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foolicmazagine · 10 days

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Who is the Highest-Paid Player on the Atlanta Braves?

The Atlanta Braves are one of Major League Baseball’s most storied franchises, known for their rich history, loyal fan base, and consistently competitive teams. Over the years, the Braves have fielded some of the biggest stars in baseball, and with stardom often comes big paychecks. As of 2024, the highest-paid player on the Braves roster is first baseman Matt Olson, who signed a massive eight-year, $168 million contract extension in 2022.

In this blog, we will explore Matt Olson’s rise to prominence, the details of his contract, and his overall impact on the Braves, both on and off the field. We’ll also touch on how his deal compares to other contracts in MLB and what it means for the future of the Atlanta Braves.

Matt Olson’s Path to the Braves

Matt Olson was drafted by the Oakland Athletics in the first round (47th overall) of the 2012 MLB Draft. A talented first baseman with power-hitting potential and superb defense, Olson quickly made a name for himself in the A’s organization. After spending several years developing in the minors, Olson debuted with the A’s in 2016, where his power and glove immediately impressed fans and coaches alike.

By 2017, Olson emerged as one of the premier power hitters in the game, smashing 24 home runs in just 59 games. His incredible slugging percentage (.651) and defensive prowess made him an invaluable asset to the Athletics. Over the next several seasons, Olson continued to solidify his reputation as a star in the making. He earned his first Gold Glove Award in 2018 and was selected for the MLB All-Star Game in 2021.

However, after the 2021 season, the A’s embarked on a roster overhaul, and Olson, who was approaching free agency, became a valuable trade asset. The Atlanta Braves, fresh off a World Series victory but faced with the potential departure of franchise icon Freddie Freeman, saw an opportunity to acquire Olson and traded for him in March 2022. Shortly after the trade, the Braves signed Olson to an eight-year, $168 million extension, securing him as the team’s long-term solution at first base.

The Contract: Breaking Down Olson’s $168 Million Deal

Matt Olson’s contract with the Braves is one of the largest in the franchise’s history. Here’s a breakdown of the key details:

Total Value: $168 million over eight years

Average Annual Value (AAV): $21 million

Duration: 2022-2029, with a club option for 2030

Signing Bonus: Olson received a $15 million signing bonus as part of the deal

This contract made Olson the highest-paid player on the Braves, surpassing several other stars on the roster, including Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies, both of whom are signed to team-friendly extensions. The deal was a major investment for the Braves, but one that they deemed necessary to secure a long-term replacement for Freddie Freeman, who ultimately signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Olson’s Impact on the Field

As the highest-paid player on the Braves, Matt Olson has lived up to expectations. Known for his powerful bat and elite defense at first base, Olson provides a combination of offensive and defensive production that is rare among first basemen.

Offensive Contributions

Olson is best known for his power-hitting ability. Throughout his career, he has consistently ranked among the league leaders in home runs, RBIs, and slugging percentage. His left-handed swing is tailor-made for Truist Park, the Braves’ home field, where he regularly launches towering home runs into the right-field stands.

In his first season with the Braves (2022), Olson hit 34 home runs and drove in 103 runs, solidifying his place as a key part of the team’s lineup. In 2023, he followed up with an even more impressive campaign, smashing 42 homers and driving in 120 runs, all while maintaining a solid .275 batting average. His presence in the middle of the Braves’ order provides protection for fellow stars like Acuña Jr. and Austin Riley, making the Atlanta Braves one of the most dangerous offensive teams in baseball.

Defensive Excellence

While Olson’s power-hitting gets much of the attention, his defense at first base is equally impressive. He has won multiple Gold Glove Awards, recognizing him as one of the best defensive first basemen in the game. Olson’s ability to scoop errant throws, stretch for outs, and make difficult plays look routine gives the Braves’ infield a level of confidence that is hard to quantify.

His defense not only saves runs but also keeps pitchers out of tough situations by turning potential errors into outs. For a team with championship aspirations like the Braves, having a reliable defender at first base is invaluable.

Olson’s Leadership and Influence

Beyond his on-field contributions, Matt Olson has quickly emerged as a leader in the Braves’ clubhouse. Despite being a newcomer in 2022, Olson’s work ethic and professionalism earned him the respect of his teammates. As the highest-paid player on the team, there are always expectations for leadership, and Olson has embraced that role.

His calm demeanor and steady presence provide a stabilizing force in the Braves’ locker room, especially during the high-pressure moments of a playoff race. Olson has been vocal about his excitement to play for his hometown team (he grew up in the Atlanta area) and his desire to help the Braves win more championships.

How Olson’s Contract Compares to Others in MLB

While Olson’s $168 million deal makes him the highest-paid player on the Braves, it is relatively modest compared to some of the mega-contracts handed out across MLB in recent years. Players like Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, and Fernando Tatis Jr. have all signed deals worth well over $300 million. However, Olson’s contract is still a significant investment for the Braves and reflects their confidence in his ability to anchor the team for years to come.

What makes Olson’s deal particularly valuable for the Braves is the timing. The Braves were able to lock him in at a time when salaries were continuing to escalate across the league, securing a power-hitting first baseman who is also an elite defender without having to break the bank entirely.

Conclusion: Olson’s Future with the Braves

Matt Olson’s arrival in Atlanta marked a new chapter for the Braves, and his performance so far has validated the team’s decision to make him their highest-paid player. With his power, defense, and leadership, Olson is a cornerstone for the Braves as they continue to pursue championships in the years to come.

As of 2024, Olson remains the highest-paid player on the Braves roster, and his long-term contract ensures that he will be a key part of the team’s future. For Braves fans, having a player of Olson’s caliber locked in for the long haul is a reason for optimism, as the team looks to build on its recent success and bring more titles to Atlanta.

#Atlanta Braves #Atlanta Braves players #Atlanta Braves jerseys #Atlanta Braves tickets

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goalhofer · 9 days

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#Jerseys #Sports #Baseball #MLB #Atlanta Braves #Celebrities #Aruba #WTF #lol

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toastedkiwi · 3 months

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Riley takes BC on a first date to an Atlanta Braves game. She’s wearing his hat. He bought her a jersey to wear too. They’re seated by first base. They’re chilling. They’re talking. They both had a hotdog. They’re sharing a beer (BC isn’t a big drinker). But then they’re on the Jumbotron for A KISS CAM. Everybody’s chanting. Riley is like “I’d love to but I don’t want that to be our first kiss.” He also wants to be respectful of her. But she takes off the hat and pulls him in with the hat covering the view of the camera. It appeased the people especially with a blushing Riley.

#riley green x bastard child!reader #chris evans x bastard child!reader #bastard child

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baiyunli · 1 year

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how to watch baseball now: a primer

This is a long, hopefully-comprehensive guide on how to watch baseball for hockey fans feeling adrift during the offseason — I have constructed this from the perspective of not only how to understand what you’re watching, but how to make it interesting to yourself.

If the numbers aren't interesting to you, forget about the numbers! They don’t have to exist in your version of baseball. Make up your own rules and use them to watch the game. Watch games only for the one kind-of okay player you like. Pick your favourite team because of a video you saw of one of them bouncing a baseball off his ass (Sean Murphy, then of Oakland A's and now of Atlanta Braves). Baseball Olds will try to pretend like the game is this big thing that only people who already watch it can appreciate, but you just have to find what you love most about it.

I’m using the NHL as my best point of reference: in terms of growing the game, I’d say MLB suffers from a very different problem than NHL (other than like, the current uproar around letting queer people exist, which is a throughline in both), in that while the NHL has a very exciting product but can’t reach people where they’re at, baseball is by and large perceived as a boring, slow game and the league will bend over backwards to make polarizing changes to the Boringest and Slowest parts rather than capitalizing on what excites fans about the game. However, both leagues are plagued by Shitty Commissioner disease. Such is the way of life.

Feel free to read all of this, or none of it, but I’ve tried to split it up in a way that makes sense and is easy to navigate. Last note: many people will tell you baseball is the only major sport going on in North America at this time of year. This is false. The WNBA and NWSL are both in full swing—not to mention the World Cup next month. Supplement your baseball watching with a wide variety of sports where you can!

How to Love Baseball

Pick a Team, Any Team

The first step in becoming a baseball fan is obviously picking a team! I could probably give you NHL comparatives and let you figure it out from there, but I don’t personally think your favourite NHL teams have much bearing on your favourite MLB ones, so I’ll give you a quick and dirty rundown of my teams instead and how you might want to pick a team.

The easiest team for me to love is the Seattle Mariners because I live just across the border, and they aren’t good enough to be annoying but also not bad enough to be embarrassed about. They’re just kind of there, which I enjoy greatly. I also love the Philadelphia Phillies because they’re my friend’s favourite team. They went on a Cinderella run to the World Series last year (before losing to the Astros in the final) and are now solidly middling. My other favourites are the Washington Nationals because of their fantastic social media presence and their hilarious stadium traditions. The current-day Nats are very much the epitome of "how can we lose when we're so sincere?"

Some teams you might want to look into are the LA Angels (actually of Anaheim) for Shohei Ohtani, the Milwaukee Brewers for — at least from what I understand — their boyband energy similar to the New Jersey Devils, the Baltimore Orioles or Tampa Bay Rays for an exciting and winningest team, and the Oakland A's for a miserable fan experience including horribly dysfunctional team management and a coming relocation to Las Vegas.

The easiest team for me to hate is the Toronto Blue Jays, which is a result of their god complex re: being the only Canadian team. A funny thing from this season is that the Rays opened their season with a historic 13-game win streak, only to be killed 6-3 by the Blue Jays to end it. Something about Toronto teams and ending another team’s 13-game heater, or whatever.

Also look into any local teams if you can. In Vancouver, our local minor league team is the Vancouver Canadians, and setting up a little picnic on the grass with friends while watching a Canadians game is a summer staple. Here’s a very cute article about them. There are a variety of lower-level and exhibition teams across the world, especially in countries where baseball is incredibly popular. One exhibition team is the Internet-famous Savannah Bananas who are dearly loved on TikTok. If there isn’t a huge baseball foothold in your area, it’s worth looking into which MLB teams are most popular where you live and/or have the most coverage. Some analytics sites like FiveThirtyEight will occasionally create maps showing each team’s popularity in different states, countries, etc. and that can be a great guide.

Petty Rivalries 101

You can always just Google these, but I decided to just list off a few major ones for your perusal: the Yankees and Red Sox, the Rangers and Astros, the Dodgers and Giants, and the Orioles and Nationals. As Toronto Maple Leafs scholar Acting the Fulemin once put it, the point of sports is to be sad in a group, and the counterpart to this is that it absolutely rules getting to see a team you hate lose.

A quick note on the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is that it's brought us one of my favourite ever quotes from ex-Mariner and current Yankee Nestor Cortes:

Once you’ve chosen a favourite team, they’re bound to have some kind of geographic or historic rivalry, and you can search those up to find out the background behind them. Also, I highly suggest deciding on a random team you hate for no reason. It makes the season experience much more interesting and gives you the chance to pray on their downfall whenever possible.

Where to Watch

As with most things about baseball, this will vary by your team. Depending on your cable package, you might be able to watch your favourite team already! That’s great news. Even if you can’t, feel free to turn on the TV, find a random baseball game, and imprint on either of those teams like a baby bird. The MLB website offers games broadcast with an MLB.tv subscription, but if you have an account you can also watch the Free Game of the Day and collected highlights from previous games! This is a great way to expand your team repertoire and figure out which team broadcasts you hate with a burning passion. Local radio stations do commentary on games if you like listening to that.

If you just want to get your feet wet rather than diving in straight away, pretty much every major game of the postseason will be uploaded by some “FirstName BunchOfNumbers” user on YouTube: for example, you can watch Game 1 of the World Series last year by just searching 2022 World Series Game 1 Full Game. However, watching the full game might be a slog if you don’t know what’s going on, and you can learn the intricacies of the sport without having to watch all four hours and twelve minutes of like, the 1962 World Series Game 7 (although that is a very exciting game). In that case, skip to the ‘How the Game is Governed’ section and read on.

All of this pertains to MLB teams, but there’s plenty to watch elsewhere. If you have a local baseball team, you might be able to catch a game or two in-person! Minor League Baseball also has their own broadcasting services and highlights are available on YouTube or their website.

League Structure

The MLB season is 162 games long. Spring training, aka the preseason, begins in February. During the regular season, teams play a three or four-game series with the same team before playing another with a different team. For example, this month the Philadelphia Phillies played 3 games in a row against the Washington Nationals on consecutive days. The day after the conclusion of their last game against Washington, they started a series against the Tigers, which was three games with one rescheduled due to weather, and then another three games against the Dodgers. This leads to a schedule that looks like this:

Occasionally, due to weather issues or other postponement reasons, a game will be rescheduled for the same day as another game against the same team — so they’ll play two full games in one day. This is called a double-header. They used to be routinely scheduled in MLB, but now they’re only played as a result of scheduling problems.

Team-wise, it’s a little more complicated than the NHL. Like the Eastern and Western conferences, MLB is separated into two ‘leagues’: the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). Both leagues have fifteen teams, and until the 1990s teams in different leagues didn’t play each other during the regular season at all, leading to different styles of play, tactics, and rules implemented between them. This is no longer the case! However, it’s important to recognize that unlike the NHL, NBA, NWSL, etc., Major League Baseball comprises two leagues, rather than two conferences of the same league. This matters because individual awards like the Cy Young or Gold Glove are given to the best players at their position in both the AL and NL, and the MLB MVP includes both an AL MVP and NL MVP.

MLB is made up of six divisions, with three in each league: AL East, AL Central, AL West, NL East, NL Central, and NL West. A division has five teams. If you know much about US geography, you might notice that the teams in each division don’t actually correspond very well to their geographic location: this is for a variety of reasons, not least of which is expansion teams requiring change in division partitioning, but nobody’s going to fix it at this point. And that’s okay!

Fandom and Things As Such

Baseball fandom, regrettably, is not much of a Tumblr phenomenon these days, but Baseball Twitter does have some incredible gems. The Baseball RPF tag on AO3 is also fairly fleshed out (albeit not to the extent of HRPF) and you’ll find that many authors who write HRPF have dabbled in baseball as well. If you’re lost on where to start choosing a team, going through the AO3 grab bag and choosing a random player who you really like in a fic is also a very respectable avenue.

I cannot stress this enough: the easiest way to learn the game without having to learn the characters is reading baseball AUs. That’s it. They’re ten times more approachable than trying to memorize everyone on your favourite team’s roster, and they abound in HRPF if you’re looking for a landing port. I have witness testimony from Lil (@wymgreenteam) that she learned what pitching signs and shortstops were from the wonderful Jack/Nico baseball AU. It works! Obviously fanfiction won’t teach you everything, but if you’re feeling overwhelmed they can be a fantastic first step and really illustrate the game from a fan perspective.

Other Media

I will caution against taking the ‘consume baseball-related media’ advice too seriously, because I find that unlike baseball AUs, other media involving baseball does not always come from someone who watches and loves the game. Think of it like hockey romance books—just like the main characters of those novels are probably not scoring hat tricks in 5 consecutive games, they probably aren’t reaching such baseball heights either.

With that said, I have not watched Daiya No Ace but I’ve heard that people do enjoy it! For genuine baseball culture-oriented media, Roger Angell wrote fantastic articles and books on the game. I love his book ‘Five Seasons: A Baseball Companion.’ Then there are movies like Moneyball and shows like A League of Our Own which tackle specific aspects of the game and how it’s played. Depending on your eventual favourite team(s), hometown coverage will also play a huge part: for the Phillies, that’s outlets like the Philadelphia Inquirer or Penn Live.

Narratives

Once upon a time there was a young man named Shohei Ohtani who was breaking records set in the 1920s while playing on a horrible, failing team that refused to build around him. I assume you have some familiarity with Ohtani, but he is very difficult to describe because he is literally making history. He is the only two-way player in MLB right now: a two-way player is someone who is both a pitcher and a batter; there are a ton of rules about what constitutes a two-way player, but currently Ohtani is the only true two-way player at the Major level. This is not a perfect analogy, but he’s sort of like if Jason Robertson went out there and had a 50-goal season, then immediately jumped into net and played like Juuse Saros. He’s the best all-around player in MLB, and even though he isn’t the best pitcher or the best batter, the fact that he’s incredible at both of them makes him stand out. He also plays with Mike Trout, who’s breaking records of his own, while trying to drag the LA Angels to any sort of notoriety. Here is a prescient article about the Ohtani-Trout era in Anaheim.

Each team has their own current narratives and pairings, but Ohtani and Trout are the biggest one right now. People compare them to McDavid and Draisaitl, but it’s more like if the Oilers had McDavid and Draisaitl but were also one of the worst teams in the league right now. However, Trout is currently in the worst slump of his career while the Angels have won the last 11 of 14 games, so really all this means is that baseball is fake.

Baseball is rife with redemption and villain arcs—you just have to dig a little to find them. I have presented the Ohtani and Trout trainwreck because it’s the closest comparable to the Oilers tragedy, but there are plenty others that really depend on team and current events.

Bush Leagues

MLB teams have a very different relationship to their minor-league affiliates than NHL teams do. There are about five hundred various regional minor leagues, but the MiLB levels are Rookie, Single A, High A, Double A, and Triple A, each of which has two or three individual leagues similar to the AL-NL system in MLB.

The fun thing about MiLB is that it’s a lot closer to home than MLB! Most places don’t have an MLB team, but there’s a good chance anywhere in the USA has a nearby MiLB or regional/collegiate league team. They also have way more interesting names, like the Portland Pickles, Rocket City Trash Pandas, and Sugar Land Space Cowboys. The prospect pipeline in MLB runs a whole lot slower than it does for the NHL, and generally through those Double or Triple-A affiliates, so it’s definitely worth paying attention to minor-league teams and their standout players to see who might be the next rookie on your favourite team.

MiLB player compensation has been an issue for a long time, and the players recently unionized! A few great write-ups on it: 1, 2, and 3.

Regional Popularity

I’ve said this plenty, but I truly do think that finding your baseball niche hinges upon imprinting on a hometown team or a player you just really like. This sport isn’t just an American pastime: it’s hugely popular in Central America and parts of East Asia, and some of the best and brightest up-and-coming (and current) players hail from countries that haven’t traditionally been viewed as bastions of baseball. The game is growing every day, and it’s wonderful to see.

Baseball is very popular in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Japan, and Korea. Out of those, I’d probably say the Dominican Republic has the largest MLB presence, with only American players outnumbering Dominican ones in the league, but the sport is also fast-growing in Japan, Korea, and Australia. Japan won the 2023 World Baseball Classic, which is the baseball equivalent of the World Cup of Hockey, where the best players in the world compete against each other and Shohei Ohtani (captain of the Japanese team) pitched to Mike Trout (captain of the American team) in possibly the most electric moment of baseball in the 21st century.

How to Understand Baseball

How the Game is Governed

Rather than doing a big writeup on this, I figured I would just find some articles and videos that go through the rules well and hold your hand through it! Think of these like helpful assets, similar to the first time you search up ‘what is goaltender interference’ or 'what is offsides' after hearing it mentioned on the play-by-play and a goal got turned over and all the fans were mad and you wanted to be in on the reason why. This is that search.

Baseball Explained in 5 Minutes

How to identify baseball pitches

Everything there is to know about the The Strike Zone in Baseball.

Intro to Baseball: Positions

What’s going on with the DH in MLB? (MLB Originals)

Rules Glossary | MLB - PDF Version

Lastly, once you’ve got a good grasp on the rules and positions, I probably wouldn’t go straight to watching a full game—you want to make sure you’re using your three hours well rather than staring at a game you don’t really get or don’t care about, or both. Instead, watch YouTube highlights of various players and best (or worst) plays of the week! This gives you an idea of what creates excitement in a game and why, and different positional strengths. From there, you can start watching longer clips, like full innings or the highlights uploaded after each game, which give you a better idea of the game’s pace.

Pressing Play

While I was writing this I remembered that a fun and unique baseball tradition is players having walk-up songs when they’re up in the batting lineup.

Most teams will post their players' walk-up songs on Spotify, YouTube, etc. and while there are a few songs that are synonymous with legendary players - like Mariano Rivera's "Enter Sandman" - players usually like to switch up their songs. Often, a song will become emblematic of an era in that team's history (Anthony Rizzo's "Intoxicated" and the Cubs' 2016 playoff run). After a while, you'll notice patterns in what players pick.

Learning about each player’s song rotation can be extremely revealing, like Mark Canha switching his walk-up songs to Born This Way, Vogue, and I Wanna Dance with Somebody in honour of the Mets Pride Night last week!

Diamond Sports Bankruptcy

I’m not going to pretend to know anything about broadcasting or RSNs, but Diamond Sports, the group that runs Bally Sports, recently filed for bankruptcy, which has really affected some franchises’ profit margins and where their games can be streamed. Not sure if this interests you, but you can read about it here!

The Oakland A’s Relocation

Again: I’m not an Oakland fan, but there’s a lot of debate right now about the owners of the Oakland Athletics moving the team to Vegas despite the wishes of the town and city. Rob Manfred, the MLB commissioner, also made rude comments about Oakland fans as a result of their Reverse Boycott Night, where almost 28,000 fans came out to support the team. A professional sports league commissioner acting like an asshole to fans of a small-market team is nothing new, but it’s the culmination of a lot of drama between terrible owners and a market that loves their team.

The Long, Storied History of Cheating

The long, storied history of cheating in MLB encompasses not only stealing signs and tipping pitches, but also foreign substance usage on hands (which pitchers sometimes try in order to change how they pitch the ball), illegal equipment, and more. It’s kind of a lot. The most notable, recent case is the 2017 Houston Astros World Series Win.

Houston’s Fucking Astros

Nobody likes the Astros except Astros fans. They won the World Series last year and are universally hated, not least of all because of the 2017 cheating controversy.

In baseball, ‘signs’ are what catchers use to communicate to pitchers what kind of pitch they should throw. These rely on knowledge of the hitter currently on the plate and catching them by surprise. Each pitcher-catcher battery will usually have their own signs. In 2017, a year in which Houston won the World Series, the team set up a video camera in the center field seats with a full frontal view of the catcher, and they would use that to figure out what pitches the pitcher would throw. Then from the dugout, whoever was watching the video feed at the time would use a signal (audio cues, like banging garbage can lids) to tell the hitter who was up what pitch they had to expect. This was mostly possible because of the time delay between a catcher signalling and a pitcher throwing, which has been changed by this season’s pitch clock implementation.

In 2020, The Athletic published the first exposé article about the Astros cheating scandal, and it rocked the baseball world. Several immediate consequences followed: the Astros GM and field manager (head coach) were suspended for the full 2020 season, and although players received no punishment, the team gave up four draft picks (their 1st and 2nd round picks in 2020 and 2021).

Pitching and Sticky Stuff

Pitchers applying foreign substances on their hands is always a controversy in MLB games. Recently, star pitcher Max Scherzer was ejected and suspended 10 games after an umpire decided his hand was unusually sticky. TLDR: cheating is common, and consequences vary. Nobody has gotten over the Astros cheating scandal.

Expected By Whom

A quick rundown on the analytics side of the game and how baseball stats look very different both in their progress and insights than hockey. This is how you can sound like you know ball.

The Moneyball book does a great job explaining the rise of sabermetrics (baseball analytics) in the early 2000s, starting with Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s. Because MLB doesn’t have a salary cap and their luxury tax isn’t difficult for big-market teams to pay, small-market teams like Oakland have to constantly innovate in their game tactics in order to stay competitive, and that’s why the game today is so numbers-oriented. Watching a baseball game, you’ll see far more stats than you would in an NHL broadcast: OBP (On-Base Percentage), ERA (Earned Run Average), pitching speed, slugging percentage, pythagorean win percentage, and more. Do not fear the big numbers. You don’t have to know what every stat means in order to love the game, but if you watch enough and you hear commentators discussing what, say, Kodai Senga's ERA is, you’ll come to learn what they mean! In a pinch, you can also easily just search up ‘league average [stat]’ to figure out what the standard is.

Some websites that are really instrumental in baseball analytics are Baseball-Reference, FiveThirtyEight, and FanGraphs, plus YouTube channels like Foolish Baseball and statisticians like Bill James and Tom Tango. Baseball is a lot further along in its analytics revolution than hockey, and as a result, such analysis is not just a thing for Stats Nerds but also a huge part of the way the game is played and watched today. Personally, I love stats that assess umpire accuracy in calling strikes, and so Umpire Scorecards on Twitter is one of my favourites.

It's Too Long and Too Much Money

If Connor McDavid played in Major League Baseball and was close to the kind of player he is in the NHL right now, he would be getting paid north of 400 million dollars, not to mention endorsement money. Instead, he sold his soul to a sport where reporters ask about his biological clock and his only consolation for living in Edmonton is his heated driveway.

Because MLB payrolls are so much larger than the NHL’s and they have a luxury tax rather than a salary cap, contracts are worth much more. The sport itself is less volatile as well: both a product of the longer season (larger sample size) and the luck factor inherent in chance-based games like hockey that isn’t present as much in baseball, a player's year-to-year performance is easier to predict and therefore teams feel more comfortable betting on their production. In contrast to the NHL’s 8-year limit & penalty for long contracts (like the Kovalchuk deal), and bridge deals made when a player hasn't demonstrated that their performance is sustainable, MLB GMs often give their stars contracts over 10 years, and for hundreds of millions of dollars total. Mike Trout is on a 12-year contract for almost $430 million, and by several estimates, his endorsements and the money he receives for being named All-Star, AL MVP, etc. brings that up significantly.

MLB front office terminology is very similar to the NHL, but their contracts differ in another important way: baseball players can opt out of a contract and enter free agency. For example, last season Carlos Correa agreed to a 12-year, $310m deal with the New York Mets, but the Mets were worried about the results from his physical and his injury history, so they pulled out of the deal before the season began and instead, Correa signed with the Minnesota Twins on a six-year, $200m contract.

The Used Boy Auction

Drafting in MLB works very differently than the NHL. The amateur draft (the Main one, which is also called the Rule 4 Draft) takes place mid-season and lasts 20 rounds (used to be 40), plus picks that teams are given as compensation for other events. Teams can draft players either out of high school or college baseball—while the majority of players in the early days were picked right out of high school, nowadays the largest percentage are collegiate players. High school players are only eligible after graduation, and they don’t have junior leagues like the OHL or USHL. Players at universities can only be drafted after their 3rd season there in order to avoid going to a university only for drafting purposes.

Teams retain the rights to sign the players they draft until July 15 of the following year, and a player who does not sign with their team is eligible to be signed once again as long as they meet the age and educational requirements (attending an academic institution, three years of college, etc.) Unless the player has consented to be re-selected by their old team, they cannot be chosen again in another draft year. This leads to players like Brandon Belt having been drafted three times, by the Red Sox, Braves, and Giants, and ultimately playing for the Giants after his college career.

The Rule 5 Draft is another major part of the MLB drafting system. It's sort of similar to what happens in the NHL with an expansion draft, but it takes place in the winter every year. As the MLB prospect pipeline moves slower and it's easy for teams to Stockpile high-quality prospects and bury them in the minors due to the team's current success, this draft aims to ensure that young players have a chance to play in the bigs on a team that needs more manpower. Not every team has to select a player in the Rule 5 draft; last season, 15 players were taken, including the Nats selecting Thad Ward and the Phillies selecting Noah Song.

Here's the official MLB description of the drafting process:

Podcasters or Whatever

My most toxic trait is that I unfortunately love listening to sports podcasts, so here are some good baseball ones:

The Athletic Baseball Show

Ballpark Dimensions

Effectively Wild

The Strike Zone

I hope this serves as a useful first step! Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or want to yell about baseball - I wrote this for two people, so if either of those two people find it helpful, the three hours I spent on it will have been worth it.

#baseball #waiting for spring #yun talks #mlb #baseball primer #i guess???#pinned for the offseason

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watchmenanon · 2 years

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THE ‘STRANGER THINGS’ BOYS ARE OUR ‘NYLON GUYS’ SEPTEMBER 2017 COVER STARS

If anyone understands the sudden shift from “not fitting in” to “one-million-plus followers,” it’s these guys.

The following feature appears in the September 2017 issue of NYLON Guys.

Finn Wolfhard just couldn’t resist. Despite needing to be camera-ready for his NYLON photo shoot, the 14-year-old star of Stranger Things decided to suck on a blue Warhead anyway, and now he’s paying the price. “All these sets have candy on them, and I can’t help myself. It was a mistake,” he admits, sheepishly trying to scrub the cerulean stain from his tongue with a miniature toothbrush. To his right, Gaten Matarazzo wears a gray T-shirt that reads, uh oh! did my sarcasm hurt your feelings?, a slogan worthy of Dustin Henderson, the lovable wisecracker he plays opposite Wolfhard on the hit Netflix show. Matarazzo, also 14, is getting his trademark tangle of curls straightened, much to the delight of Noah Schnapp, who, at 12, is the youngest in this group of breakout stars that has helped make Stranger Things the most obsessed-over show in Netflix’s boundless roster of original series. Missing is Caleb McLaughlin, the energetic 15-year-old who plays Lucas Sinclair, but he’s on his way over in a black car, having just arrived from Los Angeles, fresh off an appearance at the BET Awards.

It’s the first time the boys have been together in several weeks, and none of them can pinpoint exactly when they were last in the same room. Ever since Stranger Things became a cultural phenomenon last summer, they’ve been swept up in a whirlwind of red carpets, talk shows, and fan conventions. And as the premiere of the sci-fi and horror fantasia’s top-secret second season nears, this summer has been overtaken by a flurry of promotional duties. Next week, while most kids their age are cooling off in pools or testing out the latest in roller coaster technology, Matarazzo and McLaughlin will be at Denver Comic Con, signing autographs and posing for selfies with wide-eyed fans. A few weeks after that, all four will find themselves inside the hallowed Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con, where they’ll premiere the thrilling trailer for Season 2 to rapturous applause.

But on this day, even though they’re technically at work, the boys still find time to goof off. They are, after all, best friends—like brothers, even, they say—and there’s a lot of catching up to do, memes to be shared, and jokes to be cracked. “We used to call Noah ‘Señor Biebs,’” Matarazzo offers at one point, due to Schnapp’s Season 1 bowl cut and its resemblance to the former haircut of a certain Canadian pop star. “He hates it!” he says, just before he sticks his finger into Schnapp’s ear (playfully, of course).

Inside the bright and breezy photo studio on Manhattan’s West Side, publicists abound, but because these budding stars are still minors, there are also parents. It’s an unusual sight, and a reminder that despite having very grown-up jobs, they’re still not old enough to drive. Wolfhard, the Vancouver native who plays Mike Wheeler, is here with his father, as is Matarazzo, who hails from Little Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. Schnapp and his parents came in from Westchester County, north of the city. When McLaughlin, who grew up in Carmel, New York, finally arrives lugging a suitcase that’s almost as big as he is, he’s accompanied by his father, a burly man in an Atlanta Braves cap who goes around the room with his son hugging the other parents, a reminder of how tight the makeshift family has become since this odyssey began more than two years ago.

Stranger Things premiered as an underdog. Its creators, the twin brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, were unproven talents who had previously written for the Fox sci-fi series Wayward Pines. Except for Winona Ryder’s comeback as a grieving mother searching for her missing son, the cast was composed largely of unknowns and newcomers. But thanks to its double dose of supernatural intrigue and a nostalgic ’80s-tinged glow, along with a miraculous performance by a young British actress with a shaved head, Stranger Things quickly commandeered the pop-culture conversation in a way that few shows have done. In July, the show received a staggering 18 Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series.

Created by the Duffers in the spirit of the Amblin-era entertainments they were raised on, the eight-episode first season is set in 1983 in Hawkins, Indiana, and unravels the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Will Byers, played by Schnapp, who vanishes in the first episode after an encounter with the show’s resident boogeyman, the otherworldly creature known as the Demogorgon. As Will’s three misfit best friends—Mike, Lucas, and Dustin—embark on a quest to find him, they uncover an alternate dimension they dub The Upside Down, and a sinister government conspiracy that may be responsible for opening it. They also befriend Eleven, the feral girl with telekinetic powers embodied iconically by 13-year-old Millie Bobby Brown.

Stranger Things began filming its second season under very different circumstances than the first. What once felt like a scrappy production free of scrutiny from outside sources suddenly had the mood and atmosphere of a major Hollywood blockbuster. “Netflix knew it would be a good show,” McLaughlin says, “but they didn’t realize how big it would be and that the whole world was going to freak out about it.” Because of that intense interest from both the network and the public, the set suddenly had a noticeable security presence shielding it from nosy onlookers and paparazzi, while network executives showed up to make sure their prized racehorse was galloping along. Suddenly, there were expectations. “We raised the bar pretty high with the first season,” says Matarazzo. “There was a lot more tension on set, in that we really needed to make sure it was good.”

When Season 2 premieres on October 27, a year will have passed since Eleven sacrificed herself to defeat the faceless Demogorgon and save the boys, in the Season 1 finale. Trying to squeeze spoilers out of Wolfhard, McLaughlin, Schnapp, and Matarazzo is useless. Extensive media training, including detailed notes on what they can and can’t discuss, have transformed them into a rare breed: teenagers who can keep a secret. What they can say: Season 2 is bigger, darker, and scarier. There’s also a new character in town, played by Sadie Sink. (According to the Duffers, Millie Bobby Brown was “relieved” to have another girl on set.) “She’s a skater, sort of a punk girl, and she slowly becomes part of the group,” says Wolfhard, who also says his character will be depressed and “a loner” in the wake of Eleven’s disappearance. What they can’t say: pretty much everything else. But it’s not just scoop-hungry journalists who harass them for info. “Whenever you get recognized by fans, most of the time they ask you if you’ve got any spoilers for Season 2, and I’m like, ‘No, none, not at all,’” says Matarazzo. “It’s definitely kind of stressful.”

One of the biggest changes for the new season is the expansion of Schnapp’s screen time. Because his character spends much of the first season trapped in an alternate dimension, Schnapp spent a good deal of time at home in New York while everyone else filmed in Atlanta. “Last year I would drive up to the studio and everyone would be like, ‘Hey, Noah, we’ve missed you! How’ve you been?’” says Schnapp. “This year was a lot easier because last year, I’d have to go in and out of school, and that was hard. This year I could focus.”

Although he’s rescued from The Upside Down, we last saw Schnapp removing a slithery creature from his mouth, a telltale sign that not all is well with Will Byers. For Schnapp, whose character mostly communicated through Christmas lights in Season 1, the new episodes meant new challenges as an actor. “Shawn Levy, one of our directors, was telling me, ‘Noah, you have something really big this season. We have a lot in store for you, and you should get really excited,’” he says. Schnapp felt the added pressure, and would sometimes text his TV mom, Ryder, for extra help with particularly emotional scenes. “We knew we needed a strong actor in case the series moved forward into a second season, because we knew he was going to be a centerpiece,” says Matt Duffer. “We needed not just a good actor, but a really, really good actor.” Schnapp rose to the occasion, according to the Duffers. “Shawn [Levy] was like, ‘We’ve had a Ferrari sitting in the garage all of Season 1, and now the fucking garage doors are open.’”

The Duffers knew that casting child actors, who have a tendency to favor exaggerated performances over naturalistic ones, would make or break their show. “There’s really nothing worse than a bad child performance,” Ross Duffer says. “You couldn’t have any weaknesses, or the eight hours would be excruciating.” Along with their casting director, the Duffers saw what they estimate to be 900 kids, an undertaking they say was easier than it sounds because they could tell within the first few minutes if the actor had what they needed. “You’re looking for something authentic, and most kids don’t have it,” says Ross. “There are the ones that are obviously well-trained, but they feel too Disney, like they’re winking at the camera.” What the Duffers found with their four young male stars were kids who seemed like actual kids.

Matarazzo was the first one cast, his audition so impressive that he found out he got the part on the way back from the airport. “We didn’t really even know who the Dustin character was until we found Gaten,” says Matt Duffer. “He was sort of a generic nerd with glasses. He was a stereotype.” Matarazzo, whose sense of humor inspired the Duffers to transform Dustin into the show’s primary source of comic relief, has grown up with a condition known as cleidocranial dysplasia, which stunts the development of bones and teeth. “We wanted to make a show about outsiders, about kids who didn’t fit in and who were bullied and made fun of,” says Matt. “Gaten was really able to tap into all of that.”

McLaughlin and Matarazzo had known each other from their days as stars in two of Broadway’s biggest shows. Matarazzo portrayed Gavroche in Les Misérables, and McLaughlin played Simba in The Lion King. They’d often see each other in a park frequented by “Broadway kids,” as Matarazzo calls them. “When I found out Caleb had gotten Lucas I was like, ‘Caleb? Where do I know that name from?’” he recalls. Wolfhard and Schnapp established an early connection, too—sort of. “He doesn’t remember me, but I remember him,” Wolfhard says. “Because I asked him what other projects he had done, and he said, ‘I was the voice of Charlie Brown in The Peanuts Movie.’ I was like, ‘What?! You’re Charlie Brown?’ I was so pysched about that.”

Although they had all crossed paths during the audition process, usually around the hotel pool or at chemistry reads, it wasn’t until they arrived in Atlanta to begin production that all four boys, along with Millie Bobby Brown, found themselves together in the same room for the first time. If there was a first-day-of-school feel, it made sense: They met in a classroom, which is where the young cast of Stranger Things still spend most of their time when they’re not filming. That grueling schedule means the only opportunities they get to really mess around are between takes, and sometimes during them. “We have laughing problems,” says McLaughlin. Matt Duffer elaborates: “We definitely have an issue, where we can’t get through a take without someone busting up. They’re always making each other crack up—the number of takes ruined by laughter is in the hundreds.”

Schnapp was at summer camp when Stranger Things dropped on Netflix. He wasn’t allowed to have his phone, but shortly after the series premiered, one of his counselors happened to check his Instagram account—80,000 followers. The next day it was 85,000. “I was like, ‘Wait, what’s going on?’ I think I was at one follower before that,” Schnapp says. Wolfhard also remembers that odd rush of watching his followers skyrocket and realizing his life was changing right in front of his eyes. McLaughlin felt his anonymity evaporate the first time he was recognized. “In L.A., this kid came up to me and was like, ‘Hey, are you Caleb Reginald McLaughlin?’” he says. “And I’m like, ‘What? You know my middle name? That’s nuts.’”

The connection between the boys is strengthened by the surreal turn their lives have taken, circumstances that most kids their age can’t relate to. When Matarazzo, McLaughlin, and Wolfhard met Barack Obama last October, as guests of the White House’s South by South Lawn festival, the former president, who’s a fan of the show, told them he especially enjoyed their on-screen camaraderie. That bond exists offscreen, too, and has only gotten stronger with every award show and panel. “They really are my best friends,” Matarazzo says. “We can relate to each other a lot more than other people can. People try to understand everything that goes on, but they can’t unless they’ve been there.”

“I don’t think any of the kids would say that our friendship is similar to the friendships they have back home, because it’s not,” says Wolfhard. “No kid has ever really had an experience that I’m experiencing right now—it’s a unique sort of friendship.”

Wolfhard is careful not to bring his work home with him. “If you go home and all you talk about is acting, then you’re a douchebag,” he says. “Your friends don’t want to hear about your professional life, they just want to mess around.” Plus, when you’re 14 years old, talking about work is never cool, even if it involves facing off against a faceless interdimensional demon. The boys are also learning that with a great number of Instagram followers comes great responsibility. “We have to be more cautious with what we say on social media and in public,” says McLaughlin, who was shocked to lose followers after he openly rooted for the Golden State Warriors during the NBA playoffs.

While Netflix has yet to make an official announcement, a third season of Stranger Things is a given, meaning the boys are all but guaranteed to live out their teenage years on one of the most popular shows on television. The Duffers, then, will have to follow in the footsteps of long-running properties like Game of Thrones and the Harry Potter franchise in making sure their child actors don’t grow up faster than their characters. “It’s terrifying,” Matt Duffer says. “I shouldn’t even be highlighting this, but if you watch Season 2, they’ve grown from Episode 1 to Episode 9. I’m terrified one of them is going to have a major growth spurt basically in the middle of shooting. But as long as they’re growing outside of the course of our shooting, I’m not too worried about it, because we just have to build it into our story. As much as you would like to keep some of it more continuous, every time we take a break between seasons, we have to make a year time jump at least.”

All four actors say that they want to remain in show business into adulthood. Wolfhard, who obsessively studies the filmmaking process while on set—he’ll star in the remake of Stephen King’s It, in theaters this month—is eyeing a multihyphenate career as a director, actor, and musician. Back at the photo shoot, Matarazzo and Schnapp gather around his iPhone to watch a video Wolfhard co-directed for a friend’s band, Spendtime Palace. Earlier this year, McLaughlin, who is a trained dancer, played a young Ricky Bell on the BET miniseries The New Edition Story, an experience he describes as “historic.” Matarazzo wants to continue acting, but not forever, and is keeping an open mind about other aspects of the industry. Schnapp, who took his first acting class at the age of six, describes winning the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series as one of the greatest moments of his life, and is doing exactly what he wants. (The boys, who describe the awards as “very heavy,” keep them in their bedrooms, except for Matarazzo, who has been meaning to retrieve his from his grandparents’ house. )

“They all love what they’re doing,” says Matt Duffer. “They love coming to set, they love working, they love acting. In terms of the fame thing, it’s a side effect that I think some of them are more into than others. You’re worried about, ‘What if they realize this isn’t their true passion?’ They’re so young. But this year those fears went away. They’re all very committed to this. That’s the important thing, that they enjoy what they’re doing. And that they’re passionate about it.”

#noah schnapp #will byers #finn wolfhard #mike wheeler #caleb mclaughlin #lucas sinclair #gaten matarazzo #dustin henderson #st articles #byler #<target audience

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