Otto von Ballpark

And you're one of those that doesn't recognize the meaning of a smiley emoji? It's confusing for sure, but I think that search tool you reference is only searching the channels offered in each base package. To get FSN in a base package in Iowa would indeed be expensive (as most Iowa base packages just have FS Midwest). But, they also offer FSN in a "Sports Pack" for $14/month, and they say "You can add Sports Packages separately to any base programming package": https://www.directv.com/sports/sports_pack I went into their checkout process to get the numbers in my previous post, and installation, equipment, and fees were all included in the numbers I quoted.

I think the 13-pitcher limit was announced before 2020 spring training, but it was dropped by the time the season actually began in July.

It doesn't, if he genuinely needs the experience. It does take away the Twins ability to do that (or use it to justify delaying his clock) in the first two weeks of April.

Perhaps, but you know what team Fangraphs has projected for the second-highest win total in MLB? The Padres. So the Dodgers have some competition, and while I'm not sold on Bauer either, the risk of the deal is mitigated quite a bit by its short length.

I sympathize with Iowa fans more than those in Minnesota, but you "literally" just described a legal option available to you in your own post! FWIW, satellite TV is usually the best option for sports fans in Iowa. Looks like DirecTV with the Sports Pack to get FSN would average around $98 per month on 2-year contract (about $79/month the first year, then $116/month the 2nd year).

That sounds about right -- there were some early mocks that had Turner as high as #3, but his stock seemed to slip a little bit during the college season. I remember him coming up in discussions here for the Twins at #5, for sure.

A number of folks had Turner in their top 10, although generally not as high as Gordon. For example, here's a composite 2014 mock draft that placed Turner at #9: https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/5/29/5759878/updated-consensus-2014-mlb-mock-draft

Let's not forget the crazy power spike in the 2019 International League. Gordon's .801 OPS translated to a 101 wRC+ -- basically exactly league average. For comparison, in 2018 Buxton posted a .787 OPS in Rochester, lower than Gordon's 2019 OPS, but it translated to a 122 wRC+ because the league average offensive baseline was so much lower. Gordon's 2019 wasn't bad, and was way better than his 2018 numbers at the same level, but not particularly impressive in terms of projecting his future offensive value.

AT&T TV would be $510 for the regular season (6 months at $85/month).

Can you confirm, does your AT&T TV login also allow you to stream Fox Sports North content at https://www.foxsports.com/provider/register or in the Fox Sports app?

The AT&T TV Choice package (the cheapest streaming package that includes FSN right now) is currently $85/month. That's high, but keep in mind, there is no contract so you can cancel anytime, and no fees beyond that $85 each month. For comparison, I just went to the Xfinity website, where they advertised an $80/month TV/internet combo. Sounds good, BUT in the fine print: Broadcast TV Fee (up to $19.45/mo.), Regional Sports Fee (up to $14.45/mo.) and other applicable charges extra Plus they require you to pay $5/month for a cable box (or $15 if you want DVR, which AT&T TV already includes), so that's $119-129. On the internet side, it's only 200 Mbps (one of their lower speed tiers) and adds $14-25/month for modem rental if you don't buy your own. All of this is on a 1-year contract, so you can't cancel whenever you want -- and the price jumps another $20 after 1 year too. Obviously this will all vary by one's local cable/internet providers, but odds are, the cable package will be no better on price than internet + AT&T TV, and far less flexible. (Of course, an even better deal is internet + radio )

To be fair, it's not really MLB causing this current issue. Fox had broadcast rights, and then sold them to Sinclair, and now Sinclair has failed to keep them on most streaming services. I'm guessing MLB isn't exactly thrilled with Sinclair right now either, if only due to the negative PR. (There's also the annual complaint about MLB.TV's blackout rules, but I think that's a separate issue -- and one that isn't unique to MLB either.)

Yes. I wasn't referring to Kirilloff specifically, just service time manipulation in general. Kirilloff would be less blatant than the Kris Bryant situation -- pretty much every 2021 prospect has a better case for being sent down than Bryant did, since there was no 2020 minor league season. And it's a fairly easy calculation for any team to trade a few weeks for an extra year of a position player under the current set-up. (Although as these cases add up, plus comments like those from the Seattle FO, the league may pay for it eventually, in the form of new CBA rules and/or labor strife!)

I don't think this particular issue -- how to handle arbitration for second year players -- would be all that complex, on its own. It's simply an extension of the current arbitration system. Arbitration is already based not only on performance, but also on playing time and the salaries of your service time peers, so a good performance or a partial season from a rookie wouldn't net all that much for year two. It's basically adding two levels on the scale below super-2 salaries, not pushing any existing levels up. Sure, some guys would wind up getting a little more in year 2 than their subsequent performance would suggest they should have, but on that scale, it's not enough to cause any real harm to anyone. And like I said, better to scrap the weird automatic-renewal contracts -- vestiges of the old reserve clause framework. If one wanted to make it more complex, you could also ditch the arbitration framework of both sides submitting a number and making a case. I think metrics and measurements are advanced/accepted enough that they could come up with a general formula based on those, and apply that formula to all future arbitration cases to divide a pre-determined share of revenue. Haggling over metrics and measurements in an individual case would be contentious, but in the aggregate, probably not too difficult. I think only one parameter is a difficult hurdle for the owners and MLBPA: defining revenue and the player's share of it. Unfortunately, it's a very difficult one! And it basically precludes anything else from happening until it is solved. I suspect we'll see more of the status quo before we see any changes like we're proposing, while both sides try to game the current system for their benefit.

Thanks for sharing. The problem is, reducing the number of days to count as a full service time year, even down to 1 day, still allows the team to control when that 6 year clock starts. So it's still going to influence roster decisions, just at different times. Take Kris Bryant again. Your proposal would have had him in MLB 2 weeks earlier than he actually was in 2015, which is nice, but people overlook the fact that Bryant was likely MLB ready by mid-2014. I want to incentivize teams to call up players when they are ready, not simply when they want to start their service time clock. Doesn't have to be based on age -- that was just one idea. Jeremy's article that I linked was actually based on the number of years from when they sign -- and that number would vary based on what age they sign at, so a 22 year old college draftee like Rooker might come with ~8 years of control vs a 16 year old international prospect coming with ~13 years of control. But it could effectively point to universal free agency around the same age of 29/30/whatever, if we wanted to simplify it and make it age-based. Also, I'm not sure where you picked up the idea of earlier restricted free agency, but it wasn't in the proposal I linked. I'd say real service reform would render it mostly unnecessary, or at the very least, arbitration years already act as a de facto form of restricted free agency.

Actually it's a lot more complicated than that. The teams that engage in service time manipulation are getting close to violating actual legal principles of contract law. Here's a paper from the Boston College Law Review that lays it out pretty well starting on page 23: https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3528&context=bclr Cases like Kris Bryant have just enough grey area for teams to avoid punishment in front of an arbitrator, but it's still a real legal question. Not really comparable to feelings about a free agent player signing with a new organization -- there's nothing to legally arbitrate there. It's why teams don't option good players when they fall out of contention, even though they technically could within the CBA rules -- they would almost certainly lose those cases in front of an arbitrator, as a violation of the implied obligation of good faith in their contract.

Just curious -- how you propose fixing the service time issue like this? Would Jeremy's general proposal -- basing FA on years from signing or by age -- count as just a "tweak"? http://twinsdaily.com/topic/49623-service-time-fixing-what-is-clearly-broken/

Raising the minimum is good, but the 2nd year arbitration process/scale could be set to whatever parameters you want. For example, maybe the max award for year 2 is $1.5 mil or something. I think it would be good to get away altogether from the automatic contract renewals at team-determined prices!

FWIW, a 321 inning sample of a defensive metric is going to be highly unreliable as to determining the degree of any defensive shortcomings. Note that Lux has a +26 Rdrs/yr in that same sample! Lux is a very interesting guy -- I remembered him as a decent prospect a couple years ago, but I had overlooked how he skyrocketed to elite status after 2019 (70 FV at Fangraphs! and top 5 in every list). 28.5% K rate isn't that bad either in a league with a 23.4% K rate overall (especially in a guy's first 150 MLB PA), although I am sure the Dodgers expect him to improve. I don't know if the Dodgers would align Lux at SS right now, but he's definitely worth keeping in the lineup to see what develops. Especially for the Dodgers, who have the luxury of a great roster around him and an almost guarantee of making the postseason regardless of how Lux performs.

Thanks, I understand better now. The phrasing just made it sound like their overall depth was worse than it was. Not quite -- Taylor doesn't have an everyday spot right now except as a roving "10th man". So if he and Seager were both hurt, it still only leaves SS as the open spot, although the remaining 7 projected starters may have to start more often. (If they decided to shift Muncy to 2B, they also have Edwin Rios to insert at 1B too -- the Pollock/Bellinger/Betts starting outfield could remain unchanged.)

I don't think fans need to take a side in "owners vs. players" to endorse the general idea of service-time reform. We should simply want to see the best players on the field, and remove artificial barriers to that.

Not that I'm criticizing the current rotation, but I'd be curious about your criteria for this determination. By fWAR, the 2019 starting staff was better than any in recent memory, including 1991 and 1992: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=sta&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2020&month=0&season1=1980&ind=1&team=8,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=1980-01-01&enddate=2020-12-31&sort=1,d&page=1_50 But by RA9-WAR (which is like Fangraphs' version of bWAR, using actual runs scored and not FIP), 2004 is the best, with 2005 and 1991 close behind. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=sta&lg=all&qual=0&type=6&season=2020&month=0&season1=1980&ind=1&team=8,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=1980-01-01&enddate=2020-12-31&sort=1,d&page=1_50 Prorating 2020's fWAR and RA9-WAR to a full season would indeed top both of those figures, although that's not advisable due to the hyper-unbalanced 2020 schedule!

First of all, I don't think Jeremy's plan results in fewer years of team control, even if you adjust it for college players. In some cases, it might (late bloomers?), but for a lot of guys, teams would gain more control. I mentioned above that Jeremy's plan would still have Machado under Baltimore's control in 2021, 3 seasons after they lost control of him under the current system. And barring a long-term deal, that team control would be in the form of 1-year arbitration deals through a player's prime years, which most teams in MLB can and should be willing to handle, even the low-revenue ones. Like we said last winter, most teams could afford Betts' arbitration contract of 1 year at $27 mil -- they just can't afford him on a long-term FA contract. So that would be a way to naturally increase spending from the lower-revenue teams, without forcing them to satisfy a salary floor on the FA market.

Yes, that actually changed from 17% to 22% back in 2011, good catch.

I think generally the arbitration process would have to be refined too, because right now players are compared to others in the same service time group. But with Jeremy's requirement that 1 day on the roster counts as a season toward arbitration eligibility, you'd have arbitration qualifiers like Bryant with 3 full years, in the same arbitration cohort as Jorge Polanco, who only played 78 games through his first 3 seasons. I'd suggest that while 1 day on the roster in a season would count toward eligibility, the actual arbitration award would still be based on service days / the amount you play (and the quality of your play, of course). So it wouldn't really hurt teams to call a guy up for a few weeks to get his feet wet -- he'd become arb eligible a season earlier, but wouldn't accumulate any time/stats that would balloon his future arb award. To that effect, maybe arbitration could be expanded -- make current pre-arb seasons 2 & 3 subject to arbitration, just on a lower scale. Basically replacing the sometimes contentions pre-arb contract renewals we see now, but keep the modest salary structure. The more that salaries steadily climb through a player's career, as opposed to jumping suddenly in year 4 like they do now, there is less incentive for teams to manipulate usage of that player.