The Great Hambino

If you recall, there was no mechanism to make the bad actors actually spend their redistributions, so of course the players rejected it, They would have been profoundly stupid if they hadn’t I reject the premise completely that revenue parity can’t happen since the other three major leagues prove that it can. If the owners want a salary cap, then they’re delusional if they think they’re getting one without making some major concessions in those negotiations

I assume any salary floor would come hand in hand with increased revenue sharing. Players have resisted increased revenue sharing in the past because they had no reason to trust the owners to reinvest their revenue sharing funds into the roster. In fact, it's salary suppression because it takes funds from those willing to spend and gives it to those that aren't. If I'm the players, as long as you have a cap pegged to our acceptable % of revenue and a floor at our acceptable % of the cap, then share revenue however you please to make that happen. There would no longer be a reason to oppose it. I also assume a floor would come along with complete reform of the pre-free agency salary structure - higher minimums, fewer arb or pre-arb years, mechanisms to get rid of service time manipulation. In reality, I could see this end up settling on a soft cap. Both sides would be able to claim victory to some degree - the players fought off a hard cap, the owners won a cap of some kind. Hopefully, both sides recognize the damage that lost games would do to their impending TV rights negotiations in 2028

There is no team entering the season in the NFL knowing they have no chance to compete due to their revenue and payroll imbalance. There are teams that have no chance, but those reasons have nothing to do with their market size. One thing the players should think about: there already is a salary cap in place for about two-thirds of the league - they just call it a luxury tax threshold. And this is with no floor other than the sum of minimum salaries and the occasional empty threat of a grievance. Might be time to AGGRESSIVELY push for a floor. And I mean an actual floor like the NFL, not whatever pathetic non-offer offer the owners made that wouldn't have affected team behavior in any meaningful way

Oh, so this time they mean it, for realsies? Did he pinky swear? Cross his heart and hope to die?

"This was a move to get better on defense" - Jerry Jones It's starting to look really weird that Jerruh is in the hall of fame while Robert Kraft isn't

I'll give Lindsey this: he's not afraid to rip it into tight windows. He can really sling it, but the Bulls left at least a couple interceptions out there. He's gonna put up a stinker on occasion because of this, but he could be really good once he develops a more discerning eye for those windows and tightens up his timing

The Great 2025 Matt Wallner RBI Logic Puzzle Above are his RBI totals and his RBI opportunities relative to league average. His OPS+ is 122 - or 22% better than average. If his RBI production matched that proportionally, we'd expect him to have about 44 RBI - 36 * 122%. That looks bad. However, if we call RISP his RBI opportunities*, then he's only had 74 opportunities versus a league average of 95 - or 22% worse than average. Based on that, we'd expect him to have about 28 RBI - 36 * 78%. That looks good. If we expect him to have an RBI total in proportion to his OPS+ given his opportunities, I come up with 34 RBI - 28 * 122%. Which basically brings us right back to his actual RBI total. He really has been a human inkblot test this year. Whether you think he's coming up short of the run production a player of his caliber should be having, there's plenty of evidence of that. If you think he's being suppressed by lack of opportunity, there's evidence of that as well. Anyone can draw the conclusion they want from examining his season. He's an interesting case study of the kind of statistical profile you can have when traits are pushed to the extreme. From looking at his Savant profile, it seems like he could greatly improve that 1st-percentile whiff rate without sacrificing too much of his immense power traits by reducing that chase rate - 41st percentile leaves quite a bit of room for improvement. If he can do that, as the great Carl Weathers once said, "Baby, we got a stew goin" That potential alone makes him more valuable than Larnach, who is a puddle of meh pretty much across the board. Tack on age and cost, and it's no contest. Roden gets to be the puddle of meh next year while Larnach plies his trade elsewhere. *Before you say it - yes, I know this isn't really a fully accurate picture of his RBI opportunities. A true calculation would take the expected number of RBI from each plate appearance - say, 0.4 for runners on 2nd and 3rd and nobody out, 0.06 for bases empty, etc (these figures are just for illustration, I'm both unwilling and unable to figure or find the actuals right now), sum them up, then compare that to his actual RBI total to really know how well he's doing given his opportunities.

"Given Rutschman's going to get more expensive next season" I think that takes him off the board for the Twins. I think they're more likely to shed salary in trade next offseason than add. And even if they are trying to be competitive next year and are willing to add salary, they're not adding that much. Assuming everyone important is retained - including Jeffers - then those limited dollars are much better spent places like 1B and the bullpen than a position they already have covered, at least from a starting standpoint. The only way dealing Jeffers and acquiring Rutschmann makes sense would be if Rutschmann were cheaper than Jeffers. Projecting arbitration is sorta murky, but Rutschmann made $1MM more than Jeffers this year. I'd pass on Adley

They said it can easily be rebuilt. They didn't say it would be good

I wasn't fully paying attention, but did Denard just say a high pitch was the perfect pitch to steal on?

Way to go Fundy, rallying to get Springer after that blistering double from Gimenez

I can think of a few solutions, each equally likely to happen (read: not happening) 1. Ban sliders. Even crappy relievers have filthy stuff that's unlike anything hitters in the past have had to face. 2. Lower the cap on pitchers on a roster to 10. Pitchers would have to pace themselves more, velocity would decrease, breaking stuff wouldn't be quite as sharp 3. Move the mound back a couple feet. This one feels just wrong for reasons I can't fully articulate

If you don't trust the front office to get good value in trading Lopez and Ryan, how do you trust them to effectively retool on the fly to a degree that makes the team legitimately competitive while Lopez and Ryan are under contract?

I'm talking about the possibility of free agency being divorced from service time altogether (I didn't express that very well in my original comment). Some proposals that have been thrown around peg free agency to age or years since their initial pro contract, similar to how rule 5 eligibility is determined. That would definitely put an end to service time manipulation - which holding Jenkins down for three weeks absolutely would be, regardless of how blatant it appears compared to the most blatant case on record. Now how about the draft pick and rookie of the year implications?

Twins got the short end of the stick on holiday games Mothers Day, Memorial Day, Fathers Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day are all on the road. Even the weekend series leading up to Memorial Day and Labor Day are on the road. I thought there was supposed to be some balance there. At least they have a stretch of 13 home games out of 16 in April - great time for a long homestand! Interestingly, they don't play in the Pacific Time Zone until July 31

I'm not saying it automatically overrides the potential of an extra year of his prime (which is not a certainty if his service time gets manipulated like you suggest - that assumes he has no setbacks in his development that would require a future stay in the minors; it also assumes no material change to service time rules in a CBA that looks like it's prime for several material changes), but you have to at least acknowledge the chance bringing him up to start the year results in an additional first round pick - and the slot dollars that come along with it. Does that override an extra prime year if service time rules don't change and he sticks immediately? I don't know, probably not. But it is an element in the equation. Also, you run the risk of a Kris Bryant-esque grievance if his service time gets manipulated that blatantly. In fact, doesn't he get credited with a full year of service time anyway if he finishes top 2 in rookie of the year balloting?

I want to believe you're right, but I'm afraid I don't share your optimism. They have someone in-house in Tingler that a) has managerial experience and b) buys into Falvey's overall philosophy. The trade deadline would've been a perfect time to dump Baldelli and take Tingler for a test drive for the rest of the year if they had plans to move on from him. Maybe I'm being too pessimistic. I don't think the fact they picked up his option is the impediment to change that others do, but I just don't think that Falvey thinks the manager is the problem.

Strategy based on run expectancy charts =/= strategy with strict adherance to run expectancy charts without any adjustment for the situation. Even the Twins have sent someone other than Buxton on a stolen base attempt, or attempted a sac bunt on occasion. I don't need a million articles, but you could start with one. And I'd be willing to bet that it's second-hand blogger commentary, not original research or a quote from someone in an actual decision-making position with an MLB team. Edited to add: I see you added the bit about questioning the Twins methods after I quoted you, you sly devil. I agree that the Twins likely don't apply sabermetrics as effectively as others do. To me, it's more that they lose the forest for the trees in applying concepts to specific matchups without a broader view of how it affects the rest of the game than it is applying concepts in a blanket fashion, but that's getting pretty deep into the weeds. Doesn't mean that they should throw the baby out with the bathwater in ditching sabermetrics entirely, which is the argument I'm ultimately pushing back against

If that's what you took away from what I wrote, then I don't know what to tell you. I even used the phrase "And since sabermetrics is a tool, some teams will use it better or worse than others" If you're going to respond to someone, try actually reading what you're responding to first.

Not that it's gospel, but ESPN is showing a 6 man roatation on their schedule page

You have got to be kidding me. This is not the argument of sabermetrics. This has never been the argument of sabermetrics. This is an extreme bastardization of the argument parroted around the internet by those that just have never even made an attempt to understand it because it goes against what their little league coach taught them in 1972. You will not find a single article from an actual sabermatrician that says you should try to hit home runs with every swing or never attempt to steal a base. Regarding stolen bases, the argument is there is an optimal success rate in any given situation to make the attempt worth the risk of making an out and removing the runner from the basepaths. It does not say to apply this evenly across all situations without considering the variables at hand. If a team did this, they would be using sabermetrics incorrectly. And since sabermetrics is a tool, some teams will use it better or worse than others. The idea that it has created some inflexible blanket strategy is pretty easily shot down by the fact that teams - all of which use sabermetrics (except maybe the Rockies) - still have fairly significant differences in things like stolen base rates and bunt attempts. This idea that our pure game of baseball went unchanged for 150 years until those dastardly nerds got their hands on it needs to die. Pick a statistic - home runs, stolen bases, whatever - their rates have ebbed and flowed throughout the game's history. Did the sabermatricians cause stolen base rates to crater in the 1930's? Yep. 100%. Not sure what any of this has to do with sabermetrics since they don't say to apply the average expected outcome at all times. Have you considered the possibility that perhaps you have a misunderstanding of sabermetrics?

Both the 2021 and 2022 versions were played on a Thursday with an off day Friday for travel. Both the Twins and Phillies are scheduled to be off the Thursday before the series. They've built it so they can adjust to what they've done in the past if they want They could also shift the series for it to be played on Saturday or Sunday as well (the vroom vroom racecar game was on a Saturday). Maybe with the TV contracts still getting settled, they're going to wait and let the networks bid for it (FOX for Thursday or Saturday, likely NBC for Sunday) before finalizing

Mickey Gasper: he's not the hero we deserve, he's the hero we need

I thought that was gone the way Topa reacted Gotta feel good for the Much-Maligned Mario

Hold on to your butts...