Breaking: Rogers Aquires Bell Stake In MLSE

[Randle McMurphy]

Are you seriously arguing that the AL East is the strongest division in baseball this year?

I believe the post you were responding to made reference to the AL Central. Are you going to answer the question?

The AL Central is much stronger than the AL East this year. Unless you're going to tell me that the division with the better record and run differential is somehow worse because "I love Rogers".

Only reason the Red Sox aren't making the playoffs this year is because they played the Yankees/Orioles a combined 26 times and the White Sox 6 times. They are a clearly better team than any of the AL Central teams in front of them who got to benefit from 12 wins against the White Sox.

[Raps in 4]

The Royals and Twins btw are under .500 this season if you erase their games against the White Sox. They're both statistically likely to make the playoffs right now.

Tell me again how the unbalanced schedule doesn't matter.

The Yankees and Orioles were able to enjoy free wins against us and the Rays this year.

[ATLTimekeeper]

All I know is its a pretty bad near monopoly that somehow can turn good profits when its handed straight to them. Its kind of incompetent, or arrogant, or both

Rogers might end up making more money off MLSE than their core business.

Sure but what does it say about Bell who had to sell their stake? I don't think a monopoly of sports ownership is a good thing, and Ed Rogers has a terrible track record with the Jays. I'm against the notion that Bell either kept him in check or was going to give us anything different.

But if one guy wants his name all over Toronto sports, let's see how it goes. If he fails he'll be forever reviled.

I don't think Bell is particularly better run overall. But what Bell did do was keep him in check though by supporting Tannenbaum as the Chairman of the Board and having him really mostly run the team. Tannenbaum had done a better job than anyone in the history of MLSE fwiw, in our lifetimes. I don't see how Rogers doesn't fail given its history.

I dunno, Larry was there for all the horrible Leaf years, too. Here's one for memory lane!

https://torontolife.com/city/larry-tanenbaum-mlse-chairman-losing-legacy-last-chance/

He got the Leafs to sign a cooked Tie Domi just because he they were buddies. He ran interference when Leweike tried to fire Bryan Colangelo, leading to that awkward phase where Bryan was just wandering the halls with nothing to do until he quit. His positive contribution was advocating for Masai. I don't even give him credit for his influence as chair for the NBA owners, because his power was so toothless he was unable to get league action on CBA circumventions by the Clippers.

[Randle McMurphy]

The Royals and Twins btw are under .500 this season if you erase their games against the White Sox. They're both statistically likely to make the playoffs right now.

Tell me again how the unbalanced schedule doesn't matter.

The Yankees and Orioles were able to enjoy free wins against us and the Rays this year.

The White Sox are probably the worst team in baseball in 100 years. Please stop with the bad faith comparisons to a run-of-the-mill 76 win team that has over 2 times as many wins as them.

[Randle McMurphy]

If the White Sox were even a 60 win team this year instead of a 40 win team, the Royals and Twins would be .500 baseball teams lol

[Slim_Charles]

Masai will definitely be leaving the Raptors now

[vbmeer]

Masai and Scottie Barnes watch is on.

[ciueli]

The Royals and Twins btw are under .500 this season if you erase their games against the White Sox. They're both statistically likely to make the playoffs right now.

Tell me again how the unbalanced schedule doesn't matter.

The Yankees and Orioles were able to enjoy free wins against us and the Rays this year.

The White Sox are probably the worst team in baseball in 100 years. Please stop with the bad faith comparisons to a run-of-the-mill 76 win team that has over 2 times as many wins as them.

This is why I don't get MLB. The NBA equivalent of their schedule weighted so heavily to in division play would be the Raptors playing at least 26 games per season against the Celtics, Knicks, 76ers, and Nets, that's nearly 1/3rd of the entire schedule against just 4 teams.

[Tha Cynic]

How do you psychologically train your mind to start following another team that isn't in your city? The only time I was able to do that in any sport that has a Toronto team was when Kobe Bryant was alive, and at that time I was a fan of Kobe Bryant only and stopped watching the Lakers as soon as he retired. No other athlete in my life has drawn me in enough to follow their entire career.

This isn't looking good for Toronto sports teams and mainly the Raptors. The fact that Shapiro and Atkins are still around is appalling.

[Jerry Lucas]

How did this thread turn into a Shatkins era debate?

[Tha Cynic]

Well the major difference would be that the previous/current group has a track record of success going back a decade and actually won a championship. Rogers hasn't had any real success and when he has had it, however fleetingly, he sabotages himself and the sports franchise by alienating the people that actually made the team successful. Best case scenario is that Masai moves on, they keep Bobby and the rest of the team in place and they don't meddle too much in the team's day to day and basketball operations.

Let's look at Raptors' record under Masai compared to Jays' record under Shapiro:

• No. of seasons: Masai 11; Shapiro 9 (excluding 2024 which is still ongoing)
• Reg season winning %: Masai 58%; Shapiro 52%
• Championship: Masai 1; Shapiro 0
• Playoffs final-4 team: Masai 2x ECF; Shapiro 2x ALCS
• # seasons making playoffs: Masai 8; Shapiro 5

While Masai clearly has had better results, it's not doom and gloom for Shapiro either. That said, I concur with the majority that Ed Rogers as controlling owner of Raptors is not good news for reasons already noted.

Rogers reportedly holds an option to buyout Tanenbaum’s 20% minority share in 2026 which Ed will most likely exercise. Ed had reportedly preferred promoting Bobby Webster over re-signing Masai at $15M /season, which he felt was an overpayment.

$15M/yr was his base pay but he has incentives which reportedly includes % of business value increase of the team since 2021 which could be quite significant. Masai's record since 2021 has been rather subpar 141-177 (44%). If Bobby takes over (as Ed has previously preferred), he's continuity and likely won't do worse or at least not as bad as first thought.

Wait...you're giving Shatkins credit for Anthopolous's teams? I guess that's the only way you make their record more favourable to masai's

Under Shapiro's influence the Blue Jays have not won a single playoff game, have they? The only success was inheriting AAs team before the started trading everyone

[SaveTheHens]

You could say this previous ownership was a success for the Raps, but it was a resounding failure for the Leafs. The same ownership group can't be praised for one side of the business but ignore the failures on the other side. The discussion on this topic is quite different with Leafs fans who perhaps aren't excited by this change but aren't unhappy about the old 3 owner system being gone.

While overall a failure in results for the Leafs, the funding seemed to be there which is a positive light. Leafs may have choked, but the talent was acquired and money put out and generally they had solid teams but some curses take a while to be broken I guess lol.

I dont know much about these ownership groups, a bit worried with all the negative reactions that Rogers may be bad for the team? Hopefully its just worry about Ed Rogers interference & not about the money the teams willing to spend.. Id hope Rogers maintains a mentality that its good business to spend a lot and create a high quality product than just to mooch off the toronto market with no efforts to spend & win. Retaining Masai would be big so I guess if Ed Rogers ran him out of town that'd affect our long term success too

[ForeverTFC]

How did this thread turn into a Shatkins era debate?

Ed's soldiers are among us...

[ForeverTFC]

How do you psychologically train your mind to start following another team that isn't in your city? The only time I was able to do that in any sport that has a Toronto team was when Kobe Bryant was alive, and at that time I was a fan of Kobe Bryant only and stopped watching the Lakers as soon as he retired. No other athlete in my life has drawn me in enough to follow their entire career.

This isn't looking good for Toronto sports teams and mainly the Raptors. The fact that Shapiro and Atkins are still around is appalling.

You don't, you just become a bigger fan of the league. I have league pass and I throw on a game a night at least during the season on league pass. At the very least, it's great background noise if I'm working late, great background noise if I'm home. I can see myself skipping Raps games once Ed and crew take over for more appealing games on that night.

[SaveTheHens]

Dumars went 5 straight seasons with the Pistons missing the playoffs and was gone, Masai has missed the playoffs in 3 of the last 4 seasons and quite likely will miss it 5 of the last 6 by the time his contract is up with the way this team is headed. In some ways Dumars was more successful with the Pistons than Masai has been with the Raptors.

Presti missed the playoffs for 3 straight years. Should he have been fired last year? Dumars has had more success than Presit ever has with OKC! Ainge has missed 2 years in a row, likely to be at least 3 years. Should he be fired? Spurs haven't made the playoffs for 5 years, time for Pop to go right? Or maybe, like Masai, they all decided to lose in multiple of those seasons while Dumars was trying to win the entire time. Or they all have future cornerstones they drafted through the losing while Dumars whiffed over and over and over and over...

BTW, ever look at Dumar's draft track record? I don't think you have.

If Ed isn't paying you, I feel bad for you.

Masai has entered zero seasons intending to tank, missed the playoffs 3 out of the last 4 seasons, and will likely miss the playoffs both of the next two seasons. No comparison between what he’s done recently and teams that are built to fail from the first game of the season like OKC was, like the Spurs have been recently too. Even now he’s still hedging his bets by keeping veterans and the recent trades that brought in more veterans.

I think what preceded it also matters, had we been a marginal playoff team for years, THEN the last 3/4 seasons no playoffs is good enough for firing. But we gutted our assets to get 1 year rentals, and then after a championship itd be embarrassing to tank, its the human thing to do to try & defend and we did pretty well overall considering we lost our main talent but still had a great regular season. After that we did end up tanking pretty appropriately, I get peoples ideal tanks are to have a bad roster from the start of the season but what makes Masai who he is is being open and seeing how things go, its been a pretty useful asset in the past, I'm glad he chose to tank in Tampa eventually and then the selection of Scottie has set up hope for this franchise. The last 3 years have been more disorganized, not having all positions properly filled, a lot of experimentation, having fa's walk. It hasn't been ideal but anyone can make mistakes along the way, his overall body of work & in recent years drafting Scottie, trading for RJ/IQ imo show he's still got it even after some hiccups. I feel hopefuly about the franchise I just hope they can retain him and that Rogers keeps greenlighting spending especially if we get in a position to contend.

[Johnny Bball]

Sure but what does it say about Bell who had to sell their stake? I don't think a monopoly of sports ownership is a good thing, and Ed Rogers has a terrible track record with the Jays. I'm against the notion that Bell either kept him in check or was going to give us anything different.

But if one guy wants his name all over Toronto sports, let's see how it goes. If he fails he'll be forever reviled.

I don't think Bell is particularly better run overall. But what Bell did do was keep him in check though by supporting Tannenbaum as the Chairman of the Board and having him really mostly run the team. Tannenbaum had done a better job than anyone in the history of MLSE fwiw, in our lifetimes. I don't see how Rogers doesn't fail given its history.

I dunno, Larry was there for all the horrible Leaf years, too. Here's one for memory lane!

https://torontolife.com/city/larry-tanenbaum-mlse-chairman-losing-legacy-last-chance/

He got the Leafs to sign a cooked Tie Domi just because he they were buddies. He ran interference when Leweike tried to fire Bryan Colangelo, leading to that awkward phase where Bryan was just wandering the halls with nothing to do until he quit. His positive contribution was advocating for Masai. I don't even give him credit for his influence as chair for the NBA owners, because his power was so toothless he was unable to get league action on CBA circumventions by the Clippers.

I mean... the bar is pretty low for being the best leafs owner isn't it?

[Tha Cynic]

Fantastic news for the Raptors who have been a mediocre cycle for almost a half decade now. Ed has put a ton of money into the Blue Jays/SkyDome in recent years.

There’s also no way he will continue paying Masai Ujiri that much to make mistake after mistake in basketball operations given their history. We may finally get some real much needed change in the front office again.

Ah yes, the guy who has been paying Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins since 2016 to deliver season after season of mediocrity will be committed to turning the Raptors into a winning franchise again.

Jays weren’t mediocre from 2021-2023, they were one of the best teams in baseball and a lot of that was due to the unprecedented money he invested in the team.

And if he’s committed to getting rid of Masai (an objectively terrible basketball executive this decade by any standard), that’s honestly the best start any Raptors fan could hope for. We could easily have been stuck with him for another half decade given 2019 if this didn’t happen.

The Blue Jays can spend more. The Raptors can't. Rogers can't just throw money at the Raptors and hope they get better with the aprons. Who Rogers hires to run their team will have a huge impact and Rogers so far has proven to be terrible at it, and has even gone so far as to let that mediocrity continue. Shapiro joined the Blue Jays and scolded AA for trading away prospects. Meanwhile Atkins has built a team that can't win a single game in the playoffs and has one of the worst farm systems in the league and he's still here.

[Scase]

You think he tried to win last season? Hired a rookie euro coach who moved our best player off ball. You call that doing everything to win?

You think that trading for established players instead of picks and prospects is trying to lose? Masai is doing what he is always doing, re-tooling on the fly and trying to lay tracks as the train is running, don't be obtuse, you've been watching him for over a decade now.

We are not arguing whether he's retooling or tanking. But here you go again shifting goal posts.

I'm done.

It's not moving goalposts, tanking is a blatant "trying to lose" method. Retooling is absolutely a "not trying to lose" method. You can't possibly suggest what we are doing currently and have been for years, is intentionally losing. That's absurd.

[Randle McMurphy]

Ah yes, the guy who has been paying Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins since 2016 to deliver season after season of mediocrity will be committed to turning the Raptors into a winning franchise again.

Jays weren’t mediocre from 2021-2023, they were one of the best teams in baseball and a lot of that was due to the unprecedented money he invested in the team.

And if he’s committed to getting rid of Masai (an objectively terrible basketball executive this decade by any standard), that’s honestly the best start any Raptors fan could hope for. We could easily have been stuck with him for another half decade given 2019 if this didn’t happen.

The Blue Jays can spend more. The Raptors can't. Rogers can't just throw money at the Raptors and hope they get better with the aprons. Who Rogers hires to run their team will have a huge impact and Rogers so far has proven to be terrible at it, and has even gone so far as to let that mediocrity continue. Shapiro joined the Blue Jays and scolded AA for trading away prospects. Meanwhile Atkins has built a team that can't win a single game in the playoffs and has one of the worst farm systems in the league and he's still here.

The Jays have been nowhere near as bad as you are attempting to portray in recent years (there were a top 5-10 team in MLB for three years straight before 2024), but that is really besides the point that is being made here. I'll take just about anybody over what Masai Ujiri has done with this team this decade and I'm not sure why anybody else wouldn't either. His firing is necessary for this organization to finally move on from this administration and the past and Ed Rogers is perhaps the only one willing to actually do it.

[Randle McMurphy]

You think that trading for established players instead of picks and prospects is trying to lose? Masai is doing what he is always doing, re-tooling on the fly and trying to lay tracks as the train is running, don't be obtuse, you've been watching him for over a decade now.

We are not arguing whether he's retooling or tanking. But here you go again shifting goal posts.

I'm done.

It's not moving goalposts, tanking is a blatant "trying to lose" method. Retooling is absolutely a "not trying to lose" method. You can't possibly suggest what we are doing currently and have been for years, is intentionally losing. That's absurd.

Even if it was, Masai's failed at that task too.

But he very clearly has been trying to win with this team this decade and I have no idea why.