MLB Lockout Thread

[Can_of_corn]

4 hours ago, connja said:

It would be easier than you think if they locked up guys like Rutschman, Mancini, GRod, Moutcastle to decent long term contracts, and added a few free agents.

You could sign guys to long term deals to bump up the AAV and payroll numbers and then flip them before they actually started making money.  Do it right and you could keep actual payroll under the cap while being technically over the minimum.

[Moose Milligan]

Count me out on extended playoffs.  I get why they want to do it, it draws in fan interest into the playoff push.  "Hey, your 83 win team can make the playoffs!"  But, IIRC, in the NHL...like, half the teams make the playoffs and that's always felt stupid.  Pretty sure more than half the teams in the NBA make it, too...but I hate hockey and I like basketball so I'll prefer to use the NHL as an example of rewarding mediocrity. 

It's also just too much stress on the arms.  I feel like if they're going to expand the playoffs, shorten the season to 154 games.  

[DrungoHazewood]

13 hours ago, connja said:

It would be easier than you think if they locked up guys like Rutschman, Mancini, GRod, Moutcastle to decent long term contracts, and added a few free agents.

Maybe.  Depending on how they value long-term contracts (see: Corn's post).  A deal for someone like Rutschman would almost certainly be back-loaded with him making a maybe a few million in what otherwise would be his pre-arb years and more later.  Longoria signed that very team-friendly deal early on and never made $10M a year until he was 29.  Bumgardner was similar.  I think if they signed those four to long-term deals right now it would cost less than $20M in 2022, and that's with an ill-advised $8-10M '22 contract for Mancini.  They'd still have to sign about $50M in 2022 contracts above that.  Two huge signings, or 3-5 big signings.  I don't think it's possible without drastically overpaying.

Even using AAV those four are probably only getting the O's halfway there.

[DrungoHazewood]

3 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Count me out on extended playoffs.  I get why they want to do it, it draws in fan interest into the playoff push.  "Hey, your 83 win team can make the playoffs!"  But, IIRC, in the NHL...like, half the teams make the playoffs and that's always felt stupid.  Pretty sure more than half the teams in the NBA make it, too...but I hate hockey and I like basketball so I'll prefer to use the NHL as an example of rewarding mediocrity. 

It's also just too much stress on the arms.  I feel like if they're going to expand the playoffs, shorten the season to 154 games.  

Pluses for expanded playoffs: More money! Also, randomizes outcomes so an 83-win team only has slightly worse odds of winning it all than a 97-win team.

Minuses: Randomizes outcomes so an 83-win team only has slightly worse odds of winning it all than a 97-win team.

If they can't agree on any real fixes for competitive balance expanding the playoffs is always the way they've faked it in the past.

[Sports Guy]

I don’t have any issues with expanded playoffs.  No side should either.  It’s more revenue.

I get it from the standpoint of not wanting it watered down but my hope would be that it places a greater importance on winning games in the regular season, this giving the top seed or 2 a bye.  The NFL expanded the playoffs and only 1 team has a bye now.  I think that’s better than the old formula although I don’t think it’s right that there is a Monday night playoff game.

If you made it 7 teams from each league and did a 2 vs 7, 3 vs 6 and 4 vs 5 format, I don’t have an issue with that.  
 

I would like to see the season shortened by more than 8 games but going from 162 to 154 and having the expanded playoffs makes sense.  Can’t imagine that hurts the revenue stream that much, if at all.

[Can_of_corn]

7 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I don’t have any issues with expanded playoffs.  No side should either.  It’s more revenue.

I get it from the standpoint of not wanting it watered down but my hope would be that it places a greater importance on winning games in the regular season, this giving the top seed or 2 a bye.  The NFL expanded the playoffs and only 1 team has a bye now.  I think that’s better than the old formula although I don’t think it’s right that there is a Monday night playoff game.

If you made it 7 teams from each league and did a 2 vs 7, 3 vs 6 and 4 vs 5 format, I don’t have an issue with that.  
 

I would like to see the season shortened by more than 8 games but going from 162 to 154 and having the expanded playoffs makes sense.  Can’t imagine that hurts the revenue stream that much, if at all.

But it's an uneven increase in revenue.

Why should players agree to more games if the revenue split is grossly in favor of management?

Take the Dodgers for instance.

Their 2021 playoff share (full) was $112,701.  They played 12 games.  That's a pittance.

 

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

But it's an uneven increase in revenue.

Why should players agree to more games if the revenue split is grossly in favor of management?

Take the Dodgers for instance.

Their 2021 playoff share (full) was $112,701.  They played 12 games.  That's a pittance.

 

It’s a give and take and at the end of the day, it’s shouldn’t be that big of a deal if they are getting a lot of things they want as well.

Both sides need to do this.  Plenty of money to go around for everyone to basically get what they are hoping for.

 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

It’s a give and take and at the end of the day, it’s shouldn’t be that big of a deal if they are getting a lot of things they want as well.

Both sides need to do this.  Plenty of money to go around for everyone to basically get what they are hoping for.

 

Sure, but I can see why the players wouldn't just agree.  It's a bargaining chip and they should get something for it.

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Sure, but I can see why the players wouldn't just agree.  It's a bargaining chip and they should get something for it.

Obviously 

[jarman86]

First, I side with the players...for the most part.

The example of Max Scherzer speaking and attack of him for doing so is a bit misplaced and shortsided. Max Scherzer is one of those who can speak up for MLB players. MLB owners most likely won't boycott him for speaking up because his pitching capability is in the top 5-10% of MLB starters. Secondly, even if they did boycott him, as pointed out, he has made $221M and already has a contract for $86M guaranteed money to take him to retirement, so barring any terrible investments he may make, which he can recoup doing autograph signings or whatever for just being Max Scherzer, he has nothing to lose and neither do his grandkids.

In terms of players wanting more money, I get it because they've gone through the grind to get to the promise land and now money, once promised to them by the union et al, has basically dried up for the middle man. I don't feel terrible for them though because their predecessors and union put them into this position. Instead of championing increased minor league pay, they shoved them to the side with the whole, "we had to go through it, so should you mentallity!" With the caps on international and draft pick spending....guess who implemented and helped with those? Oh, thats right, the PLAYERS UNION because some stupid kid out of high school shouldn't be able to sign for more money than me, proven, average major leaguer guy type. So now, the Union has made cheap labor a viable option for owners through their OWN doing, because they were so shortsided and quite frankly lost a lot of negotiating power.

Finally, the whole increased salaries and what not BS that Manfred and owners keep spouting will affect competitiveness. Well...thats a bunch of crock. Sorry, but my biggest thing is, if you are a billionaire owner who can't afford to field a "competitive" team, you quite frankly, shouldn't be a billionaire owner reaping off the socialist structure in MLB of revenue sharing, et al.  This is where I find the relegation and promotion competitions around the world in other leagues to be beneficial and create "competitiveness." You want the big money of MLB/NFL/NBA/NHL, you should have to earn it. 

I do think the expanded playoffs could help with competitiveness though. 

[Just Regular]

It'll be interesting to watch the intersection of playoff expansion and pitcher rest science through the lens of Grayson Rodriguez.

Stearns/Milwaukee curated a peak Pedro FIP out of Corbin Burnes last year and I am positive Rest Science was a big part of it.   

The regular season Rodriguez throws 3200 pitches might be never, if part of making a Good Team continues to drift toward rotating 16 relievers through 8 roster spots every day.   The Rays used 28 pitchers 10 or more innings last year, one more than the Orioles, for whom I nearly pitched.   

The performance of those 10-30 innings, 3-13 week a year pitchers is I feel more Front Offices mastering data science than player talent, compared to what baseball traditionally has been.    Some of why I feel when the switch turns the Orioles will be able to realize a big improvement beyond even the talent improvement is the opportunity to have gains there, avoiding the guaranteed 4th/5th inning HR yielded by Jorge Lopez.

Notwithstanding the Orioles probable need to use Rodriguez like Milwaukee Sabathia to be the 7th best AL team some year soon, I think playoff expansion would generally push Cy Young talents on good enough teams more towards bubble wrap mode.   Rest Science I could imagine thinks Boddicker used himself up in '83-'84.

[Dipper9]

On 1/3/2022 at 12:04 PM, Philip said:

I am astonished that everything that’s been proposed so far doesn’t deal with the problem facing baseball. Expanding the playoffs because playoff baseball is interesting doesn’t address the problem of baseball games not being interesting. Why not make baseball interesting so that all the games are interesting and not just playoff games. And one proposal to eliminate tanking Is to give the first pick in the draft to the best of the non-playoff teams. Which is… Inexplicable is the kindest word that comes to mind.

It is ridiculous that two groups of educated people can’t even identify A problem, And that needs to happen before they can begin to discuss a solution.

Treat it like wrestling, where the teams that are not ready to compete for the World Championship can compete for the Cruiserweight title.  Now, teams like the Orioles and Pirates can have interesting games because we're not worried that we're 40 games out of first in August, because we're leading the Cruiserweight Standings.*

*This is tongue in cheek of course, but baseball needs to think outside the box if they want to attract younger fans.  Those of us who enjoy the "good ol' fashioned game of baseball" are getting older and older and will someday no longer exist. 

[RZNJ]

Regarding minor league players and the union. On the face of it, it sounds unfair but when I read Marvin Miller's reasoning behind it, it makes sense.  If there was a union strike minor league players would be more likely to fold before ML players, therefore either breaking lines first or having a majority vote/voice in the union.

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Regarding minor league players and the union. On the face of it, it sounds unfair but when I read Marvin Miller's reasoning behind it, it makes sense.  If there was a union strike minor league players would be more likely to fold before ML players, therefore either breaking lines first or having a majority vote/voice in the union.

That makes a lot of sense but I don't think for a second that's the only reason.

[BohKnowsBmore]

9 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Count me out on extended playoffs.  I get why they want to do it, it draws in fan interest into the playoff push.  "Hey, your 83 win team can make the playoffs!"  But, IIRC, in the NHL...like, half the teams make the playoffs and that's always felt stupid.  Pretty sure more than half the teams in the NBA make it, too...but I hate hockey and I like basketball so I'll prefer to use the NHL as an example of rewarding mediocrity. 

It's also just too much stress on the arms.  I feel like if they're going to expand the playoffs, shorten the season to 154 games.  

I would also add that the impact in the NBA isn't as pronounced. Yea, it's ridiculous that more than 1/2 the league makes the playoffs, but #1 seeds almost always trounce #8 seeds due to the competitive dynamics of basketball and the multi-game series. The randomness of an individual baseball game, even a series, would make such a set-up much worse in the MLB, in my humble opinion.