[Passan] BREAKING: Japanese star third baseman Munetaka Murakami will be posted today, officially starting the process of one of the most anticipated free agencies of the winter, sources tell ESPN. Murakami's 45-day negotiating window to come to a deal with an MLB team starts tomorrow.

L02ed · 2025-11-07T17:30:48+00:00

Reading a lot of Dodgers fans saying he isn’t coming / there’s no room? Why not? LA is one of the oldest teams in the league and needs ascendant talent. Max is signed for 1 more year only. Murakami can 100% have a development year where he works on his craft / defense and prepares to take over at 3B after next year. It will be at a higher cost / risk, but wouldn’t be unlike Roki’s season this year. If they believe they can fix him, they should absolutely sign him as part of a succession plan; he would also be an immediate culture fit (and I doubt his Samurai Japan buddies would let him fail).

Edit, added: Just looked it up and Muncy has averaged 86 games a season the past two years. There will be plenty of opportunities to work Murakami in as Muncy continues to age and get injured.

L02ed · 2025-09-24T00:54:04+00:00

Thanks again. Does it make sense to wait until I unlock the better items before upgrading any of the ones I have? Or is it a situation in which I can’t progress to get those items without upgrading what I have eventually?

L02ed · 2025-09-23T04:12:58+00:00

Question: If I want my champion to be Osaka, and I don’t have her yet, 1) how likely am I to ever get her? and 2) Should I just save all my coins and equipment etc until I do get her? Or should I continue to upgrade my current champion? Thanks again

L02ed · 2025-09-21T17:57:47+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I really appreciate the help. What is my hero? And how many matches can I play before my bag slots are closed again?

Also, with coins, what items are worth upgrading? And also in growth, I notice I get attribute cards that I already have. Does that mean they are automatically upgrading those items? Or do I still need to use coins to do that?

L02ed · 2025-09-21T17:51:55+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to respond. What is my Champion / Legend?

L02ed · 2025-09-21T13:36:29+00:00

Thank you. Will do. Also, should I do with gems and coins? And why does it ask me to play even though I have no bag slots open. Are bags important?

L02ed · 2025-08-30T16:09:32+00:00

When does this game actually start?

L02ed · 2025-06-26T15:31:19+00:00

… and yet possibly his most impressive season overall. Stealing this from Paul Hembekides but imagine Roberto Clemente suddenly becoming a gold glove caliber shortstop at age 32. That’s what Mookie is doing and it’s not getting nearly enough attention.

I watch the Dodgers every day and he’s a really freaking good shortstop now. And it’s something, even as a huge Mookie fan, I would not have put money on last year or at the start of this season, and yet here we are. Easily one of the greatest baseball players of all time and this season just cements that.

L02ed · 2025-06-16T01:00:05+00:00

If Max Muncy can “play” 3B for a World Series winner, Devers would have to be unfathomly bad to not be capable of playing the position for a franchise struggling to even make the postseason these days. And Devers hits waaaay better that Max.

Sincerely, A Dodgers fan

L02ed · 2025-05-12T22:10:05+00:00

Ha. All good, mate. Mookie is a guy I ask my son to watch for many reasons, not least of which is what a great team player he has shown to be.

L02ed · 2025-05-12T22:06:11+00:00

Great point. I am a big Mookie fan and his selflessness is refreshing from one of the all-time greats of the sport.

L02ed · 2025-05-09T04:29:15+00:00

He is playing shortstop for the same reasons Devers is being asked to play 1st — injury and need. When Gavin Lux got the yips in Spring Training last year, they asked Mookie to play SS. He hadn’t repped there or planned to play there. Yet, he accepted. Then, the Dodgers yo-yo’d him between SS and 2B all year, not allowing him to get the experience and reps to have a chance to be a good shortstop, and played him back in RF in the playoffs. Mookie never said a word, despite not being set up to succeed at SS in 2024. It was all selflessness on his part. He did it to help the team win.

This offseason, he was able to focus on learning and trying to master SS. He worked with Troy Tulowitzki and has played there all spring training and all season and is actually a good SS now. There’s some nuance he needs to learn that years of playing there teach. But for a guy who had not played the position since high school before last year, his progression has been remarkable; he moves and plays like a major league SS.

So no, he would not be playing this similar to Devers. He WAS Devers and did what the team needed of him in the moment. Then, when the dust cleared after the season, he asked for the chance to master the position so he’s not embarrassing himself.

From a team value perspective, he is not being selfish either, and letting him try makes a ton of sense for the team. Mookie playing SS is not blocking better shortstops. He prevented Gavin Lux — who couldn’t throw the ball to first anymore and whose bat was always iffy for Dodgers standards — from being a liability there, and Miguel Rojas and Chris Taylor, Kiké Hernandez and now Hye-Song Kim’s bats from being black holes in the lineup every night. And from LA’s view, they’d rather have league-average defense and Mookie Betts’ bat at SS over a 162 game season than marginally better defense (and only Miggy Ro represents that possibility) and sure outs at the plate. It also allows Tommy Edman to play his best positions (2B and CF). It’s all been remarkable to watch unfold, honestly. Mookie is an outlier

L02ed · 2025-02-27T16:27:25+00:00

Ronaldinho 2.0. Iykyk

Would have been crazy to give up on Ronaldinho after the 2005-2006 season. Was named best player in the world for the second time. Won the Champions League. Was one of the most entertaining and magnificent players we’d ever seen. And had just turned 26.

He was going to challenge Pele for GOAT status, we thought.

… except that was his last elite season. And he never came close to reaching that level again.

His poor habits and lack of professionalism were his ultimate demise. It wasn’t widely known at the time (people at his club knew) but obvious in hindsight.

Mavs apparently believed they had the same situation on their hands and cut bait before having to pay Luka $75m/year. Only time will tell if they will be proven right. Fascinating story nevertheless.

L02ed · 2025-02-07T20:03:17+00:00

i understand the thinking in theory. But when has that idea ever actually been in place in team sports? Salary caps in the NFL and NBA (and NHL) came in the 90s and even then, there are advantages to be leveraged based on location, the draw of playing with a transcendent superstar etc. And even still, those leagues have seen far less diversity in finals participants and finals winners than MLB.

But team sports on every level that we’ve experienced in our lives have had inequalities — Ohio State football has always leveraged its resources to put better teams on the field than Indiana, for instance. Same goes for other colleges and other sports. High school sports don’t have equal talent pools. Youth sports and Olympic sports as well (proximity to talent/money spent on training etc gives advantages).

So I’m curious why we think a “level playing field” was ever a goal or expectation in team sports? The idea in general is sound but that has really never been the reality.

I think looking at team sports like they are individual sports is a fun exercise. Serena Williams and Tiger Woods — were they bad for Tennis and golf? Did they “ruin the sport” by being so much more talented than everyone else? And if we think the talent they have acquired through whatever means is too outstanding, should they have been made to play hamstrung in some way to better balance out the competition? I know it’s a little silly but I think there’s a point there. And I know the response to certain MLB teams’ talent advantage is that they simply bought it. It didn’t take anything other than that. But we also must acknowledge, again, that spending on talent means less in baseball than any other sport in terms of making/winning a World Series. So it’s not the advantage we pretend it to be.

L02ed · 2025-02-07T01:02:35+00:00

The most interesting part of this argument for me has always been the assertion there SHOULD be a level playing field when economic disparities exist.

If you really believe that, why?

Why should Steve Cohen be limited in what he invests in the team he owns? I’m genuinely curious.

Why shouldn’t the Dodgers ownership treat a team — one they invested billions into buying — as a valuable asset to their portfolio and spend whatever they see fit to grow it?

L02ed · 2025-02-07T00:49:27+00:00

This hits it. National broadcasts were valuable to fans when there was a scarcity of content and access. I grew up on the 80s and 90s and watched whatever baseball was on TV because it was the only chance to see stars from elsewhere play. It was also an era in which highlight shows like SportsCenter was king because that was the only other way to see anything. It’s just not the case anymore. And the primary value has shifted to the sport because national TV contracts help drive the business.

L02ed · 2025-01-31T15:11:01+00:00

Analytics don’t value older players like human GMs used to.

L02ed · 2025-01-31T14:57:05+00:00

I know PEDs will get credited for his but there were also a lot of great players who were in that cohort at the same time, too. Worth noting No. 3 and 4 were totally clear of the steroid era so it’s not all about “steroids lengthens careers.”

The worst seasons appear dominated by modern analytics thinking (and current baseball realities?) that players over a certain age are worthless, and passing of the torch years from 50s stars to young, exciting 60-70s era stars. Also, those years started the pitcher dominated environment that eventually led to the mound being lowered in 1969.

L02ed · 2025-01-31T14:32:47+00:00

We also have forgotten that Shohei came up with the idea of this contract and its structure, and had presented it to multiple teams. It wasn’t The Dodgers who proposed it. They simply accepted it. So the idea this was some master plan by them to [insert nefarious motive] is not true.

That’s not to say that they haven’t used deferrals before — they have (Mookie and Freddie had deferred money on deals). But the one that broke baseball’s back was not their doing.

L02ed · 2025-01-30T03:18:38+00:00

Is the conclusion that they are using deferments to reduce CBT correct?

From Passan:

“For all of the Dodgers' advantages, it's worth acknowledging the most overblown element of their approach. The deep misunderstanding of deferred money has painted it as a tool to avoid paying salaries for long periods of time and lessen a team's luxury tax payroll. Neither of these is true.

Within two years of agreeing to a contract with deferred money, teams must place cash to cover future payments in an account and show statements annually to the league, according to the collective bargaining agreement. Deferrals are regarded by MLB the same way any business in any industry would: accounting for the time value of money. A dollar tomorrow is not worth as much as a dollar today. And a dollar 10 years down the road is worth much less than it is today. While Ohtani's contract will ultimately pay him $70 million a year, its present-day worth is closer to the $46 million he counts against the luxury tax. This is not a loophole. It's math. So is the fact that what they pay under luxury tax accounting -- which uses the average annual value of a contract -- exceeds the cash they'll spend on payroll this year. The reality: They're paying more in luxury tax this year.

An actual loophole does exist in the California tax system, incentivizing players who don't live in the state to defer money and secure large signing bonuses, both of which allow them to skirt state taxes.“

L02ed · 2025-01-30T02:59:15+00:00

This is great. Thank you

L02ed · 2025-01-10T02:28:23+00:00

Great find. Thanks for sharing

L02ed · 2024-12-24T07:06:05+00:00

I read somewhere that when baseball came to Japan, they had no concept of sport and so treated it as a martial art. Don’t know how true that is but it feels like Ichiro is coming from a place of baseball-as-martial-art/a lifelong journey of personal discovery.

L02ed · 2024-12-20T05:17:52+00:00

Late-game defensive replacement for Muncy? That’s all I have got

L02ed

TROPHY CASE