7/21 - Cardinals (Flaherty) vs Cubs (Steele): 1:20pm, Apple TV+

[Irrelevant Dude]

Just now, Brock Beauchamp said:

Yeah, but smaller markets can only compete in brief bursts, they have to play by entirely different rules than bigger market teams. 100% parity probably isn't the solution but balancing the scales a bit more is good for the sport as a whole. TV revenue has really broken baseball over the past couple of decades.

That problem isn't limited to smaller markets, although you could argue it is a necessity for them whereas it is a self-imposed limitation for others.

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 minute ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

That problem isn't limited to smaller markets, although you could argue it is a necessity for them whereas it is a self-imposed limitation for others.

Oh, absolutely. The self-imposed limitations are nearly as bad as the necessary limitations. And that extends up to larger market teams like the Cubs, whom I feel aren't spending anywhere near their capability and haven't for quite some time.

[Brock Beauchamp]

No, Contreras' start in St Louis wasn't "disastrous" for any reason other than the Cardinals are arrogant and eagerly threw their new free agent acquisition under the bus in lieu of taking a long, hard look at their own organizational mistakes.

[Andy]

In broad strokes, MLB's supposed parity problem is no problem at all. I remember going back over the 10 seasons between 2012-21 during the lockout last spring, and in that time only 2 teams were never what you'd call a championship contender. One was Philly, who missed the cutoff by one season after winning 102 games in 2011, and the other was Miami, who almost doesn't count because they've rarely ever even tried to be a real major league franchise. That's not the case in the NFL, the supposed parity model, and the NBA couldn't even dream of that kind of statistic.

The issue isn't that no team can ever dream of being good, it's that in each individual season, several fan bases essentially know they're hosed before it starts. But I don't know if there's any finances-related solution to that.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

10 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Yeah, but smaller markets can only compete in brief bursts, they have to play by entirely different rules than bigger market teams.

FWIW I think in the last couple CBA cycles that's not as true as it used to be.  The reasons it has happened are far from noble, but the luxury tax and especially its draft penalties has been a real spending deterrent, FA classes get slimmer and older each year, player development makes it easier (relative to the past) to improve lesser players with the right instruction(which is not expensive), and draft/IFA pools have shut down avenues of buying talent.  Go back to since the start of the 2017 CBA and you've got about 6 full seasons.  The Top 10 in wins over that span include Tampa, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and St. Louis.  What smaller markets still don't have is as much cushion from being very bad.

[Jason Ross]

Mastrobuoni....can hit the ball over the wall.  I figured, maybe it was some kind of rule that he wasn't allowed to do that.  

[Irrelevant Dude]

Apple TV is broken.  It just glitched and showed Mastrobuoni hitting a home run.  I'm going to reload the stream.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Just now, Transmogrified Tiger said:

FWIW I think in the last couple CBA cycles that's not as true as it used to be.  The reasons it has happened are far from noble, but FA classes get slimmer and older each year, player development makes it easier (relative to the past) to improve lesser players with the right instruction(which is not expensive), and draft/IFA pools have shut down avenues of buying talent.  Go back to since the start of the 2017 CBA and you've got about 6 full seasons.  The Top 10 in wins over that span include Tampa, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and St. Louis.  What smaller markets still don't have is as much cushion from being very bad.

I agree that it's less true but that's as much from big market teams using the luxury tax as a soft salary cap as any real parity in the sport, which isn't a great long-term solution.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Hey, two runs!

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 minute ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

Apple TV is broken.  It just glitched and showed Mastrobuoni hitting a home run.  I'm going to reload the stream.

[Andy]

1 minute ago, 1908_Cubs said:

Mastrobuoni....can hit the ball over the wall.  I figured, maybe it was some kind of rule that he wasn't allowed to do that.  

Friends and I joke that we've seen incredibly random Cubs player homers in person despite how few games we actually go to (I saw Andres Blanco and Carlos Gonzalez both hit their only Cubs home runs, for instance), and anyone at today's game is right up there.

[itisallpartoftheplan]

Mastrobuoni looked like he fucked up on that homer and wasn’t supposed to help the Cubs win ever based on his reaction running the bases.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

2 minutes ago, Andy said:

Friends and I joke that we've seen incredibly random Cubs player homers in person despite how few games we actually go to (I saw Andres Blanco and Carlos Gonzalez both hit their only Cubs home runs, for instance), and anyone at today's game is right up there.

Holy horsefeathers, Carlos Gonzalez was a Cub

[mul21]

Belly bails out Happ.  Swinging at fastballs at the letters is a bad plan.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Apple TV's scorebug and stat pop-ups are proof that minimalist design is just a more attractive presentation than most sport broadcasts trying to go EXTREMEEEMEEME!!!11 on everything.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

2 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I agree that it's less true but that's as much from big market teams using the luxury tax as a soft salary cap as any real parity in the sport, which isn't a great long-term solution.

I agree if the main limitation is just ownership stinginess, but I think that even though it's motivated by stinginess, the penalties they've created feed a system where front offices are disincentivized to exceed it for too long for competitive reasons.  Maybe that doesn't hold up but we're at near a half-decade where everyone is consistently resetting penalties before they get too severe.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Bellinger seems to be in a good mood.

[Brock Beauchamp]

This game is a lot more interesting than yesterday.

[Derwood]

It is interesting how well the Apple visual aesthetic translates to sports 

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 minute ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

I agree if the main limitation is just ownership stinginess, but I think that even though it's motivated by stinginess, the penalties they've created feed a system where front offices are disincentivized to exceed it for too long for competitive reasons.  Maybe that doesn't hold up but we're at near a half-decade where everyone is consistently resetting penalties before they get too severe.

Yeah, that's definitely the current result but I don't like that the players are the ones getting squeezed in the process, particularly mid-tier free agents.

[chibears55]

6 minutes ago, Ding Dong Johnson said:

Bellinger seems to be in a good mood.

He knows he going to a contending team soon... 😅

[Irrelevant Dude]

My high school baseball coach always used to yell "lose the hat!" when running after a fly ball in practice.  I never really understood what he meant by that, but seeing Jordan Walker's hat pop off there, I guess that was it.

[Andy]

I've only heard her do it a few times but I am suuuuuper done with Elise Menaker referring to a home run as a "bombski"

[Brock Beauchamp]

One of those rare plays where no matter how much you slow it down, I don't think you're going to be able to tell whether the ball reached the glove or the foot reached the base first.

[UMFan83]

Glad I got all my Mastrobuoni mocking out of the way on Twitter before he started actually doing stuff.