Trov

I will try to be as neutral as possible when I post this. First, from what I have read, many players already like the formal proposal with the sliding scale over the revenue sharing. Do I think the purpose of this proposal was to get votes from the lower paid players that most likely need the money to live, yes I do. Do I think the players have a legitimate argument that they should get a full compensation for the contracts they signed? Sure. However, I doubt anywhere in any provision of the contract was there a clause saying, Should games be able to be played but with no fans due to pandemic situation the compensation will be X. Do the players also have a valid argument that they entered into an agreement in March on what will happen when games start back up? Yes they did and it is valid, however, the Owners also have valid argument that their understanding was this was under normal conditions. I have not seen the word for word agreement reached, but from what I have read in articles I believe both have a valid argument. It makes sense that the expectation would be a prorated pay, but when the contracts were made it was with the assumption fans would be at the games and that financials were considered when agreeing to the contract. Of course, the team assumes the risk that attendance would be down regardless, but I doubt either side would expect zero fans at all games. The players argument is they signed to play a game, regardless of how many people watched. However, they had to understand that if fans do not watch there is no reason to play the game. The players will argue the owners are trying to screw them and are greedy, well sure they are greedy, but the players also are greedy are they not? The owners are trying to look like the good guys coming to the table with options to make financial sense across the board, and players, as of now keep saying no deal we want full pay for play. Which this sounds reasonable. People who argue the owners are billionaires they can afford it, shows you have never and will never run a successful business. MLB is not a charity for entertainment for people. For the people who side with pay the players the prorated contract amount and make the owners take the hit, this means you believe business should be willing to operate at a loss, because they can and you want to keep going. Just because the owners have billions does not mean we should expect that they lose millions so we can be entertained. I mean if I ran a business at a loss, I would raise cost to public or cut internal cost, like labor costs. Else eventually I would go bankrupt. My question, how many years should owners take losses? How much should they be expected to lose? Of course we do not see their books and will never know how much they make or lose each year, but players will continue to seek the same level or higher salaries, but for all we know stadiums will never be able to operate at full capacity again, unlikely but we do not know how long reduced attendance will be required. Will players accept a cut in pay under those conditions? Maybe the players can get their prorated pays, and to make up for lost attendance revenue, we start a go fund me for the teams? I mean the real people that pay the players are the fans. Sure it comes from the owners, but it is the fans that pay, because no fans means no games. I personally would be fine with owners say no games and players get no pay. MLB could just fold up and say we are done. What would the players do then? The owners have all the power, but they understand making some money is better than no money, but if they are asked to lose money they will close and I would not hold it against them. If I ran an entertainment business and not enough people were coming to pay my bills I would either raise prices and make the people that were coming to cover my costs or I would close and have the people that were coming lose out on that entertainment. That is just how business works. Both sides do need to understand though, the more they fight over money the worse they both look and will lose fans, which will hurt both of them. While both sides fight over the pie, we are the ones that hold the pie and we can take it away from both of them. If we stop watching or going to games, when we can go again, then owners make no money, and players will make no money. We have the power, we just need to assert it.

Yes, every team plays under same rules for the season. Could who makes the playoffs be adjusted due to shorter season sure, but that does not make who wins any less legitimate than any other. 82 games will still be good enough to separate the teams. If they did just a tournament like World Baseball Classic or something like that, then no that is not a good way to determine who should be champ because hot streaks and slumps, which is part of the game, could greatly change the outcomes. That happens in playoffs all the time though. The most interesting will be how some pitchers will perform in late in the season with the reduced work load. May we end up with a different team than what would have been expected in full season, sure, but teams will have to adjust to new situation and that is sign of good team.

This draft will be a very interesting draft to look back on and see were the diamond in roughs were. We will say how was this person missed by so many teams. Think about how often a guy shoots up boards because of his season leading up to draft. Twins have in recent drafts made picks based on that. The HS kids are so hard to judge as a junior some times because of how they grown from ages 16 to 18. For college kids similar the lower classmen may not have the same exposure as they would normally because of loaded programs. I would read so many scouting reports about how a guy jumped up boards because of breakout seasons or after finally getting a shot at being regular at specific position that was blocked by a previous star player. The good front offices will need to read more into players with less to work with. I hope our front office is one of them, and believe they are, but you never know.

I will only answer the questions I have much to add. 1) Garver will continue to hit well. His approach is very good and he will not get himself out. Sure, he may take some called third strikes but he will never chase either. He will make that ump call that third strike on the edges. Pitcher will try to throw get me over curves at time, but my guess Mitch will figure that out and crush those as well. 3) Sano will be terrible at first for awhile. He will drop some easy pop ups just like he did at third. He will drop some good throws. However, we will not care when he is crushing the ball. If he is not crushing the ball then he will see the bench more often and will not see his terrible defense. Crazy to think he was signed as a SS and even played there a little in his very young years. 4) Arraez will not slump, depending on what you call a slump. Will he hit as well as first year maybe not, but he will have good OBP. and I think eventually he will get more benefit of doubt calls by umps when he looks and shakes his head at pitches that go by. 7) Buxton will not stay healthy, not because he is injury prone, but because he plays the game with reckless abandon and crashes into walls at full speed because he believes he is superman that can catch every thing. Until he dials it back a tiny bit to be more prepared to jump into the walls he will keep getting hurt, no way around it. Torii needs to teach him how to set yourself up for a good wall jump. Really, the issue is Buxton covers so much ground so quickly that he does not get set up with proper technique to protect himself on jumps and dives. Hopefully the kid learns this for his own sake. Starting back a few more steps and letting a couple of singles drops will help. 9) I expect Cruz will continue to hit well. I agree father time is undefeated but some guys go longer. There has been many good hitters that can play into 40's, some maybe with a little chemical help, but when all you are expected to do is crush pitches and nothing else you can still do it. What in Cruz recent years suggest he will just fall off cliff? He has short quick swing without much movement that helps.

Pretty sure each on the list had that conversation with Harmon. I have heard a few stories from people who have had personal interactions with Harmon, and he was an amazing man that understood the importance of the fans. He would stand outside and sign for every fan that waited for him. When he was asked, why he would be willing to do that, he response was if they are willing to wait it is the least I can do. Without the fans I would be farming. That is also why he wanted to make sure they could read it, because for him it was just a few seconds of his life, but for the fan it could mean a lifetime of memories to say that is his signature, and everyone could look at it and know. Personally, I wish more players would think about Harmon and his wisdom. Too many players feel entitled to play a game for insane amounts of money that fans pay hard earned money to watch. If fans did not pay, players would have to find another job. Players like Blake Snell get to me because they act like this is their birth right to play for millions and fans should be grateful they are willing to entertain us. When really, the players should be grateful we are willing to pay them.

From what was reported prior to his hiring Falvey had a huge role in the pitching development in Cleveland. Of course we will never know how much of a roll he really had, but when Twins were looking for GM there were many reports Falvey was on the rise because of his actual involvement in developing Cleveland pitchers, which was known for finding diamonds in the rough, and continuing to have reliable starters in the wings. So to say there is zero evidence or to call it idiotic is going a little far. This reports were from baseball insiders that had dealings with Cleveland and knew Falvey. He may not have made the final calls in Cleveland but reports are he had huge influence on how Cleveland developed pitchers. I guess you can take those reports as smoke and say there is no evidence Falvey had anything to do with Cleveland pitching success, but I tend to believe them. Do you give Falvey credit for Dobnik? Independant pitcher that flew through minors to start a playoff game? 29 other teams could have snagged him up, but Falvey must have seen something that the other 29 did not see. Not going to say 1 pitcher for 1 year of success makes a guru, Dobnik may fall off and be below replacement going forward, but first season looked good.

"Mauer is definitely not the most exciting interview or the most infectious personality, but he was in the lives of Minnesotans for so long, that a detail of his life would certainly be a must watch." That is an understatement. For as good as he was, he was about as boring as it got. There has been a documentary on Kirby, it was done in 1996, had it in VHS. An updated one would be great through. I was not even born when he debuted, and was so young when he was prime so barely remember it, but the more I read the more I am convinced he was at a point the best player in the game. I wonder if he would even be considered a top prospect this day in age just based on his height and lack of power as a kid. Most likely not a first round pick, twice like he was nor a top 10 prospect at all. The 91 season would be cool, maybe not 7 part, but the worst to first series and historic moments would be great. ESPN ranked game 7 of that series like number 2 of all time WS games. Game 6 was pretty high too.

For me, many of the questions about what the taxi squad is and how it works service time and transferring players needs to be answered before decisions can be made. I would agree having extra catcher or two. I would agree with load of pitchers. I would also think players that can play either premier defensive positions, CF and SS as well as utility players would serve best. I would shy away from offensive only players with limited defensive value, like Rooker. Unless Rooker shows he can rake at a level you are fine with negative defense, but when Buxton gets hurt, assuming he will, I would rather have someone that can defend center better than Kepler and let Kepler stay in RF. Even if this means a slightly less productive offense, we are pretty deep in that area losing our 9 hitter who is in for defense already we would want to replace for defense.

Part will depend on how the rules of expanded roster and taxi squad will work. I could be wrong, but believe I heard roster will go to 30 players, so an extra 4, and there will be a large taxi squad of 60 players that can be moved onto roster. I am not clear as to how those moves will be affected for time wise. So first, the 60 is well beyond the 40 man roster, so will you first need to move them onto 40 man? Will it be an "option" so limited to only players with them left, or a DL trip required of 15 days? Will there be many liberal moves allowed? This will have great affect on who will be on roster and how it will be used each game. The more liberal pitchers can be moved in and out will lead to more use of them and swapping around, much like they have in past couple years but this could be even more often. Regardless, I think shorter leashes for sure on pitchers due to importance of each game. I would expect much more of the hot hand for hitters taking over. Meaning if any player has a slump I would expect others to replace them quickly and if a player, regardless of experience is hot they will stay in line up. Once they slump they will be back out. Many times we see a guy with a quick start in first month and tail off, but they keep getting time because they were hot before. I do not expect that too much. The reverse is true that a guy used to do well in past seasons so they get extend look early in season to turn it around. We do not have that much time to make that happen now.

The outliers I was more referring to was the more modern guys like Ryan, who had the velocity that is sought now a days and still threw a ton. I was also more referring them to the outliers as they could handle the load that was asked of them, but you do not take too much note of the guys that could not, because they could not. However, in the recent 30 years we tend to try to point to instances were an injury altered a career. Also, prior to tommy john, when someone tore their UCL career over and we never would hear much about work load ect. So working off of a skewed data set will skew it. I agree each team had work horses that would pitch much more than what players now are asked. Back then velocity was much lower too. I remember even as not so long as early 2000's when 95 was considered high velocity and the very very rare would throw much more than that. Now, 95 is close to league average. 90 was the goal and if you could top that great, if not you better have movement. I totally support increasing innings pitched and getting pitchers ready for that. I was never a fan of holding guys to strict pitch and inning counts in minors, only to then expect they can throw 100 plus pitches and many innings in MLB. They never were asked to do that before, so why would they be successful now? I believe many pitchers could throw more per start and more innings per season. Not every pitch is equal wear and tear on arm. So where along the line someone said pitch count is what leads to injuries, maybe they had the data to back it up or not. So teams decided they did not want big injuries to their star pitchers and were willing to let them pitch less per start to increase chance they would start more. They balance the hope of more starts to reduce risk of major injury. You cannot weed out the ones that will have the injuries as well, and you do not get the full possible player either. I am a fan of going back to 9 inning starts and let them throw over 100 pitches. Now though teams look less at pitches but times through order regardless of pitches.

The key to keeping players 100% safe is to keep COVID out. The only way you do that is have screen in testing then isolate. Since players are not willing to fully isolate, which I do not blame them, then you take next best step and to screen as much as possible. However, it is still very likely it will get into someone and spread to rest. The odds are none of the players will have any major issues other than having to step away for two weeks. Most people that have major issues have underlying medical conditions. However, where the real risk comes in is the spread to family who may have those conditions, or the spread to others. We cannot live life without risk. When Blake Snell says he is risking his life, that is a bit over the top, as he would most likely not have sever reaction to it, but he could. However, the risk of spreading to others that may not be an in shape athlete.

The reason for 5 rounds is MLB is losing a ton of money every day they do not have games. They have 0 money coming in right now, save a few apparel items that are being sold most likely. I read it is expected as a whole, MLB is losing about 74 million a day no games are happening. So dropping the draft to 5 rounds allows teams to save on costs of signing bonuses of players. Also, with no minor leagues happening these guys will have no where to go if they had full draft. Even if you move to 10 that is still paying 10 guys signing bonus to most likely go to FL to work out at team facilities, where they already will have many of lower level prospects doing the same.

I agree with this idea. With the Taxi idea and 30 man rosters you know the Twins will make full use of moving pitchers in and out of roster spots as much as they can. In a normal season under normal rules of optioning or DL use now back to 15 days, it would not be possible. However, in this year using two starters in a normal day would be useful. The biggest issue will be getting the pitchers on board and accepting it. If you can get starter to go 4 innings two trips through order, and use next starter 4 innings 2 trips through order, that gets you into 9th where you should have nearly whole bullpen ready. I would stagger the use of this though. Meaning I would not go berrios and hill back to back but split a duel starter between the two. That should hopefully give rest of pen more of break and less likely the need for other pen guys going back to back days. I would also look to mix up type of pitchers and if possible mix the side thrown from. This will make it harder for teams to set lineup for the pitcher. In the grouping listed, I would swap Thorpe and Pineda most likely. That would change up right lefty combo for two starts and velo versus movement as well. I like the Odo dobnik mix as one is fly ball pitcher other is ground ball pitcher. So two trips looking at more up in zone stuff to then face a heavy sinker next. Could lead to some adjustments.

Just to play devils advocate, it is what I do, these guys were the outliers of the spectrum of pitching. Ryan one of the most, as he had crazy high velocity for his time. So to point to a few guys that manged to not follow the norm of the bell curve is not the most effective way to point to pitch count having a counter to intended. That being said, clearly some can be outside the norm and pitch more, but how do you figure that out without doing it? Then if you are wrong you risk injuries. I believe the increased velocity is what leads to more injuries than anything these days. I am no doctor, have taken some classes on sports injuries, but I strongly believe that throwing as hard as most do now a days will lead to more injuries because of the strain in the elbow. I remember watching Zumia tear the tip of his elbow right off from how hard he threw, never to return again. I strongly believe in the past the great pitchers would pitch well, hitting spots and working around the zone keeping hitters off balanced, changing speeds even with their fastball. This would mean they were not throwing 100% all game long. Now I think pitchers have to throw 100% while out there because if they lose some velo they lose prospect rankings and teams look at that for contract and expected regression. If velo drops then it is assumed their effectiveness will drop so money drops. Players know this so they throw max all the time. I also feel many pitchers growing up are not taught that legs drive velocity more than arms. The arm is just what releases the ball, but the legs and core is what gets you the kinetic energy to run through the arm. It seems to many people, who have not studied it, counter to logic. However, the science is there that building up leg and core strength will help so much more than arm and elbow strength. This needs to get passed down to little league coaches and up to high school coaches. Teach the kids young how to use legs and core better. This will reduce the stress on the arm over all the years.

The portion about pitching was interesting to me, and sparked in my mind the debate on starting pitching these days, and what value they seriously add to a team, versus other players. I have always been pitching and defense guy for winning, and still believe that. However, I also feel the value of a starting pitcher has dropped a ton and they are not worth nearly as much in terms of contracts as they used to. If you go back to the era of 3 man rotations where pitchers would go 9 innings most games they had huge value if you had a top pitcher. As you go to 4 man rotations with still 9 innings each pitcher lost a little value but still have value. Then as you go to 5 man rotations with some 9 inning games and "work horse" pitchers going over 200 innings less value. Now, you have 5 man rotations, some with only a few "starters" and they will go 6 innings, 7 if lucky and the 9 inning game is something to write about. This shifts great value to bullpens from the starters. I am not trying to argue a top starter is not important and when you can get one they have great value as they will take work load from bullpen for other games. However, I think it has greatly skewed the pitching spectrum. I think you have top 10% starters that can go 7 plus innings a start and dominate giving your team a chance to win, but still only impacting a small portion of a team overall season. If no extra inning or rain shorted games, there will be 1,458 innings in a normal season. Last season only 15 pitchers got to 200 innings with top being 223. Texas and Houston had 2 such pitchers which means 17 teams did not even have 1 pitcher to throw 200 innings. 200 innings means 1/7 of a season, about. However, of the top 5 paid players in 2019 4 were pitchers. They impacted about 1/7 of the whole season for their team but got paid much more than their impact would suggest. Unless, you look at impact in playoffs. When you look at how a dominate pitcher can shut down teams and impact a very large amount of the playoffs, specifically when you reduce rotation to 3 or 4 depending on off days. Then they can have a huge impact. So even though, they have lower impact in a full 162 game season, their impact adjusts for playoffs to be much larger impact. Then they earn their money. Also, as stated the top tier starters will have much larger impact. However, the mid-level starters that used to get paid large amounts for basically replacement ball, they should start to see money drop and more investment in either top pitchers, or top pen guys that are eating the innings the starters used to do.

First, following the thought, Nationals would not have made the playoffs and would not have won the WS had the first 82 games record been the deciding factor. However, the flaw in this is knowing a season ends at 82 verses playing another 80 makes teams play games different. One, you would be less likely to try and stick through a prolonged slump of someone. Also, managers will make different in game decisions to win that particular game, as now it has more important roll. Instead saying I can give this game up to give my better players some rest, there would be more we need to win situation. How different were the schedules at the time of the 82 game compared to others. Yes, timing of when you play teams can be a huge thing, based on injuries, hot streaks, ect. But, when in a 162 game season Twins may have played a tougher first half schedule than whoever was ahead of them, but in a 82 game schedule each team will have same schedule. Think about it, some years the Twins have played several non division teams in the first half and will be done with them, while they may not have played others. So for example, say Twins played Yankees, Boston, Oakland, Houston in the first half and finished with them, while Cleveland played Baltimore, Seattle, Rangers, Toronto, and then you stop at 82 games, there are much better chance Cleveland will have easier schedule for first half, but much harder second half, where Twins would have reverse. After a 162 game schedule they will have played each team nearly equal amount of times for much more balanced strength of schedule. So as it is nice to look at how things could have been different, there are many flaws to just look at record at 82 games, when a team knew 80 more were going to be played. If you wanted to take the time to set a strength of schedule modifier to even that out, it would be a little better, but still does not factor in how decisions would have changed in a known shorter season.

Really, this year will spark the shutting down of the minor league teams that were already on the chopping block. This will just give the MLB more of a reason to do it. I am not sure how the contracts between the MLB team and their non-owned affiliates work, but of course the parent club does pay the staff and players. However, the stadium operations and team staff are paid by the owner of the club. I see no way the minors can operate this year, unless the MLB teams willing to foot much of the bill. The minors will not fade away, it is too ingrained in baseball. However, this will lead to less teams for sure.

I think if there is a deadline, it needs to be at least a month prior to end of season. If you allowed trades and playoff rosters to be set super late, I could see teams like dodgers and Yankees just trading for high priced talent right before playoffs, add little salary to luxury tax, and just throw in "cash" in the trade to the team. If they have to take longer cost that goes to luxury tax they would be less likely to do this. I really do not expect much in terms of trades, except for players teams know they cannot resign. If they have at least 1 year of team control I doubt they get moved and things will happen in off-season. With the short season some teams that start off hot, like Detroit last year will be in it, where teams that started off slow, like Nationals, eventual champs, would be out of it. If they have expiring contracts they would be willing to sell off, but I doubt any team will assume the short season is a sign of what the next year brings. I wonder, how this short season will help Berrios, someone who had faded in September over his career, is it the long season, or the weather?

I think the depth the Twins have, under the current thought of schedule, will lead to good things for Twins. It seems like they will allow teams to swap players a lot with out having to "option" them. Having several potential starters will allow for giving greater rest for starters that need it, like Hill may. I want Hill for playoffs more than regular season, assuming we will make it. He is proven to be a good playoff pitcher, only Dodger to pitch well at Houston during WS, because he was smart enough to change signs every 7th pitch, I heard reported. Dude is the vet that gets it done when he has too. He will even punch a dude out during the off season if he has too.

Exactly true. MLB is a perfect look into an unregulated capitalism, or free market economy. Yes, it is only a small sample size, but shows what a free market can look like. Specifically, when there is a monopoly. MLB has a monopoly on baseball, basically in the whole world. Sure, you can play in other leagues if you are not up to snuff for MLB, but MLB is the top league with the most money, not that Japan is much to sneeze at. However, as the players argue about not having a cap, it also means there is no floor. What keeps the game going is that both sides want to make money, and they both want to make the most they can. Both need to balance the risk of making nothing though by asking for too much. It is almost like a teeter totter, as long as both sides stay in the air they both make money and the game is played, but once one try to get too greedy then the game is not played and no one has fun or makes money. So when a player feels he is underpaid, what is he recourse, hold out, but there are hundreds of players willing to take his place, and the teams have them in their system. Of course the more you separate yourself from the pack, with higher WAR the more money you can command. If you are close to replacement level, why should a team pay you more than the league minimum that a replacement level player may be worth? During the two off-seasons mentioned, prior to the huge signings of last couple seasons. I was expecting the players to start to look at change in CBA. Still think they will, but my guess to get it they will need to give up on salary cap. Gone are the days of 5 plus year deals for 30 plus year old players. Too many teams have learned the hard way there is too much risk in those contracts. If you are in 27 age range at free agency, you are considered possible HOF player and so teams willing to take that 7 to 10 year contract risk, because one you get more years of good play, and assume they regress like normal HOF path players they will still be worth something late in deal. To get better FA deals, players need to get to be a FA before the age of 30 now. Only way to do that is to reduce the amount of years they remain under team control. They can get this, but I bet it will require salary cap. Salary caps are not as bad as players would think, because they also always come with a floor. What that means is no more just loading up on low cost replacement players while you "rebuild" knowing you cannot compete but you keep your stars in the minors while letting players you will one day cut loose when your stars are hitting prime at age 27 and still making third year minimum. The salary floor would help those age 31 to 35 players the most. It would also allow younger players to earn more quickly. For easy math, lets say cap is 200 mil and floor is 100 mil. Only 3 teams over 200 mil, and 8 under 100 mil some as low as 56 mil and a couple right around 100. Without knowing the revenue breakdown that would set up the cap, this cap would greatly increase the amount the players would get paid as a whole. It would maybe reduce what an individual gets paid, but would raise the player pay overall. Of course this is very simple break down, and local tv contracts really drive what local teams can earn, but the luxury tax basically is a salary cap at this point anyways. Why not get the floor? Teams like Oakland and the Rays pay very little for the wins they get, because they spend smarter not bigger. Both under 100 mil payrolls, rays as low as 65 mil. They get revenue sharing from the luxury taxes paid by the likes of LA and New York. Do they reinvest into payroll, doubt they do, because they can win without spending. Imagine if they had to spend 35 mil more, assuming they could afford it.

As it is correct, if the players go public like Blake Snell, that it is about the money, they will look bad. They will bicker over a little bit of money, as one ESPN article pointed out, they could actually earn more this year under a 50/50 split depending on playoff tv contracts. But the players do not want to cap their earning potential with a 50/50 split and do not want the precedent of agreeing to do so. However, when millions are out of work standing in lines for food shelfs and begging to go back to work, the players are going to complain over money? They owners are offering a job for still large amounts of money and the players will want more money, without even really looking into how it could break down. This would also cost other their jobs. Sure they could try to shift this on the owners, but the owners made first offer and so they look like they are trying and the players look like the greedy people costing thousands in baseball jobs, and costing America baseball to watch. To many 50/50 sounds reasonable, each side gets their share. Really, the owners are taking all the risk because they will still have to pay out of their 50 other salaries, ballpark costs, travel costs ect. It is not a 50/50 split of profit, but of all revenue. The players are only taking a risk they may earn a little less than they would with a pro rata payment, with possible of more. However, if the players make a strong front and say this is about safety of our self and family with having to interact at higher levels with people. Since what has been leaked to press has little to no details on the safety part of the plan, this could help get player support if season does not happen. It is the players hands on how to approach this. Regardless, if a season is not played, many will believe it was money based, and that just does not sit well with anyone that is wishing they would be offered to work again. Now of course in a normal union job if the offer was to return to work at a lower wage many would balk at that idea, but if you were earning 50K a year asking to earn 40K that is harder pill to swallow for a person, than 5 million to 4 million. Sure, the percentage is the same, but with cost of living being nearly the same, sure the 5 million earner could have higher living standards, but it does not change how much food, phone, internet, and other utilities will cost. No matter what happens this year, I will be watching on TV again when I can, adding to the value the players will get. However, if attendance and ratings drop, the players should think about how that will affect their bottom line, even without a 50/50 split. As much as I am pro labor, if the players want to fight over this tooth and nail and strike for this, I would side with owners. Owners do not run a charity to have baseball, they do it to earn money. If they are losing money they should not run a team, just because they could lose money, this is not a business model to follow.

The title of article suggests the Twins do better than other teams, but upon reading the article, I would argue every team has found success in late rounds over the years. Just as every team has had many flops of first round picks. Baseball is such a hard sport to really know who will do well or fail at the next level. Also, some late round picks were there for different reasons. Sign-ability, low exposure, or bias of region is to name a few. There are many other reasons I am sure. Some players fall because they are expected to go football, or college, but drafting team gets them the magic number that is needed to sign. I read Trout dropped because prior years a player from his area turned into complete flop so teams shyed away thinking good players from there numbers were inflated from low talent level. Back in the day, players from cold weather HS got little exposure and scouts would hardly go there. Many of the guys listed were known for their mental game and work ethic, something that is hard to determine when looking at them play 1 game, or some tape. As Yogi once said baseball is 90% mental. I will not finish the rest of the quote but he is correct it is a mental game and watching tape of the physical aspects is hard to see their mental aspects.

Eddie is not a guy to use normal hitting approach comparisons with. He is not typical hitter. For the people that want him to be and site his chase rate and point out times he looks just ugly, fail to point out the times he crushes HR on pitches no one would swing at. He is who he is. He hits in the middle because he excels when runners are on compared to some. He has power. He wants the spot light. He believes he is the best there is and he can hit anything and make every throw. Sometimes he does, sometimes he does not. He will not change. Most likely his lack of hitting other way is based on how pitchers are pitching him. He has always been and always will be a streaky hitter. I have always liked his personality, although feel he is replaceable. However, when people talk about trading him they point out all the bad things he does and why he should be traded, but why would anyone trade for him if he does so many things bad? I do not expect him around long term, mainly because he is basically replaceable on the field. Not sure how he is in club house though.

While we think about if a season happens or not. I started thinking about the opt out clauses by players, and what they will do. I tried to do the research, but did not find much to get exact numbers, but believe most players will typically opt out of deals. So many over the past decade would sign the big seven plus year deal with a three or four year opt out. Many would opt out giving up money betting on fact they can earn more over that same period or at least get deeper into thirties and secure money. However, with so many questions of what future looks for not just this season but seasons to come for full ballparks. This will vastly affect the budgets for teams and how much they will pay players. If games need to be played at 0 or half capacity, that will cut what teams earn. Teams never expected something like this so it was not planned into future budgets. So how will that affect teams on what they will be willing to pay? I bet at least for next year or two much less long term deals and much less money attached. What that means is I expect the three players with opt out clause will opt in, or I would advise them too. Stanton, Martinez, and Castillanos all have options to opt out. Castillanos is and odd one as he signed a long term deal with a quick opt out, so not much historical data on how that would come out in normal year, and it would most likely depend on how his season went. Lets assume he does well, if a season is played. I would still argue he should stay with contract. He would have three years and 42 million left. I doubt any team would be willing to take on that much risk at this time if there is a chance states will not allow parks to get filled. Martinez had opted in last year and I bet he would have chose to stay with current contract, as last time he was FA Boston was only team really bidding. Stanton he would be the real question. He signed a huge deal that had he performed at his normal level he would opt out in a heart beat and sign an even bigger deal, but he has been injured a lot. Also, he has seven years and 214 million left. I strongly doubt he would get a 7 year 214 million deal next off-season. Similarly, I wonder how many teams will give qualifying offer and how many players would take it. For years players turned them down, until recently. I think very few teams will extend one and just hope to sign player, and I think if extended many players would take them. As stated I doubt few long term deals will be reached when projected budgets will be hard to factor in. Along same lines not many other teams will be willing to give up draft capital if the draft gets limited again to 5 or 10 rounds as has been discussed. Overall, I expect some interesting decisions for players and teams when it comes to long term deals over the next season or two.

Personally, I do not care DH or no DH, but now that interleague play will never go away, we need one rule to play by. As pointed out the DH allows some great hitters to keep playing later in their life as a DH. One thing I would point out, is until Astros came to AL to even leagues at 15 each, there was only 14 AL teams for years so even less teams that did DH. I agree that with the change in way game is played DH will happen I think in both leagues. This does not mean when you get a pitcher that can hit they cannot be allowed to DH on games they do not pitch. Look at Otani. McKay from Rays is being used in duel roles at times. Funny how there is now a rule that position player cannot pitch, unless extra innings or a huge gap late in game, but yet pitchers can play other positions and hit. The DH is not an easy spot to fill, it seems like it would be, but look at many long time greats that would DH and play positions over a year. Many would hit better when they were in the field than when they DH. Not all of course, but many have talked about it is a mind game you need to work through. I know when I play I hate sitting on the bench, even between innings of fielding I will walk around and never sit, could only imagine what it would be like to sit and watch for innings except for the short amount of time you are hitting.