Brock Beauchamp

Thank you, my memory is going in my old age...

Exactly. It wouldn't surprise me in the least for owners to completely lock out baseball until an agreement is reached.

I've been wondering if there will be minor league ST if the lockout is still in place but suspect they won't do it because they're sticking to the lockout. If anyone has any information on this, it's gonna be @Seth Stohs. I actually meant to ask him about this last week and forgot.

Kirby is probably my favorite baseball player of all time but honestly, I’m not positive he beats Rickey out for that top honor. Damn, I loved watching that guy. Just unbelievable.

Just like everyone else my age, Kirby.

As usual, a comprehensive and really balanced piece by Rosenthal. This is a great primer for those who aren’t aware what each side cares about, why they care about those things, and the recent history of baseball labor that got us here.

I can't read the article because I'm not an insider but if Polanco doesn't break the top ten of 2B and there are seven centerfielders in front of Buxton, it's not a good list.

This is something we’re perpetually trying to achieve but it has been surprisingly difficult to wrangle a crew to reliably cover the Saints. Thanks for the input and this is definitely a goal for Twins Daily in the long term.

This is exactly why I originally said the Carolinas over Vegas. Nevada has 3.1m people while the Vegas metro has 2.25m people. Northern Arizona and southern Utah are also sparsely populated. I lived in the southwest for a very long time; trust me, there's nothing there. Whereas the Carolinas have a population of over 15.5m people, never mind the lack of a team in Virginia, Tennessee, and other surrounding states. Sure, they'll have to carve out a market against the Nats and Atlanta but there are so many people in that region it shouldn't be a significant problem.

It's interesting that you separate out the two so cleanly. You've done it quite a bit and I've always found it interesting. I'm not sure you're incorrect, I just view the two as mostly one entity. In my mind's eye, I put as much, if not more, blame on Falvey for the truly lackluster moves in free agency.

If I had to spit out a number... maybe they get 67% of the credit for the success? They inherited a nice group of players but few of those players were legitimately good when they took over the team. They added a lot of coaches and modern techniques to the organization, which surely helped those players become more successful in some capacity. And we shouldn't overlook the savvy trades in Odorizzi and Maeda; neither the 2019 nor the 2020 teams are close to that level without those guys anchoring pretty shaky rotations.

Sure, why not? I’ve pretty much given up on this off-season, may as well put a cherry on top of my disappointment sundae.

The biggest problem with Puerto Rico and Mexico City comes down to geography. Baseball, unlike every other sport, travels overnight 75%+ of the time. Puerto Rico is 1,000 miles from Miami, its closest MLB city and an insane 3,700 miles to the farthest MLB city, Seattle. Mexico City is less obnoxious for every trip but it still has a lot of teams traveling considerably farther than normal overnight. Mexico City is 2,200 miles from Boston and 2,300 miles from Seattle. Mexico City is perhaps feasible but I just don't see how San Juan is a real candidate for MLB expansion (ignoring the difficult economics of both regions in comparison to mainland US and Canadian cities).

In my case, I specifically called out the "always on" interleague play we have with 15 v 15 leagues. I like interleague play itself but not the sloppy way it has to be implemented with odd-numbered teams.

Age-based free agency is the best solution IMO but I'm skeptical the two sides will ever agree to an age. I think the only way owners agree to reduced control time is if they still have the ability to play with service time to some extent.

People have thought about this and on top of paying pre-arb players more, reducing control time before free agency changes the dynamic enormously. If players reached free agency in fewer years and at a younger age, a side effect of that is teams lock up players earlier and for greater dollars, which changes the value balance of younger players. It also reduces a team's ability to hoard pre-arb players at a discounted rate and forces more players, particularly mid-tier free agents, to be paid commensurate with their performance. No longer would Eddie Rosario be left in the dark over $8m in arbitration, as he would have already signed a $30-40m contract one or two years previous. The obvious downside, and it's a big one, is that it allows large market teams to snatch up the best players at an even younger age. Any reduction in service time control needs to come alongside some pretty significant revenue sharing changes and a salary floor. But the reduction of service time control and increase of early-career pay schedules will likely happen over the collective dead bodies of MLB ownership.

The reason MLB isn’t expanding is because it’s working so well to have these expansion cities perpetually in play so current owners can extort states and municipalities into funding new stadiums. Which is why MLB should expand.

I’m al for expanding the league by two teams. It does a few things: 1. Creates even-numbered leagues and removes the ugly “always on” inter league system we have now 2. It creates new fanbases and also prevents existing MLB from extorting their current cities for new stadiums as easily 3. It allows for division realignment that keeps everything equal while also allowing for a small expansion of postseason teams in a logical way

I’d do three things: 1. Move the A’s to San Jose 2. Add a team in Montreal and the Carolinas 3. Change to a four division format in each league

I'm generally pro-expansion as well and yes, some existing teams will have to be paid off to squeeze new teams into some metro areas.

The pool of eligible players only grows as MLB successful taps into Asia and the Caribbean/Central/South America. I think we could see growth continue in other parts of the world, too. As for markets, there are several in the US that could support a team; the Carolinas, Vegas, Portland, and a few others... but I think MLB should really be targeting Canada, either Vancouver or Montreal. An entire country of 33m people follows just one team right now.

I agree that in a sport with as much inequity as baseball, albatross trading could be a good thing. It adds protection for teams like the Twins where if they sign a Donaldson and he’s injured constantly and/or bad, they can move that contract to the Pirates along with prospect capital and re-invest that Donaldson money to another free agent. In turn, this speeds up the downcycle of contention for teams like the Pirates because if they're forced to spend the money, they can spend it by taking on bad contracts and basically "buying prospects" from teams with bad contracts on the books. (not picking on Josh, his contract is mostly fine, he’s just an example)

Hey, that's pretty cool, congrats to her despite the involvement of those Damned Yankees.

The reason for the disparity is because the NFL formed and became a large sporting league well after baseball. MLB and its teams started forming many of these bad policies before a Superbowl happened. And once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's bloody impossible to put it back in.