DrungoHazewood

It sounds to me like you're saying that baseball is broken, and all attempts to make it better will inevitably make it worse. So... I guess we're done here.

Baseball would have to acknowledge that they have some problems that require proactive solutions to fix. Which risks alienating their core fanbase with a 55-year-old median age and memories of how the game was perfect when they were 12, in 1977. And their father's stories about how it was even better in 1953.

Actually, it's the other way around. People are willing to spend a lot of money on baseball, so the revenues exist to be able to pay players a lot of money.

It's hard to tell anyone in that equation that they have to take less, because before COVID the game was bringing in $10B. And the only part I can argue about is the mandatory RSN fees that cable companies charge. The rest of it is people willingly paying for baseball at the prices you don't like. The owners and the players will make less money when the fans stop paying. We'll see what happens this year and in the future. You don't go tell Ford that a car should cost $15k instead of $30k and expect them to listen. You just don't buy a Ford, you go buy a Hyundai or something. If you don't like Mike Trout making $30M a year and you don't like the Royals being valued at $1B, don't spend on baseball and convince all your friends and acquaintances to do the same thing.

He had a 101 OPS+, which was considered a very positive season for him. Still had a .297 OBP, and his power spike happened in the biggest home run year in MLB history. So, yes, lots of uncertainty.

Let's see what the new CBA brings. Also, Lindor will probably be looking for a contract that pays him like he's a 6-plus win player for the next decade. Maybe not Harper/Trout/Manny money, but the next tier down. The kind of deal that a team winces, signs, and just hopes they have 3-4 MVPish seasons on the front end to make the 1- or 2-win/$35M seasons on the back end a little less painful. I don't know if the Orioles will ever be (or should be) in the position to sign someone else's player for 8/250.

@Frobby could offer a lot more meaningful insight, but I don't think the Federal League Terrapin's case has ever been considered well-thought-out judicial reasoning. It would not be in any way surprising to me if it was one day challenged and overturned.

And I don't know if that would make any difference. None of the other leagues have one, and they do fine.

It's entertaining for a while, but I always get the feeling that the teams that win have the highest percentage of 11-year-olds who are already shaving. There are 6th graders in the tournament who're bigger than Brian Roberts.

This is probably just Dad getting really excited, but I hope that Thomas Girard didn't sign a MLB contract with the Orioles. Probably just a standard minor league deal.

If this were to go on for a while, for example if this segued into the new CBA negotiations and there was a long stoppage, and the owners tried a replacement-player season there's a possibility that the real players (especially those out of contract) would try to start some alternate league of some sort. The owners would have the uniforms and the stadiums we're familiar with but low-A talent. The players would have new uniforms and who knows where they'd play, but they'd have MLB players. I think the players would win that battle. Who would you watch, Jomar Reyes or Mike Trout?

Do you remember the '94-95 lockout/strike? They tried to use replacement players (except Angelos, who refused). The only minor leaguers who crossed the line (with a small handful of Kevin Millar exceptions) were non-prospects. Players anywhere close to the majors, or thinking they'd ever have a chance to be major leaguers, wouldn't cross the picket line for fear of being blackballed and forever shunned and denied union membership. This isn't a strike. But I'm guessing the same sentiments would apply. Prospects aren't crossing the line for 1/3rd of some kind of MLB salary followed by being treated like a pariah. Even if the owners could get around all the other legal hurdles in the way of this kind of plan.

I think we're a little jaded because of the lack of success of Oriole pitchers they've drafted and kept in a very long time. The most valuable pitchers drafted/kept by the Orioles in this century are Zach Britton, Kevin Gausman, Jim Johnson, Mychal Givens, and John Means. That list includes three relievers and a guy with 158 career innings. But, yes, past results are not a guarantee of future failure.

That seems to be a stretch since he's a 35 now and he turns 26 in December. Even if you give him some credit for being a Rule 5 draftee it's hard for me to see him with an average batting average in the majors.

At least the Deutscher Fußball-Bund figured out how to get their teams back on the field. If MLB and the MLBPA were half as organized and half as self-interested we'd have some baseball to talk about.

Aren't we? ? Any Oriole fan can tell you that having the very best and most expensive talent is overrated. Only underdogs can experience absolute joy. It's not as good when you were expected to win and you just met expectations. It's theoretically impossible for the Yankees to do better than expected.

What else are we supposed to talk about when all the baseball discussions involve draft hypotheticals and Mike Wright?

Sorry. With all the baseball going on diversions like this might push the mascot Hall of Fame thread halfway down the page.

Many of the lower leagues are very competitive. A week ago 1st and 8th place in the German 3. Liga was separated by four points. That's a pennant race.

No I didn't! There are hundreds of teams with good players. I just mentioned the teams that have leveraged massive bank vaults full of money to acquire more than their share of good players and dominate their leagues. It's hard to call something a competitive sport when before the season starts one team, or a small handful of teams, have the only real shots at winning the trophy.

@atomic I don't really care who you root for. It seem like you do have a family connection to the area, and that's fine. But I was raised an Oriole fan from the age of 7 or 8. That means it's in my character to not root for the Yanks, and Sox. And almost every league has Yanks or Red Sox. I can't root for any of them. I won't root for the Patriots or the Cowboys, I can't root for Duke or Alabama. I can't stand Man U/Man City/Chelsea/Arsenal, or Bayern or Real Madrid, or Paris St. Germain. I don't like Juventus. I just won't do it, and when I see someone wearing those shirts or hats and I'm not in any of those places, I just assume they're doing it in a weak attempt to be cool. Sometimes that's not the case, but that's the first thing that comes to mind.

It's a very weird dynamic that I don't understand. Germans HATE teams that try to come in with money and improve themselves. They almost universally loathe Red Bull Leipzig and Hoffenheim for that reason. Prior to COVID fans in multiple cities staged huge protests with bizarre, kind of violent overtones about Dietmar Hopp, Hoffenheim's billionaire owner, because he had the audacity to put money into the team. But most of them are fine with Bayern Munich, which somehow has all the money in the universe despite the 50+1 rule that keeps large investors out. The Bundesliga used to be about on par with the leagues in England, Italy and Spain. But because Bayern wins every year and even Dortmund is a selling team the league has clearly slipped behind England, and probably Spain, too. Italy has regressed at least in part because of gambling scandals. It's a shame, the Bundesliga has a ton of historical prestige but they can't figure out a way to mix 50+1 with some measure of competitiveness. Ironic, because competitive balance is supposed to be a feature of the rule.

They were actually founded in 1848 but disbanded when the Bavarian monarchy suspected them of harboring anarchists and revolutionaries in that year's upheavals sweeping Europe. They then re-established in '60.

Because all Yankee fans are this.

Most people are followers. They think that wearing a Yankees jersey or hat makes them winners. When all it really says is that they took the easiest path. I picked 1860 kind of by chance, I liked their jersey and I didn't know any better, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Even 20 years ago I knew better than to pick Bayern. Like when I picked an English team I couldn't pick one of the big money teams that always expects to win, but I also couldn't pick a team so forlorn that they'd never be on US TV a decade ago (already had 1860 for that) so I chose Tottenham. So, so, so much better to be a fan of a team that's not the automatic American tourist choice. When someone stops you to talk about your 1860 or Spurs shirt they really want to know about it and what your connection is to the team. If they see a Bayern or a Man U shirt they would never stop you to talk, they just assume you got it in the airport.