2020 MLB Thread

posted by iclfan2

Bauer putting Manfred on blast. His thread:

https://twitter.com/baueroutage/status/1272641345941721088?s=21

Wow lol. Dropped the mic on the commish

Manfred is a turd. Bauer is kind of annoying to me, but I support any blasting of manfred. 

posted by gut

The first deal never changed their per game pay.  All it did was say you're not getting paid for the games we couldn't play.  His perceived risk and pay, as you put it, remains the exact same per game.  But on top of that, the owners then asked for a 25% cut.  Reality of the situation is contracts were never intended to guarantee pay for a canceled season.  I think everyone intuitively understands with no games there's no money to pay salaries.

So if Lindor was going to make about 100k per game, they've asked him to play for a meager 75k per game.  25% less, same deal for everyone. He's not being treated unfairly.  

Yes, I know what the deals were. The prorated for games played made total sense, hence why the players agree in about 2 minutes. 

The 25% pay-cut may make sense, but the owners have done a terrible job going about everything. The players should not agree to this until they have better reason in front of them. That was my whole point. The Lindor example was just someone in a contract year. They would be better off waiting and making nothing this year. That doesn't apply to players not in a contract year. 

Big guys in the game saying “when and where? We are ready”

Sounds good to me

I saw Lindor's tweet stating that. I also read Bauer's thread on twitter calling out Manfred.

posted by Laley23

The Lindor example was just someone in a contract year. They would be better off waiting and making nothing this year.

I disagree.  The difference for Lindor is only about $2.2M less than his $8.75M full pay rate.  I don't see the risk profile changing dramatically, or breaking a guy, over $2M when he's still making nearly $7M.  The risk/value is really not substantially different from the one he already signed up for.  If he was really in need of that extra $2M, he could take out an insurance contract for the difference.

I agree the owners bungled this, but that doesn't change the fact that the players have offered nothing in the way of economic relief.

posted by Ironman92

Big guys in the game saying “when and where? We are ready”

Sounds good to me

While I'd like to believe that, I think this is just the players' union way to get some control over the narrative to oppose how owners are acting like they're being the unreasonable ones for not taking additional pay cuts to cover their losses despite how they don't actually show their books to tell exactly what said losses really would be. Those tweets basically are their way of saying they're ready to start playing, but the owners are the ones holding everything up because $$$ -- which, while clever as far as pro sports league/player counter-strikes go -- likely won't have any impact on things. And mirror what Tony Clark said in refusing the owners' last deal while also not offering another counter-proposal, making it look more like a coordinated response than anything resembling organic or speaking from the heart.

Well, Fauci just gave the owners the excuse to cancel the season: "MLB should avoid playing into October".

Not sure exactly how the math works out, but that means if you start mid-July you might get in a 45-game season before the playoffs?

Short season, Short play offs: Best 2 of 3, then Best 3 of 5, WS 4 of 7.

I’m really missing baseball today. 🙁

It looked like the owners last proposal was good, and mostly what the players wanted. So why the hell did the players turn it down?

posted by iclfan2

It looked like the owners last proposal was good, and mostly what the players wanted. So why the hell did the players turn it down?

Not 100% sure, but I believe the owners were proposing 60 games and the players wanted 70.

The bigger issue with the recent positive tests might be the players have apparently rejected most of the safety proposals.  And they refuse to be quarantined, which is kind of understandable.  I would think you could find some sort of balance between quarantine and time with their families.  You don't have to lock everyone down for 3+ months, but players would probably have to agree to lockdown for 5 or 6 maybe 10 days at a time.

A lot of concerns about whether basketball and football should be played. Baseball could have been played but maybe won’t. Super. 

posted by friendfromlowry

A lot of concerns about whether basketball and football should be played. Baseball could have been played but maybe won’t. Super. 

Apparently MLB is going to give it a go.  I think the NBA plan will work with its hard quarantine.  And I don't see a reason MLB can't work with reasonable precautions.

The NFL is a different animal.  Without the NBA-style quarantine, you have a fair amount of contact.  But it's also outdoors (except for domes), and actual contact over a 60 minute game is something less than 10 minutes per unit.  The real risk would seem to be during the week internally with teams, which theoretically can be managed.

I think the NFL can make it work.  But when you start talking no fans at games, you run into a MLB situation it costs the owners money to have the game.  A key difference is the NFL has a cap and revenue sharing agreement.

NBA is going to have issues if they can’t get Disney employees to agree to the quarantine, and it sounds like that is gonna be tough. 

I didn’t realize at the time last night that MLB might be back? July 24th?

I just think it’s a game of Jenga at this point. If NBA goes smoothly, I’ll be more confident in football. Imagine it’s the Monday after week 3 and Russell Wilson just tested positive and is out for 14 days. He unknowingly exposed whoever their opponents were that weekend and a few days later some of them test positive. Now both teams games for week 4 are in question. And it just unravels there...

posted by friendfromlowry

I didn’t realize at the time last night that MLB might be back? July 24th?

I just think it’s a game of Jenga at this point. If NBA goes smoothly, I’ll be more confident in football. Imagine it’s the Monday after week 3 and Russell Wilson just tested positive and is out for 14 days. He unknowingly exposed whoever their opponents were that weekend and a few days later some of them test positive. Now both teams games for week 4 are in question. And it just unravels there...

My understanding is it normally takes 2-7 days, with an average of 5, before you start spreading the virus.  The NFL plan was to test 3X per week, which is every other day.  So, in theory, they should catch anyone before they're able to spread it.

But I imagine a few will slip through the cracks.  Best case scenario is probably a handful of teams see a cluster of 5-6 guys once or twice and that would be it.  That's still huge, though, if you lose 5 offensive starters for a couple of weeks.  Another very possible scenario is it puts a couple of guys in the hospital and they lose 30 pounds...basically IR'd for the year.

Opening Day on July 24th gonna actually happen?

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-players-agree-to-report-for-60-game-2020-season-opening-day-to-be-set-for-july-24/

I hope they have a season. But 60 games is ridiculously short. Hopefully they go 16 to the playoffs, first round 3 game series all at higher seed. Then go the normal 5/7/7 from there.

Sounds interesting.  Some unexpected teams could get hot and make the play offs.