glory

The problem with Vlad is defence, base running, and GB rate. He can fix the latter and become one of the best hitters on the planet but the other two are going to hurt his value for the rest of his career.

Was listening to a sports radio show and one of the hosts made a point that some teams may lose more money if the Arizona plan happened (since they would have to pay the players their full salary without ticket sales to help with revenue) as opposed to if the season was cancelled. I don't know how true that would be but thought it was interesting. In theory, networks should value MLB's content more highly if they came back and nothing was on, but that would also depend on advertisers wanting to spend money on ads. If everyone is at home and not spending money on non essentials, then many advertisers wouldn't even benefit from their ads being on during the games. I'm curious to see how far this goes. Passan's report might have been leaked intentionally to gauge public reaction, or leaked prematurely.

Yeah people are craving any type of sports content right now. TV ratings across the board are up during this lockdown. The game would benefit greatly both regionally and nationally if they were able to come back by May or early June. They would have a shitload of games to provide to TV networks, and as you said people who generally wouldn't watch baseball would watch just because there's nothing else on. Give players mics during games. Give the audience every reason to keep watching and get to know the players more. It would be a real opportunity for baseball to grow as a brand, which is crazy considering what is going on in the world. They need this more than the NBA does.

Seems like it will either be Arizona baseball or no baseball in 2020. I can't imagine a scenario where if this plan fails that there is any sort of contingency. Most likely they have been told that even if restrictions on non essential businesses are removed in a month or two that having large gatherings of people in stadiums is still not going to be feasible for a while. The biggest issue is probably going to be testing and the number of tests they can have without impacting testing for the general public. Players being isolated for 5 months in Arizona seems like something players would be against, but I can think of a few rea$on$ why they'd eventually warm up to the idea. If MLB can keep players, coaches, etc, safe, and everyone is on board with it (CDC, etc), then I'm 100% down for it. Arizona baseball is better than no baseball. Plus, even though they'd lose revenue due to no fans in attendance, it might actually help grow the game if they mic up players for TV broadcasts and they become the only live sports content available. Still a long ways to go though. Not getting my hopes up to avoid disappointment if it stalls.

Key parts of the article:

1992 Deion Sanders: 3.3 WAR, 136 wRC+, 325 PA Then in the World Series he goes 8-15 with 2 walks and 5 steals. He was actually a really good baseball player, even when he was half committed to it. If he was 100% committed to it, who knows how great he could have been. Obviously made the right choice with football, though.

Of course every team will face this issue, I was just looking at it from the Jays perspective. I'm not worried about Vlad/Bo/Biggio in terms of development, more so the lower minors players who live off food stamps and don't get to face live batters/pitchers all season. Whatever plan the Jays had as far as sprinkling in a Manoah or SWR into the 2021-22 teams might be altered now. Again, same issue every team will have, but who cares about other teams!!??

Hypothetically, if 2020 is lost, what would be the significant ramifications for the Jays? - Bichette becomes controllable through 2026 instead of 2025, so luckily don't lose a year on him. - Lose a year on both Vlad and Biggio who will remain controllable through 2025 due to 2019 service time carrying over. Lose a year on Jansen as well, who I think is going to be better offensively when games begin again. - Won't be able to trade Giles. - Pearson shouldn't throw another pitch in the minors at this point. A shortened 2020 means they can limit his innings in the Majors, and a cancelled 2020 season means he'll be on the 40 man prior to 2021 anyway so just let him develop/build stamina in the Majors. There are only so many bullets on a 102 mph arm. - Ryu would get a full year off, but come back when he's 34. Not sure if that's good or bad given his injury history and age. - Our next wave of prospects are all in low A to A+ (SWR, Groshans, Moreno, Kirk, Martinez, Manoah, etc). They all lose a season of development, and with losing a year of Vlad, that means the timelines become all screwed up. There might be a lag now between the Vlad years and the next wave, depending on development timing.

Vlad staying home all day. Nothing could go wrong there.

Baseball has a very difficult road ahead with African American athletes. Aside from any draft changes that results in less picks, it's marketing too. When you see black athletes in basketball and football, they are household names with huge social media followings. That's what young people today grow up on. Branding is very profitable, and baseball players just don't have it. Mookie Betts should be one of the biggest stars in baseball marketing considering he's not only great and black, but also easily relatable due to his size. Yet put a video of Mookie on ESPN's YouTube page and it gets less views than practically every other piece of content they put out there. Tim Anderson just won the batting title but no one outside of Chicago knows who he is. And so on. MLB doesn't have to worry about Latin America since baseball is life over there, but in the US/Canada, they have a real issue with athletes (black or otherwise) and are not helping themselves. When it's not cool to follow baseball, and now MLB itself is making it harder to even make it to the league, it's just going to discourage more athletes from even trying. I hope the participation rates remain high in young kids, and the dangers of football make that sport less desirable, but MLB has no chance of catching the NBA (fanbase is very young), and the NFL is still king in the US from a popularity standpoint with no end in sight. MLB has to fix its brand. Manfred isn't helping, but if it becomes cool to watch baseball again, then the athletes will follow, IMO.

My hunch is MLB is going to lose a lot of athletes to other sports in the next 10-15 years. It's already hard enough to make the big leagues, but now unless you're a first round pick, you basically have to sign for peanuts, be in the minors for years where you'll be lucky to earn minimum wage, ride around on a smelly bus that will probably breakdown occasionally in the boonies of a redneck town no one has ever heard of, and then if you're lucky and reach the Majors and actually be any good, you'll be underpaid for six years before you'll be able to go into free agency where teams discriminate based on age when handing out contracts. I have no idea how this system continually gets worse for players without actually benefiting the sport at all. Manfred makes a lot of money for the owners but it's going to come at the expense of the sport itself, especially since the MLBPA couldn't care less about a player unless he's in the big leagues.

Manfred's job is to make the owners money, even if it comes at the expense of the sport. Cutting the draft means teams spend less money. Net result owners save money. Every decision he makes is based on dollars, and not on the long term health of the sport. Again I'm not sure how this will impact the game because in one sense it might weed out the s***** amateur prospects and give more money to the actual prospects, which would be a bonus, but how will HS/college athletes react to this? Will they pursue baseball in school knowing their already long shot dream became even more of a long shot (closer to impossible)? How about multi sport athletes, what incentive is there to pursue baseball versus other sports? Guess we will have to see it implemented for a few years to see the impact, but as far as the "why"? Manfred + money. That's the long and short of it.

Manfred wanted to cut the draft and eliminate minor league teams before this, and since Clark/MLBPA care as much about amateur & minor league players as the rest of the world cares about the WNBA (meaning not at all), I'm sure Clark was more than happy to concede the draft rounds in order to get full service time for MLB players. Now there is the built in excuse of the pandemic and lack of revenue, so in that sense it worked perfectly for Manfred. I think the shortened draft will definitely be apart of the new CBA if/when it is agreed to. Don't get me wrong, I do think there are too many rounds in the MLB draft. Cutting it to 20 and spreading more money around to actual prospects rather than journeymen/never-will-be's who are being taken advantage of for the sake of the dream sounds reasonable in theory. Have no idea how they'd execute it (will the draft pool be the same even with the condensed rounds? will minor league players get more money if there are less of them and less affiliates?, etc). Five rounds would be ridiculous though.

If there is no season, then players will get service time for 2020 based on the service time they accrued in 2019. So Betts will be a free agent in that scenario without ever playing an inning for the Dodgers. He can be offered arbitration, but that's not exactly a good consolation prize anymore.

Man, imagine trading for one year of Betts only to never see him play on your team. That would suck for the Dodgers.

That's a good point. There's probably going to be one team that no one expected to compete that overachieves due to the condensed schedule and flukes their way in since they won't have the longer season to fall back down to earth. The Jays have a lot of upper minors pitching depth so the extra double headers in the schedule might be easier for them to navigate through than other teams. Ryu will throw fewer innings so hopefully stay healthy to the end. Grichuk only exists from July onwards, so he might actually be useful by the time the season starts. I hate this whole thing but if the Jays find a way into the post season because of it, then I'll accept it.

Service time is a pretty big deal for players. Going into free agency one year later might as well be a life time for players who already spend the first six years of their careers being paid well below their value (never mind the years in the minors where they make "cashier at grocery store" level money). Betts, Lindor, etc, are salivating to become free agents so they can make money comparable to their actual talent. I don't like it because chances are we are going to lose a huge chunk of one of our precious Vlad/Bo/Biggio years without getting it back in the future, but it's the fair thing to do for the players. They shouldn't be expecting all of their salaries to be paid if MLB is not generating revenue until June/July, but service time is a reasonable ask on their part. Of course, with 2020 likely to see a huge drop in league revenue, becoming a free agent this winter doesn't sound all that appealing to me. If Betts thought he was getting $400m before, it probably won't be happening now. Seems like a lot of FA's will accept the QO if anything, probably not Betts, but players like Stroman who probably thought they'd get $100m.

I like the idea of a neutral site World Series. Would allow cities to bid on it, get more sponsors, more money, etc. Whether the game is big enough to get sell out crowds for 7 games that may not involve the local team is debatable, MLB isn’t as mainstream as it used to be and is more successful regionally, but why not test it out now while there is an excuse to do it? If it fails then blame it on Covid and go back to normal in 2021. If it works, then you have a potential revenue generating avenue to go to in the future. An entire week of the World Series in one location means the sky is the limit as far as marketing potential. Tourists, more national exposure, etc. I hope MLB will at least be creative this season. They don’t have to cram in all 162 games, especially if they start in July, but try something different even if diehards hate it. If there was ever a time to experiment, it’s now.

I like how the NBA gets so much love from the mainstream liberal media for being the progressive/SJW league in North America, and yet they are the one league that is proudly in bed with China. Let them suffer the hit from this virus, and leave baseball alone, dammit.

Panik actually resembled a big league player in his career, which is more than Drury has done in the past few years. As long as Montoyo doesn't overplay him, he's fine as a bench player.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/mlbs-coronavirus-relief-plan-hung-up-on-service-time/ This is going to have huge ramifications, whatever they finally agree on.

Major League 1, Field of Dreams, and Moneyball would be my favorite baseball movies.

Has it been explained what will happen with service time due to this delay in the season, or are they still trying to figure that out? I know that's not important in the grand scheme of things, but purely from a baseball standpoint, losing nearly half a season (best case) of Vlad/Bo/Biggio really sucks, and who knows what will happen in 2022 when the CBA needs to be agreed to and a potential lockout looming.

Depends on when the league feels they can safely hold empty stadium games. I think that's the first domino here. Things are probably going to get worse in the next 30 days, but if it dies down in May then the league might try to work some empty stadium games before getting the green light to have fans in attendance. MLB is the one sports league that can't afford to push back the schedule so even if they start the season in June, they'll probably add multiple double headers into the schedule to make up for as many lost games as possible. The only other option would be to extend the season and then have the playoffs and World Series held in a neutral environment that either has warm weather and/or a closed roof. November/December baseball in a dome somewhere could probably work, though I have no idea how it would do in attendance or ratings since baseball is a regional sport. The NFL can have the playoffs anywhere and fans would come. Not sure how it would do in baseball, but they may not have a choice.