Tag: observations

WWE Evolution 2: I think that was the greatest women’s match in company history

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I closed my laptop after the show because I was watching on my laptop because Peacock on XBOX sucks and doesn’t let me rewind because I can’t watch live events live because I have kids and it conflicts with their bedtime routine so I always have to start all the PPVs PLEs late, and I said to mythical wife, who humors me and knows a little bit about professional wrestling in her own right; I think that might have been the greatest women’s match in WWE history.

Obviously, I’m talking about the World Championship match between Iyo Sky vs. Rhea Ripley that closed out Evolution 2, where [spoiler alert that doesn’t matter because I have zero readers] Naomi ended up winning the match and the World Championship when she cashed in Money in the Bank and committed the heist of the century of the women’s division.

I’m not even mad about the ending, with Naomi sneaking in at the end and doing what she did, because it was logical, it made sense, and in the context of WWE canon, why the fuck shouldn’t she have done what she did, preying on two superstars who had just put on a legitimate match of the year contender and were spent and exhausted and easy pickings?

Everything about the whole main event to Evolution 2 was outstanding; frankly, the whole show deserves its flowers, considering the tremendous amount of adversity it faced, but the main event was honestly, in my opinion, not just the best WWE match I’ve seen all year, but as far as from their women’s division goes, I am hard pressed to say that it’s genuinely the greatest WWE women’s match in company history.

Which is really funny considering I believed that the company put the match on the card as a panic move when Liv Morgan dislocated her shoulder, because it seemed like the card was going to be built around her vs. Nikki Bella in a battle of eras.  There was no inkling of seeds that Iyo Sky was going to go against Rhea Ripley, and the match literally came to fruition barely two weeks prior, to which I think was a complete in case of emergency break glass moment by the WWE when they realized that they had literally no marquee matchup for Evolution 2 anymore.

Honestly, the whole show was a masterclass of taking chicken shit and making it into chicken salad in my opinion.  I said back in 2018 that the original Evolution absolutely had to be the best PPV of the year, considering the historical impact of being women-only, in a massively male dominated industry.  For the most part I think they succeeded, seeing as how Becky Lynch and Charlotte saw to it, with their incredible last-woman standing match, but they also had a lot of build-up, a stacked card, and very apparent careful planning that went behind it.

Evolution 2 was announced quite a while ago, but there was almost no buildup for it.  For all the flack that TKO gets as being money grubbing, it felt as if the event was announced as a cash grab, banking on fans to just throw their money at it no matter what, solely because it was WWE.  Packaged into a whole weekend of wrestling in Atlanta, it was the third show following NXT’s Great American Bash, and Saturday Night’s Main Event, and they arrogantly pulled the bullshit of only selling tickets in egregiously priced two-event packages at first, before realizing sales weren’t what they were hoping for, and then bringing things (slowly) back to earth.

However again, despite the cards being built for NXT and SNME, Evolution 2 hardly had any proper build-up, and matches started forming in manner that was reminiscent of a slacking student realizing they have an assignment due, but they waited until the last minute to start it.  The one thing they really tried to get started with, with Liv Morgan assaulting Nikki Bella immediately went off the rails when Liv got legitimately hurt, and then they put the whole event on the shelf to further kowtow to their Saudi overlords, and then started to start flinging shit on the wall after the gross Saudi version of Money in the Bank.

Fewer things say, “we didn’t plan for anything, but we want to include as much talent as we can” than a battle royale, which helped fill out a talent sheet for the event, but then the rest of the matches just started filling in, in really clunky manner.  Naomi vs. Jade Cargill, Becky/Bayley and Lyra for the women’s Intercontinental, a four-team clusterfuck for the women’s tag blets, an NXT Women’s championship match, and Tiffany Stratton vs. Trish Stratus?  Like really, how much lead time was Trish Stratus given before she knew she’d be thrust into duty?

So yeah, obviously Iyo vs. Rhea was put on the card to be the one obvious hard carry, that was going to rescue the show if it was bad, or put the exclamation point on a show if it had been good leading up to it.

And in spite of the clunky booking, in spite of the concern of wrestling fan burnout from a full weekend of shows before Evolution 2.  In spite of the Beyonce concert next door at the Mercedes Benz Arena, and in spite of MLB All-Star Weekend taking place 9 miles north on I-75, Evolution 2, fucking delivered.

This is why I have keen interest in women’s wrestling; not just because so many women are easy on the eyes, and not just because as a father to daughters, it’s important to me to see women get their chance to succeed and thrive.  It’s that the women always, always have to perform in manner that is fighting an uphill battle, fighting to prove something, because unfortunately, this is just something that they always have to do, in a male dominated industry in a male dominated world.

I’ve been watching wrestling long enough to have witnessed all sorts of talents come and go, and believe me, it’s really easy to pick out the guys who really genuinely care about the business versus the ones who are tourists and are hoping to parlay success in wrestling into other careers.  And these days, with as much infrastructure there is in the industry, a lot of the tourists get weeded out before the mainstream can get to see them, and by the time we get to events like Evolution, it’s definitely more all hands on deck of people who not only want to be there, but want to give their best and prove that they belong.

But for the sake of not turning this entire post into a love letter to each and every match, I want to get back to the Iyo vs. Rhea match, because as I stated before, this match was not only the best match on the card, it was honestly one of the best matches I’ve seen all year, and as far as I’m concerned, I’m going to say that it was the greatest women’s match in WWE history.

Yes, better than Bayley vs. Sasha’s Iron Woman match, better than the Four Horsewomen-four corners match.  Better than Charlotte/Becky/Sasha for the inaugural WWE women’s championship.  Better than Trish Stratus and Lita’s first-ever women’s main event match, and leaps, bounds and galaxies better than just about everything in the Divas’ era.

It had everything from a compelling base story, with the whole Rhea has never beaten Iyo narrative.  Both put on their carry shoes and delivered a match that had everything from a respectful start, technical prowess, near falls, digging deep into their arsenals.  An extremely rare female referee bump from Jessika Carr, which most internet geeks know is a wrestler herself, so she sold it like a million bucks, which led to a brutal brawl outside the ring which saw some crazy bumps and spots.

And when the action came back into the ring, there were a few more crazy spots and near falls, and a great Spanish fly spot so late in the game, massive respect to both workers for executing it.  Of course, there was always the possibility that Naomi could show up, but I was actually predicting it would happen shortly after the match, but when she did, it was still a surprise, because the match was still in progress.

When Naomi completed the heist, I wasn’t even mad, because I’ve always been a supporter of Naomi specifically because I respect her as a worker, and I’m happy for her to reach the top of the mountain, especially after the years of shit she had to trudge through with her Sasha-led abandonment of the company a few years ago.

Everything about the match was outstanding.  The work from Iyo and Rhea, the performances of their selling and storytelling.  The drama of a ref bump, and the brawl that occurred with no supervision.  Iyo hitting her moonsault and Rhea kicking out.  Rhea desperately trying to land a Riptide with the ref in play.  Naomi cashing in, and completely saving the heat that all but ensures the Iyo and Rhea rivalry will have yet another chapter in the future with the original narrative completely intact.

I loved everything about it.  I was entertained, I was thrilled, and even a jaded smark like me felt like a true fan again, throwing my hands up at near falls and covering my mouth and going OHHH at some of the impressive spots.

This was truly the greatest women’s match in WWE history, and I will die on this hill.  It is a front-runner for WWE match of the year as far as I’m concerned, and in the future when we talk about stalwart matches of history, Iyo and Rhea deserve a chance to plead their case.

Does this mean I’m fatphobic?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, I went to a wrestling show with some friends.  Not just any show, but a WWE show – NXT’s Great American Bash to be specific.  It was the first of three shows the E was running in Atlanta over the weekend, and although I was interested in either of the other two shows, GAB won out because:

  • NXT is the most fun brand in the company
  • I could only really afford tickets to one show
  • It was held at Center Stage, which is basically my all-time favorite place to watch wrestling; I would watch a show put on by Somali pirates if it were held at Center Stage

All shade about the WWE, their parent company TKO and their predatory decimation of the fan experience aside, I was looking forward to this show a lot, because I’ve always had good experiences with NXT, I always love watching wrestling at Center Stage, and it was a small reprieve from parenting for an afternoon with some friends.

The show itself was decent; a little below my expectations as far as NXT goes, not to mention this was technically a PLE, which meant that I would’ve expected a little bit more.  But considering how much B-or lower tier wrestling I see in this building, the level of polish from a WWE show is evident.

However, my biggest complaint of the whole event and getting to the point of this post was simply the fact that I had the unfortunate misfortune to have been seated next to an extremely obese person whose body continuously transcended the boundaries of their own seat, and I had to spent nearly the entire show rubbing shoulders and legs with this person and it was rather unpleasant and had a tangible negative influence on my general enjoyment of the show outright.

Let me also point out that Center Stage was built in the 60s and hasn’t really changed much since then, meaning the seats haven’t been renovated and maximized like on an airplane, meaning reduced in order to shoehorn as many people in as possible.  They’re actually very generous and comfortable seats, when seated next to ordinary human beings.  Just for context at being able to picture the size of the person that effectively put a damper on my entire experience.

Now before anyone can immediately accuse me of being a fatphobic asshole, I do believe large people have the same rights as everyone else.  They shouldn’t be denied the ability to enjoy things like live experiences and travel because of their size.

However, I do think that society has been way too quick to deem obesity and all other forms of habits of excess as, addiction, and labeling addiction as a disease, instead of what I think it is, bad habits gone rampant with those with them lacking the willpower and fortitude to try and break them.  The fat guy seated next to me wasn’t fat because he has the disease of addiction, he’s fat because like so many stereotypical wrestling fans, he’s a guy who doesn’t exercise, watches too much tv and eats way too much shitty food, and is completely at peace with such lifestyle.

When my friends and I got inside the arena and we were heading up to our seats, I knew it was going to be unpleasant when we got to our row, and he was sitting in one our seats, because the friend he came with was also a big guy, and in typical bro mentality, if you can give a bro space, you give a bro space, but this was a WWE show that was known to be 95%+ sold out.  He was quick to vacate and move to his actual seat and wasn’t a dick about it, but I knew that one of my party was going to have take one for the team and be the unfortunate one to have to sit next to him.

And seeing as how this show was my idea, and it had a way higher cost than what my friends were probably thinking, who aren’t nearly the wrestling fans that I am, I quickly decided that it should probably be me to be the one to eat the shit sandwich, because I’ll do my best to find enjoyment in the show itself, but I’d feel like shit if one of my friends who was probably more there to hang out and casually watch, had to be the one whose experience was ruined by having 3/5 of a seat to watch from.

If being pissed at having to sit next to a guy like this, oozing into my personal space makes me fatphobic, then I guess I am a little fatphobic after all, because there’s not one iota of me that doesn’t believe anyone, whether they believe that they’re fatphobic or not, wouldn’t be absolutely miserable in the conditions I was in. 

I paid a lot of money to go to an event I was really looking forward to, and my general enjoyment of the whole thing was completely sandbagged by virtue of having to sit next to a morbidly obese person whose physical mass was all up in my business for the entire show.

I know it sounds like a terrible, shitty thing to say or write out, but it’s the honest truth, and I don’t think many people in my circumstances would feel differently.  I do not hate the guy for being large, and he has every right to be there as all other paying attendees were.  But I am disappointed and upset with his life’s choices that led to him being the size he was, and disappointed that I was the poor unfortunate soul to have to end up sitting next to him.

I like to believe that I’m not a fatphobic person, seeing as how I could definitely afford to lose 30 pounds or so myself, but I’m also not going to lie and say that my experience at NXT wasn’t neutered by having the unpleasant feeling of a morbidly obese person all up in my space the entire show.  It sucks because this is one of those things that nothing can be done about, because it’s not like when you’re buying tickets for any sort of show, there’s specially designated sections for larger people.  It’s basically just a massive game of Russian Roulette whenever you purchase a seat(s) to anything, and pray that you’re not next to a large person.

And it’s shit like this that really makes me averse to leave the house, and go out and experience things.  Inevitably, other people have the ability to ruin everything, whether they’re doing it deliberately or not.  I maintain that there’s no better place to watch wrestling than at Center Stage, but after an experience like this one, I might have some pause the next time NXT rolls around, because it will be packed, it will be expensive, and my chances of ending up in a situation like this one are tremendously higher than any of the other lower-tier wrestling shows that’s book there.

Mickey 17 and the Korean curse of producing for The West

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of the things I watched during my staycation was Mickey 17, for really no other reason than it was directed by Bong Joon-ho. Parasite was truly a best picture, and I always exert a little more effort to support those from the Motherland, so I had high hopes for Mickey 17, being (I think) Bong’s return to the screens since Parasite.

When the film finally ended, I was left with this disappointed feeling, and worst of all, the feeling that I had wasted my precious time.  At 2:20, it’s what I would classify as “a long movie” and if I’m going to sink that much time into something, I’d hope it’s got some redeeming quality.

Like lots of films, I felt the film prioritized its named stars, leaning on Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie and Mark Ruffalo to hard carry the film in spite of the weak story, but obviously a film is only as good as its story, and the cast of the Avengers would struggle to make Mickey 17 decent.

Mythical wife, being a K-pop snob, had begun distancing herself from BTS fandom, once BTS really came into the global mainstream, and wasn’t just a niche phenomenon within Korea and those who knew them from long ago.  She cited that their sound had immediately morphed into a more vanilla, cookie cutter sound, clearly catered to wider, global audiences instead of sticking with the formula that made them who they are.

Frankly, this is nothing out of the ordinary, nor was it remotely surprising to me, because Korea has been notorious for changing shit up in all facets of media when it comes to seeking validation from The West, most specifically from America.

Once anything starts to receive any praise or acclaim from The West, Koreans have shown a tendency to lean hard into it and try to squeeze out more validation, even if it means compromising the foundations of said things.

Music, food and in the case of Mickey 17, film are all fair game when it comes to this general practice, and in the vast majority of cases, it doesn’t result in as much success as they hope it will, and they’ve compromised their concepts and alienated those who were fans before the mainstream rub.

Take Squid Game S3 for example; the first season was brilliant from nearly start to finish.  It couldn’t escape all Korean tropes but frankly those tropes really are things that make Korean media, Korean.  But when S2/3 came, I still enjoyed it, but there were clearly ideas incorporated into it that were clearly influenced by their knowledge that The West, would be watching.

Top from K-pop group Big Bang as the colorful Thanos, spouting horribly broken Engrish every chance he could, the ending that basically had kicked the door down that they want to go Westward Ho.

But nothing was more evident that they’re seeking Western acceptance than the character Hyun-ju, which most casual Americans simply recalled as “the trans one.”  It’s changed a little for the better these days, but LGBTQ+ concepts are still considered taboo and not nearly as accepted as they are in America.  Although I had no problem and appreciated Hyun-ju’s inclusion in Squid Game, there’s no part of me that believes such would have ever happened if not for the influence of potential Western viewers.  In this case it’s a positive result, but I still chalk it up as a decision made to appease The West.

The reason Parasite was so good was that it was inherently a film for Koreans, telling Korean stories and describing Korean struggles. It showed the cultural differences in setting and appearances but at the core of it, it’s a relatable story that sucked audiences from all over the globe in and deserved all the praise and accolade and the Oscar it got.

Mickey 17 was clearly made for The West, with its  Hollywood cast, and evident copious budget.  The core story was an interesting concept that provokes discussion about ethics and morality, but to me, it was like asking Bong Joon-ho to direct Starship Troopers or something out of his element.  It would be like asking Francis Ford Coppola to direct Parasite or something completely different than his own background and expecting it to be not full of holes as the result of cultural unfamiliarity.

Needless to say, in spite of energetic and enthusiastic performances by Pattinson and Ruffalo most notably, they couldn’t rescue a weak story.  Halfway through the film, I started to glaze, and by the time the last quarter was around, I was already dicking around on my phone and half listening.  And by the time the credits started rolling, the seed for this post had already been planted.

I mean, it’s a nigh impossible task to hit a home run after winning an Oscar, so it’s no surprise that Mickey 17 wasn’t that great. But considering the heights that Parasite climbed to, it’s extra disappointing to see just how far down Mickey 17 fell to.

Must every successful Korean thing get white people’d?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[This post is about Squid Game S3, there will likely be spoiler-ey words]

However, since I write for basically zero people, it’s merely a formality that has no real meaning.

Anyway, mythical wife and I just wrapped up watching S3 and the supposed finale to Squid Game, and I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about how the finale transpired and the events of the how it all wrapped up.  Fortunately for me, I managed to hold off on watching it for a few days and managed to not get spoiled along the way to which I am very grateful.

So, as far as S3 went, it was as well executed as I would have hoped it would be.  Frankly, the original season was great on its own, and I didn’t think it really needed to have a sequel season(s), but Netflix is rich as balls, money talks, and moar Squid Game we got.  Thankfully, the moar Squid Game was pretty decent as far as sequels go, and wasn’t just a shitty Ocean Twelve-like cash grab of a turd sequel, and although it wasn’t as flawless as the original was, and some Korean storytelling trope cracks did show, overall it was still well acted, visually compelling, and had a storyline that made sense for the most part.

Without giving too much away, one thing I found to be hilarious was when the VIPs showed up to the mysterious island of games, is just how poor the acting was from them.  It’s like Squid Game clearly is a global phenomenon that most any Hollywood A-lister would probably love to participate in, in a cameo capacity, and I imagine it wouldn’t be a difficult ask for any agent to get some known global stars to play the layup roles of the VIPs.

But instead, we get these no-name clown actors whose acting is terrible, and I can’t help that it was probably cast in such a way deliberately, so that the Korean showrunners could passively flex how great their Korean cast was compared to the scab foreign cast who couldn’t act their way out of a preschool play.

Anyway, as the final episode began winding down, I said to mythical wife, that I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the episode ended in an open-ended manner, because regardless of their association with Netflix, Korean television shows are notorious for always ending in open-ended manners, because they seem to always want to keep the door open for potential sequel seasons, spin-offs or moar content. 

No matter if this was supposed to be the final season of OG Squid Game, I wasn’t going to be surprised if the general plot was left with gaping holes for moar Squid Game to manifest in the future, because despite their massive steps forward culturally in some regards, Korean media can’t stop being so Korean in others.

[Okay, here come abject spoilers to those who might not have seen it]

Naturally, as all the arcs start wrapping up, there are massive hints that things aren’t going to be over when it comes to The Games, and the season wraps up with a teaser of a new, American, Recruiter character, played by none other than Cate Blanchett, goading some white bum in an alleyway in Los Angeles, in a game of all things, ddakji, leading to the obvious conclusion that Squid Games are most definitely not over, but are now beginning to take place internationally, most notably, America.

Mythical wife had already heard about news that there was going to be a Squid Game: America in the works, and I can’t say that I’m the least bit surprised, but at the same time, I’m also irritated that yet another successful Korean property is selling out for white people to white people all over it, and make their own variation of it.

It’s like Parasite, and the success and buzz of its rise to the top of the mountain couldn’t even cool off before news started swirling about how it was going to be remade by Americans, inevitably going to be cast with an entirely, for lack of a better phrase, deliberately forced woke DEI cast.

It’s like shows like Physical:100 and Culinary Class Wars and Street Food, that were so good in their original Korean iterations, but white people couldn’t just accept watching good television with subtitles on, so instead they just have all their shit remade for the comfort and convenience to white people.

I mean a story like Squid Game isn’t solely exclusive to Korea; despair, poverty, desperation, violence and empathy can be told in any nationality, so I’m sure Squid Game can easily be picked up by any other culture, even if it’s not white people, but it’s just the fact that white people are clearly so eager to white up the property, that they can’t even wait until the flowers for OG Squid Game to stop coming in before they shoe horn their own introduction into the ending of the finale, and set the stage for their impending colonization.

I digress though.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that bullshit, and even if the Squid Game creators resisted a white spinoff, white people would just inevitably just rip it off and release something on their own in the future anyway, so might as well have the Korean creators get the bag in the process of having their shit stolen.

It’s just obnoxious how often and how quickly Korean successes become marked for white people-ization, and as much as I loved Squid Game and the cultural phenomenon it became, it irked me to see just how fast white people had to inject their sniveling little tentacles into the property, and sour the general ending for me.

The 2025 MLB All-Dead Money Team, starring Stephen Strasburg

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I was putting together my annual Bobby Bonilla Day post, I noticed just how much retained/dead money salaries existed in the MLB ecosystem.  At first, I was going to add it onto the Bobby Bonilla Day post, but as I was typing away, I realized that it had some legs to stand on its own, so I decided to ultimately break it off and let it fly and artificially inflate my post count that doesn’t matter to anyone else on the planet but me.

So as kind of an addendum to the Bobby Bonilla Day post, the topic this post is retained salaries, which I like to simply consider, dead money.

While combing through salary information, I noticed almost as frequent amounts of cases of retained/dead money on most teams, and this is different from deferred money because these payment obligations are not predetermined and agreed upon so much as they’re salaries that teams agree to be responsible for in exchange for these talents to be cut and free up the roster space.

That being said, there were 24 players spanning 18 teams who are getting paid despite in most cases, not being on a Major League roster, or even actively playing at all.  Combing through the names and cases, there are typically two primary camps of retained/dead money: young prospects who clearly have savvy agents who managed to get them guaranteed salary numbers, but they proved to not be ready for the Major Leagues yet, got demoted or cut, but the team was still on the hook.  Or, there are veterans with substantial money, that in most cases, fell off a cliff, got injured, and the team preferred to cut them and eat the salary just to free up the roster spot.

Naturally, 24 players is almost a roster, so here we go again – the 2024 All-Retained, All-Dead Money Starting Lineup that actually has a catcher:

Pos. Name Salary Team Retired?
C Matt Thaiss † $100K CHW/LAA Active
1B Eric Hosmer † $17.9K BOS/SDP 2023
2B Isiah Kiner-Falefa $1.2 PIT Active
3B Nolan Arenado † $5.0M COL Active
SS Wander Franco $16.5 TBR 2023
OF Mitch Haniger $14.5M SEA Active
OF Cody Bellinger $2.5M CHC Active
OF Aaron Hicks $10.7M NYY 2024
DH Jose Abreu † $19.5M HOU 2024
SP Stephen Strasburg $35.0M WAS 2022
SP Nestor Cortes $2.0M NYY Active
RP Ryan Pressley $5.5M HOU Active
RP Taylor Rogers $6.0M SFG Active
Reserves
INF Andres Giminez $1.0M TOR Active
OF Jorge Soler $1.9M SFG Active

†denotes player receiving multiple paychecks

So as you might be able to see, there’s an absurd roster to be constructed from the dead money alone, and further illustrates the egregious amounts of financial waste that exists in the constructs of Major League Baseball, as well as professional sports itself.  Sure, nobody should be obligated to work for free, and I too believe in the idea of past services rendered pay, when players are generally paupers on their minors to majors journey, if they even make it, but there are some dudes who simply don’t need the money and should probably feel ashamed to be accepting it.

Of course, I’m mostly referring to pitcher Stephen Strasburg, who is going to be making $35M from the Washington Nationals (bringing their total sunk cost amount to $60M).  Yes, the man carried the team to a World Series in 2019, and at that point, had already cleared $80M in career earnings.  Since then, he has suffered constant injuries and can no longer play baseball, but somehow the Nats are still on the hook for his retained salary until 2027, in which he will start making deferred payments from them instead.  At this time he has tripled his career earnings, and by the time the Nationals are done being handcuffed to him, he will nearly have quadrupled.

Wander Franco is a unique case, because his salary is probably going to be refunded to the Rays on account of his sexual deviancy scandal which has him out of baseball outright currently, but he still shows up on their books for the time being.

Matt Thaiss is a guy I’ve never heard of in my life, which added to my surprise at seeing him appear twice in retained lists, for both the Angels and the White Sox.  He’s a journeyman catcher who really isn’t good, but as documented, catching is the thankless position, so he seems to have always managed to have a job.  But his agent clearly seemed to be clever enough to ensure that he still got a paycheck, and although both teams are only on the hook for $50K a piece, which is pennies to a Major League squad, $100K to play baseball is still the dream, and why Thaiss makes a roster at all.

As far as dead money goes, there’s about $146,789,000 of it on the books of these 18 teams.  That would rank 16th in MLB payrolls, higher than 14 other teams.

Which brings me to one final observation before I begin to wrap all this up: six teams managed to have absolutely no deferred money obligations, nor did they have any dead money retained salaries.  The A’s, the Detroit Tigers, the Kansas City Royals, the Miami Marlins, the Texas Rangers, and of course, the Atlanta Braves.

People accuse me of being pessimistic and curmudgeon about the Braves and their perception that they don’t spend money, but it all comes from actual evidence.  The team is so risk-averse and absolutely unwilling to compete when it comes to any transaction that requires them to open their wallets.  There’s zero creativity when it comes to paying people, and as a result they lose out on every free agent that could possibly help them, and it’s laugh-worthy whenever the Braves’ name is mentioned an interested party in any available free agent.

As much as baseball nerds love to debate and typically applaud teams for smart spending, as it’s demonstrating more and more these days, sometimes you have to spend some money in order to get results.  Everyone may hate the Dodgers for committing a billion dollars to their roster, but there’s little reason to believe that they’re not going to cruise to the playoffs this year, and every foreseeable year afterward.  And when their payments start to come due in the 2030’s, they’re no guarantee to turn into the 2010s Phillies, because they have smart, creative people in their free agent that aren’t afraid to find alternative ways in order to remain competitive.

The six teams that have no debts whatsoever, I don’t really see that as much of a good thing as much as I see six franchises that are cowards when it comes to spending money, and more interested in finding the perfect balance of maintaining a baseball club while padding the pockets of investors.  The challenge as fans is to able to sift through the context, and find out how much teams feed us bullshit, versus how much they’re actually willing to invest.

Anyway, much like Bobby Bonilla Day, when it comes to retained salaries, there’s a tremendous amount of waste here as well.  I don’t know if I will do this one on an annual basis, because I found that writing about this topic dregs up more angst and venom towards the Braves than any Braves fan really should have towards the team they’re actually fans of.

Perhaps if they haven’t been underperforming as much as their roster’s potential could be great, I wouldn’t feel this way, but we’ll see where we land this time next season.

Bobby Bonilla Day presents the 2025 MLB All-Deferred Money Team

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s that time of the year again, where Bobby Bonilla collects two big* paychecks from the New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles for playing baseball despite the fact that he’s 62 years old today and hasn’t played baseball since 2001; and I trot out this annual post to put on blast just how stupid and egregious that baseball salaries continuously escalate.

*$1,193,248 from the Mets and $500,000 from the O’s; paltry in the grand spectrum of MLB salaries, but still tremendously more than what successful doctors, teachers and actual essential personnel in the real working world make

It’s funny this year, because of the Dodgers’ absolute bonkers spending spree, and spamming of salary deferral, the whole concept of deferring salaries has come under a massively public microscope.  Most old nerdy fans like me know it’s all well within the rules and that any team in the league can employ it, and as I’ve documented, many have throughout the years, but nobody has really done it to the effect of the Dodgers have over the last offseason, promising out over a billion dollars to several players that will be paid out mostly between the years of 2030 through like, the end of the human race, at the rate we’re going.

But even in spite of the Dodgers’ deferral spree they went on this year, in the grand spectrum of the 2025 season, the Dodgers are but just a mere blip on the radar in the master list of deferrals, as well as dead money throughout the league.  Granted, this will change dramatically in the 2030’s, when Bobby Bonilla’s contract finally ends, and the Dodgers’ deferrals start to kick in and I’ll probably have to change the name of these posts from “Bobby Bonilla Day” to “the Dodgers present,” but until then, there’s still a lot of life in this little exercise continuing to be named after Bobby Bo.

Anyway, on with the show.

In the 2025 season, there are 24 players making deferred monies, according to Spotrac, spread between 14 teams.  Compared to last year, this is one less player and one less team, primarily on account of Ken Griffey Jr. finally coming off the Cincinnati Reds’ books despite not having played since 2010.  I made a joke last year that it was perfect that it was 25 players, since rosters (used to be) are 25-man rosters (with a 26th injured reserve spot).

However, in spite of the one fewer player and one fewer team, these 24 players are making an estimated $83.156M, which is a higher payroll than three teams’ total payrolls: the Chicago White Sox, Miami Marlins of course, the Oakland the Sacramento The A’s.  Barely avoiding the embarrassment of being outspent by a roster of deferred salaries are the Tampa Bay Rays and Pittsburgh Pirates.

Continue reading “Bobby Bonilla Day presents the 2025 MLB All-Deferred Money Team” →

Imagine if your work bonus were based on how much you ran

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

BI: Chinese paper company bases annual bonuses on running milestones

Apparently this is a story back from winter 2023 that came across my radar recently, but it doesn’t matter.  My knee-jerk reaction was that this was something I would probably dominate pretty easily, and I could become rich on bonuses, but after reading through the article a little more thoroughly, I come out this with more mixed feelings.

The TL;DR is that in order for the employees of this paper company to get the maximum bonus of 130% of their annual salary, they basically have to run about two miles a day.  Extrapolated to a month, that’s 62 miles, which means in a year, they’re at around 744 miles. 

I have confidence that I could tackle two miles a day, since I basically did that when I was at my probably physical fitness peak, and was running around 3-3.5 miles a day five days a week.  I don’t run nearly as much as I used to, but when I do, it’s more than two miles, and I think if I set a goal of two miles daily, I could probably do it, but then there’s something about obligating myself to such a thing because there’s an incentive at the end of a very long annual road, that makes me feel like I’d probably get sick of it eventually, and really begin to resent running more than I already do at times, because it’s no longer about my health, but it’s also in order to gain a measure of financial benefit.

And as much as I came into this post full of confidence and cockiness that I’d absolutely slay it, the reality is that 744 miles a year is really quite lofty.  I’m pretty sure it was only at my peak did I ever come close to hitting that mark in a single calendar year, and this also leaves very little margin of error for sicknesses, emergencies, the general business of life at times, and if you miss a day or three, then the backlog becomes daunting, and then everything falls apart in the end.

There are secondary and third-tier bonuses, but they’re not nearly as lucrative as nailing the primary bonus, and I have to imagine nothing would be more demoralizing if any of these Chinese guys finished out their year with like 735 miles logged, and fell short of the big bonus on account of a vacation, injury, or some other variable that the whole challenge doesn’t leave much room for, Chinese work ethic not withstanding

Yeah, I think I could probably do it, maybe once, but then be all sour and not wanting to do it again another year, because it would have killed my general sense of importance of running.  But the thing is, this isn’t something that I would have to do, because at my current, American job, I already get an annual bonus that maybe wasn’t exactly 130% of my monthly intake, but it was close, and I got it simply for, doing my job.

I didn’t have to run 62 miles a month and 744 miles a year in order to gain it, and frankly I think that’s the whole point of a bonus is to reward those who do the grind with a little bit of coin at a set time of year, to where people could feel like they have some discretionary income for once.  Making employees have to do something they might not be open-minded to in the first place seems cruel and well, very Chinese, as far as expecting extra effort in order to receive incentive, as opposed to more American ideals of rewarding those who put in the work daily.

Digging deeper into this story, there’s all sorts of gray area as far as the requirements go; sure, the information is tracked presumably through fitness trackers and watches, but those things can be easily manipulated, especially in a cheating-friendly culture like China.  There’s also no clarification if walking is allowed, or if it specifically has to be running.  Unless there are specific running zones or treadmills in which the running has to occur, I have to imagine these employees are probably all cheating like motherfuckers in order to meet their mileage requirements and they’re all succeeding at meeting their marks.

I also love how the article’s choice of words make sure to point out that the boss of this company, as far as his own physical prowess:

My business can only endure if my employees are healthy,” said Lin, who claims to have scaled Mount Everest twice — once in 2022, and another time in 2023.

“Claims” as in even the writer of the article doesn’t believe his own physical capabilities and the slight shade implied that he is subjecting his employees to monetary hostage-held physical activity while not being held to the same standards himself, seeing as how he’s the owner of the company.

It’s funny that it’s a paper company that all this happening with, because it seems very much like a Chinese version of The Office kind of thing that Michael Scott would subject his team to incentive-based physical activities, all under the guise of, healthy employees are happier employees, not while realizing he’s making their lives miserable.

But on the flip side of things, the snark they’re getting from Weibo users, makes me understand why companies like this probably create initiatives as such:

You’d have to run two miles a day to meet the monthly target of 62 miles. So the company wants their staff to be track athletes?”

Say you’ve never run in your life without saying it – two miles a day in the grand spectrum of things isn’t really much.  If people still utilized step counters, they’d probably realize that most able-bodied people probably clear 3+ miles a day just with ordinary activities; again, not sure what the specific criteria is on the bonus challenge, but clearing two miles a day isn’t that difficult.  I’m basically living proof that two miles a day doesn’t make a person a track athlete.

These requirements would be considered excessive even for sporting school students. It will hurt their knees. Depending on one’s age and physical condition, it could also trigger acute heart failure,”

Disagree.  Two miles a day would be frankly pretty minimum for those focused on athletics.  I mean look at Manny Pacquiao, man probably ran upwards of 10 miles a day during his boxing peak, and that was in the tropical Philippines no less.  Sure, depending on age and physical condition there are risks, but in that case, don’t do it.  It’s for a bonus, and not for actual wages.  But I do think it’s funny how this user specifically zeroed in acute heart failure as the primary concern, and not exhaustion, dehydration, or any sort of tears or breaks, very typical Chinese worst-case scenario mentality there.

Either way, it’s not a perfect system, but at the same time, I don’t hate it.  If this, or any company offered a physical activity bonus on top of existing annual bonuses, I would definitely be all over it and be in it to win it, but if I also didn’t want to burn myself out, the secondary +30% your monthly wages for half the distance doesn’t seem so bad, and would be a sorely welcome bump in pay that I’d definitely be all about.