Yeah, I agree something like this might happen some day, but only if the union comes around to believing MLB is on shaky financial footing -- if and when that ever happens.
I don't like the idea of voiding a players' contract then and there, but perhaps performing below a certain level would trigger some contract years in the future to automatically become option years. Something along those lines.
It's hard to imagine deals like this today, except possibly here and there for players who are known to be very inconsistent. As long as baseball is considered financially healthy I'm sure the union would push back strongly against deals like this, especially in large numbers.
Thank you. I knew there was something bogus about that post. I saw Cal play SS. And Gunnar is no Cal at SS. Not even close.
And this is coming from a big fan of Gunnar. I would like to see him play a traditional power position. Call me old fashioned. He’s hurting the team at SS.
I doubt solid MLB pitchers can be acquired just by trading position players the vast majority of the time. Look at how we acquired Bradish and Povich -- by trading solid (at the time anyway) MLB level pitchers. In those trades we were on the other end, but we forced teams to trade good young pitchers for Bundy and Lopez respectively. Now we did acquire McDermott and Seth Johnson by trading Trey Mancini. So it does happen that pitching can sometimes be acquired trading only a position player, but Mancini had had a strong major league career to that point. My point is I don't think you can expect to acquire pitching only by trading position players -- but if you can it may need to be a strong veteran that is not easy to part with.
Perhaps we could acquire Tarik Skubal for just Jackson Holliday -- or Holliday plus one or two other strong position prospects. But that would be a whole other level of a blockbuster trade.
Also, I'm not sure how we can say the system is bereft of homegrown minor league pitching talent and then complain that we traded Baumeister and Chace -- two homegrown minor league pitchers that everyone here seems to agree are talented. We can criticize the trade, but clearly there was and probably still are some desirable arms in the system that we'd rather not trade. No, none of the ones Elias drafted have made it to the bigs yet, but maybe those two would have been among the first.
Seth Johnson on the Phillies' "philosophy": Orioles are data driven, Phillies are more "old school". I don't get much out of this but it's a data point.
https://www.nbcsportsphiladelphia.com/mlb/philadelphia-phillies/seth-johnson-mlb-debut-phillies-orioles-trade/613582/
“I think the big thing is that Baltimore is very data-based,” he said. “Here’s a nice blend of the numbers and baseball strategy. Kind of old school. And I’ve been really enjoying it so far. For me, it’s kind of simplified everything. Concentrating on basic concepts like moving the fastball around. Not worrying about pitch shapes all the time. Just going out here and trying to pitch.”
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