They’re generally better (relative to how shit they can get) when James is on the pitch, so this is another blow for them.
Fortunately they’ve stayed well within FFP rules, so will be able to go out and spend freely in January to replace him.
I met Bonds in the peak of the Balco era.
- His forearms were the size of tree trunks. Truly freaky stuff.
- He was as much of a penis as is commonly spoken about
But as this is the chelsea thread let me get this back on track by saying LOL at the Chels.
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I don’t know enough about the Dodgers bullpen and Ohtani is a talent who probably commands that kind of contract in Baseball but they are not rare things there.
However like the Yankees and Chelsea they seem to over do in one position and ignore other elements of the game.
So the Ohtani deal actually is weirder than just giving him lots of money.
He’ll make $2m a year for the next 10 years and then $680m in the 10 years after that. I’m guessing the deferred payment won’t count against the salary cap if he’s no longer on the team.
The article mentions that Ohtani raised between $10m and $20m per season for the Angels - and they fucking sucked. What will his income for the team be if he’s winning world series’ with them?
Boehly spends like a drunken sailor, sure, but this deal gets them arguably the greatest player in the game at a snip and still lets them go out and sign other good players to put around him - something the Angels could never do.
I think Boehly is a bit more savy in baseball than he is with Chelsea. This deal seems expensive but honestly also a quite good deal - but lots of pressure on them to get these championship wins quickly.
I assume football has absolutely no framework to avoid this kind of fuckery?
Joe Pompliano wrote an article about this, suggested the player’s agents may have gone for this deal because of the potential tax benefits once he retires. (lowers his current income substantially while he is playing and earning endorsements, then he can benefit from living somewhere with lower tax rates once his career ends).
There has been a few like this around the Majors.
It doesn’t really need one, because that is really an artefact of a salary cap/luxury tax system. The transfer fee equivalent in football is now barred by the 5 year amortization rule.
I suspect this extreme might lead to some sort of baseball rule change. Look at the ‘Bobby Bonilla Day’ phenomenon. In a cap environment like hockey, the loophole was closed fairly quickly.
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The deferred money will count against their cap limits (such that they exist in baseball), but only in the years they are paying it. That means that in 2042, $68m of their cap will be being paid to someone who hasn’t played for then for 10 years. The key there though is that $68m in 2042 money is being projected to be a much less impactful hit as it is in today’s money. That is a big part of why the size of the contract is making sense to the Dodgers, and why isn’t really as rich as the “$700m contract” its been reported as. See Bobby Bonilla’s 6 million being converted into 25 million paid out at 1 million a year for 25 years
I get this is in this thread because of Bohley, but it’s relevant to point out he is just one investor in an ownership group. It is a guy called Mark Walter, the Chair of Guggenheim Partners, who is typically positioned as the Roman Abramovic of the Dodgers.
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Deferred wages seems like an arrangement that City would be all over.
He also makes over $50M a year in endorsements, maybe much more, so the poor fella won’t have to struggle along on a mere $2M a year until he gets a $680M windfall in a decade.
Creative accounting, but the player is doing the Dodgers a solid, to give them leeway to build more of a team around him.
With no rules applying to that, one would suspect they might already be doing it.
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James might be out for as much as 3 months. They could be in freefall by January.
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Aren’t they already there?
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Yeah, losing to ManU doesn’t look good right now, does it? Toon aside though, November was decent enough for them. The loss to Everton isn’t great, but the real danger for them is December is shockingly soft. Only one of their league opponents is in the top 75% of the table (Wolves, just). Their only tough match-up is Newcastle at Stamford for the league cup.
Anything less than 9 points from those four league games puts them in absolute crisis.
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My view is that the (earlier) transfer ban forced them to look at their youth players (rather than playing the loan game with them).
Those homegrown/bought in young talent picked up a lot of experience. When the ban lifted, they should have complemented what they had with players in the right positions. However, they went back to the shiny new player mercenary types.
Yes, those sanctions then hit them in terms of stability, but in return they got an amazing billion plus gift in the write off (how on earth are the football establishment letting them get away with that?).
What they have done since then is shooting themselves in their own feet, especially with those eight year baseball style deals.
What they really need, is to give an experienced manager time to let things develop over three years or so. But hopefully they continue on their blindfolded darts strategy.
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I’d hope that HMRC would be.
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There’s a shameless Chelsea apologist on SSN trying to justify Chelsea buying multiple players in the Jan window, including a £90-100M striker.
I don’t know whether to laugh or smack this numpty on the back of his deluded head.
Part of the excuse is injuries?! Boo-fucking-hoo!
Thing is Newcastle didn’t spend massively but their bleating is annoying.
Chelsea could have bought about 3 teams with what they spent. Injuries shouldn’t have reduced them to where they are.
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