Ok let's bust these idiotic myths once and for all

[Case_Of_The_Runs]

Players don't need to have anything to do with the city a team is based other than wear a uniform with it's name on it. There is no requirement for them to live there. You are not required to be there during the off season, and during the season you are gone half the time and busy as fuck the other half. I can't even begin to imagine ones polical beliefs somehow dictating what baseball team a player decided to play for. If it did that have to be one heck of a dedicated political point of view

SH's point isn't that they need to care about politics but rather that if the politics are leftist it will impact their quality of life. Walking through shit stained homeless camps to get to their DT condo for example.

Ay yi yi yi! We are going in circles here, and virtually none of this has anything to do with baseball.

Are tent cities and homelessness unsightly and problematic? 100%, yes. But (a) there does not seem to be any evidence (at least none presented on this board or in this thread) that it is a significant factor in FA decisions to sign in a particular city or state, and (b) it does not seem to be an exclusively Democratic problem. In fact, according to HUD, the number of homeless and unsheltered (separate metrics) are orders of magnitudes worse in Red states than Blue. Additionally, red states have proportionately lower levels of education and literacy, and higher levels of homicides and opioid abuse problems than blue states do.

None of this is getting us very far. We can cherry pick data and statistics all we want, but I will circle back to 2 points I have been trying to make all along here: first, the politics of a city or state do not statistically seem to be relevant in a MLB player choosing where to sign. Sure, they might be somewhere on their list, but likely as important or less relevant to them than they are to you and me (I say less because if I had a job offer for $130M in one city and $145M in another, almost always that $15M difference is going to matter way more than whether there are homeless people camped on streets outside my $5M condo or not. But it's a moot point since that much money isn't going to be offered to me anytime soon). Second, none of us (as far as I know) are current or former MLB players, so we are completely speculating on what motivates them. But no one here has, as yet, provided empirical data to support the notion that tent cities demotivate FA from signing somewhere.

So yeah - I hate tents on the streets and shit in the gutters in Seattle as much as the next person. But political fingerpointing doesn't seem to enhance the conversation over why we didn't land a big FA this offseason. Can we get back to talking baseball?

[Donn Beach]

Homelessness is just a problem in leftist cities? Because they won''t pass laws against it? If you can walk down the street and not be confronted with homelessness problem solved?

[Seattle or Bust]

Homelessness is just a problem in leftist cities? Because they won''t pass laws against it? If you can walk down the street and not be confronted with homelessness problem solved?

Homelessness in Seattle and other urban cities is also accentuated by the fact that people here are more affluent and likely to be charitable. Weather in coastal, liberal cities is also more mild. You’re not going to get 105* degree or sub 0* weather in Los Angeles, San Diego, Portland, Seattle very often. For someone living outside, that’s an important geographical factor.

[Donn Beach]

Houston has passed laws against homelessness, it's true that leftist cities are less likely to do that. Is that what it take to be more attractive to ballplayers? Okay sign me up

[Mesully11]

For year I have disliked Machado! I was happy not being a fan of him.

Now with one tee shirt I have become a supporter "Lets go Brandon"!

[bpj]

Homelessness is just a problem in leftist cities? Because they won''t pass laws against it? If you can walk down the street and not be confronted with homelessness problem solved?

Get a job you effin bums.

[seattlefan-daBronx]

You dudes are freakin hillarious.
I hope you show the same passion in the game threads this year!
Bring it!