Bertz

It's annoying for fans like us, but this is a good business decision IMO. The unique reach afforded by Apple TV is really important at a time where MLB is getting more and more niche. Frankly they need to copy the NFL's playbook and start throwing some games on Nickelodeon too.

Holy horsefeathers

This is what I'm curious about. My understanding was that to keep Aaron and Davante this year they basically needed to make nearly every other cut and restructure they could. Is that still the case, or did this just kick the can, and one hell of a can, down the road another year?

As Brett gets to here, and as we saw over the weekend with the four hardest line owners getting outed, it seems pretty clear that there's now some leaks coming from the ownership side. I'm curious if that's good news ("things are closer than they seem, let me nudge it a little further along"), or if this is REALLY bad ("things are horsefeathers on this side of the table, so I'm just gonna leak stuff to the media for spite"). All that said, the RSN Rebate issue is a pretty big deal, and likely the last major offramp for this conflict for quite some time. So it seems pretty clear this thing gets hammered out in the next 2-3 weeks or lasts at least 2-3 more months.

Where to start... -What happens on a foul ball? -More tosses to first to reset the clock to plan strategies -Umps now have to decide who's at fault for the pitch clock running out (lots of batters take their time too) -14 seconds seems incredibly short -other ways to speed the game up (eliminate warm-up pitches for incoming relievers comes to mind immediately, somehow speed up time between batters) For now, just get a new CBA. Quit horsefeathering around with meaningless horsefeathers that right now is just horsefeathering with the player's minds. ETA... I'm not totally opposed to some sort of pitch clock. But right now? No. First things first... let's get players back on the field. I don't think this is the way to do it. These are all fairly straight forward and have previously reported contingencies - the clock starts when the pitcher gets the ball - there's limits on throwing to bases(side benefit, stolen bases are more viable), stepping off, or stepping out of the box - see above, by enforcing the batter in the box the punishment is on the pitcher - it is not, amateur baseball does not have this problem and watching it doesn't feel like the game played too fast - there is no other lever to pull that will have the impact of the pitch clock, things like commercial breaks and warmup pitches pale in comparison The other important thing with the pitch clock is that it isn't creating a brand new pace of baseball. As mentioned above, watch any school age game(though college is getting some trickle down impacts with its professionalization) and it's played at this pace. And unless you're still college aged, games were played at this pace when you grew up with baseball. Grant Brisbee's comparison of a game between 1984 and 2014 remains the seminal example. On top of all this stuff, there's evidence that the slower pace of the current game is tied to the increased velocity. So on top of all the other aesthetic benefits for making the change, you might make a good dent in the TTO-ification of the game too.

I know we reflexively disagree with everything from Manfred, and that's largely been earned, but the pitch clock is a very good idea and limiting the shift is a pretty good idea.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/33424267/players-union-preparing-written-response-mlb-last-cba-offer-sources-say Combining this with what we've seen from the other other proposed formats, I assume this is what we'd be looking at? - 1 seed get a bye straight to the DS - 2 & 3 (other division winners) get HFA and a game in hand; possibly also choose their opponent from 5/6/7 - 4 gets HFA; no game in hand While I'm not a fan of the 14 team playoff, I do think something along these lines does actually provide plenty of good incentive to compete. This wouldn't be an aim for 83 wins scenario.

This seemed like the obvious path forward Tuesday morning. It would be very in keeping with these negotiations for the sides to end up here but only after enduring a self inflicted PR disaster first.

Apparently those are 3 of the 4 teams that voted nonon Steve Cohen becoming an owner. If you're wondering how this info got out he seems like a safe bet.

Based on the various reports coming out of combine week, it seems like the FA plan might be to go get a legit star at WR and otherwise focus on depth in the second/third waves.

Passan also indicating that ~1 month/25 games, which is when teams find themselves in major trouble with their RSNs, is likely the nuclear point.

Interesting! Hadn't heard the "confirmed he'll be ready for the start of the season" before. That's great, if true. I believe it was one of the Northside Bound guys, but it might have been Bryan Smith. The only bad thing about there now being so many good Cubs-centric prospect guys is I can't always remember where I saw stuff.

Still feels like this is the play, particularly since they cancelled two series than something less specific and more ongoing.

I believe it was an unspecified hand/wrist injury. Maybe NAM knows? But I think it's been confirmed he'll be ready for the start of the season, though you do have to wonder if it'll impact his power output.

Seeing it spelled out like you did(big thanks for that) makes me feel a bit better about this for the players. Yes the CBT is barely keeping pace with inflation and not with revenue growth, but ultimately that's a lever that impacts only a few teams and mostly in how they spend on free agents, which is not a population I care about getting maximum gains from. If they can get as high as possible on the minimum salary, stacked with the pre-arb bonus pools, (very mild) service time manipulation protections, and option limits, I think that's a decent outcome under the circumstances(owners negotiating in such bad faith they resemble cartoon villains) in terms of getting younger players paid. In terms of helping the game itself and the competitive landscape, I don't really see anything that is going to change the tide. Maybe the many small changes add up to something I can't see, but I'm not seeing anything materially changing the incentives when it comes to roster building. This is largely the owners doing(treating super two expansion as a third rail is again, bad faith garbage that precludes meaningful reform), but on the whole that part is a miss. Yeah, I think this in a vacuum is probably a push or maybe a very small win for the players, which is a loss after the last two agreements and considering how much of their political capital they spent to get here. That said this stuff is complicated and I could see a couple ways this turns out surprisingly well: 1. Like you said, if it's a death by a thousand cuts sort of deal. Winning a half dozen concessions valued at $50M a pop is better than one big $200M concession and status quo elsewhere 2. There can be "hidden" provisions that make a shockingly big difference. Like I mentioned above the revenue sharing costs to being a repeat offender were a HUGE problem in the last CBA, and no one picked that up until Brett went all lawyer on the CBA in l]2019 to figure out why PTR wasn't spending 3. Because the gains are largely concentrated on younger players, does that have a snowball effect? Like take the minimum salary. Using some quick and dirty Fangraphs numbers, increasing that by 20% is worth $60M. Does that 20% bump also lead arb salaries to rise by 20%? Because that would be worth another ~$170M per year. Then you have other hidden benefits, like fewer guys signing crappy pre-FA deals, etc.

So based on the reporting from last night, and last week more broadly, I think this is where we're at? What We Know .- Minimum Salary is going up significantly. ~20% already, and expected to go higher today - CBT is expected to go up modestly, $10M as of now, but players have indicated they need more - There is now a pre-arb bonus pool for top performing youngsters, currently at $25M a year but as with the others expected to go higher in today's negotiations - Playoffs are expanding, currently to 12 teams, but 14 might still be on the table, (like Andy said probably to fund the increases on the above 3 items) - No expansion to the Super 2 class (this is the big killer IMO) - Monetary penalties for exceeding the luxury tax will stay flat - Ads are coming to uniforms What We Sort-Of Know - International Draft is a go - There will now be a limit on how many times you can option a guy in a single year - There will be some mechanism for players to accrue extra service time. The last I saw was that the top two Rookie of the Year vote-getters would get a full year regardless of how long they were up - There will be draft-based carrots and sticks to try and curtail tanking - I believe I saw that there's still a reduction in revenue sharing dollars on the table (likely a temporary formality to get an additional concession from the owners) What We Don't Know - Are the repeat offender penalties still in place for the luxury tax? Specifically the revenue sharing ones? These ended up being arguably the biggest problem with the last CBA - Are there draft pick penalties attached to the CBT? Relatedly, are there still draft pick penalties attached to free agents? An earlier owner offer axed those, but I believe that came with higher monetary penalties for the CBT - What will the playoff structure be? The players have gone as far as suggesting "ghost wins" to incentivize as many teams as possible to try as hard as possible - There was a stray discussion of reducing the years to be Rule 5 eligible, no idea if that is going to be a thing or was a stray idea that never picked up traction Based on the tenor of the reporting, I'm assuming this plus 5-10% on each of those first three items is going to be roughly the deal. A lot of small wins for the players, but man them caving on Super 2 is a huge killer.

The devil is in the details, we saw that last time, but it seems like the players are caving pretty hard. Even assuming they get another 5-10% added to the CBT and the minimum salary.

[highlight=yellow]Of these three buckets, I'm especially curious about the "command bucket"[/highlight]. To adjust mechanics, arm-slot, grips, to change shape and velocity, that seems very accessible to what pitch lab can analyze. But I'm curious how much help pitch-lab stuff will provide for command? Burl will be an interesting case over this year and next, to see if he can get anywhere. Luke Little might be another interesting challenge. Herz and Jensen, too. Marquez, if he's ever allowed to get any development. Those are all guys who seem to have plenty of stuff; but how consistently will they be able to command it? I I'm also actually kinda interested in McIlvaine. Missed most of the year with injury, and was bad when he came back. But at one point I thought he seemed like a pretty stuff-strong-command-iffy guy. Maybe after the arm stuff, both the stuff and the command will be bad. But it would be fun if he came back fully healthy, got his stuff back or better, and then also showed some progress with his command. I could see the tech having two impacts on command, one pretty directly and the other somewhat indirectly. The first is in the biomechanics/high performance arena. If you have tech that says, in a much more sophisticated way, "Hey you need to spend more time at the squat rack" or something. Athleticism, especially balanced athleticism, is usually pretty directly correlates with command increases (see Arrieta, Jake). The other I think would be in establishing benchmarks for velocity/spin/etc. If you can measure so precisely the components of a guy's stuff, then you can make qualitative delivery changes that you think would lead to improved command while ensuring that they don't lead the drops in pitch quality.

Sounds like when he came onboard he was promised the ability to buy into a bigger stake, and that has yet to happen. Though I'm sure the lockout is not helping matters.

The Myrtle Beach team this year is gonna be so horsefeathering stacked. There's also been more whispers about Cristian Hernandez starting there, but I'm not sure if that's a real possibility or people are just trying to speak it into existence.

I did not realize this, and it seems extremely important?