Breaking: Rogers Aquires Bell Stake In MLSE

[causal_fan]

If TSN keeps broadcasting half the games as I think I read early in the thread, I wonder if any of their on air people will be more apt to criticize the team when Bell is no longer part owner.

I don't think so - firstly, few rights holder will belittle the product they are showcasing and also the 20 year agreement for TSN is probably written in pencil from what I've read so Rogers can take away.

[Michael Bradley]

Since 2000, when Rogers acquired the Jays, the team has made the playoffs 5* times. They won two playoff series during that span.

*One of those five times was during the 60-game COVID-shortened season when the team was barely hovering above .500 with a negative run differential and would have certainly missed the playoffs during a full length season.

And even when Ed lucked out into a good FO, he botched it by forcing them out.

People crying about the state of the Raptors right now either don't remember how difficult being a Blue Jays fan over the last 25 years has been, or they choose not to remember. It's comical to think that the family (now headed by the idiot son) who ran that dumpster fire for 25 years are somehow competent owners all of a sudden.

It's fine to decry the state of the Raptors right now (I actively complain about this team). But to think that Ed Rogers is this team's saviour is so deluded I can't believe the posts aren't made in jest.

On the morning of July 29 2015, the Jays under AA were 446-465 in his tenure with 0 playoff appearances and 0 seasons above 85 wins. He then traded 12 prospects at the deadline to build what was essentially a 15 month competitive window when he already had one foot out the door. At what point was Ed not justified in looking for a replacement front office? He had already hired Shapiro by August of that year, which was before that magical 2 months to end 2015 concluded. It's not like the Jays finished 2015, and then Ed started a search for new front office. He did it when it looked like the team was going to miss the playoffs again and AA was already a lame duck hired by the president who was leaving (Beeston). A lot of revisionist history with AA's departure.

The team that AA built was old and expensive with nothing in the upper minors to supplement it. If you think the farm system now is bad, it was worse by the end of 2015 since Vlad was 17 and just signed. If Rogers had kept AA and given him more power, the team still would have had to rebuild in 2017-19 like it did with Shatkins. Only difference is AA wouldn't have been able to work with the Dodgers for 2 years (which likely helped him become a better GM) and he wouldn't have inherited Freeman, Acuna, Albies, Fried, etc, like he did in Atlanta. He would have had to develop those players himself, which he wasn't very successful with in Toronto.

Ed being the Raptors "savior", which I don't think anyone has argued, is just as hyperbolic as "Ed is going destroy this org because he did it with the Jays". I'd argue the latter is more hyperbolic between the two options.

He hired Mark Shapiro, a guy who led the Indians, in the weak AL Central, to 3 playoff appearances in 15 years (his first playoff appearance was in his first season when he inherited a 90-win team). That's not the executive you hire if you care about winning.

And Shapiro is currently in year 9 of his tenure with the Jays. The Jays have 0 playoff wins since dismantling AA's team in 2017 and are now also sitting on a depleted farm system. Ed isn't looking to replace him.

It's very clear to anyone looking at this objectively that Ed isn't serious about winning.

Shapiro inherited a team in Cleveland that was old, at the end of their competitive window, and had to shed salary. Not unlike the situation he inherited in Toronto except he was able to squeeze one more competitive season out of a group that was on its last legs here before he had to pivot. He started a rebuild in Cleveland in his first season there and within 3 years got them back to 93 wins (didn't make the playoffs), and then two years after that went to Game 7 of the ALCS (which is further than AA's Jays ever went). I'm not going to sit here and pretend his Cleveland tenure was great, it wasn't, but we are comparing that to what AA did in Toronto, and I don't see how one is all that different from the other. Certainly not enough to say that Rogers didn't care about winning by making that move.

Also, again, the playoffs in MLB are a crapshoot. The Braves team that won the World Series in 2021 with AA as GM was objectively far worse than the 2021 Jays team that missed the playoffs entirely, and likely the worst playoff team that year. They just got hot at the right time. The 2022 and 2023 Braves teams were arguably the best teams in baseball those two years, and went a combined 2-6 in the post season without getting out of the first round. That's just the way it goes. The Jays under Shapiro have not had that randomness fall in their favor. That doesn't mean that they didn't build good teams.

It's certainly possible that Ed makes a bad hire to replace Masai. I'm not saying he won't. The way he handled things before Shapiro was hired wasn't exactly something to inspire faith, but everything he's done since hiring Shapiro points to someone who is dedicated to building a winner, whether it be with payroll, stadium renovations, etc. Rogers as a whole certainly wasn't doing those things 10 years ago.

[YogurtProducer]

Masai-haters just have way to high of expectations of perfection and use nothing but hindsight to make their opinion known (or have been calling for a tank every year for a decade outside of the 10 months we had Kawhi and are finally "right")

This is what the Masaiah part of this board always falls back to: "It's all hindsight!". Just because you weren't smart enough to realize it at the time doesn't mean the rest of us weren't. You're projecting what your own view of things was back then onto us.

For the record I wanted us to trade Pascal in 2021, I thought we should have taken the Golden State deal and I wasn't alone with this opinion at the time. In 2022 I knew we weren't in great shape in spite of the 48 win season because I saw it was smoke and mirrors and the team was terrible on offence, no high efficiency scoring, not enough three point shooting, no real centre, it was unsustainable with no clear path to improve with Pascal/Fred/Scottie as our highest usage players all being medium efficiency at best. I was right, that wasn't hindsight. In 2023 I knew trading for Jak was a massive mistake the day it was done as did many on this board because the fit was bad (no floor spacing or shot creation for a team desperate for both, can't have a starting frontcourt with zero 3 point shooters), that wasn't hindsight.

Masai continues to make own goals and the overall plan is to construct team mid that peaks as first round and out in order to save his job, every reasonable poster here knows that now. Mercifully he doesn't have much time left, 2 years before his contract is up and I suspect that the MLSE board will start limiting the moves he can make, he'll need board approval for any major transactions or decisions going forward.

Moving on from an executive who did great things for your franchise in the past isn't some kind of decision no other NBA team makes. The Celtics let Danny Ainge go to the Jazz and they just won the NBA title, they realized that Ainge was becoming more of a liability than an asset as GM in spite of the incredible deals he made to get them a team built around Tatum and Brown, they had no issue replacing him with Brad Stevens which has paid off for them.

I am talking about those guys who have been calling for tanks for a decade.

What is with guys like you who need to say stuff like "I am smarter than you". Reeks of insecurity.

[ciueli]

Masai-haters just have way to high of expectations of perfection and use nothing but hindsight to make their opinion known (or have been calling for a tank every year for a decade outside of the 10 months we had Kawhi and are finally "right")

This is what the Masaiah part of this board always falls back to: "It's all hindsight!". Just because you weren't smart enough to realize it at the time doesn't mean the rest of us weren't. You're projecting what your own view of things was back then onto us.

For the record I wanted us to trade Pascal in 2021, I thought we should have taken the Golden State deal and I wasn't alone with this opinion at the time. In 2022 I knew we weren't in great shape in spite of the 48 win season because I saw it was smoke and mirrors and the team was terrible on offence, no high efficiency scoring, not enough three point shooting, no real centre, it was unsustainable with no clear path to improve with Pascal/Fred/Scottie as our highest usage players all being medium efficiency at best. I was right, that wasn't hindsight. In 2023 I knew trading for Jak was a massive mistake the day it was done as did many on this board because the fit was bad (no floor spacing or shot creation for a team desperate for both, can't have a starting frontcourt with zero 3 point shooters), that wasn't hindsight.

Masai continues to make own goals and the overall plan is to construct team mid that peaks as first round and out in order to save his job, every reasonable poster here knows that now. Mercifully he doesn't have much time left, 2 years before his contract is up and I suspect that the MLSE board will start limiting the moves he can make, he'll need board approval for any major transactions or decisions going forward.

Moving on from an executive who did great things for your franchise in the past isn't some kind of decision no other NBA team makes. The Celtics let Danny Ainge go to the Jazz and they just won the NBA title, they realized that Ainge was becoming more of a liability than an asset as GM in spite of the incredible deals he made to get them a team built around Tatum and Brown, they had no issue replacing him with Brad Stevens which has paid off for them.

I am talking about those guys who have been calling for tanks for a decade.

What is with guys like you who need to say stuff like "I am smarter than you". Reeks of insecurity.

What is it about guys like you who need to say "No one could have seen that coming"? Reeks of insecurity because you can't understand that, yes, actually many of us saw this coming even if you didn't. Bringing this up is not insecurity, it's frustration than we knew the team was headed down the wrong path, our pleas to do something about it and head in a different direction fell on deaf ears, and now here we are in no-mans land with no quick way back to a watchable team. It's been 3 years of me and others warning we were headed here, but all the while all of you guys were dismissing what we said and saying we just needed to trust Masai and everything would be fine. Masai himself admitted he was wrong, I don't know why you can't.

[YogurtProducer]

This is what the Masaiah part of this board always falls back to: "It's all hindsight!". Just because you weren't smart enough to realize it at the time doesn't mean the rest of us weren't. You're projecting what your own view of things was back then onto us.

For the record I wanted us to trade Pascal in 2021, I thought we should have taken the Golden State deal and I wasn't alone with this opinion at the time. In 2022 I knew we weren't in great shape in spite of the 48 win season because I saw it was smoke and mirrors and the team was terrible on offence, no high efficiency scoring, not enough three point shooting, no real centre, it was unsustainable with no clear path to improve with Pascal/Fred/Scottie as our highest usage players all being medium efficiency at best. I was right, that wasn't hindsight. In 2023 I knew trading for Jak was a massive mistake the day it was done as did many on this board because the fit was bad (no floor spacing or shot creation for a team desperate for both, can't have a starting frontcourt with zero 3 point shooters), that wasn't hindsight.

Masai continues to make own goals and the overall plan is to construct team mid that peaks as first round and out in order to save his job, every reasonable poster here knows that now. Mercifully he doesn't have much time left, 2 years before his contract is up and I suspect that the MLSE board will start limiting the moves he can make, he'll need board approval for any major transactions or decisions going forward.

Moving on from an executive who did great things for your franchise in the past isn't some kind of decision no other NBA team makes. The Celtics let Danny Ainge go to the Jazz and they just won the NBA title, they realized that Ainge was becoming more of a liability than an asset as GM in spite of the incredible deals he made to get them a team built around Tatum and Brown, they had no issue replacing him with Brad Stevens which has paid off for them.

I am talking about those guys who have been calling for tanks for a decade.

What is with guys like you who need to say stuff like "I am smarter than you". Reeks of insecurity.

What is it about guys like you who need to say "No one could have seen that coming"? Reeks of insecurity because you can't understand that, yes, actually many of us saw this coming even if you didn't. Bringing this up is not insecurity, it's frustration than we knew the team was headed down the wrong path, our pleas to do something about it and head in a different direction fell on deaf ears, and now here we are in no-mans land with no quick way back to a watchable team. It's been 3 years of me and others warning we were headed here, but all the while all of you guys were dismissing what we said and saying we just needed to trust Masai and everything would be fine. Masai himself admitted he was wrong, I don't know why you can't.

Who said "no one could have seen that coming" or are you making up narratives that do not exist?

I just don't care if you say "we knew it was going down the wrong path". Y'all said this same thing from 2014 to 2018 as well. And you were wrong. You complain about the same **** long enough eventually you might end up right.

And we are right - we are fine. Maybe two/three years behind what you guys want, but tanking/rebuilding in 2024 or doing so in 2022 has very little difference. You can tear down and rebuild at any time. You cant get quality players whenever you want.

Keep twisting peoples narratives so you can argue against something that does not exist

[douggood]

per elliot friedman on his podcast
- bell approached rogers about a potential sale in aug
- bell and rogers had to agree to everything (larry Tanenbaum was not a tie breaker as people seemed to think on this board)
- larry tanenbaum might agree to sell before the 2026 trigger date

[ciueli]

I am talking about those guys who have been calling for tanks for a decade.

What is with guys like you who need to say stuff like "I am smarter than you". Reeks of insecurity.

What is it about guys like you who need to say "No one could have seen that coming"? Reeks of insecurity because you can't understand that, yes, actually many of us saw this coming even if you didn't. Bringing this up is not insecurity, it's frustration than we knew the team was headed down the wrong path, our pleas to do something about it and head in a different direction fell on deaf ears, and now here we are in no-mans land with no quick way back to a watchable team. It's been 3 years of me and others warning we were headed here, but all the while all of you guys were dismissing what we said and saying we just needed to trust Masai and everything would be fine. Masai himself admitted he was wrong, I don't know why you can't.

Who said "no one could have seen that coming" or are you making up narratives that do not exist?

I just don't care if you say "we knew it was going down the wrong path". Y'all said this same thing from 2014 to 2018 as well. And you were wrong. You complain about the same **** long enough eventually you might end up right.

This is what you guys always do. I was not on team tank until after:
1) Masai traded Norm, even then I still thought maybe Gary Trent would fill in ok for him and we could get a stretch centre and make it work.
2) We drafted Scottie. Once that happened, I knew 100% that Pascal's days were numbered, Scottie was going to replace him if he panned out and we knew halfway through season 1 he was going to pan out.

So no, I wasn't asking Masai to sell off everyone in 2014, in fact I was horrified he tried to trade Kyle for freaking Raymond Felton and a bad draft pick, we lucked out that James Dolan was so tired of getting fleeced by Masai that he said no to his opportunity to fleece Masai.

And we are right - we are fine. Maybe two/three years behind what you guys want, but tanking/rebuilding in 2024 or doing so in 2022 has very little difference. You can tear down and rebuild at any time. You cant get quality players whenever you want.

Wrong, it makes a huge difference because every year we take to rebuild now is another year of Scottie's prime we piss away. Yeah, he seems young now, but what happens if we don't get that second star for a few years, then it takes 3+ years for that second star to develop properly and be ready to win? Do you think Scottie is going to want to hang around for 5+ years just waiting for a young guy to develop? Did Vince wait for Bosh to become a perennial All-Star? Did Bosh wait for DeMar and Kyle to become All-Stars? The answer probably won't be yes, these guys have short careers and they don't want to spend their prime years waiting for help that might never come.

[YogurtProducer]

What is it about guys like you who need to say "No one could have seen that coming"? Reeks of insecurity because you can't understand that, yes, actually many of us saw this coming even if you didn't. Bringing this up is not insecurity, it's frustration than we knew the team was headed down the wrong path, our pleas to do something about it and head in a different direction fell on deaf ears, and now here we are in no-mans land with no quick way back to a watchable team. It's been 3 years of me and others warning we were headed here, but all the while all of you guys were dismissing what we said and saying we just needed to trust Masai and everything would be fine. Masai himself admitted he was wrong, I don't know why you can't.

Who said "no one could have seen that coming" or are you making up narratives that do not exist?

I just don't care if you say "we knew it was going down the wrong path". Y'all said this same thing from 2014 to 2018 as well. And you were wrong. You complain about the same **** long enough eventually you might end up right.

This is what you guys always do. I was not on team tank until after:
1) Masai traded Norm, even then I still thought maybe Gary Trent would fill in ok for him and we could get a stretch centre and make it work.
2) We drafted Scottie. Once that happened, I knew 100% that Pascal's days were numbered, Scottie was going to replace him if he panned out and we knew halfway through season 1 he was going to pan out.

So no, I wasn't asking Masai to sell off everyone in 2014, in fact I was horrified he tried to trade Kyle for freaking Raymond Felton and a bad draft pick, we lucked out that James Dolan was so tired of getting fleeced by Masai that he said no to his opportunity to fleece Masai.

And we are right - we are fine. Maybe two/three years behind what you guys want, but tanking/rebuilding in 2024 or doing so in 2022 has very little difference. You can tear down and rebuild at any time. You cant get quality players whenever you want.

Wrong, it makes a huge difference because every year we take to rebuild now is another year of Scottie's prime we piss away. Yeah, he seems young now, but what happens if we don't get that second star for a few years, then it takes 3+ years for that second star to develop properly and be ready to win? Do you think Scottie is going to want to hang around for 5+ years just waiting for a young guy to develop? Did Vince wait for Bosh to become a perennial All-Star? Did Bosh wait for DeMar and Kyle to become All-Stars? The answer probably won't be yes, these guys have short careers and they don't want to spend their prime years waiting for help that might never come.

What if Barnes does not pan out like this if he starts his career on a 20-win team?

What if we started tanking when you wanted (2022 draft) and we drafted Jaden Ivey, Ausar Thompson, and Ron Holland (aka - exactly what happened to DET due to bad lottery luck).

What if, what if, what if.

Reality is - you act as if there was no upside to trying to win in 2022 and it was a foregone conclusion we should have tanked. That is the issue here - the absolute inability to admit that just because the team did not work out it was absolutely clear that was the case. No - it was not absolutely clear. After winning 48 games in 2021/22 with a team that included a 20 year old Barnes, and no one over the age of 27, it was absolutely not clear that team would be below .500 the next season.

This is what people say about hindsight. Y'all LOVE to use it.

[ATLTimekeeper]

per elliot friedman on his podcast
- bell approached rogers about a potential sale in aug
- bell and rogers had to agree to everything (larry Tanenbaum was not a tie breaker as people seemed to think on this board)
- larry tanenbaum might agree to sell before the 2026 trigger date

I thought that was well known. Anyway, I don't think people really understand how challenging that clause could be to run a functional sports organization. That they had to achieve consensus gave both parties leverage. They could run out the clock on decisions if they weren't getting their way.

Doug Smith seems to think the tensions between Ed and Masai have mellowed, but that Masai will likely vault himself into another gig down the road. I read that as coming from the horse's mouth, and think that means that Masai and Ed are content to leave the team as status quo until his contract runs out. The expectation of the team is low. There's not much time left on his deal. It will take some time to get the deal finalized. This is Masai's window to surpass expectation, if he wants to remain here.

[ciueli]

Who said "no one could have seen that coming" or are you making up narratives that do not exist?

I just don't care if you say "we knew it was going down the wrong path". Y'all said this same thing from 2014 to 2018 as well. And you were wrong. You complain about the same **** long enough eventually you might end up right.

This is what you guys always do. I was not on team tank until after:
1) Masai traded Norm, even then I still thought maybe Gary Trent would fill in ok for him and we could get a stretch centre and make it work.
2) We drafted Scottie. Once that happened, I knew 100% that Pascal's days were numbered, Scottie was going to replace him if he panned out and we knew halfway through season 1 he was going to pan out.

So no, I wasn't asking Masai to sell off everyone in 2014, in fact I was horrified he tried to trade Kyle for freaking Raymond Felton and a bad draft pick, we lucked out that James Dolan was so tired of getting fleeced by Masai that he said no to his opportunity to fleece Masai.

And we are right - we are fine. Maybe two/three years behind what you guys want, but tanking/rebuilding in 2024 or doing so in 2022 has very little difference. You can tear down and rebuild at any time. You cant get quality players whenever you want.

Wrong, it makes a huge difference because every year we take to rebuild now is another year of Scottie's prime we piss away. Yeah, he seems young now, but what happens if we don't get that second star for a few years, then it takes 3+ years for that second star to develop properly and be ready to win? Do you think Scottie is going to want to hang around for 5+ years just waiting for a young guy to develop? Did Vince wait for Bosh to become a perennial All-Star? Did Bosh wait for DeMar and Kyle to become All-Stars? The answer probably won't be yes, these guys have short careers and they don't want to spend their prime years waiting for help that might never come.

What if Barnes does not pan out like this if he starts his career on a 20-win team?

What if we started tanking when you wanted (2022 draft) and we drafted Jaden Ivey, Ausar Thompson, and Ron Holland (aka - exactly what happened to DET due to bad lottery luck).

What if, what if, what if.

Reality is - you act as if there was no upside to trying to win in 2022 and it was a foregone conclusion we should have tanked. That is the issue here - the absolute inability to admit that just because the team did not work out it was absolutely clear that was the case. No - it was not absolutely clear. After winning 48 games in 2021/22 with a team that included a 20 year old Barnes, and no one over the age of 27, it was absolutely not clear that team would be below .500 the next season.

This is what people say about hindsight. Y'all LOVE to use it.

We already went over this, you're desperately clinging to this idea that none of this could be foreseen even though it was clear at the time to anyone paying attention. The only reason the 2021-2022 Raptors won 48 games was absences of key players on other teams, it was a weird year due to the lingering effects of COVID. Brooklyn was without Kyrie Irving for most of the season due to his unvaccinated status, and they lost Kevin Durant for a bunch of games. Conveniently for the Raptors, two of those games were back-to-back wins where the Nets' best player was basically Seth Curry.

The Raptors that season also won games against the Cavs (no Jarrett Allen), the Clippers twice (no Kawhi or Paul George either time), Nuggets (no Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, or Michael Porter Jr.), Celtics (no Brown or Tatum), Lakers (no Anthony Davis), Warriors (no Steph/Klay/Dray), and two games against the Bucks (no Giannis either time).

If you thought that record was truly indicative of how good the team was, it's obvious you weren't paying attention or maybe didn't even watch the games at all. I certainly watched those games so I know how empty that record was, a bunch of wins against good teams missing their stars, it wasn't surprising in the slightest that the 2022-23 Raptors didn't have close to the level of success even with the Jakob Poeltl trade as a desperate attempt to prop things up.

And that's the BS season our front office used to justify keeping the core of Pascal, Fred, OG, and Scottie. Those of us without rose-coloured glasses on understood that the Pascal + Scottie pairing was never going to work, that there was going to have to be a hard decision made between them at some point, but the front office decided to kick the can down the road and be wilfully blind while you guys just kept drinking the Kool-Aid they were brewing.

[dTox]

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[PushDaRock]

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hooooo man he stay

[Raptorfan2012]

Masai and Ed Roger haters are all in shambles. Shows us we know nothing about the board room politics going on.

[kalel123]

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Could be 100% true. But then, we've also seen NBA execs say he stay and then he gone the next day way too many times to put too much weight on it. Whatever's gotta happen will happen.

[Ado05]

There’s about a 0% chance Masai can justify being one of the highest paid sports execs in the world. He gone regardless. Unless he wants to take a pay cut.

[Scase]

Masai and Ed Roger haters are all in shambles. Shows us we know nothing about the board room politics going on.

No one here has any clue of the actual relationship or anything that goes on behind the scenes with them for sure. But this means nothing, what's he gonna do, come out publicly and say they hate each others guts?

I still think Masai is out after this contract, if for no other reason, it's probably to go do GoA stuff full-time, or move with Larry T to the rumoured new NBA team with Lebron etc.

I'd be surprised if he was still here after his current contract is up.

[Phezmo123]

Masai said a lot more than I expected re. the MLSE ownership change. Completely shut down the narratives.

[Raps in 4]

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Masai is all business. He isn't going to air their dirty laundry.

[OakleyDokely]

There’s about a 0% chance Masai can justify being one of the highest paid sports execs in the world. He gone regardless. Unless he wants to take a pay cut.

Most of the top execs and coaches in the league now make 10-15 mill a year.

Masai's salary isn't abnormal for NBA standards, let alone global standards. Management salaries have gone up like player salaries have.

Doc freakin Rivers just signed for 10 mill a year.

If you want want to hire established talent, you need to pay.

[WuTang_CMB]

ya thought masai handled it well