glory

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.

Inevitable, but still sucks. Hopefully games can still begin some time in late April or May. No basketball, no baseball. Damn, we're going to have to spend time with our wives/spouses now.

And so it begins.

They will probably try empty stadium games as long as no player comes down with it. That seems like a huge long shot, but that's probably their only hope to have the season start on time.

If it's not 100% chance, then it's damn close. The problem is that baseball can't extend the season into November/December without weather playing a huge part. The NBA can realistically suspend the season for two months and just end the playoffs in August once they resume, and it wouldn't make a difference for them. In baseball, if you start the season in June, and have to end it two months later to get all the games in, it will be a disaster. They would have to eat up the revenue loss by eliminating the scheduled games in April and possibly May (depending on how long this scare lasts) and then play a shortened season. That's why I can understand Manfred trying to prolong this as long as he can, but it will ultimately fail. Spring training games will probably be shut down soon, and Opening Day likely pushed back. How far back is the question. Between this and a potential lockout after 2021, our six years with Vlad/Bo/Biggio might seem a lot shorter.

Yeah, no way MLB is going to be able to start the season. Best case is empty stadium games being played until things die down, but if even one player has it, then they'll have to follow the NBA's lead. This virus is going to f*** up the economy for a while.

Damn why didn't this hysteria happen in November so the NFL could get hurt by it? Baseball and basketball are my two sports, and they have to suffer for this s***. In all seriousness, I think March/April games are going to end up in empty stadiums. Good on MLB for trying to work around it and I hope they succeed, but doubt they can avoid it completely.

I remember hearing an interview a couple of months back where Atkins was asked who in the minors he thought could take a leap in 2020 and he mentioned Young (legit CF but bat has to catch up) and Kirk specifically. I wouldn't rule him out. Seems to have a legit glove in CF and good speed. Just 22. Still time for something to develop.

I'm on the Hatch bandwagon, but that's a pretty aggressive ranking for him.

FVV-Lowry-OG-Siakam-Gasol Norm-Ibaka-McCaw That's probably the playoff rotation. If McCaw gets 5 minutes or less, then you're right it is not a big deal. If he's getting 15-25 minutes, then we have a problem. I don't think people understand how bad of a player he is, and how critical possessions/minutes are in the playoffs. Even Jack was getting on McCaw on commentary tonight. When the Raptors announcers turn on you....