The real scam here is that we as fans believe that ownership groups are geared toward producing contending baseball teams. This is quite false. They are geared towards being profitable, just like any private business. They are selling entertainment. Winning baseball might be the most entertaining and most profitable product they can sell, but as we know they can still be plenty profitable if they tank. There are many ways to skin a cat, and there are just as many ways to turn a profit with a ballclub.

I learned this well working in the private sector. I joined a company run by investors who sought to profit off music, a field I had studied at university and was passionate about. This is not a passion the upper management even had: they were at the mercy of a board who wanted to advance their investments. This was a prime reason why I decided to leave, attend grad school and seek a college faculty position. I accepted this reality, and now advancement of the arts, and knowledge as a whole, is the goal my superiors have.

Sports teams are private entities. Despite their names, they have no obligation to a geographical area and its people to win or compete. It just so happens that winning is the best way to profit, however. Plus, teams that never truly rebuild and are always competitive regardless of market size (Cardinals, Yankees, etc.) do not treat their profits any differently than profitable rebuilding teams like the Astros and Brewers who flounder on the field.

However, I think the assumptions you’re making about Astros and Brewers ownership aren’t quite right. I don’t have much sympathy for billionaire owners who just purchased one of the biggest luxuries money can buy, but the Astros were not a profitable franchise when Jim Crane purchased them in 2011, to say nothing of the bleak outlook on their future at that time with a barren farm system and gobs of money committed to dead weight like Carlos Lee, Brandon Lyon, Brett Myers, etc.

The owners have a right to make a profit and receive a return on their investment, and are under no real obligation to commit to a winning future by developing and accumulating controllable talent. Perhaps the huge profits you refer to are not lining the owners pockets as you assume, but are ballasting the franchise back toward the black after years in the red. Maybe I could be so bold to say that those profits are being saved to stretch payroll once the team returns to contention (look at how much the Astros’ payroll has increased in the past several seasons) and not just purchasing minor league affiliates (which I actually find to be a great use of a budget surplus). I don’t find this to be inherently immoral, and I think they are reasonably protecting their business interests much like you or I would on a much smaller scale.

I would not roundly dismiss a statement justifying tanking, especially in the case of the Astros. This was a franchise in dire straits competitively to be sure, and financially as well, ostensibly. You can make different arguments with the Cubs and their ownership group (whom I will never support given their political leanings) and the Brewers as well.

Attanasio attempted to field competitive teams arguably every season between purchasing the franchise and 2016. He largely succeeded: when the team faltered in years like 2006, 2010, and 2013, he doubled down and entered “go for it” mode the following years. It wasn’t until 2015 when he waived the white flag, and 2016 stands as the only season one could argue they tried to tank. I truly think they built the best team possible in 2016. Any serious money committed to free agents would have been ill-advised not just financially, but to player development: I would have hated to see a veteran shortstop take away playing time from Villar and Arcia in 2016.

(1) Everything is political. If you wish not to politicize something, that’s fine, but that In itself is a type of moral statement / endorsement of a certain state of affairs.

(2) The owners are not rational
& amoral. There is nothing rationally acceptable about an entertainment group that ostensibly is geared toward producing baseball teams openly fielding anti-competitive teams. Insofar as there is a moral statement to be made on the owners, they are a decidedly immoral group.

(3) Regarding the Brewers, I simply wish to emphasize that the team should field the best possible club each year, for each year a suitable number of RS / RA fluctuate across the league and are readily available for teams to capture and contend. There is nothing joyful or laudable in refusing to build the best team possible in any given season.

There isn’t a Houston Astros fan in the world that would trade last night for a possibly competitive team during the 100+ loss years. There’s not a Brewer fan alive, save perhaps yourself, who wouldn’t gladly take 320 losses the next three years if it meant a title in, say, 2023.

Your points aren’t necessarily wrong–even if they are even more self-righteous than usual. But baseball is a business, and the owners are there to make profit. That’s what they’re doing. They are rational, amoral actors soaking everybody they can (taxpayers, minor leaguers, cable customers, etc.) for every dime they can. The only difference between MLB and any other business is that–except for the Apple cult–no business besides sports has customers that are this devoted to the folks trying to take their money.

The players, by the way, are guilty here too. It’s easy to pile on the owners for minor league pay and for the team control/arbitration rules, but the MLBPA is pretty pleased to inflate player salaries at the expense of the guys who are in high school when the CBA gets hammered out.

You’re really left with a choice. Is the system so rotten that you decide it’s not worth it, I’m not supporting this, I refuse to prop up an instrument of others’ greed? (That’s what I did with the NFL.) Or do you decide to take the good with the bad and enjoy it?

I wish MLB wasn’t run the way it is. But it is. And I’m not going to crap all over the Brewers because they didn’t invest in a team that nobody expected to compete.

By the way, regarding your sanctimony over the hurricane/flooding, take some Xanax. My family suffered a personal tragedy in 2011. Right before the Brewers got hot. Did the playoff run make up for the loss of a loved one? Quite obviously, it did not.

But it did give me a pretty welcome distraction. Something to find joy in. Something to help me forget about the pain for a little while. That’s what sports are for most people because most people don’t find the need to politicize every last thing in existence.