2019 MLB Regular Season running thread

I know we have a Spring Training thread, however, I thought I would start this thread to discuss about this.



Goodbye MLB for 1-2 years.

 

Wouldn't that be better for the Running MLB Postseason Thread?

 

Yes.

 

If I’m the players, I’m dead set on a strike.

There was blatant collusion this offseason, and even besides that, the changing aging curve is ruining the compensation structure. They have to break the service time system, where a team can underpay them considerably and control their first 10 years as a pro.

 

A spending floor — say, 75 percent of highest payroll — would help almost as much as making players free agents sooner. Teams intentionally trying not to win too much is a cancer on the game.

 

What's happening in all sports, really, is the rise of analytics has created a new conventional wisdom, that losing short term is the only way (eventually) to win championships, by presumably maximizing your draft opportunities.

And a couple corollaries to that: second place is the first loser, and if you're not going to win the championship you might as well finish in dead dog last place to get that holy-grail lottery draft pick.

Which has led, in multiple sports, to teams to actively and enthusiastically pursue opportunities to tank.

In the olden days, in baseball, in mid-July, if you were 35-45 and 8 games out in your division, you'd scout around for a couple players, see if you could climb back in it; now, fuck that, you sell off everybody on your roster over 28 and lose 100 for the next three seasons.

 

Having a set draft bonus pool is horseshit, too.

 

No, there really wasn't blatant collusion. There certainly isn't evidence that it is collusion rather than baseball front offices doing things in a smarter way.

You are correct about the compensation structure, but swingline has a better plan. MLB needs a salary floor. It's been in need of one for a long time. I've been saying as much on these threads for years.

 

Small-market teams will cry poverty and threaten to fold before they agree to a salary floor. And they outnumber the large-market teams.

 

They aren't going to fold over a salary floor. They may band together and vote the idea down, but they aren't going to fold over it.

 

two years minimum salary, two years arbitration, then free agency.

 

Most of the union is past this stage of their career. All of them are past the draft. You're expecting them to sacrifice their own interests and negotiating capital for future players? I'll believe it when I see it.