The MLB lockout is lifted!

[Tnetennba]

 

[Tnetennba]

 

[Tnetennba]

 

[Tnetennba]

 

[Tnetennba]

 

[caulfield12]

Has anyone seen the names of the five teams with over 180 players on their reserve list and the rumored two teams UNDER 150?...would be interesting to know.

[southsider2k5]

8 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

Has anyone seen the names of the five teams with over 180 players on their reserve list and the rumored two teams UNDER 150?...would be interesting to know.

Start counting MiLB franchises.

[Tnetennba]

 

[Bob Sacamano]

4 minutes ago, Tnetennba said:

 

If there was ever time for a cry face emoji.

[Tnetennba]

10 minutes ago, Bob Sacamano said:

If there was ever time for a cry face emoji.

We could all be giddy with excitement at the official start of spring, but the greedy owners are still holding our beloved game hostage…

[NWINFan]

18 minutes ago, Tnetennba said:

We could all be giddy with excitement at the official start of spring, but the greedy owners are still holding our beloved game hostage…

It's obvious that this work stoppage is going to be a long one. I wonder what JR wants as a lasting legacy. Another World Series? Or breaking the union?

[Tnetennba]

 

[Tnetennba]

 

[southsider2k5]

Way to create "urgency" MLB.

You had one job.

[southsider2k5]

 

[southsider2k5]

 

[chitownsportsfan]

Sigh.

[Ducksnort]

This isn't going to end anytime soon...this whole ordeal can be summarized into one phrase: what a joke.

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, Tnetennba said:

 

The players do have an important decision here.

The owners are making incremental changes in their offer, leaving things far apart.

Do the players: make incremental offers of their own, risking a long negotiation, or

Make an offer that basically splits the differences, hoping that the owners will pretty much accept it with minor tweaks, and risk the owners saying no and the players having no room left to maneuver. This could also empower any players who say they need to wait out the owners since they won’t give anything?

[bmags]

I actually think a reduced minor leagues would tend to benefit the marginal MLB player. If teams have less of a pool to develop players they know can do the job, they will need to lean more on players who have been in league.

I think Kevin Goldstein is right that the better way to handle the smaller owners is just to push them to remove the caps. If an org wants to have a large minor league system, let them. If they want a small one, let them. While logic would say the Dodgers, Yankees would have large minors systems, you'd probably have smaller revenue teams that try to win with bigger ones as well. They'll be some amount that makes more sense to spend on the lower cost minor league guys to find more cost-controlled players each year.

But anyway, I find it tedious to follow the ins and outs of these negotiations. The amount of hyperventilating reading every line in a proposal. They are helpful to figure out what's moving in and out. This is likely just a dumb fake leverage line, something that it makes the owners feel like they are moving toward the players by giving into it despite it not actually being a big driver of their concern.

Instead it's hundreds of ZOMG the OWNERS want to MAKE ALL HOT DOGS TURKEY HOT DOGS 

[pcq]

Owners are penny-pinching and petty-pinching in this instance. Things are moooving way too slow.

 

[Balta1701]

Not sure if anyone saw this blurb from ESPN, from an insider section but short enough that an excerpt should be ok:

Quote

At the meeting Saturday, MLB set a deadline to make a deal in time to salvage Opening Day: Feb. 28. Now, that's a soft deadline; if an agreement came together on March 3, it's difficult to imagine the league wouldn't be ready by March 31. At the same time, it gives two sides that are meeting infrequently two weeks to figure out how to bridge a massive financial gap in a way that's palatable to an angry group of players and an unwavering group of owners. This is not 1994 (yet). But in rhetoric and trajectory, it's starting to feel an awful lot like 1981, when a midseason player strike took out more than a month of the season, canceling 713 games.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/32882139/mlb-lockout-owners-players-talking-baseball-fans-worried-here-latest 

[ChiSox59]

Am I the only one that doesn't find reducing the size of minor leagues and the draft that big of a deal?  Its so hard to make it to the big leagues.  There are so many guys that play pro affiliated ball that have next to zero chance of ever making it to the big leagues.  Would the elimination of 30 minors leaguers per org make it so that 1 out of every couple hundred guys that beat all odds never gets the chance?  Maybe.  But its also probably the best for the vast majority of these guys that never make it out of rookie and A ball.  They never had a real chance anyway - may was well get on with your life while you're young.  Get a job that is year-round so you're not trying to make ends meet each winter with odd jobs with no upside. 

Its not like making $18k a year playing baseball in what is effectively a deadend job for most low end draft pick and the undrafted is going to get you to a better place in life.  Its kind of a hard reality, but its true.  The owners probably have the wrong reasons for doing it, but at the end of the day, they're just doing all those guys a favor that waste a few years of their life chasing something they never had a chance at anyway.  

[Bob Sacamano]

10 minutes ago, ChiSox59 said:

Am I the only one that doesn't find reducing the size of minor leagues and the draft that big of a deal?  Its so hard to make it to the big leagues.  There are so many guys that play pro affiliated ball that have next to zero chance of ever making it to the big leagues.  Would the elimination of 30 minors leaguers per org make it so that 1 out of every couple hundred guys that beat all odds never gets the chance?  Maybe.  But its also probably the best for the vast majority of these guys that never make it out of rookie and A ball.  They never had a real chance anyway - may was well get on with your life while you're young.  Get a job that is year-round so you're not trying to make ends meet each winter with odd jobs with no upside. 

Its not like making $18k a year playing baseball in what is effectively a deadend job for most low end draft pick and the undrafted is going to get you to a better place in life.  Its kind of a hard reality, but its true.  The owners probably have the wrong reasons for doing it, but at the end of the day, they're just doing all those guys a favor that waste a few years of their life chasing something they never had a chance at anyway.  

I agree with you. 

[bmags]

15 minutes ago, ChiSox59 said:

Am I the only one that doesn't find reducing the size of minor leagues and the draft that big of a deal?  Its so hard to make it to the big leagues.  There are so many guys that play pro affiliated ball that have next to zero chance of ever making it to the big leagues.  Would the elimination of 30 minors leaguers per org make it so that 1 out of every couple hundred guys that beat all odds never gets the chance?  Maybe.  But its also probably the best for the vast majority of these guys that never make it out of rookie and A ball.  They never had a real chance anyway - may was well get on with your life while you're young.  Get a job that is year-round so you're not trying to make ends meet each winter with odd jobs with no upside. 

Its not like making $18k a year playing baseball in what is effectively a deadend job for most low end draft pick and the undrafted is going to get you to a better place in life.  Its kind of a hard reality, but its true.  The owners probably have the wrong reasons for doing it, but at the end of the day, they're just doing all those guys a favor that waste a few years of their life chasing something they never had a chance at anyway.  

Yeah, and I have to wonder if teams are also in the process of reconsidering whether the affiliate system is the be-all, end-all after the use of complexes during the pandemic. Playing real games is important, but we also know that players don't really do mid-season adjustments because it's too hard. Would it be better to just be in a complex, back-field league for the youngest players? Learning technique daily, working on swings, and playing games, etc. 

One thing though, is I don't know if Front Offices are consulted at all in these negotiations. I'd love to know their perspective on what they would push for in terms of game changes. I'm sure they would like the International market getting sorted out. I know Adam Silver did engage with NBA front offices in 2020 to get their ideas for how to make it work.