chitownsportsfan

I respect your fandom but you're a frog in the pot right now. They done boiled it slowly on you and you're ready to just bake in it.

Green font!

Yea there's real urgency that's why the owners are making sure guys have access to the team facilities because you wouldn't want to delay things any longer. Luckily once a deal is made the players will already have been swinging and throwing and will be ready to start playing warmup games. Right.

Hey we are within 50-75% on some core economic issues!

I don't get it. It's like you just compared a rock to a seagull and dropped the mic.

Why? Because it's "start losing revenue time"? How about this: if the owners were worried about losing some game revenue, why didn't they start negotiating in earnest until games were actually in danger of being cancelled? Hint: because they aren't worried about losing games.

Not really sure why some people are super optimistic all of sudden. Seeing the same tenor over at some other general MLB discussion areas online. I think it's cope frankly. Yea they are talking, no this doesn't mean the season is going to start anytime soon.

Nice, go fuck yourselves MLB.

You're kidding right? Spring training and opening day are arguably the most enjoyable part of the entire season.

No sooner thanMarch 5th to start spring training, LMAO! Can someone hire me to write these PR releases? Otherwise the only fecal matter I get to spew on a daily basis gets flushed right down.

Play 162 games and your reward for winning 95 is basically the same as 83 or so in any sort of playoff expansion. So dumb. I am disgusted by everything about MLB.

There's no reason for optimism. The owners are probably thinking this is there chance to break the union once and for all. It's a risk they don't mind taking.

We will be lucky to play 60 games.

They aren't in the union so the owners cynically expect the union to concede on shit like this in order to get a few more pennies into the union. Of course the owners are being short sighted and blinded by greed, but no matter they just want to see more black on the books in the next few years. Doesn't matter if the quality of play goes down or whatever they figure (perhaps rightly) that the slack will be picked up by someone else, maybe private academies, maybe expanding Juco budgets, maybe for profit academies expanding in LA and Pacific Rim. But fuck them. Fuck the owners. This business will not end well for anybody -- including them. It's going to get out of control and a season will likely be lost one way or another -- a partial season isn't a real season and we all know that.

Sigh.

Yep, was saying the same thing this weekend to a fellow baseball diehard. The way that the players, especially pitchers, have been fucked over by the owners is a disgrace. Furthermore, there is a devastating impact on the towns and businesses in AZ and Florida that rely on Spring Training now getting screwed once again. Just leaves a bitter taste. Reading the comments posted above makes it even more bitter. The owners don't even seem to GAF about lost revenue. That speaks volumes. They'd rather wipe out an entire season in order to keep hogging the revenue pie. It's greed plain and simple. They figure they can break the union once and for all and reap the rewards for decades to come. They just expect the fans to come back when they hear that dinner bell ringing like a conditioned dog. Fuck them.

So not working feverishly on a deal? Go figure.

The owners are human scum. Not all of them, but collectively they are. They are a cynical, greedy and overly prideful group used to getting their way even if they have to run someone over to get there.

Well maybe the mediator can get the sides together MORE THAN 4 TIMES IN 8 WEEKS!

Fuck just make it pure auction for the first round, that would be amazing. Every team can nominate a player and then everybody bids from their allotted bonus pool. Can you imagine how fun and awesome that would be? And it will never happen because it will cost the owners too much money. The 1st round of the MLB draft would be must watch TV in an auction format imo.

I mean I get it, you gotta send the email, but FFS. @Dick Allen was there any acknowledgment of you know, a labor stoppage in the email?

With the stuff coming out about tanking in the NFL you gotta wonder how prevalent it's been in MLB the past few seasons. Have owners offered to pay management to lose games? With the local ticket revenues not nearly as important anymore and the revenue sharing MLB has created a scenario where yes, I think "broken" is a good description. Tanking might be a legit strategy for SOME clubs in SOME situations but too often it's just an excuse not to spend any money and just rake in the guaranteed revenue. And of course as you mentioned the other component to tanking is service time manipulation. How convenient is it for the owners that they can (literally) afford to keep their best prospects off the team and save money at the same time? A little too convenient. I'm not exactly rooting for an entire season to be wiped out because I'm a fan of baseball and I enjoy baseball but if that is what it takes to fix these issues maybe it will be worth it.

Right, that was their plan the entire time, I don't think anybody is surprised. I posted a couple weeks ago how dire I feel the situation is. Nothing has changed since then to move me off the idea that at best we'll play 100 games and there is a decent (so maybe 1/3) chance the entire season is cancelled.

Yea, the owners are fucking this up. A big reason is that Manfred isn't removed enough (unlike say Silver) from the ownership cabal to look them in the eye and tell them that they are going to kill the golden goose.

Why in gods name haven't they already worked out the non core stuff???? We will be lucky to play 100 games.