Balta1701

If the penalties for winning aren’t too big, then the White Sox will have zero problem going into the luxury tax to sign Conforto and add a 2b. They saved huge amounts of money in ‘18-19 so I’m sure that will be no barrier for this team. Right?

Getting back to this now - MLB has an incentive problem. The rewards for losing teams are too big and the penalties for building a winning team are too big. Because of that, fewer teams are spending money every winter, creating the broken FA market. Because of that, teams that could put themselves over the top with a signing…don’t, hurting quality of play. Because of that, teams that could be competitive…rebuild and tank. Because of that, draft picks and minor leaguers are overvalued, making trades harder and less interesting. Because of that, a notable portion of the league is stranded as losing franchises and that hurts the league as a whole since those fans never get to cheer for anything. I could start giving examples of teams this has affected if you want. It’s a fundamentally problem with the competitiveness of the league, it causes a lot of the audience’s biggest complaints and holds the whole sport back, and it exists because the owners want to hold salaries down. You don’t have to fix every problem in the market to fix this, all you need is to rebalance things somewhat. There’s also no single way to fix it, any of them could work - penalties for low spending or rebuilding teams, reducing the value of young players, any of those could work.

Yes.

Anything that actually starts conversation is still a positive. There are ways to fix what is broken without adjusting those details, or maybe the owners make a small move on one piece in this offer and then they reach an agreement to return to play if one more important detail is adjusted in meetings. At the very least, the players would likely give a counter offer to anything the owners give unless it’s plainly disrespectful. The players want to be able to say the owners are the ones refusing to deal.

For an inconsistent offense, they're #5 in the league in yards/game and #3 in the league in points/game. They were #2 in points/game in 2020. They outscored KC both years. That's a quality level of performance. The motivation thing you saw in the Jags game concerns me as I don't know what the deal with that was this year.

Daboll has been instrumental in what the Bulls are doing on offense and Josh Allen’s growth into a top 5 QB. His offense is loaded with playmakers but you can see him being flexible during the year. He has a whole bunch of offensive line changes and a lot of COVID issues, but the Bills maintained a strong scoring punch. A great pair of games to highlight are the Patriot games (insert joke). The first Patriot game was awful weather, but Allen was able to make some throws. They didn’t recognize this and focused on the run with the Patriots ready to stop the run, and got behind in the first half. They were too slow to adapt that game and it cost them. The second Patriot game, they had much of their receiving core out for injury and COVID, but Isiah McKenzie was plugged into the game plan and had a ton of yards. They also mixed up calls far better and that was a dominant performance. Especially late in the season, you could also see how he adjusted to the run game when teams were becoming pass-rush heavy against them, and that was also big in their last 4 wins. He has also had a number of other players develop under him, including their pro bowl LT who has been out for COVID twice this season, Knox at TE, and Gabe Davis at WR. Like Bieniemy, his job search has been slowed by his team going far in the playoffs, but it seems likely each will get a HC job one of these years. If you want some criticisms, Allen definitely still has some games where he throws bad Int’s, and as noted they can be slow to adapt in game esp if Allen is off. Also, there was some sort of frustrating motivation issue with the Bills this year. The loss to the Jaguars was on the offense not being ready to go, it was really bad. Midseason they had a stretch against the Colts, Patriots, and Bucs where the offense wasn’t helping the defense and the defense was struggling, then they got down big at halftime of the Bucs game, everyone suddenly realized they were in trouble, and the whole energy of the team reappeared. They lost that game to OT Brady, but did so after storming back from a huge deficit, and have been on a roll since then. Is that story a positive or negative for that coaching staff? Perhaps both.

Right away by mentioning the tax as a problem you’ve highlighted how the MLB’s collectively bargained payroll constraints are a major factor here. Want to compete while still paying Trout $80 million? Develop a strong player next to him in the lineup (check) and develop some pitching (crickets).

oh wait I remember that one for this.

Well done.

I don’t live in that area, but I think so?

I suppose its possible I could, but given the state of labor relations in this country and how far out of balance it has gotten in favor of employers everywhere I doubt I will see such a case any time soon.

The Bears just gave their GM what, 7 seasons to figure things out, and 2 coaches got to years 3/4 under that GM?

If a businesses labor costs rise, and it raises costs on its customers, there will be: a. a decrease in sales b. an increase in sales c. no change

Which is it, is it a balancing act or can businesses just decide that they don't have to worry about lower profits when their labor costs change? (Narrator: it was, in fact, a balancing act. That statement was correct and the previous one was wrong).

Can Cousins Kick?

Oh so you mean that the owners can't arbitrarily decide to increase their prices because their labor costs go up, as the market may push back against those price increases? Fascinating. That totally disagrees with what you said earlier.

So the owners could be making more money right now by raising prices on these fans but aren’t? I thought their plans don’t call for lower profits?

A single extension for a RB didn't sink that GM. You can add in "several bad extensions" and throw in Eddie Jackson and you might have something.

I like how the ESPN notifications for Zimmer and Nagy came 2 minutes apart.

There is no chance that Nagy is retained. There’s a level of “fan base calling for a guy’s head” that once you reach it, the guy has to go.

For once I agree with everything you wrote here.

When his office negotiates with the umpires, he’s representing the owners again, not the players. Remember the year that the NFL locked out their officials and then the league caved after some egregiously bad officiating early in the replacement ref season? The players still showed up. The commissioner does retain a power called the “best interest of baseball” power. This is a power the union has agreed to give him to do some unilateral actions on the grounds that a bargained agreement cannot anticipate everything that could happen out in the world - suspending the 2020 spring training would be along those lines as an unexpected disaster. That does not mean he is compelled to act in the interests of baseball, rather it is a power both sides have agreed to. If he used that power in a reckless manner or used it against the players union in a bargaining sense, the players would come back and say they cannot allow that power to exist. In Therese negotiations he is the representative of ownership alone. If Jerry Reinsdorf wants his last act to be breaking the union completely and he wants three seasons canceled to make it happen, as long as a majority of the owners agree, then the commissioner does as well. He has no concern for the interests of baseball or fans here beyond what the owners want.

No. He works for the owners. He is employed by the owners. He serves the interest of the owners, not the best interest of baseball.