Montreal Wants a Team?

[incubus]

The talent pool keeps growing as MLB expands its global reach.

Ehh, that premise is shaky at best. It has been noted many times that all the kids in the U.S. who used to focus on baseball while growing up are being replaced by kids growing up playing football now. The global reach is probably mostly leveling the talent pool back out to where it was 40-50 years ago.

[incubus]

That's a total non-issue. You'd have the typical couple years where it's slightly apparent that each team is only 15/16ths as good as the year before, then the pool catches up and the march towards ever-higher quality continues.

Sorry Drungo, I have to disagree with you. There are only a finite amount of people in the world capable of playing baseball at the highest level, and interest in the U.S. By children is at an all-time low.

[AdamK]

Ehh, that premise is shaky at best. It has been noted many times that all the kids in the U.S. who used to focus on baseball while growing up are being replaced by kids growing up playing football now. The global reach is probably mostly leveling the talent pool back out to where it was 40-50 years ago.

I suspect the interest in football in youth is temporary and capable of swinging back towards other outlets. I wouldn't guess that they'll all come back to baseball, but head injuries will likely continue to get explored -- waking a lot of concerned parents up to this. Just guessing, myself.

[mdbdotcom]

Ehh, that premise is shaky at best. It has been noted many times that all the kids in the U.S. who used to focus on baseball while growing up are being replaced by kids growing up playing football now. The global reach is probably mostly leveling the talent pool back out to where it was 40-50 years ago.

Ummm. No.

[DrungoHazewood]

Sorry Drungo, I have to disagree with you. There are only a finite amount of people in the world capable of playing baseball at the highest level, and interest in the U.S. By children is at an all-time low.

Nah, when there are 1000 jobs out there at an average salary of over $2M there will be people willing to do whatever it takes to be really good. The talent pool expands to meet the demand, it's not finite. Just look at the Dominican Republic - there's a huge financial incentive and the island creates ballplayers at a ridiculous rate. In any case, the US population in 1950, in baseball's so-called golden era was 150 million. So even if the participation rate in youth baseball was 1/3rd of what it was in 1950 you could make a good case that we're better off today with the substantial influx of non-US players.

[weams]

Nah, when there are 1000 jobs out there at an average salary of over $2M there will be people willing to do whatever it takes to be really good. The talent pool expands to meet the demand, it's not finite. Just look at the Dominican Republic - there's a huge financial incentive and the island creates ballplayers at a ridiculous rate.

In the Dominican, they have taken steroids to do it starting at puberty.

[DrungoHazewood]

Ehh, that premise is shaky at best. It has been noted many times that all the kids in the U.S. who used to focus on baseball while growing up are being replaced by kids growing up playing football now. The global reach is probably mostly leveling the talent pool back out to where it was 40-50 years ago.

You didn't address the much, much, much more refined developmental systems today. In 1950 or 1960 there were no travel teams, only sporadic exposure to high-level competition before turning pro, the scouting network was much more ad hoc and less connected, the limited data was passed around on pieces of paper instead of collated and mined in databases and videos. Kid pitchers would throw 200 pitches a start, and if your UCL tore... well, guess you weren't meant to be a pitcher. Workout programs either didn't exist or were primitive, nutrition was often poor. Sports medicine essentially didn't exist until the 1970s - there have to be hundreds of MLB pitchers and other players who'd have been out the game who are now productive. Plus there are now better strategies to use players to the best of their abilities - in 1955 Tommy Hunter might have been discarded when he couldn't hack it as a starter but today he's a reliever who throws 96 mph. I think the vast preponderance of the evidence points towards far greater quality of the talent pool than 30, 40, more years ago.

[DrungoHazewood]

In the Dominican, they have taken steroids to do it starting at puberty.

Okay. I wasn't really addressing the why or the how. Just noting that incentives drive the quality and size of the player pool.

[Creamsicle]

And that's assuming a static level of MLB talent per unit population. I think you get more quality major leaguers per population as the demand goes up. Over time MLB could support as many team as it could economically handle. The players would not be the limiting factor.

To say nothing of the fact that, in 1916, the "MLB eligible" portion of the U.S. population (caucasians) was significantly smaller than the overall population number that I used for calculation.

Plus, these ratii are based on U.S. population only, and ignores foreign talent - and its increase over time as a percentage of the active talent pool.

[Crazysilver03]

One of California's five MLB teams should move to Montreal. One state doesn't need to have five teams.

What is the logic here? All 5 have great fan followings. You want to break that up on a whim?

[Creamsicle]

What is the logic here? All 5 have great fan followings. You want to break that up on a whim?

Agreed. Florida "only" has two teams, yet neither of them possesses even a mediocre fan following.

[JohnnyEutaw]

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/montreal-mayor-to-meet-with-rob-manfred-about-bringing-baseball-back-025212957.html

Just shows how ridiculous it was for the MLB to encourage Montreal's move to DC. They didn't want baseball out of Montreal, they wanted it in DC to split the O's fan base.

If they go back to Montreal after all the whining about a lack of support, poor stadium, no fans, etc, then why were they mode in the first place?

Pardon me for being paranoid about our rivals wanting the MLB back in DC. We were at the top of the league regularly in attendance before DC came back. Now we have a limited fan base and more than half of our former local fan base gone.

[MdSooner]

All players for way more than a century have been told that if they bet on baseball they'd be banned. They put it on a sign in every clubhouse saying as much. If you're told to not do something and that you'd be banned if you did it, why should baseball go back on their word?

Actually, I did not know the specifics of this. Esp, the part about signs in the locker room.

Thanks

[weams]

Just shows how ridiculous it was for the MLB to encourage Montreal's move to DC. They didn't want baseball out of Montreal, they wanted it in DC to split the O's fan base.

If they go back to Montreal after all the whining about a lack of support, poor stadium, no fans, etc, then why were they mode in the first place?

Pardon me for being paranoid about our rivals wanting the MLB back in DC. We were at the top of the league regularly in attendance before DC came back. Now we have a limited fan base and more than half of our former local fan base gone.

I am surprised that other folks think this.

[mdbdotcom]

Actually, I did not know the specifics of this. Esp, the part about signs in the locker room.

Thanks

Also, the office of the Commissioner was created specifically to root out gambling from baseball, and the first Commissioner was a sitting federal judge (not a businessman), Kenesaw Mountain Landis. It was his task to deal with the Black Sox scandal, in which gamblers paid members of the Chicago White Sox to throw the 1919 World Series. That was when Joe Jackson and seven other members of the White Sox were banned from the game for life.

If you haven't seen the movie Eight Men Out, you'll find it informative and entertaining.