DJL44

Yes. A starter as good as Maeda was last season is more valuable than all but the most elite relievers.

That's likely to keep happening. The final numbers will probably be lower than what we see in the tracker. People who don't release their ballots publicly tend to vote for fewer players. Mauer will need to be at 80% on Jan 22 to have a real shot.

I'd say I'm a Hall of Fame sized Hall of Fame guy. All of those players meet the historical standards for enshrinement. I don't see a reason to punish the players from the current generation and hold them to a higher standard than players from previous generations. Abreu was better than Oliva, for example.

Relieving IS a role almost any decent starter can shift into and succeed. That is exactly how nearly every relief pitcher gets the role. It's how Billy Wagner got the role. Pitcher is a position. The Hall of Fame should be focused on electing the best pitchers. Starting pitchers keep their job in the rotation because they are better at pitching than relievers. Would any general manager from the 2000s trade Johan Santana straight up for Billy Wagner? Of course not. Santana threw over 1000 more effective innings than Wagner. Santana was twice as valuable as Billy Wagner. It's baffling that Wagner would be enshrined instead of Santana. The same goes for two pitchers on the current ballot - Mark Buehrle and Andy Pettitte. Any GM building a club would rather have an ace starter like Buehrle or Pettitte instead of a reliever like Wagner. That doesn't even get into Wagner's horrible postseason performance or his habit of trashing his teammates in the press. He is not qualified for the Hall of Fame.

There is a big difference between people cheating to win (especially before steroid use had an actual penalty) and people like Rose who violated the only rule that comes with a lifetime ban because it could destroy the entire league. A-Rod got caught and served his suspension. Rose should have to serve his (a lifetime ban) as well.

I am okay with trying Varland in the rotation. He's plenty good enough to be a 5th starter for many teams. The 6th starter will get innings - no team keeps 5 starting pitchers healthy for all of their starts. The worst malpractice would be for Varland to spend the entire season in AAA. He's going to be 26 years old. Wasting one of his prime seasons in the minors would be sad. If he's bumped down to the 7th starter by major leaguers who don't have options they should move him to the bullpen. Pitchers only get so many healthy innings in their career.

If they put Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame they might as well burn the place to the ground.

My ballot (if I could vote): Abreu, Beltran, Beltre, Buehrle, Mauer, Pettitte, Ramirez, Rodriguez, Sheffield, Utley. I'd probably vote for Andruw Jones too but they only give you 10 ballot slots. I'm iffy on Helton. No way on Billy Wagner or Torii Hunter. You'd need to double the size of the Hall of Fame to justify voting for either of them.

Completely disagree with this one. Relievers are an overrepresented group in Cooperstown with relievers being elected instead of many vastly superior starting pitchers. Billy Wagner in while Johan Santana is out is a travesty. I would prefer only three pure relievers were elected - Rivera, Wilhelm and Gossage. Eckersley makes it based on how much value he provided as a starting pitcher. Gossage is actually borderline.

You might, but that would pretty much guarantee the most people are watching. Lose a handful of fans in small markets but gain ten times as many in NY and LA. If you want to fix baseball you have to change the incentives. Teams should make the most profit when the stadium is full.

Setting the bar so high that all but a handful of players would fail to meet expectations is not helpful. He can provide a lot of value and still be a "failure" in your eyes.

That's a good argument for the Twins Hall of Fame, not the national one.

I am also thrilled that Yamamoto is joining MLB. In a salary cap constrained MLB he might have decided to stay in Japan. Ohtani might have decided that as well.

Seeing how the NFL, NBA and NHL all have salary caps that restrict the players from earning what they would be worth in a free market and none of them have lower ticket prices, reduced parking fees or affordable concessions I'm going to have to say you're utterly and completely wrong.

Absolutely Lambeau Field sales tax still pays dividends for Packers, community 20 years later (greenbaypressgazette.com)

Yes. Bill Freehan should be in, too. I'm definitely more of the "new school" voter but I think catchers are quite underrepresented in Cooperstown. I think they set the bar for catchers at about the right level in the 1940s when they elected Roger Bresnahan. If you're as good as Bresnahan you should be in.

He's also a really nice guy, which has become more important to Hall of Fame voters. Especially for Era Committee voting they've been overlooking better players to select people they would rather spend time with at induction ceremonies. Mauer is like the opposite of Curt Schilling, for example.

CBA would change its meaning from Collective Bargaining Agreement to Communist Baseball Association. Publicly owned teams would mean extorting MORE money from the public, not less. You're really not going to like the graph of CEO pay versus wage earners.

I don't understand this. That would mean they made a trade for a good pitcher and got unlucky with health. I think it would actually make the front office look better.

The NFL rarely has teams that are actively trying to lose like the Athletics. I'm not sure that's really a parity issue. It's more of how the rewards are structured. In the NFL teams have to try to win to sell out the stadium. In MLB the teams get so much shared revenue that the easy path to profits is minimizing payroll as much as possible. I don't think that gets solved without changing the incentives. You could force a minimum payroll and the Athletics would become the dumping ground for overpaid veterans as teams pay them to take on their bad contracts. You would see trades involving players like Stephen Strasburg to circumvent the intent of the rule. The NFL has a salary cap of $225M and a floor of $200M. They also have an $750k minimum salary and 53 players on the roster. To make MLB equivalent they would have to make the minimum salary $1.5M just due to the smaller roster size. In all it looks like MLB players are getting a much better deal. The NFL has revenue of $18.5B and the players get $4.75B for 26%. MLB has $10.5B in revenue has and the players are getting $3.8B in salary or 36%. This is evidence that MLB has a much stronger union than the NFL. If the NFLPA did as well representing their members every player would get a 40% raise. Instead they have a salary cap structure that is funneling billions to the owners as the players risk injuries that can cripple them for life.

And the Diamondbacks were awful very recently

The alternative is the money goes to multibillion dollar media companies and the billionaire owners of MLB. I'd rather the money goes to the players. At least they have an elite skill. The entertainment industry makes money by capturing your attention and selling it to advertisers. You are the real product here.

2 WAR. He's being paid like a 2 WAR player so success for the Twins is Buxton providing 2 or more WAR to the team.

The money paid out to players as a percentage of revenue declined over the previous CBA (30% increase in revenue, 6% drop in payroll: see MLB’s revenue sharing problem, and how to solve it - Bless You Boys). That is why the MLBPA pushed for a higher luxury tax limit. And it turns out they were right - the only way to get more money out of the owners was to let the large market clubs spend money. Revenue sharing gives small market teams less incentive to win because spending money to create a winning team only decreases their profit. A $1M minimum salary is long overdue. These players are putting on a 3 hour prime-time television program 162 nights a year. Actors would be paid at least $1M for that. That puts things in perspective - it's cheaper to hire actual baseball players to play in MLB than it would be to hire actors for a fictional baseball program that aired 3 hours daily, 162 nights a year.

Simple, but wrong. The worst baseball teams generally win 40% of their games and the best ones 60%. The NFL has a much wider spread of outcomes. The Panthers have a .143 winning percentage - that would never happen in baseball. The worst WP% over the last decade in baseball is .450 (Rockies and Royals) and in the NFL is .397 (Commanders). Teams are more likely to make the playoffs in the NFL but that's because the NFL has a lot more playoff spots, to the point where teams with losing records make the playoffs. Finally, you can't ride one player to success in MLB. In the NFL you can just hire Tom Brady and make the Super Bowl. Well run small market teams routinely make it to the playoffs in baseball (see Tampa and St Louis). In the past 10 years Arizona, Kansas City, Cleveland and Tampa have all made it to the World Series. In the past 20 seasons the Yankees have only won it all once. There are some small market teams that really don't have a chance but mostly because their owners are not trying to win baseball games.