Who Owns the Game - Why This Matters to Me

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” - Abraham Lincoln

Let me be clear before the season starts. These are my opinions. Not neutral. Not sanitized. Not pretending to be objective. This is how I see ownership in Major League Baseball after decades of watching windows open and slam shut, cities leveraged, payroll narratives spun, and power insulated. If you truly love the game, arguing about ownership isn’t optional. It’s essential. I’ve read the rankings and the listicles. Most of them don’t go deep enough. Some feel compromised. Others feel like click bait dressed up as analysis. Then I watch fans repeat those same surface takes without thinking them through. That’s not love of the game. That’s noise. Ownership is the engine. It shapes everything downstream. And if we’re willing to debate exit velocity for hours, we should be willing to scrutinize the people who actually control the direction of the sport.

There are things ownership does that drive me fucking insane, and there are things I deeply respect. John Fisher pisses me off. Watching a franchise with the history of the Athletics shrink into portability while revenue sharing flows and valuations explode makes me angry. Not because they were small, but because they chose smaller. That posture feels extractive. On the other end, I respect Mark Attanasio in Milwaukee. He doesn’t grandstand. He doesn’t posture. He operates in the background. Sometimes I wish he’d show more fire publicly. But the Brewers are serious internally. They draft, develop, pitch, compete. They don’t behave like victims of their market. They behave disciplined. That earns respect.

The Dodgers always want to win. That matters to me. You can hate the imbalance. You can roll your eyes at the payroll. But they behave like October is the expectation. They don’t drift. They don’t dabble. They don’t pretend that finishing second is acceptable. The Yankees, on the other hand, have confused me over the last decade. They’re rich. They’re iconic. They talk championship standard. But the posture hasn’t always matched the mythology. There have been moments of aggression and moments of restraint that feel misaligned with who they claim to be. When you’re the Yankees, drift hits differently. It feels louder.

The Mets under Steve Cohen are dramatic, and I don’t hate that. Baseball needs drama. It needs bold owners. It needs risk. Cohen swings hard. Sometimes he misses. But at least you can’t accuse him of hiding. That chaos has energy. The Braves feel structured. The Rays feel relentless. The Rangers pushed when it mattered. The Orioles endured pain honestly. The Guardians operate lean but sharp. The Padres swung big. The Mariners finally broke through and felt alive again. The Phillies act like contention is the baseline, not the dream.

Then you have teams that float. The Twins at times felt cautious when conviction was required. The Cubs oscillated after their title. The Rockies feel like they exist in their own fog. The White Sox under Reinsdorf often felt stuck between eras. The Angels had generational talent and still drifted. The Nationals won a title and then collapsed into uncertainty. The Diamondbacks rebuilt quietly and struck fast. The Blue Jays hover on the edge of something that never fully locks in. The Cardinals carry legacy heavily. The Red Sox oscillate between bold and baffling. The Astros rebuilt ruthlessly, then damaged credibility, then stabilized into machine-like competence. The Tigers are still trying to find their arc again. The Royals flash, then fade. The Marlins feel perpetually provisional. The Pirates test patience. The Reds tease potential. The Giants feel like they’re searching for their next identity.

Every franchise has a story. I don’t need ownership to be perfect. I actually like tension in the game. I like when an owner is bold enough to be polarizing. I like when markets feel alive because something is happening. What drives me fucking crazy is drift disguised as strategy. What drives me fucking crazy is spin. What drives me fucking crazy is when ownership treats baseball like a margin vehicle while asking fans to treat it like inheritance.

I appreciate seriousness. I appreciate when an owner acts like winning is the job. I appreciate when a franchise knows who it is. I appreciate when mistakes are owned instead of buried. I appreciate when payroll decisions match messaging. You might disagree with my conclusions. That’s fine. That’s part of it. But I’m not grading vibes. I’m grading patterns.

If I call something out, it’s because I care. If I praise something, it’s because I see structure behind it. This isn’t about tearing down for sport. It’s about saying plainly that ownership matters. Some of them are doing it right. Some of them are not. And over the thirty weeks of the season, I’m going to say which is which. Let the chips fall where they may, I hope to spark the discussion about ownership more deeply so they can’t hide like the players, managers, and GMs can’t… John Fisher you drive me fucking crazy, see around opening day…