Jason Ross

Bailey. Blomker. Maybe Sorrell considering he had some helium.

That's more than I excepted to save

I didn't say anything rudely. I agreed that it was probably a waste of time to type that long essay up. Why? There probably weren't 1,000 words that anyone could have written to dislodge you from your position, so what's the point of writing that much? I also said that despite that, I have a gooey idealistic center where I still thought there was a chance and typed it up anyways.

Over 70% college players, lower prep players drafted than normal. Source

I know. But in my heart-of-hearts, beyond the exterior of pessimism and utter despair, I still have a nougaty-center of optimism and hope of idealism and principle. Also my cats woke me up at 5:30am because they're horsefeatherss and I'm awake, and what better thing to do than pound out an essay so I don't murder one of them?

I'm not "defending" owners buying championships. I'm saying that much of the "I want a cap for parity" argument is because the Dodgers are currently the best team. I'll go back to the NHL for this and for the argument's sake, I'm going to assume you don't follow the NHL like I do as it's the safest point of entry for my argument, so if you do, sorry for the "explain it to me like I'm 5" aspect of this. The Florida Panthers have become the LA Dodgers of the NHL world over the last 5+ years as have the Tampa Bay Lightening. So much so that a Canadian team basically sold a player to the Panthers for what many consider to be a coup. The player has a brother on the Panthers and effectively forced his way there despite having a contract for a few years still in Ottawa. Traditionally warm cities such as Florida and Tampa Bay have been destitute NHL franchises and Canada has been the destination. Weird times, huh? "Those are some mighty warm cities" you may to yourself. Well yes, yes they are! So why the change? Why is the cold-sport suddenly trendy with the warm cities? Players are flocking to those cities because of favorable Florida taxes and because those teams are already good. Many of the best American born players, specifically, are congregating in these teams and forcing moves. Guess what? The NHL has a hard cap. These teams are also buying championships. Caps don't solve hegemons in sports; sports create hegemons. In the mid-90's it was believed the Yankees would essentially win every WS forever. They haven't. Whatever juice the Dodgers have today will peter out naturally. That's the point. This entire "anti-Dodgers" thing is going to be the 90's anti-Yankees thing. Guess what's next? An anti-INSERT NEW TEAM HERE thing is coming afterwards. You keep acting like there's some magical, pie-in-the-sky world where "I just want to watch baseball" and sticking your head into the ground is going to solve anything, but it's the exact sentiment that is going to destroy MLB. MLB players are not not going to "willingly" tear down the game like an owner is. Tom Ricketts could lose the Cubs and still have TD Ameritrade and all that real estate. There are lots of players who are currently generationally wealthy and could be just fine but the vast majority of players who are being paid by MLB (including MiLB players, fringe players, bench players, rookies, etc) are not. Do you think Trent Thornton can tear down the game and be okay? What's his next step? Where does he go? He has made a lot more money than me, but it's well short of generational or enough to just retire. And he's even among the upper crust. The reality is more players are like Trent Thornton than they are Kyle Tucker. There are no owners who are the equivalent of Trent Thornton who need baseball to exist. Bob Nutting acts like he's never heard of a dollar bill with how he spends in Pittsburgh. His net worth is $1.1 billion. He owns 12 different newspapers. Dude can lose the Pirates tomorrow and be generationally wealthy. Listen, I get it, I'd like to just watch baseball too, but there is no "neutral side" ultimately. We can stick our heads into a ground and say "I just like baseball" and the MLB and MLBPA are still going to do this stuff. Fans are not at the negotiating table; and I realize it'd be nice if either side thought of the fans, but it is what it is. There are two sides; there are the owners, and there are the players. I won't act like the players are the altruistic "good guys" who are looking out for everyone (they aren't and routinely sell sections of their base up the river), but I also know that that the enjoyment of the sport revolves around players, not owners. Between Trent Thornton and Tom Ricketts, I'll side with Trent. Between Kyle Tucker and Tom Ricketts, I'll side with Kyle. 100% of the time. A better deal for the players is a better baseball product. It won't be perfect. It won't consider you and me, but between those two, I know who the sport revolves around. So in the end, we agree on this; I like watching baseball. I like talking about baseball just like you but I'll certainly choose a side to sit with. The owners do not give two fucks about this sport. They prove it daily. The players give at least one. You can watch it on the field with your two eyes 162 times a year. So in this battle, I'll side with the players entirely, even if I lose baseball for a bit because as long as they keep getting the best deal they can, the sport will revolve around the people who at least care about the sport, even if they don't care about me.

You can rank them however you like, but I think it's a good thing to remember, Cade Townsend wasn't like a star at Ole Miss He had a 4.64 ERA last year. I get he hasn't "shown failure" at the professional level, but he hasn't had a ton of sustained success even at the SEC level. Don't you think that's very rich considering that he has to climb the entire MiLB ladder and Jaxon Wiggins will likely make a debut (on merit) this year? And it isn't like Wiggins hasn't had - Top-100 love - A good draft pedigree (2nd round) - Plenty of success I like Cade Townsend; happy with the pick, like the upside. But I think the only real reason to rank him above Wiggins is fatigue/shiny-new-toy as of now.

Eh, I'm not really sure there's a massive drop-off. Sorrell had 1st round helium, and realistically, a lot of top-75 picks make top-10 lists. The Braves had three added, the White Sox had three added, the A's had three added, the Padres added top-5 prospects in their system...it's not a crazy thing. Plus when you get to the 10th spot, I think there's plenty of decent guys. Bailey. McGwire (in the futures game), Long, Triantos...they're all perfectly acceptable top-10 prospects in a system who were left off. I don't want to wax poetic about the system, but Myles Bailey being the 10th best prospect is a pretty "fine" thing for a middling system like the Cubs have.

The Brewers don't make the trade if they don't like something in McCullers or Gordon. Yes. The Cubs wouldn't have traded for David Peterson if there wasn't something they liked about him. But I wouldn't worry too much about Colton Gordon either. Go look at his Triple-A data below. This is what the Brewers do. They collect pitchers they think could be interesting. Ultimately they paid $7m for two arms and one is controllable. It's a cheap price of entry. And for good measure, his 2025. He isn't very good. He doesn't have interesting data. He doesn't have pedigree. Maybe they entirely rebuild him, but as is...it's just a young-ish pitcher. I wouldn't read into it. He almost assuredly isn't a stud. Good chance he isn't even mediocre.

I doubt it's Craig. Counsell was hired to work in lockstep with Hoyer and Hawkins. John Mallee was hired in 2014. I'd guess him. That's a long time and Bruce has been around a long time. So even though there was a gap in his time, he feels like the guy who probably would know Bruce. He could also hold some anger at being let go originally a year after the WS win. Maybe Hottovy considering they didn't bring in a big starter last year. Could be "sell you down the river". And he predates Craig. But I'd come back to it being John as my best guess.

I'll have to check Savermetrics. Seriously, though the best coverage on these things come from @Savermetrics on X. I've know the owner of that account for years and years. Great guy and the best at finding these things.

Nah. And this isn't his first Twitter flub. Can't remember the exact tweet or when it was (sometime pre-covid, I think?) but he posted some dumb thing on Twitter before and had to apologize publicly. He's an older man who didn't grow up with tech. Hell, he was in Kindergarten (based on an interview) the year my father was born and my father is about to turn 72. It was almost assuredly "old man sucks at Twitter and the internet" more than anything. But you can't have those kind of horsefeathers ups. Especially when you call the hand the feeds "tweedle dee and tweedle dumb".

I care about both equally, because I don't think you can have a floor that is effective without a cap. And I don't care about a cap unless anti-trust goes away. And they won't implement just a floor, and they won't implement a cap based on open books. As you (and many have said) teams can share revenue today. That solves the TV issue. And that all brings me back to the end: owners don't like baseball and they don't care about baseball. And will destroy the sport to save a buck.

The only real parity I think we are missing comes from the lowest spending organizations. Cincinnati, whatever the As are called today, etc. But those teams pocket revenue sharing. And then the league takes away their ability to develop players and build through draft by limiting who's involved. Truly, I think the lack of parity is mostly the league and the teams' own fault. And then they create a self perpetuating system of pocketing the spending money and hurting the draft to make it worse.

I remain steadfast against any salary cap and a salary floor unless there are a lot of things that come with it. For it to happen, the MLB would have to lose their anti-trust status and have transparent books. As well, there would need to be guardrails in place to avoid what happened initially in the NHL where teams like Arizona would constantly trade for injured players because old players were getting heavily front-loaded deals but their AAV would count towards the salary cap keeping them compliant, yet cheap. And here's the rub; this will never happen. The anti-trust protections the MLB has is purely amazing from an ownership standpoint and they'll never give that up. I'm not a big NBA fan, but part of the issue with caps is what we're seeing in the NBA right now as teams are so fearful of the second apron they're dumping very good players' to stay under it. No one wants the MLB to have to get to a point where teams are trading players left and right to avoid a cap. The Pistons had their first good year in forever and they're shedding payroll. Do we want teams like Baltimore to make the playoffs once a decade and then trade everyone away? And lastly, while I know there is a sentiment among many that the Dodgers are buying championships; this isn't new. 20+ years ago it was the Yankees. Eventually it stops. And don't act like every league doesn't have hegemons even with a cap. The Patriots, Chiefs and Eagles have run the NFL for a long time. Currently Florida, Tampa Bay, and Colorado are running the NHL. A cap won't solve this; that's sports. The true answer is that the league needs to force teams like the Reds to act like they give a damn and I can assure you, that if the league is pushing for a cap that the cap is not going to force teams like the Reds to care...it'll just be to bring down everyone's spending so that when the Reds are cheap fucks, they're not so left behind. And as fans we should give a horsefeathers about this. A bad deal for the players is not going to help the game. It's not going to make it more watchable. Owners are actively attempting to push baseball out of baseball. Look at how they view the draft, minor league baseball, and how they treat 14 year old IFA kids. Look at how they're splitting up the ability to watch the game on seven streaming services. The blackouts that stop paying customers on MLB.TV from watching games. These people don't like baseball, they like money. I like baseball. I'll give up a few months of watching baseball now to ensure the game is strong.

Bruce Levine used to be very much "the guy" about 10-15 years back, especially under Jim Hendry as a reliable source of information. When things shifted to Theo Epstein, he fell out of the inner circle. He wasn't a liar, but his connections were far less. Jesse Rogers seemed to take that mantle from Levine there for about 10 years. Things seemed to swing back to his side with Hoyer and especially, Marquee when he was hired there. Frankly, the last few years he's been fairly reliable. Which should make sense; his employer, for all intents and purposes *is* the Chicago Cubs, not an independent journalistic source. Probably safe to assume where that information comes from and that the team knows what they're doing when he gets it. But we are probably at a point after that tweet that you have to wonder why the team would keep him around. He's old. He just called the team out publicly. And no one is going to really trust him moving forward, fans or the org.

Braves have had a really rough go. Bottom 5 in ERA in June through ASB as well. They're a team much like the Cubs who have had a ton of pitching issues and the offense was helping cover it up.

Absolutely. When I said "it may be his last" I really wonder if that was it for Bruce. He isn't an on-air guy, and his one thing has been to be a source. Who's going to trust him now? He's toxic. I really wouldn't be surprised to see him retire from the journalism game at the end of the year. He's at an age it makes sense and an access point that probably has to be as small it can be.

Note to self: any rumor Levine posts from now on out is likely nonsense and a plant from Jed/Carter to get him back.

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This isn't his first Twitter mess up. But it very well may be his last. Jeeze, buddy.

Love that one! And honestly a lot to decide on.

When it comes to the pitching development, it's a little "chicken or the egg?" Are the Cubs not great at pitching development because they have spent bottom-5 in the draft on pitching? Or are they spending that limited amount because they haven't been confident in it? Hoping the "everyone throws hard" class pays off here and that the team just addresses pitching a little more aggressively.

We'll be back tomorrow at 4pm. Fielding anything you'd like us to talk about!

Ty Nichols was the scout for all of them. Yes.