glory

Cuban has an ax to grind with MLB too since they wouldn't let him buy a team many years ago. He hated Selig, and hates Manfred as well. This would be the ultimate payback. MLB is a $10b a year industry and that's with a fanbase that has an average age of 57 and a league that has practically no social media presence or marketing. A league run by smart business people who also know how to use social media to generate engagement and present a product that visually might actually appeal to younger people without fully alienating the older demo could work if stadiums and TV rights were not an issue. Even if the league's talent is watered down compared to MLB, if you market something properly, it won't make much of a difference. Tim Anderson in a hypothetical Mark Cuban run league with social media and marketing ability could easily be a bigger star than Mike Trout is today. That's how bad MLB is. Damn, I wish this was actually happening. It's much better than hoping Manfred and Clark respectively grow a brain, which will never happen. Someone send a tweet to Mark Cuban.

That's an interesting discussion. With the slow destruction of the minor leagues, and now MLB trying to kill itself, would a new baseball league run by people who actually know what they are doing actually work (be profitable) in North America? I don't know how it would work with TV rights, RSN, and stadiums, but dammit, having baseball without having to deal with Manfred, Clark, etc, would be damn appealing.

Yeah it is strange how they are acting as if this is an election and they need to paint the opposite side negatively in order to win an optics battle that literally no one other than MLB and the MLBPA cares about. Fans don't care who gets paid what. The sport is either going to return or it won't. If it doesn't return because of money, then baseball will lose A LOT of fans because not only will it look bad to the public and not only will baseball be out of the public eye for over a year in that scenario, but the NBA will find a way to return. The NFL will find a way to return. Then next season the NBA will probably begin their 2020-21 season in December, which means their playoffs will end in August. Football then begins in September. So all of 2021 baseball is likely going to go head to head with two sports that are massively more popular. It's a bad situation for them, made worse if they turn fans off now. On the flip side, if MLB returns on Independence Day weekend, then they can wrap themselves around the flag as being the first sport to come back from the pandemic, and maybe get more eye balls on the product (at least until the NBA returns to steal their shine). The fact that money is not only this big of an issue but they want to drag this into the public is not a good sign at all for 2020 or 2022 (which is probably going to end up being a lockout if they can't even play nice during a pandemic).

https://nypost.com/2020/05/19/mlb-thinks-email-is-smoking-gun-in-salary-fight-with-players/ Wow, both MLB and the MLBPA can F off at this point. No one is going to choose a side in this stupid war, they'll just tune out completely.

I remember having so much optimism in 2002-03. Halladay broke out. A position player core all coming up at the same time in Wells, Phelps, Hudson, Hinske (ROY season), Werth, etc. Made some interesting trades for Prokopec, Jason Arnold, JF Griffin, etc. All of them busted, but looked decent at the time. Escobar was wasted as a RP but was finally moved to the rotation for good in 2003 and looked to be turning into a long term piece, though they ended up not re-signing him and he turned into a really good SP for a few years with the Angels. Not finding a way to bring him and Carpenter back really hurt long term, obviously Carpenter more so. More than anything, the Jays hired someone from Beane's front office before Moneyball was a thing. I thought we were going to be the Toronto A's, which would have been a huge compliment around that time. Regardless, in hindsight, 2002-08 wasn't that bad. Had some fun years and there wasn't the level of ineptitude like there was during Ash's years. Still wasn't a good period in Jays history, but from 94-14, we had to take what we could get.

Those late 90's Jays teams should have made the playoffs at least once or twice during that time. Ash didn't do much to help those teams aside from the one great trade he ever made (Jose Cruz Jr). Let Alomar go for nothing. Traded Olerud AND CASH for Robert Person. Traded Cone (for s***) and Clemens to the Yankees because why the f*** not help a dynasty in your own division get even better. Didn't get a damn thing for the remnants of the World Series crew (Julian f'n Merryweather might end up having a higher big league WAR than any player Ash got back for Alomar, White, Olerud, Guzman, Leiter, etc). Traded Woody Williams for Joey Hamilton for no reason other than because Dave Stewart (we know how great of a GM he ended up becoming) liked Hamilton from his Padres days. Signing Clemens was a Beeston move if I recall, but could be remembering that wrong. Ash also cut resources with the DR when he took over (an area the Jays were dominating during their heyday), which caused a rift with Epy Guerrero, if I'm remembering that right. I could go on and on. All Ash did was sprinkle in the players he inherited into big league spots (Delgado, Green, Stewart, Carpenter, Escobar, etc) but did such a piss poor job in practically every trade and FA signing he ever made that he wasted what should have been a much better run for the Jays. Yes, I'm bitter about those years! Ricciardi wasn't great either, but his only real weakness was drafting. Ash's weakness was everything related to baseball.

Yeah that WS team had to be dismantled as it had run its course, but Ash was not the guy who was going to squeeze more juice out of that roster, and he was not the guy who was going to pivot to maximize assets. That 1995-2001 team had no chance because they had the worst GM in Toronto sports history running it (Babcock wasn't GM long enough to hold that honor).

The problem with the 1995 team was Gord Ash was the GM. No amount of talent was going to compensate for that, as we saw through 2001.

Yelich talking about Bonds helping his swing.

Most if not all of us are employees somewhere, so we can naturally see/agree with the player's POV, but the owners will always have the leverage. For one thing, if the players get their way and get a prorated salary in 2020 rather than 50/50 revenue split, will the MLBPA complain when owners don't spend money on players in 2021?Because that will ultimately happen. With so many teams losing out on revenue, there will be a tornado of non tenders, and lack of spending on free agents this winter. Of course, owners are not obligated to spend money, just as players are not obligated to split revenue. See where this is going? It's not going to end up good for the players. Players do not move revenue in baseball. Mike Trout can be replaced by Jo Adell for $600k and the Angels (in a normal circumstance) will probably see little to no difference in revenue. Fans cheer for the front of the uniform in baseball. It is a regional sport. That is why it is not as popular in the mainstream. Players are not recognizable, and fan bases are loyal to the franchises. The MLBPA should not die on this hill. Teams will pay for age and performance, so the most important aspect here is to get players to make more money in years 0-6 of service time when the next CBA rolls around. If they piss the owners off for a prorated salary in 2020, it will screw them badly in the end. Of course, both sides appear to want a lockout for some reason based on the way they are acting, so maybe that's their plan all along.

Yeah, I kinda wish we had Sanders for this draft given how condensed it is, but Shatkins has done a good job picking up player development/scouting talent, so I'll trust them here. Plus, a Farrell has never let us down before! Is this draft going to be like the NFL draft in presentation? I liked that set up with the virtual setting and seeing the player reactions with their families.

Owners are billionaires and do make a lot of money off the investment (most of them anyway), but they are owners for a reason. They use revenue to pay players, not their own dime. If revenue is compromised due to something completely out of anyone's control, then most businesses will let people go to avoided losses. Some owners will probably lose more money if they play the 2020 season and pay the players their prorated salary, so what's their incentive to even have the season if there isn't a reasonable split on money? On the flip side, I understand the players' POV as well. They have guaranteed contracts. If revenue increased, their salaries would stay the same, so why shouldn't it stay the same when revenue is down? Logical stance. Only issue is revenue is down because of a pandemic, not normal business issues. If owners were losing money because people suddenly stopped going to baseball games out of choice, then that's a different story. That's not the case here. I'm always going to be on the side of wanting to see players to get paid. In this case though, I don't see how they (the players) can win in the court of public opinion.

Yeah if the deal doesn’t happen because the players don’t want to risk their health, then that might be easier to explain to the public, but if it’s money, then people will be tripping over themselves to get in line to say f*** You to MLB and the MLBPA. If any league is going to mess this up, it’s the one with Manfred and Clark as the figureheads.

The issue the players will have, and it will be more obvious as the years go on assuming that baseball continues to become more regionalized and less mainstream popular (very likely), is that players do very little to move revenue. I think Philly saw a significant increase in ticket sales right after they signed Harper, but how many players in the league will have that type of name value moving forward? MLB has done so poorly at marketing its players since Manfred took over that Harper seems like a relic from the last era of baseball where a star actually had name value. Baseball fans pay for the front of the jersey, not the back of it. The NBA is different. When LeBron left Cleveland, not only did the Cavs suffer, but the city itself did as well. The players run that league. MLB is run by the franchises, much like the NFL, the only difference is the NFL is widely popular whereas MLB is trending downwards in that area. Mike Trout can disappear tomorrow and would anyone in Los Angeles notice? Would MLB lose revenue because of it? Probably not. It's the way the game is structured. I can see why the players wouldn't want a revenue sharing deal (they want to get paid what they signed for, even if it's prorated), but as the years go on, the MLBPA will continue to lose leverage because the players don't really matter aside from a very select few.

I guess we will know what's up soon enough. Sounds like owners want a revenue sharing deal for the Covid season, which the MLBPA does not want to do. I can't imagine either side is going to prevent a season from happening if it's deemed safe. The optics for that would be horrendous. More likely someone will swallow their pride this year and then in 2022 they can finally have a lockout like both sides seem to want.

I'm not sure of the details, but I believe Manfred could have had the draft be as many rounds as he wanted. The fact that he went with 5, when it has been reported that going with 10 would have been less than $1m per team in added expense, is telling what what Manfred and the owners mindset is. Of course, the MLBPA agreeing to having the draft being no less than 5 rounds in the first place is another issue, but Tony Clark tends to make Manfred look like Einstein by comparison, so I guess we shouldn't be too surprised. Clark would rather 32 year old free agents on the decline get paid and claim collusion when they don't rather than worry about amateur or minor league talent.

I hate the runner on 2nd idea, but I also see the logic in trying to avoid anything beyond 10 or 11 inning games, and I agree that after a while fans will either warm up to it or simply just accept it as part of the game. This rule wouldn't go over well with the core baseball fans, but if the average MLB fan is in their late 50s, then change isn't necessarily a bad thing. They will definitely need to implement this rule (or something similar) in 2020 since without a minor league season they won't be able to send players down and call others up, but I think once they try it out, it's a rule that will end up sticking. Much like the draft rounds.

Manfred has wanted to reduce the draft and subsequently reduce the # of minor league affiliates for a while now. MLB may not have wanted a 5 round draft, but Manfred could have made it 10 or 20. He chose 5. This is a dangerous combination of Manfred reducing draft rounds to save money, and the MLBPA not caring about amateur talent enough to go to bat for them. No doubt in my mind that we will never see the old draft format ever again. I think 20 is likely the new norm.

Yeah, MLB's dying popularity will hurt more than any draft changes they make, but making the barriers to entry even more difficult combined with everything else is going to be a tough sell for any athlete who has options aside from baseball. This is 2020. Baseball isn't what it used to be in terms of American popularity. The NFL has long since past it, and the NBA will probably pass everyone in 10-15 years. Making the minor leagues more exclusive might/should improve the quality of minor league ball, so that might be one benefit to this. MLB will have to find a way to 1) give amateur talent more money up front, 2) ensure less time spent in the minors, and 3) provide way more money to players in years 0-6 of service. If not, we might see more Carter Stewart career paths, which may not necessarily be a bad thing if it means the players actually get paid well.

https://nypost.com/2020/05/09/details-of-mlbs-restart-proposal-from-coronavirus-emerge/ Looks like MLB plans to propose a 78-82 game regular season starting in July. Spring Training would begin in June and last 3 weeks. The schedule would be entirely region based (so I guess Jays only face the AL East and NL East). The playoffs would be the same format that made Trevor Bauer's head explode when it was announced in Feb.

The younger generation today is all about fame and instant gratification. In the NBA and NFL, you are more famous, get paid more upfront, and don't have to grind for a decade before you even get a chance to be paid market value. MLB is building a system where they are making baseball less and less desirable for athletes to even pursue, much less want to play. MLB has become mainstream irrelevant aside from controversies (Astros scandal), and now Manfred is going to ensure that less athletes play the sport seriously beyond middle school. Then there are a whole bunch of other issues with kids playing the sport such as the price of equipment, lack of fields, the amount of people you would need to actually play a baseball game for fun, etc, etc. This is just going to add more reasons for athletes to choose something else. Manfred seriously needs to go, but unfortunately I think he'll stay long enough to f*** the system up beyond repair. I mean I do some logic in trying to scale down the # of minor league affiliates (there are way too many), and maybe less org guys in the minors will improve MiLB quality of play, but it comes with a lot of risk for the game itself.

Yeah that’s pretty s***** for baseball and for amateur talent.

I'm starting to come around to that opinion as well. Fewer games will mean each game will have more meaning, more young players will play due to expanded roster size + the need to have more bodies available, and if any sport can visually not get too impacted by having no fans in attendance, it is baseball (just imagine every game is being played in Tampa or Miami......or Toronto on a Tuesday night when the team sucks). They can try different things with no backlash. It might actually help the sport a bit if the timing and the execution is done properly.

If there is a 80-100 game season, then you definitely call Pearson up and start him in the rotation immediately. It is a no brainer. They can restrict his innings due to a shorter season, and him throwing innings in the condensed big league season is better for him than another lost season in the minors (this time not due to injury). As far as service time, from what I remember being reported before, if the season happens then it will count as a full season for players. If there is no 2020 season at all, then whatever service time a player accrued in 2019 becomes their 2020 service time.