With Juan Soto, contract fun is just beginning; a radical solution to MLB’s TV troubles

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Baseball’s TV problem continues. Is it time for a drastic solution? Plus: Steinbrenner and Soto’s dance begins, we have prospect tiers and the baseball card of the week! I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to The Windup!

Could MLB nationalize broadcasts?

Last month, Andrew Marchand reported that baseball’s Sunday morning/afternoon games — previously on Peacock — would be moving elsewhere. A couple weeks ago, he reported that Roku was in advanced talks to be that elsewhere. Earlier this week, the deal was finalized, and yesterday, Evan Drellich reported more details: It’s a three-year deal, worth $30 million.

That’s a surprising number since the previous deal had Peacock paying $30 million per year.

There are additional opportunities for MLB to earn ad revenue, and there’s an opt-out, the details of which are not yet known. Since the games will be free, Drellich says that it’s a “reach play, rather than a revenue driver,” but paired with the ongoing disaster over at Diamond Sports, it revitalizes an interesting and old debate: Could MLB nationalize its media rights?

To some extent, they already are. Subscribers to MLB.tv can watch all out-of-market games. But that qualifier — “out of market” — is the sticking point. To watch your local team (unless you live in the D-Backs, Rockies or Padres markets) you need a subscription to a local cable provider. When the RSNs (regional sports networks) paid for exclusive broadcast rights, it meant blackouts everywhere else — even on MLB’s site.

On its face, it makes too much sense to simplify the process of making all games available to all fans. Of course, nothing is ever that simple.

In decades past, the biggest sticking point has been the everlasting contention between big-market teams (which obviously have bigger audiences and earn more for their local rights) and small-market teams. Any plan to unify the whole thing would require MLB to solve a sticky conundrum: pacify the big-market teams by paying them more than small-market teams (thus contributing to a lack of parity within the sport)? Or drastically reduce the current operating budget of big-market teams, distributing the revenue more evenly?

Either option makes it difficult to get unanimous buy-in from ownership, who would have to approve any deal. And given the low price on the Roku deal … how much would it be worth, anyway?

Further complicating matters, while a slew of teams are in RSN limbo, others are still locked into their deals for many years to come. The Dodgers, for example, aren’t “free agents” until after the 2038 season.

Perhaps, as Evan suggests, there’s a middle ground, where MLB launches (or sells the rights to) a partial-league service, adding other teams as their current deals expire. Even that isn’t a perfect solution, but it might be the best one available in the near future.

More TV: Jen McCaffrey tells us what it’s like for the Red Sox with the Netflix documentary crew following their every move.

Ken’s Notebook: Wooing Juan Soto

Of course, Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner wants to talk to Juan Soto about a long-term contract. Of course, Soto told reporters his “door has always been open” to signing an extension prior to free agency. The usual dance has commenced, and don’t expect it to end with Soto a Yankee for life. At least not before he hits the open market.

The most relevant thing Steinbrenner said in comments to Jack Curry of the Yankees’ YES Network is that Soto’s agent, Scott Boras, does not normally do deals in the middle of a season. Correct! Steinbrenner knows Boras prefers his clients to establish their values in free agency, when all 30 teams can bid. Never mind that perhaps only a handful of clubs, most notably the crosstown rival Mets, might be willing to give Soto the $500 million plus he surely desires. If the Yankees offer him that amount tomorrow, Boras will merely consider it a baseline, and go from there.

Boras, mind you, is hardly coming off his best offseason. With a group of pending free-agent clients that includes Corbin Burnes, Pete Alonso and Alex Bregman, among others, it might behoove him to act quickly with at least one or two of his big names. But even then, the only way he would agree to the kind of extension he did for Jose Altuve with the Astros (five years, $125 million) is if Soto demands it. And Soto, after turning down a 15-year, $440 million offer from the Nationals in the summer of 2022, surely wants to hit the jackpot.

Maybe that jackpot comes from the Yankees, the way it did for Aaron Judge, who turned down an extension offer in the spring of 2022 and wound up with a nine-year, $360 million free-agent deal. But if Steinbrenner indeed opens negotiations with Soto during the season, he essentially will be bidding against himself. Soto, who will hit the market entering his age 26 season, seems poised to put together one of the best seasons of his career.

Steinbrenner expressed the right sentiment in wanting to keep Soto, but he knows the true action will not commence until December, January or beyond. Try to picture an extension offer that Boras and Soto would find enticing enough to dissuade them from testing the open market. Can’t do it? Didn’t think so. The fun, if you want to call it that, is just beginning.

Updates on up-and-coming prospects

Perusing this week’s offering of “prospect tiers” stories, there were a few player updates that I found particularly interesting:

• San Diego Padres: Not long ago, there were whispers that 17-year-old catching savant Ethan Salas might have a shot at the big leagues in 2024. That seems increasingly unlikely, as he’s hitting just .174/.281/.243 (.524 OPS) with 36 strikeouts in 115 at-bats in High A. That doesn’t make him a bust, by any means, but it’s not surprising that his tap-the-brakes moment has arrived.

• Los Angeles Dodgers: It might, however, be time for slight concern about fellow catching prospect Diego Cartaya. He’s still just 22, but between some back issues and two straight slow starts in Double A, the former consensus top-10 prospect in the sport is eliciting some Marge-Simpson-worried-groan noises, as he’s hitting just .173 (.650 OPS).

• Atlanta Braves: If you don’t follow a prospect closely, it’s easy to see their season-long numbers and make a quick judgment. That would be a mistake in the case of RHP Hurston Waldrep, last year’s 24th pick in the draft. As David O’Brien reports, Waldrep’s 3.32 ERA looks good-not-great. But after two rough outings to start the year in Double A, the 22-year-old allowed just four earned runs in 31 innings over his last five starts (1.16 ERA).

More prospects: Jim Bowden lists six prospects he believes are big-league ready and waiting for the call.

Baseball Card(s) of the Week

I couldn’t decide which of these 1990 cards to include, so: both. A. Bartlett Giamatti — who, you may already know, was the father of actor Paul Giamatti — was baseball’s commissioner for just five months before unexpectedly passing away in September 1989, eight days after banning Pete Rose from baseball.

When I was a kid, the quote from “The Green Fields of the Mind” didn’t really land. Baseball was just … fun! As an adult, it makes more sense, and I’m glad both companies opted to include it on the back.

But if you read it closely, the two versions differ slightly here. The Donruss one (on the right) is correct. Here it is, if you can’t see it on the image:

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”

Handshakes and High Fives

Where can you get cougar urine on the Yankees’ clubhouse floor, a jersey with No. 1,000, Jesse Chavez playing Golden Tee and maybe the wrong guy being inducted into the Hall of Fame — all in one story? Tyler Kepner’s “Sliders” column.

Dodgers starting pitcher Emmet Sheehan won’t be back this year; he underwent Tommy John surgery this week. Ken Waldichuk of the A’s did the same.

It seems just yesterday, it was the spring of summer sausage in Minnesota. Alas, the Yankees care not for meat magic.

Jurickson Profar hasn’t lived up to the hype from his days as a No.1 prospect, debuting at 19 years old. But as Dennis Lin writes, he’s having a breakout year at 31 in San Diego.

Jon Singleton’s “dismount” is not bad, as bat flips go (though I still think Ken Griffey Jr.’s bat-drop was better). Chandler Rome has that and more on the Astros’ comeback first baseman.

Fabian Ardaya has a cool story on five Dodgers hitting the 10-year mark in their careers.

If you’re looking to buy low in your fantasy baseball league, Eno Sarris has some starting pitchers who could be a good bet.

You can buy tickets to every MLB game here.

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(Top photo: Seth Wenig / Associated Press)