Splash Hits: Happy Veto Day!
Frank White is going to show the Royals who's the real boss, Amazon records the first Save of 2024 and it's prospect season.
I adore an offseason where there are several things popping off at once. It’s nice to be entertained when I have to dress in layers just to pick up my damn mail.
Stadium negotiations, streaming services, prospect lists and even a minor signing! It’s something to talk about. Let’s dive in.
When Jackson County legislators voted by an 8-1 margin to put a 3/8th cent sales tax on the April ballot that would go toward the construction of a new stadium for the Royals and renovations to the current home of the Chiefs, County Executive Frank White was officially on the clock. Per the rules of the County, White, the former Royals second baseman, has 10 days to decide whether to veto the move, which would prevent it from going on the ballot, or just let things proceed and let the voters have their say.
Since this is White, it’s fairly safe to assume he’s going to figure out a way to jam things up at this point. A veto is certainly one way to accomplish that. And look at that…Today is day number 10. (By the time you’re reading this, the veto may have already happened.)
The teams and the county have been negotiating terms to get the sales tax on the ballot. As usual with negotiations of this ilk, there’s been a bit of give and take. For example, the Royals and Chiefs previously said they would pay for the insurance for their homes. Jackson County currently makes those payments. Apparently, that’s not enough for White as he is seeking further concessions from the teams in exchange for his support. One such concession that was reported was White wants the Royals and not the county to pay for the demolition of Kauffman Stadium.
Yes, I’ve seen the Tweets from a local morning zoo talk radio host that says the White veto is certain to happen. I wrote last week that White was going to drop the veto on this. I mean, this is Frank White. It’s been obvious from the start of this process going back now a couple of years that White’s role in this is mainly to act as a roadblock. I can only speculate as to his reasons he would do this (although I am extremely confident in my speculation), and while I think handing out public funds for billionaire owners to build stadiums is a misuse of money, White really needs to get over himself and let the voters decide this issue. It’s up to the teams to convince the public that this is a good idea.
County politics in most major metropolitan areas are, in large part, performative. Yes, the Royals and Chiefs won the first vote by an 8-1 margin which would indicate a supermajority that would survive a veto from White. What we don’t know is who is voting this way today and what will—ahem—convince them to change their vote tomorrow. When White vetoes this measure, I would be shocked if all eight who initially voted in favor held their line. Let’s not forget the Royals themselves, while holding their hands out looking for money, have been extremely light on details as to how they would spend said money. A location for the new stadium would be a start.
Still, a veto and a failure to override does not mean the sales tax proposal is dead. Negotiations can (and will) continue to happen right up until the end.
The deadline to put this measure on the ballot for the April 2 election is January 23. Tick. Tock.
News on Wednesday about where you will be able to watch the Royals in 2024 as Amazon has agreed to bail out bankrupt Diamond Sports, the owner of Bally Sports networks. Amazon will dump $115 million into the company and come away with a 15 percent stake in ownership.
Part of the sideshow in the Bally Sports bankruptcy saga is the fact that of the 11 teams Bally currently broadcasts, they have the streaming rights to only five. One of those five teams is the Royals. You’re probably aware of this if you used their janky app last summer in search of baseball.
Because this is 2024 and no entity would ever agree to take on broadcasting a sports team without the ability to stream said team, this is where Amazon comes into play. In exchange for keeping Diamond Sports afloat, the streaming would shift over to Amazon and its Prime platform. From the Diamond Sports press release via The Athletic:
Customers will be able to access all local DTC content, including live MLB, NBA and NHL games, and pre- and post-game programming, for the teams for which Diamond retains DTC rights, through Prime Video Channels.
That seems fairly cut and dried to me: You will be able to watch the Royals on Amazon Prime this season. That’s assuming all the blackout tomfoolery is handled. No word if baseball on Amazon would be a premium type of offering where you pay more for the privilege to stream or if it would just be bundled in your current Prime subscription.
I don’t believe I’ve streamed much if any, live content on Prime. However, if you were looking for a scalable platform that could host multiple live streams at once, Amazon has to be one of your better partners. There are still a lot of moving parts to this, but never forget the incentive in these deals…cold, hard cash. The Athletic reports that Diamond “is projecting that direct-to-consumer revenue will grow from $49 million in 2023 to $658 million in 2026” once this deal with Amazon goes through and Prime becomes the home to streaming for all of the teams (NBA and NHL along with the five in Major League Baseball). That’s a helluva incentive.
No word on what it will cost you, the valued consumer.
It’s prospect season as both Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus dropped their Top 100 prospect lists this week.
The only Royal to make an appearance on the list at BP was the Royals top pick in last summer’s draft, catcher Blake Mitchell. He checks in at…number 96.
The BA list is just a little more depressing. If you can imagine. This nifty graphic they dropped tells the story.
Twenty-nine teams are represented in the Baseball America Top 100. One…is not. Congratulations to the Royals I guess.
Making matters worse (I didn’t know that was possible!), the Royals didn’t even place a player on the obligatory “15 players who just missed” list that follows the BA Top 100.
Look, I don’t want to be a downer here, but this kind of stuff (meaning rebuilding a creaky farm system) takes time. The signs are pointing in the right direction for this franchise, but the last several drafts…well, they haven’t been what you want. The Royals absolutely have to get better in this department if they’re going to build an organization that can regularly challenge in the always mediocre AL Central. These lists aren’t everything, but the lack of Kansas City representation really does illustrate where this farm system is as a whole.
The Royals dropped a minor transaction on Wednesday as the club announced catcher Sandy León signed a minor league deal with an invite to spring training.
I’ll point out that the first group that reports to spring training is “pitchers and catchers.” As in, with all those arms throwing off a mound, someone needs to squat behind the plate with a mitt. The Royals will have eight backstops in camp when it opens next month. You’ll have the regulars in Salvador Perez and Freddy Fermin along with minor league invitees Tyler Cropley, Rodolfo Duran, Carter Jensen, Logan Porter and Luca Tresh along now with León.
León, originally from Venezuela, will turn 35 in March. He appeared in 21 games for the Rangers last year before he was released in June. He caught on (yes, the pun is intentional) with the Guardians, but spent the rest of his summer in Triple-A. He’s had stops in Minnesota, Miami, Boston and Washington. He’s a career .208/.276/.311 hitter with an OPS+ of 57. Defensively León grades better. He’s an average pitch-framer and blocker and throws out around 30 percent of would-be base stealers.
I have a hard time faulting Frank White for his veto, given the scarce details the Royals have put forward so far (and I'm sure for him, the fact he gets to tell the Royals to go screw themselves is a nice bonus), but I agree this does seem like the sort of thing that the public should get to vote on. Meanwhile, I continue to operate on the assumption I will need MLB.tv and my trusty VPN to watch the Royals this year. A blackout here certainly makes sense, as I am a mere 6.5 hour drive from Kauffman Stadium.
Frank White can't win, so he might as well do what he thinks is best for the people who elected him.
People are so agitated over property taxes, and so willing to ascribe every move in the stadium negotiations to White's personal vendetta, that it sure looks like they're going to roll over for a billionaire just to spite White.
If White were truly intent on killing a deal, he'd be proposing a use tax (aka ticket tax), which would spread stadium costs equitably across the metro, rather than giving affluent fans in Joco and the Northland a free ride. That'd be an easy sell in Jackson County, where regressive sales taxes leave residents with less discretionary income for things like baseball tickets.
It's too logical, but it's a poison pill given the scorn Sherman would face from fellow oligarchs by even allowing such a measure to go on a ballot, and risk setting a precedent. Even activists who oppose any subsidy are afraid of the ramifications of talking much about the use tax idea.
Based on my most recent look at local economic/demographic data, the best outcome for KCMO, Jackson County, and the state of MO is for the Royals to move to Kansas.