24 minutes ago, Texsox said:

Why have playoffs at all? The Team with the best regular season record is the champion. Playoffs diminish the regular season and make it meaningless.

 

 

Eh, I still think there needs to be a postseason. But there has got to be a better way to make it less random.

1 hour ago, Texsox said:

Why have playoffs at all? The Team with the best regular season record is the champion. Playoffs diminish the regular season and make it meaningless.

 

 

Because you should also have to beat your competitors head to head with the season on the line. The ability to do that should matter more than a sweep of the Marlins in April.

2 hours ago, Texsox said:

Why have playoffs at all? The Team with the best regular season record is the champion. Playoffs diminish the regular season and make it meaningless.

  

 

Just for arguments sake - I think there's a big difference between letting in 4 playoff teams vs. 14-16 teams.

Using the playoffs to seek the difference in the 4 top teams may have some merit (?). Having a random 14th seed barely above .500 sneak into the playoffs and gain some luck is a travesty to the regular season.

This Monfort stuff is wild.  He may have really screwed the pooch with this one which would be a real shame.  

14 minutes ago, Harold's Leg Lift said:

This Monfort stuff is wild.  He may have really screwed the pooch with this one which would be a real shame.  

I tend toward the owner's side of the argument but Monfort's statement doesn't help.  If he can't afford the game he shouldn't be playing.

I kind of understand his point. Those of us that own homes, if suddenly the house cost 3x to own, because of taxes, or required minimum maintenance, we would have concerns.

8 minutes ago, Texsox said:

I kind of understand his point. Those of us that own homes, if suddenly the house cost 3x to own, because of taxes, or required minimum maintenance, we would have concerns.

Ok. Let’s see the budget documents that verify this factor of 3 increase in cost. 

31 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Ok. Let’s see the budget documents that verify this factor of 3 increase in cost. 

I'm talking in general terms. Any forced increase can put someone from being able to afford something to not. 

But it really just means it's time to find a buyer and cash out. 

1 minute ago, Texsox said:

I'm talking in general terms. Any forced increase can put someone from being able to afford something to not. 

But it really just means it's time to find a buyer and cash out. 

Oh no, saying what you just said is the exact mistake that owner made, because it's appropriate to ask for verification of those cost increases in a collective bargaining session. 

10 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Oh no, saying what you just said is the exact mistake that owner made, because it's appropriate to ask for verification of those cost increases in a collective bargaining session. 

How is a raise to the minimum wage not an easy verification of a cost increase?

3 minutes ago, Texsox said:

How is a raise to the minimum wage not an easy verification of a cost increase?

Because now you have to verify to me how that wage increase turned into actual costs affecting the other employees, which means I need effectively your full roster of employees, their work hours, and their previous salaries, as well as the revenue from those ancillary businesses (which can readily be impacted by the quality of employees you are able to bring in). You can't just say "oh it raised my costs by a factor of 3" and have me accept it.

 

Owners are never going to agree to any form of revenue sharing with players.

57 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Because now you have to verify to me how that wage increase turned into actual costs affecting the other employees, which means I need effectively your full roster of employees, their work hours, and their previous salaries, as well as the revenue from those ancillary businesses (which can readily be impacted by the quality of employees you are able to bring in). You can't just say "oh it raised my costs by a factor of 3" and have me accept it.

So you can raise salaries without raising cost? 

1 minute ago, Texsox said:

So you can raise salaries without raising cost? 

Absolutely, if by raising salaries you also improve the quality of employee that you receive. 

Person 1: makes $10 per hour, produces 1 widget per hour. Cost per widget: $10.
Person 2: Makes $15 per hour, produces 2 widgets per hour. Cost per widget: $7.50. 

2 hours ago, Texsox said:

I kind of understand his point. Those of us that own homes, if suddenly the house cost 3x to own, because of taxes, or required minimum maintenance, we would have concerns.

Except a home is a necessity, where as owning a baseball team isn't.  Don't like the cost of operating a baseball team?  Cool, sell and spend your billions on something else.    

3 hours ago, Harold's Leg Lift said:

This Monfort stuff is wild.  He may have really screwed the pooch with this one which would be a real shame.  

It would be quite delicious if ownership were forced to expose their books to the public after they initiated this whole mess to begin with.

1 hour ago, Tnetennba said:

Except a home is a necessity, where as owning a baseball team isn't.  Don't like the cost of operating a baseball team?  Cool, sell and spend your billions on something else.    

Right. And there will always be someone willing to drop a billion or two to own a team. 

How about using the same logic with players . . . don't like playing for $600,000? Cool, quit and go make more somewhere else. 

6 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

Because you should also have to beat your competitors head to head with the season on the line. The ability to do that should matter more than a sweep of the Marlins in April.

 

4 hours ago, iWiN4PreP said:

Just for arguments sake - I think there's a big difference between letting in 4 playoff teams vs. 14-16 teams.

Using the playoffs to seek the difference in the 4 top teams may have some merit (?). Having a random 14th seed barely above .500 sneak into the playoffs and gain some luck is a travesty to the regular season.

So if a top seed can't beat a team that sneaks into the playoff they should be eliminated. What matters is playing head to head with the season on the line.

2 minutes ago, Texsox said:

Right. And there will always be someone willing to drop a billion or two to own a team. 

How about using the same logic with players . . . don't like playing for $600,000? Cool, quit and go make more somewhere else. 

And players are welcome to.  No one is forcing either side to be involved with professional baseball.  I'm firmly on the side of labor and basically anti-billionaire, so while I acknowledge the exercise, its a futile argument to me.  Players generate the revenue and owners do little more than decide how much revenue they want to spend on the team while profiting off the rest.  Players should be entitled to far more of those revenues and owners very little IMO.  I know it will never happen, but that's my view.  Don't like spending revenue on the costs of running a franchise, tough, cash out and go play elsewhere.   

6 minutes ago, Texsox said:

 

So if a top seed can't beat a team that sneaks into the playoff they should be eliminated. What matters is playing head to head with the season on the line.

I don't agree with this. In baseball, more than any other sport, a bad team can beat a good team on any given day.

Mediocre teams don't belong in the playoffs. I am one fan who won't buy into this con.

2 minutes ago, Tnetennba said:

And players are welcome to.  No one is forcing either side to be involved with professional baseball.  I'm firmly on the side of labor and basically anti-billionaire, so while I acknowledge the exercise, its a futile argument to me.  Players generate the revenue and owners do little more than decide how much revenue they want to spend on the team while profiting off the rest.  Players should be entitled to far more of those revenues and owners very little IMO.  I know it will never happen, but that's my view.  Don't like spending revenue on the costs of running a franchise, tough, cash out and go play elsewhere.   

That could be said about business in general. 

13 minutes ago, NWINFan said:

I don't agree with this. In baseball, more than any other sport, a bad team can beat a good team on any given day.

Mediocre teams don't belong in the playoffs. I am one fan who won't buy into this con.

But you do want playoffs? Why more than two teams? 

I enjoy an upset. I don't mind if the lesser team prevails. 

10 minutes ago, Texsox said:

But you do want playoffs? Why more than two teams? 

I think there is value in having to beat an opponent head to head over a 7 game series. 

If it were up to me top 4 teams make the playoffs in each league and play best of 7 series to decide a champion. There are too many variables in terms of players getting injured over the course of a 162 game season to make me think that regular season record alone should determine who is the best team. 

I even think 10 teams as currently constructed being involved is too many. 

Edited January 26, 20224 yr by Jack Parkman

14 minutes ago, Texsox said:

But you do want playoffs? Why more than two teams? 

 

4 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

I think there is value in having to beat an opponent head to head over a 7 game series. 

If it were up to me top 4 teams make the playoffs in each league and play best of 7 series to decide a champion. There are too many variables in terms of players getting injured over the course of a 162 game season to make me think that regular season record alone should determine who is the best team. 

I even think 10 teams as currently constructed being involved is too many. 

I'm also allowed to say this as a fan - I like having high intensity sports competitions and getting to watch this happen. I agree that 10 teams feels like too many, but I also really like the one game play-ins. And further...if the teams making those wild cards weren't good enough - they would rarely win the world series. They win it fairly often, so at the very least, there are teams in the top 10 that can handle every other opponent they get in high-pressure, winner take all competition.

I don't know that there's a magic number, but I do like the current setup in terms of producing darn good television.

29 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

That could be said about business in general. 

100% agree.  CEO salaries vs the labor that does the majority of the work are absurd.