MLB 2018-19 Offseason Thread

That's great stuff. Really interesting stats on how useless I er 30 players are getting.

 

Interest stuff. A career minor leaguer from my coverage area got signed by the Giants. He can play 6 different positions and is going to his major league camp after 7 seasons in the minors. He might just make it in this new environment.

 

Players are going to have to strike eventually and they're going to have to break the "team owns you for roughly the first decade of your career, you can only hit FA once your best value years are past" system.

 

Players are probably going to push for the DL in the National League, too.

 

It really sucks players must play hurt in the national league and have no protection

 

Shitfuck.

 

You can also add the way pitchers are used, rotated back and forth between the DL, the minors and the active roster. It's pretty brilliant actually, the way front offices are managing the product - they focus on the ratios and ignore the cumulatives, probably have an incentive to limit at bats and innings pitched, let alone keeping players down as long as they can.

 

Interestingly, it creates a pretty terrifying downward spiral for the game. Fans want to see a winning team. Teams find minute differences in performance that, across a 162-game sample size, aggregate to more wins without doling out superstar contracts. Teams save money, increase profit. Fans get bored to death watching their teams field squads full of super-utility players while stars sign with "the other team" for "below market value." Attendance falls, revenues slow, teams look for more ways to save money.

Pretty soon, Billy Beane is going to be telling us that the biggest market inefficiency is the ability to sign stars to huge deals and Oakland is going to be handing out $40M/AAV contracts like ballpark franks.

 

Did a fucking video game just leak the Harper signing?

 

Sports Junkies in DC were pretty sold on the "He's going to Philly."

If he goes to a division rival for anything close to the $300 mil the Nats offered, that's just a slap in the face.

 

Only if that offer is still on the table, which I would guess it's not. New market.

 

Don't explain away my poutiness!