bmags

have we ever discussed on this board the controversial use of El Rancho chips for the nachos at GRF? good news

Just went through all the free agents again. Couple thoughts: - I can't believe Billy McKinnie is only 27. - Man Tauchmann had a horrible, horrible year last year. Crazy after he was traded how much better we were with Brian Goodwin. - Wild how Albert Almora went from a pretty consistently high 17% k rate guy to 31% krate but didn't improve in power or anything. - What's left is like a rick hahn jubilee of powerful corner outfield types. I imagine his reaction to this market is like if someone logged on late to their fantasy draft and can't believe there are still all the defense and kickers left.

Well you are walking into my favorite argument of the single most coddled franchise in baseball, the St Louis Cardinals.

Yeah it's kind of a slight of hand. In terms of baseball markets, better to look at things like "metro areas". But even those have limitations. That said, Miami - Ft Lauderdale - Palm beach metro area is 8th. Phx metro area is 11th, Detroit 14th.

Trash

Well what kind of chips were they?

this killed me. Especially when I was just talking about getting rid of the non-explicit salary items in the CBT because it's so hard to follow. Soon they'll try and add their insurance premiums.

this energy

I'd say no. Honestly getting an NBA championship was impressive. At the very least its gratifying that their trash front office was in fact trash and just was extraordinarily lucky. But absolutely hilarious how Westbrook went from untradeable to traded to the wizards in a bad contract for bad contract to then traded for by the lakers for actual good talent and they thought that would take them to the championship lol. It will never not be funny.

I don't think it will enable more steals and I think the less rules in games the better. What are going to have challenges on players too many inches past their allotted position? It won't make the game better to watch. Making pitchers throw less hard will make the game better to watch.

I really can’t get over how stupid all of the league rule changes both sides are arguing about are (with the exception of pitch clocks).

I don’t think it’s just star mega deals. It will help all players in free agency if the high spending teams have more room before being tapped out (look at the Sox). Especially - as I keep alluding to - with so many teams moving to their competitive window.

https://wtf1.com/post/my-honest-opinion-of-f1s-drive-to-survive-season-4/ sad

This doesn't make any sense as a response. Yes, labor has tools at their disposal to create leverage and urgency and aren't always on defense, but my point is not every CBA ends up in a strike or a lockout. As evidenced by the last 25 years. Manfred was the one that decided he could create enough leverage through the lockout. He was wrong. Blaming the players because they could do the same thing and therefore Manfred isn't at fault is silly. He's paid a lot to make decisions, he failed in 2020. He failed now. He is surrounded by leagues shoveling revenues into his mouth while he is watching his cash cow of RSNs fail and he ... fails in a labor agreement. He fails and he fails and he fails. He fails at building baseballs. He fails at telling the truth about building baseballs. He fails at fixing baseballs. He fails at telling the truth about fixing baseballs. He's bad at everything except keeping his job. It's okay to acknowledge it.

Well, we know that isn't the only playbook because we just had 25 years where there was no gap in the CBA. There are plenty of collective bargaining agreements that don't end in strikes.

Maybe, but a big reason why this turned into games lost is because perceived lack of respect. You don't lean into that by doing what manfred did. He's truly, truly a moron. Instead he should have tried to give so little in continuous negotiations the players walked away so he could say "See! The players walked away!"

I'm not gonna lie I feel like since 2018 I've not seen a single thing he has done so it's hard to be excited about him.

I'll stand up for the players here. The league should have realized in 2020's season restart negotiations, where they tried to hold off on negotiating until last minute and it failed disastrously that players were united this time. Manfred just went to the same playbook. Wait until there is a feasible deadline, push at last minute with bare minimum. It didn't work. This is absolutely rob manfreds doing, this isn't like boras players are striking and refusing to negotiate.

One thing I wish the players did was remove the "player benefits and other comp" or whateer from the the Luxury Tax calculation merely to make it easier on all of us.

On twitter I saw a writer post how after the first half of the free agency before the freeze, it was hard to see this as a league not working. And I'd just restate my opinion that much of this animosity is for the 2017-2019 period of an unusually large number of teams being uncompetitive. That this was the result of a new competitive advantage in front offices around player development staffing and technology and analytics, and years of results for franchises like the white sox, reds that the old way of doing things wasn't going to work. Now virtually every franchises save the Rockies has modernized and retooled, and we just finished a year of very good competition and it only getting better. The players could do nothing to tip the balance against tanking and see greatly reduced tanking! But the number of early retirements and poor FA spending laid the groundwork to fight the last battle. And the commissioner is an absolute ahole who wants to fight battles. If the players had prioritized just getting rid of draft pick compensation, and raising limits, they'd likely be pretty pleased with their takeaways the next 5 years. But they are trying to recoup losses and win, and the owners are trying to always prove they are victims. It sucks. Baseball is a good sport, it shouldn't be this hard.

Right, I guess that’s my overall point. I think players think “anti-tanking” wins the public over, but reality is they want Oakland, Pitt, Balt to spend more. I think those teams that have been competitive despite low payrolls should get windfalls. Competitive balance team tha makes playoffs? You get an additional $10 mill toward player salaries. Can only be used on payroll though. Non competitive balance team in bottom 10 of payrolls? You lose 2nd round pick. Do I think that would get sign off? Maybe not, but it’s more worth fighting for than a damn lottery, my god.

Who are the perpetually tanking teams though?

Exactly! I think experiencing the 2009-2016 white sox was good his very experiment. And it kinda sucked! I’m pro tanking, even 2018 was better than 2015.

The union wants Bobby Witt Jr to get out of his first contract earlier to sign with the Yankees. It wants the royals to sign second contract guys instead of them being forced to retire. The CBT should go up. But it’s hard to see either side actually improving the game based on these negotiations.

So while I am now firmly on the players side, it is only on the divvying up of this CBT to an acceptable level and the min salary. In Passans article, taking seriously the players goals of reducing tanking and increasing competitiveness, I find the players solutions lacking. Lottery (does nada), more handouts to small market teams (this reduces tanking? What?). Just a bunch of garbage. And the idea that more playoff teams disincentivizes teams to spend seems like something one person said once and everyone decided to parrot. It doesn’t seem to pass an inch of scrutiny. Honestly 7 playoff teams makes more sense to me to disincentivize tanking than a lottery. Tanking was needed because you needed an overwhelming talent and depth advantage to be win divisions. If you can get into playoffs as a less balanced team you may go after one last piece to get you to 82-86 wins. id bet getting front offices in to create these incentives would lead to more interesting solutions than this garbage from owners/players. (and obviously the players don’t want 7 playoff teams because it merely grants additional revenue to owners and should come with appropriate concessions to labor. Not because it disincentivizes signing players, GMAFB)