DJL44

That is crazy. 5 Hall of Famers and they couldn't win anything. They weren't even .500 in 1971 and exactly .500 in 1972-73. You would think a team with 5 Hall of Famers in their prime would be better than .500.

If having more teams in the playoffs is great then they should put 24 teams in the playoffs or maybe all 30. They've already destroyed pennant races. Making the regular season pointless would be the next step. A salary floor wouldn't discourage tanking at all. You would have bad teams purposely trading for past their prime players with bloated contracts (paid for by the large market teams either with cash or with prospects) so they can meet the salary minimum while losing just as much as they ever did. This happens in the NBA all the time. The number of wins in a season is a net zero sum. If there are winners there must be losers. "Tanking" is not a real problem, it is an inevitability of math. The union is against more revenue sharing because it takes money out of their pocket and puts it in the owners' pockets. It doesn't make teams more competitive. If anything it creates a permanent underclass of teams that primarily exist so the large market teams can have someone to play. It discourages teams from trying to generate more revenue locally because they can just run a low payroll and all of their expenses are covered before they even start the season. Every dollar a small market team generates locally is a dollar that gets taken out of their revenue sharing at the end of the year. It's socialism for billionaires, turning ownership of a small market franchise into a no-risk investment vehicle. None of these proposals by the ownership or the union address the real problems with the game. There is less action happening in more time. The current version of Major League Baseball is the most boring baseball I have ever watched, especially in the postseason. It's the best athletes in the world standing around waiting to see if the batter hits the ball over the fence or strikes out. I wonder why I even start watching a postseason game, knowing I'll be going to bed in the middle of the 6th inning because the games start at 7:30 and end around midnight.

Except lowering the luxury tax to $180M which is beneficial only to the owners and overrides pretty much everything else. Their latest proposal of $214M is also a money squeeze. The players' share of revenue has been dropping under the previous CBA because of the penalties of exceeding the luxury tax. It is clearly constraining spending for the only teams that want to spend money. The minimum team salary wouldn't come close to making up for lowering the luxury tax threshold to $180M. More playoff teams is a negative if you want people to actually pay attention to the regular season, not to mention the first round of playoffs. A draft lottery doesn't discourage tanking in the NBA. I'm not sure why it would matter for MLB where draft picks are even more of a crapshoot. Bad teams are going to sell off talent. Universal DH is a net zero. Those DH jobs just replace someone else's job. The roster didn't get bigger.

The owners clearly have responsibility for this impasse. They voted unanimously for a lockout. If you look at the demands the players are mostly asking for an extension of the status quo. The owners are the more radical proposal. The owners clearly believe they have the leverage and are trying to squeeze the union.

Hollywood Salaries Revealed: Who Makes What on the Lot and on Location – The Hollywood Reporter "Newcomers can expect to earn just $15,000 to $20,000 per episode on a network or cable series." That's for a 1/2 hour or 1 hour episode. MLB minimum is $3500 a game.

However, unlike actors, they're not allowed to start their own production company and create their own entertainment company. The anti-trust exemption prevents the players from creating a competing league.

The owners are a cartel with a monopoly guaranteed by the federal government. The teams themselves are a legal way to shelter income so it can avoid taxes. A tax shelter is not a financial risk. Did you know those huge player contracts are considered assets that can be depreciated as well as being deducted as a business expense? The players are well paid because they're media stars who produce at least 162 3-hour episodes of some of the highest rated shows on television every year. Union actors getting paid scale make more for 3 hours of TV than the pro-rated MLB minimum salary.

With the lockout I wouldn't buy any Spring Training tickets

The problem is this rotation has no front end.

Wonder if they could pay Couloumbe to play in AAA like they did with Jake Cave.

I think it's break-even if he plays 60% of the games.

Odds that Pineda re-signs by the end of the week?

$22M for an MVP season would be an absolute steal

They're all easy choices to tender, especially since the contracts are only partially guaranteed. I expect the MLB minimum to go above $750,000 in the new CBA.

That's a good dog.

Miguel Sano should be the full time DH. They aren't going to be able to trade him for diddly squat and he's a terrible defender.

I think Pohlad genuinely wants to try to compete next year. I think Falvey wants to tear it down and start over. It's probably a good long-term move for Falvey. Trying to contend means higher expectations for 2022 and possible consequences if they fall short again. A rebuild lowers expectations for 3-5 years. Nobody gets fired in the middle of a rebuild.

Buxton is not expensive for 2021. he's only looking at $7.5M in arbitration. There's $20M in excess value in one season of Byron Buxton. This front office looks really, really cheap. There is no reason to run the Twins like the A's and Rays. If they're going to run the team like this they really should hire Mike Veeck to be the GM. They'll need the county fair carnival atmosphere from the Saints to get people to buy a ticket.

If he's good at learning from mistakes then the Twins will benefit. I imagine Tingler has spent the last month rehashing the Padres season trying to figure out how to do it differently if he did it over again. At least, I hope he has.

Matz is a bad fit for Target Field. He's homer-prone to right handed pull hitters.

That's a bargain price for Baez. Yes, please. I think they're wrong - he'll get $100M

They've got to top Lorenzo Cain's 5 year $80M deal.

Bill Freehan died without being inducted. 11 All-Star games, 5 Gold Gloves, 2nd and 3rd place finishes in MVP voting. World Series ring in 1968. He didn't even get on the Golden Era ballot.

It took Ted Simmons a long time to get inducted. Mike Piazza took 3 tries and Gary Carter took 6 tries. I would hold off on any reservations.

Lefty Grove was inducted in 1947. Lefty O'Doul is on this ballot.