Getting tired of waiting for something to happen

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AT Funchal-Madeira
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Getting tired of waiting for something to happen

Post by AT Funchal-Madeira » Wed Jan 19, 2022 7:58 pm

This is bullshit.... a simple sport, a great sport... and nothing is happening... This should be a fantastic time... lots of anticipation but nothings is happening.. dammit what are we supposed to do?

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Lamda
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Re: Getting tired of waiting for something to happen

Post by Lamda » Wed Jan 19, 2022 8:08 pm

Take up knitting? Crochet? Pinochle?

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Case_Of_The_Runs
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Re: Getting tired of waiting for something to happen

Post by Case_Of_The_Runs » Wed Jan 19, 2022 8:18 pm

AT Funchal-Madeira wrote:
Wed Jan 19, 2022 7:58 pm
This is bullshit.... a simple sport, a great sport... and nothing is happening... This should be a fantastic time... lots of anticipation but nothings is happening.. dammit what are we supposed to do?
Agreed. This is utter bullshit. It is the biggest waste of time since "How to Speak French" was translated into French.

Someone on the board said it best recently - billionaire owners fighting with multi-millionaire players over who gets a bigger slice of the pie.

Owners: stop being such a bag of dicks.
Players: get a fucking grip. You get paid to play a game. PLAY A GAME!!

There. Venting finished.

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rockycola
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Re: Getting tired of waiting for something to happen

Post by rockycola » Wed Jan 19, 2022 8:27 pm

Com’n Terry, there’s all sorts of news.
2018-20, M’s bullpen coach was Brian DeLunas.
In the last 3 days, at age 46, he died. RIP 🪦.
~
Two weeks ago, mlbtr “chatted” with Paul Seward.
Three weeks ago, Kyle Seager retired.
Four weeks ago, Evan White is resuming baseball activities.
~
Meanwhile, other teams are signing minor league filler/fodder/fringies.
The Seibu Lions signed somebody.
Guardians announced Joe Torres as an assistant pitching coach.
Carlos Correa switched agencies and hired Borass.
Coco Crisp is joining the Nationals development staff.
~
I think many or most of the other MLB teams have made minor league signings. Mariners? nada…..
~
That’s not excitement enough for you?
~
You’re right. Not a fucking thing happening here.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..
Rocky Colavito is a Hall of Famer in my book!

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Case_Of_The_Runs
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Re: Getting tired of waiting for something to happen

Post by Case_Of_The_Runs » Wed Jan 19, 2022 8:35 pm

To be fair, they did sign a promising international prospect.

In other news, the lead story on MLB.com is that their panelist pundits can't agree on the baseball movie with the greatest ending.

How about that classic "We Ended the Strike and Got on With Baseball Shit"?

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AZOldDawg
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Re: Getting tired of waiting for something to happen

Post by AZOldDawg » Wed Jan 19, 2022 9:45 pm

What is really bullshit is the chickenshit response “Nothing personal …just bidness”

GL_Storm
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Re: Getting tired of waiting for something to happen

Post by GL_Storm » Wed Jan 19, 2022 9:50 pm

From The Athletic.
Rosenthal: The pressure is mounting — MLB cannot afford to lose games this season

By Ken Rosenthal Jan 19, 2022

Not a single game should be lost.

If it happens, the outcome will be inexcusable for Major League Baseball, a sport competing for market share in an ever-expanding entertainment universe. Fans will gladly turn to other leagues and outlets if what was once a $10 billion industry cannot get out if its own way. And the antipathy toward baseball will be particularly acute in the middle of a pandemic that has lasted for nearly two years, exhausting the patience of millions of people in the process.

The relationship between the players and owners continues to play out like a bad marriage, with the respective leaders of both parties talking over one another instead of to each other, barely seeming to speak the same language. The difference in this equation is that the marriage cannot end in divorce. The two sides need to reach a truce, no matter how uneasy.

At present, the “talks” between the parties still amount to theater, a Kabuki dance of proposals and counter-proposals that neither side is taking seriously. Fans should remember that most negotiations in baseball, from trades to draft-pick signings to arbitration deals, accelerate only as a deadline nears. But we are approaching crunch time, the point in the discussions when the start of spring training, and thus the start of the regular season, will be in jeopardy.

The heat soon will be on.

The sport has been building toward this moment seemingly since the moment the parties agreed to the last CBA in Nov. 2016. Almost immediately, player agents bemoaned that deal as a win for the owners. And the owners, not content to gain an advantage that had eluded them in more than four decades of collective bargaining, spent the next five years turning that win into an ugly rout.

So here we are, one side largely satisfied with the current state of affairs, the other side viewing it as largely unfair. Not the best circumstances for a deal, not with the return of the fear and loathing that marked the sport’s eight work stoppages between 1972 and 1995. And not when the negotiators have yet to prove capable of putting their egos and reputations aside for the betterment of the game.

This is not, at the moment, a “both sides” discussion. The owners need to acknowledge that the game’s economic landscape has tilted too far in their direction, and that the sport’s competitive integrity has been compromised by teams refusing to invest in their products. Commissioner Rob Manfred initiated the lockout, then was rightly pilloried for calling it “defensive” and saying it was intended to “jumpstart” the negotiations, when in reality 43 days would pass before the league presented the union with an offer on core economic issues.

The union, meanwhile, is asking for across-the-board adjustments, seemingly trying to regain all that was lost in the previous CBA in one fell swoop. As written previously, a path to an agreement does not appear that difficult. Which is one reason why, if games are lost, many fans will not care to debate which side is at fault. They will just turn away, disgusted by the tone-deaf vibe of what was once the national pastime.

The longer the lockout lasts, the more the heat will rise. On Manfred, lead management negotiator Dan Halem and the owners. On union head Tony Clark, lead negotiator Bruce Meyer and the players. They are all playing with fire. They are all at risk of getting burned.

Manfred and the owners
Lest anyone forget, Manfred rose to power because of his proficiency as a labor negotiator. He played a pivotal role in the deal that ended the 1994-95 strike, and led the negotiations that produced five subsequent CBAs. So, if the lockout cuts into the season, what will it say about Manfred’s success as commissioner? He already is widely unpopular among fans, and a failure to get a deal might finally erode his standing with owners.

Yet, as often is the case, Manfred is in a difficult spot, sure to anger some constituency. He almost certainly will take the blame if any part of the season is lost, particularly when he failed to reach agreement with the union for an earlier return from the pandemic in the summer of 2020. MLB could have been the first major sports league to resume play. Instead, Manfred imposed a 60-game season, marking a new level of friction between the league and union.

Another possible outcome in these negotiations is that Manfred will reach a deal that some owners view as too conciliatory, weakening him going forward. Manfred earns a reported $11 million per year with annual raises built into his contract through 2024. But White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf wanted a salary cap in 1994-95, and Manfred did not deliver. Nearly three decades later, it’s possible hawkish owners could rise in opposition if they perceive the next CBA to be too player-friendly. Owners from low-revenue clubs, in particular, might band together in resistance if they believed the terms worked against them.

The small-market/big-market division historically surfaces in labor negotiations, but for now the owners seemingly are united. Then again, like the players, they have yet to sacrifice a single dollar in regular-season revenue, and they say they amassed $8.3 billion in debt and incurred approximately $3 billion in operating losses during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, which was played without fans. Any number of concessions — increases in the luxury-tax thresholds, the introduction of a minimum payroll threshold, the inception of a draft lottery beyond the three teams the league has proposed — could inflame the low-revenue contingent. The trickiest part of Manfred’s job, as always, is balancing the goals of ownership groups with such disparate agendas.

Manfred also faces pressure on another front, one that barely is mentioned amid the squabbling over core economic issues, but might be just as meaningful to the long-term health of the sport. The game has deteriorated aesthetically, from the lagging pace of play to the rise of the three true outcomes (home runs, strikeout, walks) at the expense of action.

Rules changes, however, are not part of these negotiations; the league wants to deal with them separately. It is doubtful Manfred will ever reach agreement with the players on meaningful adjustments, not when the union is composed almost equally of hitters and pitchers with very different agendas. To this point, he has refrained from exercising his right to unilaterally implement changes with a year’s notice, fearing it would damage his relationship with the union. Well, he damaged that relationship in other ways, and the sport remains at least a year away from meaningful change.

The next several weeks will mark the most significant test of Manfred’s seven-year tenure as commissioner. His leadership is in question. Once again, his legacy is at stake.

Clark, Meyer and the players
Virtually every step the union has taken the past several years, from the hiring of Meyer as lead negotiator in Aug. 2018 to the players’ demand for full pro-rated salaries during the shortened 2020 season, has pointed toward the larger battle over the CBA. The union need not achieve every one of its goals in these negotiations to create a better financial picture for players. But anything less than a significant improvement over the status quo will be perceived as a failure.

Yes, the stakes are that high for Clark and Meyer, particularly when payrolls dropped 4 percent in 2021 compared to the league’s last full season, with the $4.05 billion total the lowest over a full year since 2015. The effects from the pandemic surely contributed to that reduction, but the salary trends are unmistakable, and they are in the owners’ favor.

The players actually occupy something of a high ground in this dispute, perhaps even in the view of certain fans who continue to view them as spoiled and overpaid. Many fans historically side with owners, who earn far more money than players, stay in the game longer and make their financial records public only when legally required, as is the case with the publicly traded companies that own the Braves and Blue Jays. The refusal of a number of franchises to compete to the fullest, however, has altered the sentiments of some fans, upending the argument that former commissioner Bud Selig used to make for greater competitive balance.

“If you remove hope and faith from the mind of a fan,” Selig said in 2000, “you destroy the fabric of the sport.”

The union should be pushing that narrative above all others, including its quest to get players paid earlier in their careers. The negotiations over minimum salaries, luxury-tax thresholds and other monetary figures essentially boil down to math equations. Most fans care more about how the resolutions of such issues will help their teams compete and enhance the quality of the sport.

The question is, what will constitute a win for the union? The owners say they are unwilling to grant earlier free agency or increase revenue sharing among clubs. But say the union achieved the following gains:

• Higher minimums and thresholds.

• Adjustments in the draft to include a lottery of more than three teams and extra picks for teams that reach certain levels of performance.

• An increase in the percentage of players with two-plus years of service who are eligible for arbitration.

• And finally, though it seems to be generating little discussion lately, a minimum payroll threshold with penalties for teams that fall below the limit, similar to the way the luxury-tax threshold works at the top.

Maybe the league would not go for all that in exchange for expanded playoffs and other items it might want. But such changes would satisfy the owners’ most fervent desire, to leave the game’s economic structure intact.

At some point, the league needs to make an offer that will tempt the union. Meyer’s critics, including some player agents, believe he is obstructionist, a claim Meyer disputes. But until Manfred and the owners present a proposal of merit, they cannot reasonably portray Meyer as the problem.

Such a proposal would increase the pressure on Meyer, and by extension, Clark, putting the union more on the defensive, forcing it to respond. It also would test the resolve of the players, all of whom are experiencing their first work stoppage. Those under the age of 27 were not even alive during the strike of 1994-95.

To this point, the players have shown greater determination than at any point since that strike, unified by the behavior of Manfred, the owners and the clubs. The league, though, seems intent on making the players squirm as long as possible, under the hope they eventually will crack. The players understand that is the league’s strategy. They are bracing for it. But after earning only 37 percent of their full-season salaries in 2020, some almost certainly will be unwilling to sacrifice another chunk of money.

The union, which traditionally withholds a portion of licensing checks for a strike fund and began withholding full checks starting in 2018, is prepared to offer players financial assistance. But the work stoppage guide the union distributed to players says, in bold, “NEVERTHELESS, even if the Executive Board authorizes financial assistance to players, be aware that the amount of any assistance will be FAR LESS than the player’s contract salary.”

How hard are the owners willing to push? How long are the players willing to fight? Both sides eventually must confront those questions, and not in a vacuum. Fans are waiting. Fans are watching. And almost all fans would agree: Not a single game should be lost.



AT Funchal-Madeira
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Re: Getting tired of waiting for something to happen

Post by AT Funchal-Madeira » Wed Jan 19, 2022 9:56 pm

excellent article, thank you

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D-train
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Re: Getting tired of waiting for something to happen

Post by D-train » Wed Jan 19, 2022 11:49 pm

How is it that they only Pro Sports league that has guaranteed contracts and no hard salary cap tilted too far in the direction of the owners.
The owners need to acknowledge that the game’s economic landscape has tilted too far in their direction
dt

harmony
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Re: Getting tired of waiting for something to happen

Post by harmony » Sun Jan 30, 2022 7:14 pm

While you're waiting, here is a December 2021 retrospective on a three-team, 12-player trade involving the Mariners in December 2008:

https://www.mlb.com/news/mariners-mets- ... c301550776

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