DrungoHazewood

That transition happened circa 1945.

Every time McKenna has played well it was in large part due to a .300+ batting average. In 2021 he struck out 38% of the time, which precludes having even a halfway decent batting average. He had a BABIP about the same as Vlad Jr, or CJ Cron or Kris Bryant or Ronald Acuna. But since he struck out so much, and doesn't really have much power (.138 minor league ISO) he's not in their universe as a hitter. So, if he can somehow reduce his strikeout rate to, I don't know, 25% or something maybe he has a chance. I'm not very optimistic about a hitter in 2022 who has to hit .300 to be good.

It's been 108 years since a rival baseball league started up, and about 120 since one succeeded. Back then you could throw up a stadium worthy of a MLB team with two months and few thousand dollars worth of lumber. High risk doesn't even begin to describe trying to beat out an established league with $hundreds of billions in taxpayer subsidies, an anti-trust exemption and an established $10B revenue stream based mostly on guaranteed subscriber fees from hundreds of millions of people. It would be like starting up Tesla, but with the government building Ford's and GM's factories, and the Supreme Court saying that the established automakers can do whatever they please because selling cars isn't interstate commerce.

There's a big difference between "prohibit" and "financially ruinous to try".

Of course there are huge impediments. TV revenues and stadiums foremost. Football has probably hundreds of stadiums appropriate for a pro team once you consider colleges and even unused old pro stadiums. Baseball parks are usually specifically constructed for the purpose, and modern ones cost at least $hundreds of millions. All of the bigger cities in the US and Canada have leases for their baseball parks with existing MLB teams, almost certainly exclusive leases. The Baltimore Players' League Team isn't going to quickly negotiate a deal to share OPACY with the Orioles. They're going to have to build their own (taking five years and $1B) or figure out how to convince people that playing at Towson State's 1000-seat park is befitting a major league team. Maybe they could work something out at FedEx Field, pay Dan Snyder to play there and deal with a 220-foot LF fence.

If you look at RF/LF/1B/DH with fielding problems and a sub-100 OPS+ through 27 you get 80-90% of them washing out of the league and never really amounting to much at the MLB level. A few counter-examples include Jose Guillen, JT Snow, and David Segui. Although you have to be a little suspect of anyone with a late-in-life surge in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Yep. And football is far easier to start up a new league. Many, many more possible stadiums, especially if they have a spring league. Also player availability. Since baseball has affiliated minors most of the players in a new league would just be those out of contract, and people who were cut from A ball. The 1994/5 scab teams were like rookie-ball quality. In football the 60th-best guy in camp gets cut and has to go find a job. There are thousands of recent D-I football players who are just working at the insurance company or teaching PE or as Akron's inside linebacker's coach. I think I could stand up a new pro football league in six weeks.

You think the guys from the 1950s weren't in it for money? They were as much in it for cash then as now. There was just less cash to go around, so some of the stakes were different. The reason the Orioles aren't still in the NL is that in 1899 Ned Hanlon thought he could make more money in Brooklyn so he bought part of the Brooklyn team while he still owned most of the Orioles, and then transferred multiple Hall of Famers to Brooklyn and told Baltimore sucks to be you, I need to make a buck.

The idea that the players could just start a new league if they don't like the terms the MLB owners present is also naive. The owners have the benefit of 100+ years of history and fanbases and many $billions in taxpayer-funded infrastructure, and existing media deals and on and on. The players would be starting completely from scratch, playing in whatever random stadiums they could negotiate deals with, with no history, no media money. They'd need $billions in financing lined up. Half the fans would be against them, another part would refuse to root for a team that wasn't in the existing Majors. MLB still has their anti-trust exemption, which the new Players League wouldn't. It would be very daunting. There are a lot of legitimate reasons it's been 108 years since a serious 3rd major league sprung up.

Exactly what Frobby said. I think a lot of what's in the CBA is carried over from the early days when they were trying to invent the structures where free agency exists. The six year control piece is one of those things. They made a lot of assumptions, some of which probably turned out to be very wrong. My understanding is that Collective Bargaining Agreements are the standard way for unions and employers to codify their relationship. The UAW and GM have a CBA. The steelworkers union has a CBA with Bethlehem Steel (at least if Bethlehem Steel is still a thing...). It wasn't a matter of wanting it, this is how the world works.

The Orioles have been the worst team in baseball for five years, and have been uncompetitive for something like 20 of the last 25 seasons. But if the Angelos family sold the team tomorrow it would absolutely go for over $1B dollars. Because MLB has a monopoly on high-level baseball and large media contracts even a shell of a team, an expansion franchise with no history or infrastructure or fanbase, would go for $1B or more. In that context why spend to win? You're at a $300M or more annual disadvantage to teams like the Dodgers, Yanks, and Sox. So why not spend $40M on payroll and watch as your investment grows every year no matter what? That's baseball's biggest problem.

Curious as to the source of this information. Edit: saw you kind of already answered this.

Nah. Over Davis' last three seasons he was -3.3 WAR per 600 PAs. He'd have to OPS, like, .450 and be a -10 second baseman to get there.

We know from soccer's experience that in a free(er) market situation players like Rutschman and Witt would be in the majors in their early 20s, if not younger, signing huge contracts, and absolutely out-earning average 28-year-olds. It's a bizarro-world situation that someone like Freddy Galvis makes two or three times what Mountcastle or Rutschman or Mullins does.

I don't know how you can say the CBA is designed by the players to manipulate the market in their favor when it's negotiated with and agreed to by the owners. Do you think the players would agree to below-market salaries for a longer period than the average MLB career if the agreement was primarily driven by the them? Every proposal by the MLBPA is countered with something by the owners that they think will work to their advantage. Also, the MLBPA player leadership skews to veterans, like Max Scherzer. You would expect them to act in their own best interest, which means keeping the status quo and maintaining this situation where peak performance is at 25-27 or so, while peak earnings are early 30s when most players are in decline. Foreign soccer leagues are probably the closest thing to a free market in sports. There's no set period of team control, anyone can negotiate to buy out anyone else's contract at any time. Free agency happens when your contract runs out, whether that's at at age 17 or 25 or 32, after one year of service or 12. And in soccer the players making the most money are pretty well aligned with performance, and the biggest contracts go to players in their early-to-mid-20s, with a few exceptions for hyperstars like Messi and Ronaldo. That's what an open market looks like, not the highly manipulated markets we're used to in North American sports.

I'd like to see some data backing up that assertion.

With ever-lower batting averages and essentially flat walk rates sequential offenses become harder and harder to sustain. Last year the majors had a .317 OBP, only a few years have been lower since the 1960s. Also, low-power, high OBP hitters are on the endangered species list. Since 2015 there have only been 13 players with a .350+ OBP and and ISO under .100. Zero players have had a .375 OBP with an ISO under .100, certainly none over .400. Basically, to have a really high OBP in today's game you have to have at least a moderate amount of power.

Fernandez died in 2016. The 2017 Marlins won two fewer games than in '16. He was the difference between a .500 team and a 76-win team, not 76 wins and 96. Unless they were ready to bust out an Ol' Hoss plan to have him complete 75 games in 2017.

Jeffrey Loria was still the owner then. He revels in being a despised villain. Betrayal is just part of his script.

It's disingenuous to sign someone to be the face of the franchise to a 13-year deal and trade him a few years later. Unless they told him up front the whole thing was a show, but even then they're lying to the fans.

If Mouncastle drove in runs at Tejada's rate (RBI/runners on) he would have had 94. He actually had 89. As more and more runs are scored via homers (and homers spread across all nine lineup spots) and league OBPs and BAs go down RBIs are spread out more. It's been 13 years since anyone in the majors had 140 RBI in a season.

Nah, they signed Stanton to a 13 year deal and traded him 2-3 years later with no .500 seasons, much less a ring.

The Orioles found the cash to sign Davis for $160M despite being in the bottom third of revenues. For a year or two their payroll was in the $150M range. Plus it's the Marlins. They'll sign you to a 10/450 deal, declare you are the franchise for now and ever, and trade you three months later to the Yanks.

Since there have only been four modern Orioles to eclipse 125 RBI I'm going to say there's a very, very slim chance Mountcastle ever approaches 150. Murray, Boog, Frank, Ripken, Singleton, Jones, Belle, Brooks... none of them got within 26 RBI of 150.

The median number of triples the Orioles have hit at OPACY is 8. High of 19 in 1992, low of 3 in 2020 (4 in a couple other years). But it's skewed old - all but one of the 10+ triple seasons happened prior to 2010, for some reason. From the Statcast data it looks like roughly 1/7th of triples (league-wide) were hit to LF. Which is actually quite a bit higher than I expected. Here's the only 2021 triple hit to LF at OPACY, and that was really a double that Austin Hayes played into a triple. A few years ago Mancini hit one that Dwight Smith Jr (surprise) misplayed. Since 2008 there have been about 1.5 triples per season hit to LF at OPACY. Looking at those Statcast videos essentially every single LF triple at Camden Yards involves the LFer either messing up, or being super aggressive and missing the ball. Not a single one I saw that was just a straight up hit to the wall, runner goes to third. My guess is that the Orioles will hit eight or nine triples at home this year if they play a full schedule. Mountcastle will gain 0.15 expected triples. At least this year there's a chance for a LF triple at home that doesn't involve the LFer screwing up and the official scorer taking pity.