Rob

I kinda figured they'd try to limit his innings a bit this year anyways. Hopefully it's nothing structural.

Honestly, yeah. If you’re going that short it’s mostly luck anyways. Might as well make it exciting.

Fast forward to Opening Day when he is starting in RF and batting 5th. He may well be starting, but I'd be shocked if he climbs above the 6th spot this season.

Matt Murton? Clint Frazier. I think I prefer Matt Murton.

We have Jorge at home, he's got all of the defensive liabilities but maybe not the bat and also he's a ginger Matt Murton?

Ultimately, I'm just surprised that once again the MLBPA seems to have settled for minor incremental change on a system that's incredibly owner-friendly as currently constructed. After they got embarrassed by how the last CBA played out, I always expected their asks to be much bigger this time around.

i watched so many non-cubs extra inning games that i wouldn't have. it's instant action/strategy, and 17 inning slogs are overrated. There is just something magical about the possibility of that 17 inning game. By no means do I want to stay up until 2am every night watching extra innings marathons, but I want to know that it "might" happen. I like the unknown of going to the ballpark and expecting a 3 hour game but understanding that we might end up being there for 5+ hours instead. That could all just be me, but I enjoy the unpredictability and the chance to see something crazy/historic on any given day. Agreed. Long ago, I went to Wrigley to celebrate my birthday, and was rewarded with a 14 inning game with a rain delay. I got to hang out in my Mecca for like 7 hours that day. Even though the Cubs lost, it was glorious, and a memory I'll always cherish.

The good changes to baseball in my lifetime: - Drug testing - The expansion teams - The first wild card - Limited replay - The rules intended to minimize contact when breaking up double plays or sliding into home. (though admittedly, I miss those moments) A ten team playoff was a lateral-move which didn't drastically increase or decrease my enjoyment of the game. It has some pluses and minuses which roughly even out. Everything else has been a bad change. Advertising on uniforms, NL DH, three batter minimums, further expanding playoffs, draft pools, international spending caps, luxury taxes, revenue sharing, even the automatic walk. That said, I'm not sure how I feel about banning the shift. I always loved seeing the extreme defensive alignments with five infielders or four outfielders for the last few batters of the game. Heck, just hearing the phrase "infield is in" has always put a smile on my face and my butt on the edge of my seat. On the other side of the coin, banning the shift could conceivably put some more runners on base and increase the value of some lost arts like stolen bases and make the game look a little bit more like I remember it looking in its heyday. I dunno, I could see this going either way. As far as the pitch clock is concerned, it seems like another bad idea. I agree that the pace of the game needs to be sped up a bit for that stuff. But I feel like a pitch clock is drastic. The same goal could be reached by lesser means -- keeping pitchers near the rubber and batters at the plate, telling umps not to allow time calls to go on so long, etc... I'd prefer something that can be flexible rather than a rigid rule.

This is just a convenient excuse to funnel ~$3B or so to an ally of Putin.

Pretty sure this is it, but they haven't realized it yet.

The economics of baseball escape me when it comes to stadium-level stuff. But $1M doesn't seem like it would support very many employees for very long.

Kill the draft and bonus pools. Let the free market sort it out.

Yeah, this is awful. Lots more watching the Cubs shoot for 82 wins and luck in the playoffs.

You're also not already a couple of dozen times over millionaire, I assume. Context is everything. In a rarity, I'm with CubinNY on this one. When you're poor, it's easy to justify selling out one's morals and ethics in order to provide for their family. After all, that's supposed to be our #1 concern, right? We may try to be good, but the pull is certainly there when you have a family to support. But once you already have enough in the bank to provide your family for a few lifetimes, there's no apparent need which stands to justify acting so unethically. It's just pure avarice. Somebody like Phil has no business taking an offer like this. He has an ethical obligation to consider, and he's discarding it in favor of pure material gain. It's inexcusable.

I mean, you hit the nail on the head. It gives teams more options for where to play those superstar hitters in the late stages of their mega-deal. And when you shift them there, it opens up another potentially-high paid starting spot. Is it a huge difference maker for players? No. But it’s good for their major earners, and some slow footed sluggers. Possibly could increase longevity for some select pitchers, as well, though I imagine a lot of that number will be replaced by other fluke injuries such as those caused by line drives off a DH’s bat.

I hate both Donald Trump and the universal DH. If there's any sort of correlation between those two issues, I have to imagine it's a weak one. I love democracy, and I love classic, strategic baseball which encourages deeper benches and creative problem-solving.

I've said from the beginning that this will almost certainly impact spring training. It's possible it gets together in quick enough fashion to allow for an otherwise-normal season. But I also wouldn't be surprised to see it bleed (slightly) into the regular season. If we don't have games by late May I'd be shocked. The MLBPA leadership is pretty weak and risk-averse. They lack the stones to manage a real work-stoppage. They're only up to threatening it as a negotiating tactic.

As somebody who recently got an A- in their torts class, I can state with certainty that this case will settle. The only cases that go to trial involve railroads and ships.

Normally I think that'd be a pretty significant bounce. But he's now got to deal with the added factor that Bonds didn't get in despite his numbers and the career he put up before he started using -- which was pretty analogous to, though significantly better than, A-Rod's situation. That argument, in theory, could make it easier not to vote for him. They may cancel out, more or less. But I'd guess he still sees a slight bump.

And now that you've backed off Clemens, we can begin to find some common ground. I agree that if Ortiz is in, Sosa should almost certainly be in. Granted, typically I compare players to the others at their position and by that yardstick Sosa falls short on the numbers while there aren't really enough DH's to establish a bar for Ortiz to clear -- so looking at it that way, I can kinda see a statistical argument for the disparity. But it's not an argument I'm seeing from the actual voters. Their vote to hold Sosa out seems to be based on the same test which Ortiz allegedly failed. It's hypocritical and absurd. [And for the record, Sosa and McGwire, despite borderline numbers, absolutely deserve to be in based solely on the fact they basically saved baseball's popularity.] The Santo thing drove me nuts, and his numbers are HoF worthy at a position which is severely underrepresented. Again, I can squint and see the statistical argument against it -- using the outdated metrics adored by HoF voters at the time, he looked more like a borderline candidate. But that usage of the character clause was clearly an overreach -- he wasn't accused of being an actual bad person. He just rubbed some NY writers the wrong way. Totally inappropriate use of the character clause. I'll even extend a further olive branch by saying that trying to keep people like Tim Raines out of the Hall for cocaine usage was an inappropriate use of the character clause. They weren't hurting anybody but themselves with that. The only times I've advocated for the use of the character clause are merely to postpone [not prevent] induction when people have actively hurt others (Bonds, Clemens), are encouraging others to hurt people (Schilling), or have actively undermined the integrity of the sport itself (Rose). And hell, for that last one I'm perfectly fine saying Rose has done his time and should be in. Not all postponements need to be until postmortem. I'd love to see MLB slap a set penalty on PED suspensions including not just a 60 game ban, but a 20 year ban on Hall of Fame eligibility. I think that would cut down on the pearl-clutching by the writers and give the Veterans Committee implicit permission to say "they've done their time and we shouldn't hold it against them anymore." Just a thought. I can't speak to other sports -- I don't have much interest in them.

That's a fair take and pointing out a legitimate problem with the way these character allegations are being handled by a number of voters. Of course, I never understood why he was getting the support he received before the allegations...

So because racists were in the Hall then, we should elect modern racists now. Because Roger Clemens already made a lot of money, we shouldn't feel icky about giving him more? The existing circumstances are sunk costs. We can't do anything about them the same way we can't do anything about Harold Baines and Bill Mazeroski being undeserving candidates. But we aren't intentionally diluting the talent-pool by letting Magglio Ordonez and Elvis Andrus in there, along with every other comparable player. No. We evaluate each candidate on the merits. And part of that evaluation includes the character clause, and thinking about whether or not we should be rewarding these people for their behaviors. Let's not kid ourselves. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and a whole bunch of other awful people will no-doubt make it to the Hall of Fame one day. I see no reason it has to be while they're alive to profit from it. Until then, if you want a register of the greatest players of all time, check out the fangraphs career leaderboard.

And your indignation is righteous? "There are already a lot of awful people in the HoF" is just the baseball equivalent of "it's always been done that way, so why do we need to change it?" It's a bad-faith argument. Look at each decision in a vacuum. You're talking about bestowing the highest honor in the sport upon these people -- an honor that comes with significant monetary and influential value. Fans pay more for an autograph by a Hall of Famer. They see "MLB Hall of Fame" in a twitter bio and they respect that person's opinion more. And your argument is that because there are other awful people in the Hall, voters are "self-righteous horsefeathers trying to play God" when they hesitate to bestow more money and influence on these people? That's some nonsense if you're being honest with yourself. Ty Cobb being a racist 100 years ago is not a good reason to give money and influence to Curt Schilling today. The pearl-clutching over cheating gets to me a bit too, but there are legitimate reasons to utilize the character clause when dealing with truly awful people. Clemens is accused of grooming a child (and perhaps worse). A child who later killed herself. Voters aren't being self-righteous horsefeathers trying to play God if that's the reason they're uncomfortable giving him money and fame -- they're just being decent human beings.

Oh yeah, the inconsistency within tiers bugs the hell out of me. Players in the same boat should be treated the same way unless there's some sort of differentiating factor. As far as to whether it should matter or not, I'm still undecided to be perfectly honest. Up above I posted my pretend ballot. You'll note I still voted for A-Rod and Manny, in addition to guys like Sosa. Steroids alone wasn't enough to scare me off of any player. But I had room for all of them on my ballot because I was leaving off guys like Bonds, Clemens, Schilling, and others for reasons outside of the diamond. Even those abusers and racists, I'm okay with them getting in eventually [there's plenty of equally-vile players already in] -- but I don't want any of them profiting off the Hall of Famer label in their lifetime. I'd prefer their inductions be posthumous. The ones that really drove me nuts were guys like Piazza and Bagwell that were never connected to steroids but we had to hear endless and baseless speculation of whether they were or weren't on them at the time, and writers making voting choices on gut calls. That was beyond stupid. But we're largely past that and dealing with confirmed cases nowadays -- so I wont get my knickers in a bunch either way with it so long as the voters are being consistent.

There are a lot of potentially interesting and deserving candidates. Albert Belle, Will Clark, Orel Hershiser, Joe Carter, Mark McGwire, Kevin Brown, David Cone, Chuck Finley, Dwight Gooden, Al Leiter, Brad Radke, Bret Saberhagen, Curt Schilling, Fernando Valenzuela, David Wells, Javy Lopez, Mark Grace, Fred McGriff, John Olerud, Rafael Palmeiro, Mo Vaughn, Chuck Knoblauch, Robin Ventura, Matt Williams, Jose Canseco, Juan González, Kenny Lofton, & Bernie Williams. Unfortunately, I anticipate another logjam at this level. There's really no debate on McGwire, Sosa, and Palmeiro until Bonds and Clemens are in. And there isn't much hope for guys like McGriff, Lofton, and Bernie Williams getting a real debate until the better players ahead of them are in. I have to imagine it's just too hard to vote for the 7th best player on the list when you've already decided not to vote for the guys ahead of them. Pitching could be more interesting. Kevin Brown, David Cone, Dwight Gooden, etc... That said, I'm 100% predicting the Veterans immediately elect Schilling. A bunch of rich old dudes? Most of them probably would have liked his posts if they knew how to tweet. Hell, they might even induct George W. Bush while they're at it just to make a point.