sold a 10% share of the company to a private equity firm called Sixth Street. The press is calling it a $420 million investment based on the team valuation but I think it is closer to $700 million if Mission Rock is included. Baer said that the money raised will be used for Oracle Park improvements, Scottsdale improvements, and Mission Rock. Baer also said that the money will not be used to procure players.
ReplyDeleteSixth Street is interested in ramping up their investments in sports. They own a women's soccer team and have interests in Real Madrid and FC Barcelona and well as the NBA Spurs. They are also said to be interested in NFL teams. This sale seems to indicate to me that they are losing more money than I thought. I'm not sure how this will impact the ballclub but private equity firms tend to run a tight ship.
It's certainly an interesting set of circumstances. Sounds like the lion's share of the money is going into Mission Rock which I find a surprising admission from Larry.
Delete....not surprised the bulk of the money is going to Mission Rock, just surprised Larry would essentially admit to that.
DeleteBaer probably admitted to most of the money going to Mission Rock in order to control expectations of where the sudden influx of money would go.
DeleteWhen Guggenheim took over the Dodgers, Ned Colletti — who was the GM at the time — said he had to keep explaining to the new owners that you can't just throw money at the problem to build a perennial winner in MLB. I'm kind of scared of the rise of PE money in professional sports. They want to reward their investors, which might (or might not) be good for baseball fans, especially if part of their reason for taking a stake in the Giants is due to real estate development.
ReplyDeleteThey are throwing money at it now and it seems to be working spectacularly well.
DeleteIt was basically one player they threw money at. (Two of you count Yamamoto). The Dodgers rotation is kinda crappy. With Verlander and a healthy Roy, we're better this year. I'll take us against them, this season. Bold prediction, but I'm making it.
DeleteOh no, no, no! Before Ohtani and Yamamoto there was Betts and Freeman which if they stopped there and "built around them" would be pretty normal for a big market team, but then they went and added two of the biggest contracts in the history of the sport on top of that. They added several more moderately high priced players after Ohtani and Yamamoto. Their payroll is so far beyond any other team in baseball it's ridiculous. And yes, their rotation has some pretty big question marks but on paper it's about as good as any in MLB. Anything can happen and it's fun to make bold predictions. I would not back up that particular prediction with a bet, though.
DeleteDon't forget, Snell got a $52 million signing bonus. I'd say "throwing money" at it is a pretty good description.
DeleteSeems to me that the first priority of ownership of a sport franchise, is to put the best product on the field. Have a winning team and the fans will come. Then ownership can make changes and improvements to the facility. Is it just a coincidence that when the Mission Rock development started going up the team's performance went down. I know there are many factors that play a role in a franchise's on the field success, but is there a correlation here? Did ownership and Larry Baer take their eyes off of the baseball and more on the dollar sign? I love the Giant's team and its rich history. The ownership group, not so much.
ReplyDeleteThe Mission Rock project appears to have turned into a major distraction at best.
DeleteFYi > 10 % ownership gets you a seat at the table > it dont get you managing partner authority > at least in the business world I know > this is and I believe a Majorally real estate investment > dont get you telling Buster or Larry how to manage the G;s > attabit
ReplyDeleteRichard In Winnipeg
10% is not a trivial stake when there are 30 investors and the largest stockholder has 25%. I might agree with you if the money was all going to long term investment in the GIANTS, but it's not hard to read between the lines and see most of it is probably going to bail out the Mission Rock project. IMO, it's completely understandable for fans to feel frustrated about that when their bitterest rival is also partially owned by a private equity firm and they are pouring money into current players.
DeleteI am not advocating that the Giants go on a spending spree like the Dodgers (and like the Warriors and 49ers) but as a San Francisco resident, I do have gripes with the way the Mission Rock project was handled. The city of San Francisco is definitely invested in this project.
DeleteMission Rock was put on a ballot measure in 2016 and the Baer proclaimed that this is "Giants 2.0". Ballot literature hinted that money from Mission Rock would go into the team. The ballot measure involved the city of San Francisco to provide infrastructure to the area as well as provide huge tax breaks for the Mission Rock project. After the ballot measure was approved, Johnson was interviewed about money going to the club and he said "maybe it might buy us a second baseman" and at that point, it was clear that Mission Rock profits would probably not go to the team but, conversely, the effects of Mission Rock losses could affect the baseball team.
When Covid hit, construction slowed to a crawl and the price of construction skyrocketed. Also, with the downturn in the local economy, the price of mid-level housing rental plummeted and a major crypto firm pulled out of their lease. Furthermore, the final two phases of the project got pushed back at least two years. As Baer mentioned, Oracle Park is now 25 years old and Scottsdale is one of the oldest spring training facilities in Arizona so those two parts of the Giants need some attention. As DrB mentioned, the bulk of the Sixth Street investment is probably going to bail out Mission Rock.
With all of the losses, the owners with smaller shares are getting nervous and so the Giants explored selling to a private equity firm (PEF) to raise money. In my experience, the PEFs tend to run things lean to maximize profits. As Baer said, Sixth Street is not there to help them get the next free agent superstar.
My concern is how the PEF would affect the team. There is a trend among professional sports teams to align with PEFs. The 49ers and Warriors are currently exploring a similar arrangement and Sixth Street currently owns shares of a women's soccer team as well as San Antonio Spurs, Real Madrid, and FC Barcelona. I'm not sure if they are in it for the long haul to build a sports empire and sincere about building up the team. Locally, PEFs have taken failing businesses such as Sears, suck them dry, and then sell. Hopefully, it is the former case of building up a sports empire but I'm worried that the Giants might have sold out.
Richard: The ownership structure of the Giants is somewhat unusual. It was set up in 1992 when they threatened to move to Tampa. A lot of civic minded people headed by Peter Magowan and some eccentric types got together to save the team. It was hard to scrape together the money in those days but it ended up with the largest shareholder owning 25% of the team and about 30 other smaller ownership shares (giantsdoug.com has a good list of owner profiles but I'm not sure how reliable these are). A 10% share owned by Sixth Street could theoretically affect baseball operations because they now are one of the largest shareholders. As far as I can tell, Sixth Street will be hands off of day to day baseball operations but if it came to a cash call for free agents or re-signing some of our own players (Eldridge, for instance) to big contracts, then they will likely be involved and 10% has considerable clout.
DeleteSixth Street is actually not the first private equity firm that is the Giants ownership group. There's a group called Arctos which owns a smaller stake in the Giants and they also have investments in the Warriors, Sac Kings, Astros, Penguins, and ... the Dodgers.
Reports at the end of last month stated that the 49ers were looking into selling off a 10% share in the hopes of raising $900 million so what the Giants are doing might be part of a larger current trend in sports.
DeleteNot sure why it matters to fans where the money goes.
ReplyDelete6th Street is bringing fresh money to invest in the future, not in "short term" assets like players.
It's normal that big money invested in most anything, wherever it comes from, is made for long term gain.
Even we normal folk don't use our 401K money to buy immediate pleasures. (And can't.)
See my response to Richard in Winnepeg above.
DeleteI hope this isn’t a false alarm, but a friend just told me MLB TV has struck a deal with Comcast to stream all Giants games (plus pre- and post-game shows) this season for $20 a month. No more cable!
ReplyDeleteFYI everybody: I appreciate the comments on the private equity investment in the "Giants".....er......Mission Rock. I am going to cut off the discussion and not accept further comments on the issue as I don't want it to degenerate into an extended "shouting match" like happened on....ahem.....another well-known blog. Thanks again, everybody!
ReplyDelete