Riverbrian

I'm not sure what you are saying. Are you worried about rising ticket prices for minor league games because minor league players being paid more. They are two separate entities. Minor league players are paid by the major league clubs. Minor league ownership are the businesses who profit from ticket, parking and concessions. The ticket prices will take care of itself. If they raise the price too high, less people will attend and they will make less money and those prices will be set accordingly by the minor league clubs in order maximize their profit. Market forces will determine ticket price but higher player payroll doesn't hit the minor league ownership wallet because they are paid by the major league clubs. It is major league ownership that had been keeping minor league player costs down and cutting minor league teams in order to minimize their expense and therefore keep profit. I don't have a problem with a business making profit but I do have a problem when elite talent is paid below poverty level because they can't do anything about it. What I copy and pasted was from 2018 and I did so to point out what major league baseball did to keep minor league players at below poverty levels. I did it to illustrate what a big moment this is. Very few of us are aware of what they did because we don't read page 1,937 of a 2,232 page document and I think people should know, especially if you are a baseball fan. They took the same language from a 2016 stand alone bill (Save America's Pastime Act) that was soundly defeated, basically laughed off the stage to the point where sponsors of the bill had to back pedal. Two years later despite having no chance of being passed on it's own, it gets quietly attached, skipping the committee process directly into a massive 2018 omnibus bill deep into 2,232 page document that was necessary to keep government functioning and had nothing to do with baseball. Representation for minor league players has been necessary for a long time with the anti-trust advantages and the friends in high places that baseball had over the players for decades. I love baseball but what they have done to minor league players was shameful and today's news is so much bigger than how much money they are paying Aaron Judge and what the MLBPA and MLB baseball fight over every CBA.

His first sentence was quoting me but he didn't use the quote feature so it looks like it was all his commentary.

Having representation and a seat at the table is fantastic news. The agreement isn't enough in my opinion but it gets them above the poverty line and the fact that they needed to get above the poverty line is embarrassing. I love the game of Baseball... Always have and always will but I know what the owners and the commissioners office did and it's hard to forgive. In 2018 on page 1,967 of a 2,232 page 1.3. trillion omnibus spending bill some elected official was able to skip the committee process and just slide this in. [A]ny employee employed to play baseball who is compensated pursuant to a contract that provides for a weekly salary for services performed during the league’s championship season (but not on spring training or the off season) at a rate that is not less than a weekly salary equal to the minimum wage under section 6(a) for a workweek of 40 hours, irrespective of the number of hours the employee devotes to baseball related activities. This is how it works folks. A campaign contribution and it is quietly slipped into a massive spending bill and just like that... it's reality. This is what major league baseball did to minor league players. It's Ok... we don't watch this stuff anyway. Progress from this is progress.

I can't... I'm scared it might snow again if I do.

OMG... That would have been the perfect ending.

1. I'm picking the Twins this year because the depth should be able to keep the Wolves away. 2. I think the White Sox are a strong candidate for a rebound 3. I don't like Cleveland's depth. They were pretty healthy last year. If they are not healthy this year... especially on the mound... I can see them not being able to over come it. 4. If I had to pick a sleeper... it would be the Royals. Lots of young talent bubbling up. Most Likely too much young talent to carry them but the Royals have talent and depth of young talent and I think they will be a tough beat while they are getting beat. 5. The Tigers... will be have a lot of balls in the lottery next year. I've been shocked before... the Tigers in contention would be a hair stand on end shock. Side Note: I will go on record because I wan't to go on record. After many years of being down on the Angels because of their being over reliant upon a few big namers year after year. I am going to predict the Angels making the playoffs this year, being the surprise team force in the West. They are finally addressing their biggest problem and deepening the lineup beyond Ohtani and Trout. I think it's going to pay off. Bullpen is their current primary issue and that is potentially a big one.

The Injury Gods are doing the promotional circuit now. They will be on Kimmel tonight. I wonder why the sudden need for promotion after years of lurking in the shadows? I've heard rumor they are releasing a new album and I've also heard rumor that their corporation is going public with an initial public offering planned for sometime this summer.

OK I the front office declare thee goal... winning games. That should take care of it. 😄

I never said that the Yankees are looking "strictly" for value. You are making my statements black and white with no middle ground. You are pointing out the middle ground when you say " they aren't looking strictly for value" I agree with that. Please offer me the same middle ground that you are awarding to yourself. I understand that the Yankees sign free agents and I understand that any time you sign a free agent... value is rarely the reason because in order to sign the free agent, you have out spent where other teams value that player in order to sign him. Once you do that that player has negative value to other teams. My point is simple yet, it is being unnecessarily complicated. A front office has to increase value of their players. Yankees included despite the millions of dollars that they spend in free agency. Yes... The Yankees are paying Stanton a boat load of money. But they had to offer value to Marlins to acquire him and that value was value that they increased to the point of satisfying the Marlins. The Yankees had to develop the value of players sent to the Cubs to acquire Rizzo. If those players don't develop sufficient value... they don't get Rizzo for those players. The Yankees had to develop the value of players sent to the Pirates in order to acquire Clay Holmes. After they acquired Clay... They developed him into something better and have no increased his value to the point where they might be get more value then they sent to the Pirates. They don't have to cash in but they increased that value. They increased the Value of Aaron Judge and Severino and are keeping that value to themselves. They have increased the value of Volpe, Peraza and the Martian (Jasson Dominquez) to the point that they can now trade those assets and acquire an incredible player in return. Which is a very Yankees thing to do since 17 players on their current 40 man were acquired via trade. 14 players are homegrown. 7 were acquired via free agency. You can't acquire 17 players via trade unless you have value to send back. And in conclusion... I believe we shouldn't trade Thielbar because he has more value to us then what we would get in return. I stand by my statement that the goal of every front office is to increase the value of their players and if you are successful in doing so... the wins will follow.

Not my argument either. 😉

I didn't mention "A's" Yankees" "Luxury Tax" "World Series" or "Future Value" in the post that started this exchange. What I said was: The goal of every front office is to increase value. If the front office can increase the value of it's players... the wins will follow. The rest you are adding on your own. If you want to win a trade... Increase the value of the players you acquire. If you want to get the most for a trade. Trade players whose value has been increased. Players that are playing well increase in value. If you are playing well... you will win games. Therefore... The goal of every front office is too increase the value of their players. If you want to win trades... Increase the value of the players that you acquire. Increasing the value of your players provides bigger return in the trades that you do make. If players are playing well... they increase in value. If players are playing well... you win more games. If you are trying to trip me up... You gotta do better. 😄

Based on that... yes they are.

Oakland has reached the playoffs 6 out of the last 11 years. Winning Record 7 out of the last 11 years. You lost me immediately when "World Series" became your argument.

Yep... That 40 man spot is the key and what they do in the bullpen will decide it. If Sands is the guy or Ober or someone who is currently on the 40 man roster is the guy... They can add a Castro or Garlick to the 40 man. If Hoffman or someone not on the 40 man is the guy going North... he takes the 40 man spot... and now they have to choose between Julien or Wallner because they are on the 40 man. I am under the assumption that none of the 39 players currently on the 40 is someone the team would be comfortable losing. Of course... We haven't finished spring training yet and more injuries can still occur. It's like me saying... It's March 23... We can still get some more snow this late in the season.

In my opinion... The difference between KC and TB is this... KC has more tolerance for sub-par play and they demonstrate more stubbornness in trying to force it. The Royals will give Ryan O' Hearn who has options continued AB's when struggling while the Rays will give AB's to a Ji-Man Choi who is not struggling. Therefore the Royals struggle and the Rays do not. If O' Hearn was on the Rays... he would have been traded because the Rays know they can always find a Ji-Man Choi because they won't play an O' Hearn and therefore block a Choi. Playing struggling players over and over again is what kills your team. They are not helping the team when in the lineup and they prevent you from finding someone who can help your team because they are in the lineup instead of that someone.

Love your response its well thought out and I agree with your assessment. i just want to respond to this opening sentence. The goal of every front office needs to be maximizing value. By doing so... it leads to winning games.

I love a good metaphor or allegory. Thank you for this article. In your example. The players are Monty Hall and the front office is the contestant Monty Hall is the key to the Monty Hall problem. In order for it to work. 1. Monte has to know what door the car is behind. 2. Monty has to always open a door. 3. Monty can never open the door you've chosen 4. Monty can never open a door with the car behind it. Because Monty knows what car the door is behind and because you know that Monty knows. Monty has just increased your odds to 66.7% so yeah switch. In your example: The players are Monty but they don't know if they are a goat or a car, they are all trying to be cars and you are trying to trade Thielbar when he is a car. Contending teams acquire Thielbar Non-Contending teams trade Thielbar Unless the team acquiring Thielbar is willing to trade a car with more years of control. Regardless... this article gets a 10 from me. If you write more stuff like this... I'm going to read it.

Polanco to the DL Kirilloff hasn't played a single spring training game. Miranda hasn't played in the field because of his shoulder Buxton will be opening the season as a DH and Kepler has an issue now. All that careful planning of platoon management in the off-season already meaningless. All that hand wringing about Solano knocking Larnach to the minors pre-mature. Check your brackets. Once again they are busted. There is a line through Kansas and Purdue.

Very Few starting pitchers if any at all are #1 right out of the gate. They were labelled 2's, 3's and 4's. Who knows... We may have a future #1... or maybe a couple of them hanging around right now.

I read a lot of comments over the off-season from the TD crowd. For those who look for a starting 9 and refer to the rest as "bench". For those counting starters who can't figure out what to do with Ober after they reach the number 5. For those who can't figure out why Solano was necessary. For those who are trying to carefully plan starting lineups vs right handers and a starting lineup vs a lefty like it's a static assignment that lasts the entire season. For those who need a reminder of the incredible volume of injuries last season. Let this article remind. This article is referencing opening day. ' An obvious reminder is that we have no idea what the injuries will look like in May. Or June, July, August or September but it's safe to assume that there will be some injuries. 26 players who can play is not just necessary. It is required. 26 players who can play... and you play them.

Yeah... Why Not. Fans are rational, Social Media can be trusted.

WIth out question hard to sustain over a 162 game schedule. It does show us that MLB has a long ways to go. Make it a little bit better and see if it grows incrementially. Maybe 20 decades from now... we got something. 😄 Baseball has to start pushing the ball up the hill before it will roll down the hill in the right direction. The WBC atmosphere is the goal. The world is trying to show us something.

That WBC atmosphere should be the goal of MLB. I've always thought that Arraez was capable of power if he chose to hit for more power. He such a good hitter without that power that I'm not sure he should but I think he could. Either way... other than a healthy Byron Buxton... He was my favorite Twin to watch. I always felt like he was going to come through at the plate. Arraez was an expensive price to pay so I'm hoping that Lopez gets it done on the mound. I'm pretty sure that Arraez will get it done in Miami.

How many customers? How much do they spend? If a business doesn't have many customers... they must get them to spend more. If customers are not willing to spend more.. then you need more customers, Major league baseball chose to limit customers and they did so they could extract more money from those limited customers. The very nature of a blackout is a restriction. It's saying... you can't watch. They said... I'll take the money and agree to restrictions that limit the cumulative audience and now that revenue stream is at risk and they don't have the cume necessary to replace the revenue. Baseball should have been chasing cume all along. Consumers are spending less time (and money) with the product and that less time must be replaced by more people to compensate for it. They are on the cusp of demographically aging out. We are watching the much needed overdue transition. Baseball is trying to figure out how to reach more consumers. Baseball needs to be everywhere the people are. It needs to repair the damage done This could be painful for us old folks but baseball needs a larger audience. They always have.

I think it's fantastic that someone with Ober's ability is currently sitting 6th on the depth chart. 5 Decent starters in front is wonderful. I am also excited that Paddack, Canterino, Varland, Woods-Richardson, Balazovic are 7 through 11.