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Every new stadium that's built should have a retractable roof to avoid weather delays. Baseball the only sport that has them (aside from maybe lightning and thunderstorms with soccer or football). Weather delays should be a thing of the past in the next 20-30 years imo.

Not me. I hate the weather off day after opening day. I want baseball rain or shine.

I’ll keep saying it, but we’re fucked with Manfred as commissioner. He’ll never get the small market owners to agree with the large market owners, which means he’ll never have a serious offer to present to the players. It’s going to take a month of lost games for one side to concede IMO.

This is me. If I am not watching, I have the radio on, or am looking at my phone... Maybe all of the above.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

The players are still trying to make up the losses they have suffered in the last 20 years. It isn't that complex. While the owners offered some "improvements", they weren't nearly the improvements which will keep in line with what the revenue gains have been, and certainly will be in the coming years with the revenue streams they are opening. They players expected more, and asked for more. So while the owners finally moved off of their small increases to minimum wages, the players asks were even higher. With 70% of players in that under $1 million per season bracket, those numbers not only become a lot of players defacto paychecks, they also set the middle salaries by establishing a floor. They wanted move than a "move in the right direction" they wanted a move that is commiserate with the new revenues coming into baseball. That's a fair ask. Working under the old deal would have allowed them both to keep negotiating while playing and moving forward. They weren't going to keep that deal forever. It is an extremely common technique in labor negotiations which aren't poisoned to work under the conditions of the old deal until a new one can be reached. The typical action after that is to go back and make up the differences once that deal is reached. It wasn't about keeping the old deal, it was about not unnecessarily stopping baseball to force the player negotiations capitulation, which has now failed. We are now at Day 92, and having had the first cancellation of baseball in 27 years.

Poor Biebers dad. Why do that to yourself?

Playing their way into a 4-5 series, aren’t they?

Right!? Nothing worse than all those off days the first week! I just sit and twiddle my thumbs and wish like hell I had Sox baseball to watch.

That's thousand, not million. And also you know what affect low wages players even more? Getting the number the players are asking for. I also am curious why literally with the people with the most to lose and the highest costs to absorb have no pressure here? Players have mortgages, but owners have bond payments and debt service with a lot more zeros. They will also start losing TV contracts and ad dollars.

There is a ton of reporting about owners being willing to cancel at least a months worth of games that states otherwise. But the best way to get there is to start canceling games to prove a point. Now the players aren't the bad guys for holding out for what they want because the owners l9cked them out.

This is good. Happ is a smart and thoughtfull dude.

No...you were told the players have a harder time holding all the players together when this game goes into extra innings. More than 50% of players are not going to gain because they already are not affected by raising the minimum and the CBT max is more a factor for the top guys. You can only miss so many paychecks before it wears thin. I will say the players have held surprisingly strong in the face of a reasonably strong offer. That $700M offered for minimum wage affects a lot of players.

So the owners would rather cancel the season than be put in a spot where they would be under pressure to come to an agreement?

Yeah - mlb.tv on the phone for sure if I can't actually park in front of a tv.

But I was told the players would fold.

Ptatc is correct that urgency can't be created 3 months ahead of time. Backs up against the wall urgency is always the way it is played. Once in a great while, it can happen early if there is zero animosity and that will never be the case with baseball.

Yeah....I am with you. Doesn't matter if the Sox are 10 games up or 10 games back. I am on the edge of my seat for all 162.

Really? I can't look away at the beginning of the season. So damn excited to watch baseball again. Then again, I probably watch 155+ Sox games a year, so month doesn't matter much.

I've been known to watch and be upset about a Sox game in the last week of the season when they were eliminated 2 weeks prior....."OH COME ON, THROW STRIKES!!" It's a sickness.

The players have stated they have attempted to negotiate and meet since the lockout started but the owners have not wanted to. Hard to blame the players in that situation; takes two to meet.

b**** ass mother fuckers.

Good Manspread wasn’t there. Fucker.

Imagine owning something that has gone up more than the SPX (and on top of that with guaranteed dividends around 10-15%) and thinking it's the players that need to concede more revenue.

An informal meeting between the 2 lead negotiators.

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.

Seven minutes in heaven.

Classic White Sox strategy, acquiring family members

This informal sit down needs to lead to some actual progress. But I doubt we'll see much movement for a while.

Expanded playoffs is the players only bargaining chip and they're using it the same way the owners used the universal DH. Both sides want it or understand that's it's inevitable but the other side wants it more. They're using the 12 game playoffs to get other things they want for this cba (higher min, arb, higher cbt) and save the 14 team playoff for the next cba. No reason to give up your biggest and pretty much only bargaining chip all at once. I hope they hold out as long as it takes to get it.

After following the White Sox, I can totally see how an owner would say “no we don’t need to sign that extra outfielder all you have to do is get to 84 wins and we are in true playoffs”.

I don't find any of this fascinating.

Good guys? They're all a bunch of D-bags.

This is fascinating. Basically it's mutual destruction with each side having time to actual plan their demise. They would prefer to lose fan money than to lose money to each other. In other words they would prefer to continue to fight over a smaller and smaller pie than to figure out how to share a really big pie. As a spectacle, this is like watching wrestling. There is clearly a villain that not many are cheering for and the good guys. So let's cover this like we would a game. Could someone with more details give us today's lineup and positions?

Terrible for Crochet and Kopech. Should help Grandal and Keuchel, as well as Hendriks. Also protects Abreu from typical aches and pains. Eloy, due to less opportunities to get injured....

And it's the business model that is the problem. I've already stated that a business should not be legally allowed to operate while paying their employees less than a living wage.

That's the last thing that will fix the problem.

Then they have either overextended themselves or don't deserve to be in business. Their exploitative business model is not their employees problem.

It makes me happy to know that Jerry hates Manfred.

I swear I was just doing research!

I think that's too simplistic. Every player on an affiliated minor league team is a terrific baseball player who's been the best of the best in high school and/or college. They deserve a livable full-time wage, decent living conditions and good nutrition. Also remember that many of these guys are very young...some kind of life coaching/mentoring would be money so very well spent. I don't argue with the owners thoughts about reducing the number of minor league teams...from a pure financial perspective, if only one of four makes it the the majors, it makes sense to reduce the total numbers. But I do argue with the poor overall treatment of minor league players re. pay and conditions. To say poor treatment is incentive to move through faster isn't grounded in reality. I've long wished the MLBPA would take in affiliated minor league players, but they aren't able to take care of even the lowest paid major leaguers, so I don't see it happening. There has been some discussion of a minor league players union. I hope it happens.