Otto von Ballpark

Sorry I'm just catching up on the conversation... Doesn't this have it backwards? Isn't it much more important to *avoid* the 0-2 hole, rather than worry about who starts for you in game 3 if/when it gets to 0-2?

I don't think those pejoratives are remotely comparable. I am sure Yankee fans have said bad things to players, but "Uber" is not one of them.

Yes, Monday's Twins game will be on FS1. (The only other MLB Network game this postseason is Monday's Astros-Rays game.)

Former-spring-training -Twin Anibal Sanchez starts tonight for the Nationals.

Sunday Oct. 6 NLDS Game Three's both series tied 1-1 3:10 pm CST Braves at Cardinals TV: TBS 6:45 pm CST Dodgers at Nationals TV: TBS

Berrios would be on short rest for game 4, right? Might still be our best option, but I'm not sure how confident I'd be. If we could win games 3 and 4 (a big "if"), we'd have some major momentum going for game 5 at least, regardless of starter. (None of this is meant to justify Dobnak in game 2, of course.)

Well, both NLDS are tied at 1-1 now, so we'll have another day of 4 games on Monday!

Saturday Oct. 5 4:07 pm CST Twins at Yankees (ALDS Game 2) TV: FS1 8:07 pm CST Rays at Astros (ALDS Game 2) TV: FS1

But he beat the Yankees!

Friday Oct. 4 Big day today! 4 games. Might be the only day of the postseason with 4 games if there's a NLDS sweep. 1:05 pm CST Rays at Astros (ALDS Game 1) TV: FS1 3:37 pm CST Cardinals at Braves (NLDS Game 2) TV: TBS 6:07 pm CST Twins at Yankees (ALDS Game 1) TV: MLB Network (but you knew that already ) 8:37 pm CST Nationals at Dodgers (NLDS Game 2) TV: TBS

Yankees roster, for those wondering:

See my post above yours, with Twitter link.

Rosters in! Arraez and Adrianza -- and no Perez.

I know Paul Bunyan Cable in Bemidji carries it, and I don't think that cable company is quite as big as its namesake. https://getmlbnetwork4.viewerlink.tv/

Also, to those saying "MLB is bad for spreading their postseason games across too many networks" -- the only two MLB Network games are on the only two days of the postseason when there are FOUR games going on. By comparison, the NFL playoffs never have more than 2 games in a day, and the length of those games is mostly fixed. Given the variable lengths of these MLB games, those are probably the best days to spread them out across networks as much as possible. I remember 1995, when MLB tried overlapping postseason broadcasts, and they were pilloried for it!

I understand your frustration, but I'd take that with a grain of salt. I know MLB Network is available on some smaller cable companies -- they even have a web site where you can check: https://www.mlb.com/network/get-mlb-network Was this in reference to the free preview? I could see logistical problems with trying to offer that to lots of small providers. As for regular carriage, MLB and cable providers might disagree about what tier to offer the channel on too, aside from cost. Out of curiosity, what is your cable company?

Thursday, Oct. 3 4:02 pm CST Cardinals at Braves (NLDS Game 1) TV: TBS 7:37 pm CST Nationals at Dodgers (NLDS Game 1) TV: TBS

Look at what happened here -- with this game on MLB Network, there were news articles about MLB Network, and lots of folks petitioned Comcast about it and even got them to reverse a decision (albeit just about the free preview.) The same might happen in Houston and Tampa for their upcoming ALDS game on MLB Network. That's what MLB wants to happen, rather than essentially selling this single game's stream for a couple bucks to us cordcutters. And it makes sense in the current environment. No one in their position is selling a la carte or bypassing providers and going direct to the consumer with that level of content. Someday it might make sense, but at this point, the criticism seems more like wishing than any kind of questionable decision on MLB's part.

Brock, I've repeatedly said there is no *technical* issue preventing this. I know it would be easy for MLB to flip a switch and stream it from their servers. I appreciate that! But that's not the issue at all. I don't know where you got the idea that I thought that was the issue. First off, Wikipedia says cable and satellite companies were offered a minority share in the network, so it may not be exclusively MLB's decision to make. I guess MLB could buy them out, but that's just going to risk it getting dropped by providers. Here's an article that had MLB Network in 67 million households, at $0.28 each: https://sportstvratings.com/how-much-more-does-espn-make-in-affiliate-revenue-than-the-other-sports-networks/5737/ If providers decided to offer just 8 cents less for MLB Network, it would take a million standalone subscribers at $5 per month to make up the lost revenue. (And most of those subscribers would only subscribe for October, or at best April through October, so you'd probably need a lot more than 1 million of them. And if you made the single-month price higher, like $20, or $60 for the year, you can imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the folks on this thread.) And I suspect it wouldn't just be an 8 cents across the board cut -- some providers would simply drop it, or for providers who don't already have it, they would be less likely to add it in the future, or even go along with MLB on this "free preview" thing. MLB Network (and MLB.TV) are not big revenue generators, they are primarily promotional tools. Look at the free previews, the low carriage rates, the numerous free and discounted MLB.TV subscriptions, the limited number of unique MLB.TV commercials. Selling MLB Network directly to superfans has minimal revenue potential, and a lot of risk that it would constrict their promotional reach.

$5 is an inflated price? How many networks sell their channels directly to the consumer, as well as have wide cable carriage? It doesn't happen, and it's not because all networks are dumb. It's a tight business and Comcast and others aren't going to pay any carriage fees they don't have to.

It's not an infrastructure issue at all. I agree it would be easy, technology-wise, for MLB to offer MLB Network for streaming. (Just like it would be easy, technology-wise, for Fox to put an MLB game on an OTA digital subchannel.) But it's not a practical business decision right now. Providers would drop MLB Network if MLB was selling it to customers directly (after all, they're not going to pay X cents per subscriber when the people who really care about the channel are already getting it elsewhere), and it doesn't matter how powerful MLBAM is -- there's no way that the niche audience of us diehards would make up the lost revenue *and* the lost eyeballs/exposure/accessibility/etc. MLB already has most diehards hooked, one way or another -- with MLB Network, they want to get their channel in front of lots of non-fans too. Look at the free previews they've done in the postseason -- four years in a row. TV ratings are down, but I don't think that many people are "abandoning sports as a whole." Sports are still huge. The landscape is evolving, and competition is growing, but they're still huge, and MLB would be pretty much alone in abandoning major TV providers to sell direct to the consumer right now, and would likely suffer for it. I do agree about Amazon -- I too was hoping they'd get the Fox RSNs, and at least offer them in something close to Sling's base package price. Maybe it wouldn't have made financial sense, but it would have been fun, with much greater importance than however MLB chooses to distribute their MLB Network.

You may have seen the other thread, but MLB Network is available on YouTube TV, and they have a free 7 day trial. They support pretty much every device these days too. After the trial, if you want to pay $50 for the month, you'd get all the postseason games over YouTube TV too, including DVR (to skip the numerous commercials!).

That's not realistic. Relatively few people would sign up for that, compared to the number that already get it through their TV provider, and a direct offering would diminish the value of the network so those providers would drop it and MLB would lose their revenue. And even if your $5 per head could make up the subscriber revenue, in the end it would put MLB in front of a vastly smaller audience. This argument reminds me of the "MLB.TV should have no blackouts!" crowd. Networks currently pay BILLIONS for the exclusive rights that lead to those blackouts -- and there's no way MLB.TV subscribers would ever be numerous enough, and/or pay enough, to replace those billions.

Grossman with a pair of hits for Oakland tonight. Nick Anderson gave up a single to the first batter he faced, before striking out the next 4 (including Grossman), to help close out the Rays victory.

Here's an old article on the MLB Network strategy: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mlb-network-playoff-gamble-pays-off-aids-viewers/ They've done free previews for each of the last 4 postseasons. I don't think they are being particularly unreasonable or fan unfriendly in this instance.