Major League Ready

Kepler is not getting traded for established pitching. It's possible in combination with other assets but teams willing to trade away establish pitching are going to want high quality prospects. Kepler has become the new Brian Duensing.

Probably nobody without eating a lot of salary. However, who knows, he could have a great first half and be attractive to a contender especially with the universal DH in place. In that scenario the Twins have probably gotten a look at Miranda or Arraez becomes the everyday 3B. Seems like the question might be more when than where.

I hear ya ... Top players have been and will continue to be paid an absurd amount of money. The prearb compensation should not be $600K while top players are making 50X that amount. The union talks about getting players more in the early years of their career but their actions are focused on the top paid players. They could raise the minimum to at least 800K/900K/1M. I would like to see $800K / 1.M / 1.2M. That would be almost 2X for prearb players somewhere in the neighborhood of $150M. It's also certain the money will be spent. Owners don't have to spend on free agents. Increasing the minimum assures the dollars spent, and rebuilding teams not only are not immune, they are the teams with the most prearb players a greater portion of the $150M would be spent by rebuilding teams. These changes would have virtually no impact on competitive balance. It’s also not going to appreciably change the careers earnings for players that are every day players. It will help wing some dollars to the marginal players and those whose careers end early. It would also help (just a little) in increasing the spending of rebuilding teams. Decreasing team control means increasing competitive disparity. Therefore, I would leave it just as it is. However, the 29 1/2 clause offered by the owners is further than I expected to bend but it is a reasonable compromise. It basically assures anyone good enough to stick around as a regular will get a chance at a big payday. This would provide even more advantage to the largest markets but not to the scale of what the players have demanded.

They made no significant trades and spent very little in free agency. Are you advocating the twins follow their lead?

I think we are going to see a very unconventional usage by the Twins this year and most likely a trend away from conventual usage across the league. I would not be surprised if the Twins have a few 3-5 inning starters and a number of 2 inning RPs and only 3-4 single inning RPs. I would not be shocked if Alcala was used in a 3-4 inning capacity. If that went really well he might transition to a traditional starting role. Then, again, they might feel his value is high leverage situations. It's going to be interesting. If they are used 3-4 innings at a time will they be used every 4th day on average or will it be a way to manage IP?

Their inactivity would suggest they are thinking like you. They could trade away their best long-term assets for a 2 year shot at contention and hope it works out or they can use 2022 to position the team for the next decade. Fans tend to go for option 1, ownership and therefore front offices tend to go for option 2.

Get back at the White Sox for not signing him. I am being 98% facetious but that's all I got.

I would love to get Rodon on a 1 or 2 year deal. They played 500 ball the last 2 months with Pineda / Ober / Ryan. I never believed they we going to contend next year but I still would rather have a 500 team than a 70 win team. Maybe he becomes a trade piece or maybe he works out and signs an extension. Either way, Rodon on a short deal is a good deal.

You have a point here. So, basically, playoff teams and their players split the gate. It's an incentive for both. National TV money is split by all the teams so it's basically a source of revenue sharing. I guess there would be pluses and minuses of making that playoff TV money an incentive. I would provide incentive but widen the revenue disparity gap if it went only to playoff teams. Another reality is that if revenue goes up via national TV revenue all teams have more to spend. I would bet at least 50% of that incremental revenue gets spent on players. Increased playoff revenue is a great thing for both sides and fans.

How much they get paid and the question of if it’s good for the sport and good for fans are two very separate questions. Apparently, your understanding of the merit is superior to all of the executives in the other leagues combined. Let’s just for a moment presume that might not be the case and expanded playoffs are a good for the game and fans but compensation is inadequate compensation the players should negotiate a different deal. A quick Google search reveals that an average playoff ticket is $165 and the average stadium capacity is 42,675. Therefore, the average gate receipts per game are $7,041,375 with $3,520,687 going to players. That’s $67,705 to each player per game. Those poor bastards. How can they be expected to play a game for this pittance? The prearb guys would be making 20X what they make in a normal game. Not a lot of other employers paying 20X for overtime. The guys making a million dollars per start are getting that much on the hope they get your there so they have been taken care of quite well. Getting paid more than what the average American makes in a year to play one game seems pretty good. If they make a deep playoff run the players would make what an average American makes in a couple decades. That sure seems like good compensation but again, they should negotiate a different deal. If we want our ownership to take financial risks in order to put a contender on the field, shouldn't we be in favor of a financial reward for taking those risks?

Miami and Oakland would have close to zero interest in Donaldson / Sano / Kepler. Donaldson would have negative value to either team. They want top prospects. Kirilloff / Miranda / Martin / Lewis and/or our very top pitching prospects. At least two of Kirilloff / Miranda / Martin / Lewis are gone in these scenarios and probably 3 of Balazovic / Winder / Enlow / Canterino / Duran and Sands. Therefore, a plan of trading for these established pitchers and bringing on these top prospects is probably mutually exclusive.

I can't say that I have a good feel for his viability at SS. Hopefully, you are right. It does not track for me that they are not focusing his developmental time at SS if he is a legit SS prospect. Guys that are good SP prospects get most of their playing time at SS, right? Am I reading too much into them playing him at multiple positions?

I agree on the importance of developing SPs. What makes Lewis pivotal is his ceiling but also the fact he is the only legit SS prospect with a high ceiling. Therefore, he is more pivotal than any one individual SP prospect because we are quite deep in pitching prospects.

Have to agree he is the most pivotal prospect. I was so disappointed Lewis got hurt. What a killer after missing 2020. It just seems like a really bad idea to bring him to the MLB level until he has a chance to ramp up after being off for so long. I would love to know if they are considering Palacious. Seems like a stretch but how cool would it be if he made the leap?

I would not call the change to service time drastic but it's certainly enough to be impactful. The result is that the biggest markets would get the biggest starts another year earlier. They also asked for a hundred million dollar reduction in revenue sharing. This combination would be pretty devastating to small markers and eventually baseball as a whole. The better solution is a salary floor and lottery. It's far from perfect but much better than widening the already giant disparity between the largest and smallest revenue markets. There is an opportunity to funnel the difference between the floor and spending to players. Again, this is not huge but an incremental gain. I would suggest distributing at least part of those funds to prearb players.

The NFL is widely popular and you are extracting what you want instead of even considering the big picture. Do you think the NBA/NBA and NFL. are by incompetents who do not understand their playoff formats are bad for their sports. They all seem to be doing pretty well to me. When your opinion is contrary to the leadership in all of these various leagues, it might be time to pump the breaks and reconsider.

Did the league or anyone here suggested anything even resembling 24 teams. Any concept is likely bad if exaggerated to the point of absurdity. The NHL and NBA have 16 teams. The NFL has 14. MLB has 8. I think MLB can push it to a dozen teams and in the process included several more teams. 16 was a bit too much but it did make the playoff races much more interesting. It was a good test. Now tweak it to 12 teams.

I doubt Oakland is not letting Aj Puk go if they move one or more of their established SPs.

Wish that would have happened last year!

The cap and floor model is far more workable when revenue disparity is modest. NFL teams are all basically within $100M with the exception of of one team (Dallas). With the disparity present in MLB, a modest ceiling would promote huge profits for large market teams and a floor presents a rather substantial challenge to profitability for small teams. The players are going to fight a ceiling that promotes competition because they want those excess profits paid to free agent contracts. The small-market owners are going to have a real problem with a substantial ceiling. This is a tough one to get agreement on.

Apparently, you were not paying attention when we had more playoff teams in 2020. Having more teams in the playoff race keeps more fans engaged. It also encourages more teams to try to contend which promotes free agent interest. Players also get paid for playoffs and I would sure hope they want to participate in playoff series. To paint this as negative takes real resolve in being negative. DHs make an average of over $9M according to the articles I have read. So, yes they roster count is a net zero but they will replace much lower paying bench jobs. It's also generally considered good for the game. There is no perfect solution to tanking but a lottery at least contributes. You also ignored they offered a Salary floor which combined with the lottery would discourage tanking and generally promote a better product. Good for the game, good for the fans, and good for the players when view objectively. Why are we talking about the first offer (180M) when the offer is now 214. Seems you are trying real hard to put a negative spin on what is actually happening. You completely ignored the fact that the union has contributed nothing. You also ignored the increase in minimum pay. You ignored they offered free agency at 29 1/2 and you ignored the union spit in the face of small market teams asking for a reduction in revenue sharing.

I agree. If the agreement was made it would become very public and the league would not go back on it. However, what I am floating here is what would prevent a contractual setting of salary levels as you stated? If they wanted to include that the teams all give X dollars to charity, they could do that, right? So, why can't they contractually agree to reduce bonuses while increasing Milb salaries by $200M or whatever number is agreed upon?

I understand where you are coming from. That said ... What would stop the two sides from agreeing to form a contract outside the CBA stating that IF the league instituted a salary structure of X, they would agree to the bonus structure I suggested. It is their legal right to enter into such a contract, is it not? They don't have to represent Milb players in order to make a contract. Who would challenge such an agreement? Perhaps a different question is more pertinent. If these two parties are responsible for negotiating a bonus structure, why can't they negotiate a pay increase? I am not a lawyer. I am asking what would prohibit such a pact? Who would object?

MLB would extend the current CBA tomorrow. It is the players who are unwilling to accept the status quo so you are starting with a badly flawed presumption. Also. the lockout has absolutely ZERO impact on the ability of the sides to negotiate so your argument makes no sense even if not for the fact it is the players demanding more. The only thing the owners are asking for is more playoff teams. How is this bad anything but a positive for everyone, especially fans? The player’s two primary demands are to shorten control and decrease revenue sharing. This increases revenue disparity and moves premier free agents to top revenue markets a year earlier. This would be terribly unfair to fans of half of the teams in the league and greater competitive disparity in bad for the league. They also want arbitration to begin in year 3. The owners proposed a system that … • Eliminates qualifying offers and remove Draft-pick compensation attached to any free agent which is obviously good for free agents. • A Draft lottery similar to the one used by the NBA to discourage tanking • Adds universal DH which would add 15 jobs for hitters in the NL / ave salary for a DH in 2021 was $9.2 million. Obviously a plus for players. • An increase to the minimum player salary. Obviously a plus for players. • An increase in the CBT threshold • A minimum team salary. Obviously good for players. Every element of MLB’s “radical proposal” is beneficial to players. The majority of what the players want would widen the disparity in revenue and therefore discourage competitive parity. The draft lottery, universal DH, and minimum team salary all great for the league and players. Eliminating the qualifying offer, increased minimum pay, and increased CBT all good for the players. The players feel the hundred and two-hundred, and three hundred million dollar contracts are not enough and they are unwilling to play under these horrendous conditions.