Moose Milligan

Uh oh. You brought up soccer. Drungo will be here to eviscerate you shortly.

The length of a game has been hovering around 3 hours for quite some time now. Meanwhile NFL games take 3 hours, no one's crying about that. The inherent issue, the elephant in the room is that baseball is boring. It's a slow pace with quick bursts of action and no matter what they do, the game will always be slow. If there was a way to get an MLB game down to 2 hours, 30 minutes, I'd be all for it. But to shave off 5 minutes and act like it's a big deal is a bit absurd, IMO. To your point, I don't see how a 9 inning MLB game gets any significantly longer from here on out. I don't think we'll be looking at 4 hour games in 2030. MLB wants to have its cake and eat it, too. They want homers, high scoring, big offensive numbers because that's what sells but at the same time they want to shorten the length of games. More runs, more offense = longer innings, longer games. They know they can't sell a 2-1 pitchers duel that takes 2:45. So which is it? Then in order to save 5 precious minutes, they're going to start messing with the integrity of the game, imposing new rules on strategy in order to shave off a few minutes, puff their chest out and say "WE'VE SHORTENED THE GAME BY 7 MINUTES ON AVERAGE!" Well, great. You got it down from 3:12 to 3:05. Is that really fighting for fans? Or is that akin to trying to knock out Mike Tyson with a feather duster?

I don't think that's realistic. I've said it before, I'll say it again. The game is fine the way it is. A 3 batter minimum isn't going to make ADHD kids suddenly attracted to baseball.

Three batter minimum is stupid.

Them's the breaks, I guess.

Not surprising. As much as we picked apart Jones over the past couple years for his declining skills, we shouldn't be shocked that he got the deal that he got.

I'm declaring victory on this thread I think I had the closest prediction. Not quite an ST invite, but not far from it, either.

I don't think he was ever in the Brewers system. Mariners, yes. David Ortiz didn't look the same in his early 20s as he did in his late 30s.

I think it's fair to draw a line at what's legal vs. illegal. However, correct me if I'm wrong but MLB didn't have anything in place all those years ago. They didn't have anything that even said, IIRC, "players can't use performance enhancing illegal substances". And then everyone got butthurt that McGwire was taking something that no one could pronounce. They didn't have any rules, any testing. At that time, to fall back on what the gov't deemed illegal, was, IMO, lazy. It's murky water when you can get stuff at a GNC that'll make you test positive, though. These guys need to be aware of what they put in their bodies, for sure but I'd be curious to know if MLB is looking at what can be purchased over the counter and making adjustments to rules. I'm assuming they're not.

Bonds, Ted Williams, Ortiz? I count 3.

I mean, that's not really fair. Not many people have the same body they had in their early 20s as they did in their late 30s.

Agreed. I dunno, Sandy Koufax took cortaid shots to pitch through pain. I think there's a thin line between performance enhancing and performance allowing. But one could argue (and I would) that Koufax's use of cortaid was enhancing, or else he couldn't have done what he did. It's when the drug names get really weird looking and hard to pronounce that people start having issues.

I hated Ortiz as much as anyone else, but he was a great hitter, PEDs or not. I know the cynical, sarcastic Orioles fan out there will say that he was on them his entire career. I don't know how true that is, but it's sure fun to think that, isn't it? Anyway, I've done a 180 on PEDs, I don't really care anymore. I'm sure the Orioles have had guys on them too over the years. Doesn't take any schadenfreude away from seeing anyone on the Sox get busted.

Good. F the Sox. I know we're not gonna compete with them this year but whatever, I'd love to see them fail miserably in every aspect.

I still have. Hoping this carries through and he's made some changes.

@Can_of_corn dude, you think Sisco could be a Piazza type? You gotta chill.

Damn, another homer. Well done.

I hope Pop and Flaa make the team at some point so we can make some Pop Flaa jokes.

Well, if it turns out he can hit, he can hit. First base seems to be a logical move. Problem is, of course, Davis is there. But I don't expect Davis to be with this team after July or after the 2019 season at the latest. Mancini should be at first. In this unlikely scenario where Sisco has turned himself into a boffo hitter and they draft Rutschman, that might make Mancini expendable.

I've written him off and they should pick the best player available. Even if Sisco is somehow hitting .400 into June and Rutschman has asserted himself as the #1 pick, they should still take him.

Not gonna lie, expected to see Hunter Harvey news in here.

That's a good call, though I thought Mora was respectable before he got here. I could be wrong.

It's possible. But Muncy's approach, stance and swing changes were well covered last year.

Send Davis. It'd be cool to finally have one of these AAAA guys turn into a stud for us. I feel like we never get lucky with that type of stuff. I guess we did have Steve Pearce for his big year. But seeing a guy like Max Muncy last year, that stuff never seems to happen for us.

Really good explanation, thank you.