Bertz

MLBPA has been fairly specific that they aren't trying to peg a specific percentage of revenues. I'm not sure if they think that's a good concession(unlimited growth potential for owners), they don't trust MLB not to manipulate revenues in bad faith, they don't think the size of the pot is the problem compared to the inequality/competitive concerns, or some combination of those reasons. That's true. They're not anchoring to 50% or anything like that specifically because of the murkiness around "baseball revenue." But I think if the chart below looked less ugly the MLBPA would mostly be amenable to continuing the status quo, even if there was occasional rancor around stuff like the BAMtech sale not being included.

Fergie is the best

I actually think the problem is not enough long term thinking. - 5 years ago the MLBPA was fat and happy. Willing to sell amateurs down the river for roomier bus rides and like a dedicated omelette chef or w/e. MLB decided to pull back on FA spend, and now have a full on labor crisis - Last year we got the weird bastardized 60 game season because small market owners were going to lose money on a per game basis with revenue sharing suspended. The league passed on two months of assuredly bonkers tv ratings, including far more young eyes than they'll ever reliably be able to reach again - They're losing brand favorability with every day this current spat goes on, even though they could make major concessions to the players and still be north of 50/50 in revenue moving forward - They've not really invested in youth outreach beyond RBI. They've also dragged their feet on in market streaming and lifting the archaic in market streaming rules. All opportunities to spend a little short term money and expand the audience. They have to their credit cozied up with the online sports books. Smart long term thinking would be to only take ~50% of "baseball revenue" to keep the MLBPA complacent while enjoying skyrocketing franchise values and continually expanding baseball adjacent revenue streams that the PA wouldn't get their fingers in. The PA would have essentially rubber stamped this CBA. Now they're fighting tooth and nail, and there's probably going to be enough left over acrimony for this to happen again in 5 years.

The mediator thing seems like one of two things: 1. MLB trying to cover its ass in saying "Hey we are trying." Because as of now, as much as these things are subjective, it seems fairly objective to say that no they are not. And I'd imagine excessively bad faith negotiating opens MLB up to legal exposure 2. The majority of owners are actually being vaguely reasonable, but there's a sizable contingent that are driving the gridlock. Bringing in a relatively neutral 3rd party with a sizable level of experience/authority and having them acknowledge the crazy may be an attempt to bring the crazy contingent in line

More risky, but I think I'm more worried about this honestly

Or just like, take the pitch, because it's an obvious ball? I dunno, just looks like a slider to me have you ever tried to hit a slider before? If it was the only pitch you saw maybe you can say that, but if its sandwiched between two Darvish fastballs I guarantee that you would swing at it, only to watch it fall away from you as you wildly try to correct in the follow-through

It's a very fine line going from losing a little bit of ST to significantly impacting the regular season. Get something done in the next ~3 weeks and all that happens is you trim some of the fat off of ST, but go beyond that and horsefeathers snowballs really quickly. I still tend to think the owners don't have the stones to let this impact the regular season, but I'm closer to like 60/40 than the 80/20 I was a month ago.

This is definitely Watson right?

Of all the impressive things about Justin his ability to be so diplomatic in consistently throwing Nagy under the bus is maybe the most remarkable.

It's very funny to me how worked up people are getting about this. Like if Payton or Belichick or Tomlin were available yeah give them a blank check. But Jim Harbaugh's resume does not warrant such treatment. And I don't care about the McCaskey's pocket book, but I do care that a contract that big likely anchors him to the team longer than his performance would dictate and that a guy with that kind of contract would also have more influence over the GM than his performance would dictate.

https://twitter.com/kmbc/status/1487928946117201924?t=2uxUopBpqWfXIyNiWuhhyg&s=19 lol

Wildcard weekend was kind of bust. 49ers-Cowboys was probably the only good game. But I think if these last two games are good it'll still be a resounding yes.

This halftime broadcast is an amazing disaster

Feels like this is an impossible one to evaluate from the outside since Rodgers was clearly fully formed before Getsy ever got there.

Yeah I don't think this means anything. I'm not going to go through every roster but I believe this year's Dolphins we're the only one of those teams that had decent personnel on the offensive side of the ball? (And to be fair, they did underperform which would help make the point) His reasons for excluding Staley and McDermott were shaky, likely because they undermine this narrative.

At this point, if Caldwell doesn't settle for the job, I'd say just go with another hot young candidate. Getting Caldwell at OC would be great. I'd no longer be underwhelmed. Probably not overwhelmed either, but very sufficiently whelmed. I wonder how realistic it is?

Runs a Tampa 2 base though, right? I wonder what he'll aim to do with the defense here and if he'll consider keeping Desai around. There's a good bit of the D hitting free agency, so he's got an opportunity to remake it in his image fairly quickly.

Eberflus seemed like the 2nd best of the defensive dudes after Flores. And Eberflus doesn't have the interpersonal and Deshaun Watson baggage (which may or may not be fair). So....this is fine? Underwhelming but definitely not bad.