Tony-OH

What makes you think I don't understand what a mediator does? The Fairness of having a mediator is that you have a person that is on no ones side and should be looking at the offers and counteroffers and and giving suggestions on how to bring the parties together. The fact that the players don't want this tells me they think they can break the owners. I would not doubt of the MLBPA is not colluding with the big market owners on the side.

We agree 100%, but somebody already corrected me on that Central League thing.

The MLBPA by turning down mediation takes on all blame now for any work stoppage. They MLBPA should be drained of their leadership. They are money hungry idiots who are clueless to the state of the MLB right now. They have found a way in these "negotiations" make the owners look good, and you know how hard it is to make Billionaire owners look like the fair ones?

Change of pace? You mean like still Having Yusniel Diaz in a top 20? lol

Nice. Would also really like to see the Complex Leagues go to a full season or at least more like 100 to 120 games.

The problem with a unified front is the big market teams don't have the same issues as the small market teams. Mediation is the only way this comes to end with any kind of fairness.

MLBPA doesn't want the fairness of mediator. They are all about winning at all costs. More money, less fairness. Less competition, but a few more dollars in their pockets to play in front of less people as fans continue to drop baseball in favor of other entertainment options. The MLBPA is the problem and will be the downfall of baseball as we know it unless the players wake up and get new leadership.

Yes, the DH is an option. Teams can still bat their pitchers but cannot use a DH the rest of the game which means when the starting pitcher is removed, he must be removed from the game and that spot will need to be filled by the reliever or a pinch hitter. Look at this boxscore when Ohtani started and hit, but got removed from the game in the first inning. https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA202106300.shtml Relievers Dylan Bundy and Tony Watson had to take at bats. Crazy thing is the Angels scored seven rules in the top of the 9th to actually win this game.

Yep, it's clear the player shave no interest in a competitive playing field for all, but how they can make the most money as possible for their constituents. Basically if you are not a big market team fan, you should not be happy with the players in this situation so far. Lord knows I don't want to be on the owners side, but at the end of the day, I'm an Orioles fan who wants the best system to make the game competitive for all teams. I don't think the players or the big market teams care one bit about that and that's why these negotiations are disappointing.

But let's see if the owners lift the lockout, how fast the players strike.

I'd like see to see the Orioles win 70-75 wins this year. I think that's reasonable and would be a good point to start trying to competent by 2023.

Agreed except at the High School level and below. I don't know how it is now, but we had the option of DHing any player on the field back in High School and since pitchers are usually some of your best overall players at that level, they almost always batted. We actually used to DH for our weak hitting but decent defensive SS. But at a professional level and even in college, the DH should be the rule. If your pitcher is good enough to hit let him, but if not, you should be allowed a DH.

This actually makes a lot of sense. Besides a few places like Sliders and Pickles, there are not a lot things to do around the stadiums before or after games. Obviously Ravens fans know how to tailgate so that's a little different than baseball fans that might be more apt to come down if there were a series of sports bars and entertainment establishments around the stadium.

I stand corrected. The NL and the stupid Central League don't use the DH. Honestly, I've been saying that for years so I appreciate being corrected. I probably should have just googled it!

As a six times All-Star and after putting up 71 WAR, I agree, he belongs in there especially after they made the Hall of Good with Harold Baines getting inducted. I think he was undervalued because his batting average was never really high and that is overly valued by old school evaluators and HoF voters.

I ran an OOTP sim where I took over the 1976 Orioles and was able to resign both Grich and Reggie. I won the AL East six straight years from 1977-1982 (when I stopped), went to the World Series three times and won one World Series. The Angels were the other dominant AL team and the Padres for some reason became super strong in the 80s. Saying this, my teams under performed in the World Series and even in the AL championship where I had the best record in 5 of of those years. i should have fired myself for only winning one WS!

Agreed. The NL is the only baseball league in the world that still does not allow a DH. This allows pitchers to focus on what they do, pitch.

In 80 for the best is the best of the best. That includes range, arm (accuracy and strength), and hands. Machado was a fantastic defensive 3B for a years with the Orioles and made 80 level plays, but he had a penchant for making a lackadaisical error on occasion and he was never great at going glove side. Hence why I think he was more of a 70 vs an 80 at his peak.

Finally some good news...

Thanks..

But the Orioles under Elias are trying to just that. It's just he choose or was told to do it this way at the major league level. If someone told you that the Orioles will be perennial contenders for 20 years but they'd had to lose awful like they have over the last three years, would you do it?

Just use the IP of your last post before it happened. i could use the one I see for this post as long as this is the same session.

Please follow the request and provide me the IP address (it's in the upper right of your post) you were using at the time you got this error. Thanks.

You're getting into an entirely different subject when it comes to the crappiness of the Orioles decisions (owner on down) that put them where they were when Elias took over. Either way, of course a big market fan does not care about competitiveness or fairness because they have the advantage. That doesn't make it right or fair to everyone. If all you are going to care about are the large markets, then this league was crash and fail because an uncompetitive league where the same big market teams are the major competitors each year is going to lose the fan base of the other 24 teams or so that are not. But hey, as long as your millionaires become multimillionaires, who cares, right?

While I don't disagree that teams should try to rebuild in an entertaining way, I believe in free market. If a team thinks this is the best way to get back to be competitive year after year, the league should not be telling them they can't do so. If the fans revolt or lose interest because of the lengthy uncompetitive build, then that's on the team to try and win those fans back by winning. While I'm about done with losing and knowing the team is going to stink once again, I don't feel it's MLB's place to stop teams from doing what they feel is best. Now, if a team is clearly not trying and has no plan to try, then the league should move or force ownership change. I'm not saying I loved the major league product the Orioles put on the field the last 3-4 years, especially last year when they were promoting players that did not belong in the big leagues, but I don't think changing the draft around or going to this low small and big market thing makes any sense.