Rob Manfred and the Destruction of Baseball (LOCKOUT 2022)

this whole thing sucks, i want my baseball in April

I don't want baseball at all unless the players can hold the owners and Manfred down and beat them with socks full of soap.

fuck april, i want my spring training games right now.

Doubt I'll read any of this, sure it's largely nonsense.

https://www.mlb.com/news/featured/a-letter-to-baseball-fans

Manfred's the Mann.

impressed that many major baseball writers -- rosenthal (athletic), passan (espn), kepner (nyt) -- are straight-up blaming the owners

i'm sure buster olney and jim bowden etc. will continue to scold 'both sides' but still

Sources: As the two sides look to jump-start the CBA talks, the union has approached MLB with an offer to re-open talks on the 14-team postseason field, with the idea it can exchange this for more flexibility on the CBT numbers and other issues.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) March 4, 2022

this was always going to happen but............kill me

i don't think there's anything that would kill my interest in this sport than 80-win teams in the playoffs. what a joke.

it's also fucking stupid for the union to say that, if they did, when the whole world knows they're already offering way more than the owners are and they shouldn't need to budge on anything else for the owners to move, and the owners are just trying to break them. i would much rather have this lockdown continue until the owners feel the heat and break than see the players agree to 14 teams, even if that means a 60 game season. fuck it.

The whole world doesn’t know tho. I saw a group of old coworkers last night and a couple were chirping about over paid ball players; and I feel like this is going to be the default assumption for a lot of regular people unfortunately.

yep. if half a season gets canceled, some fans will show up in july and boo the players, no matter what. they can't boo the owners

that's not really that important though!!

So sounds like the owners are finally agreeing to raising the payroll ceiling; which I guess might help resolve things

Two weeks of the season have been cancelled. Since the season is 186 days and one year of service time counts as 172 days, they may have to renegotiate the service time clock rules as well.

To me, both sides still look hopelessly stuck.

@jaysonst
Keep seeing/reading that Rob Manfred "canceled" another week of games last night. Wait. He didn't say that

The phrase he used was "removed from the schedule."

MLB says there's no significance to that. But I'm hearing they think they can still play 162 if they agree today

"If!"

@jonmorosi
Hot Stove could resume hours from now. We are *that* close. 👀

yeah, i was gonna say, despite MLB raising the intl draft as a major issue at the last moment, it still seems like they're more or less near agreement on almost everything

baseball

whooop. wonder what game-altering changes the players had to agree to to make this happen.

just be happy 7-inning DHs and ghost runners are done for now

i love 7 inning games, bring them on

I was legitimately shocked when I heard this on the way home. First guess, the players gave in and got screwed.

it is intriguing that the eight-player executive board unanimously voted against it but the team reps voted 26-4 for it

max scherzer can afford to miss games more easily than his peers, which is exactly what the league counted on

damn i thought it would just die already

12-team playoffs mean no more tiebreaker games and no more one-game wild card playoffs. kind of bummed about the loss of game 163 as it has led to some pretty exciting scenarios some seasons.

I don’t like it, but am curious about allowing advertising on jerseys. Is it just one patch or will be players be competitive to see how many patches they can get. Will they promoting their wife’s Etsy shop next to some crypto company etc.

ugh, i didn't see the thing about ads. i get that it's ubiquitous throughout the world, and in most of the bigger US sports as well (except the NFL, somehow). i will get used to it, and i know it's always been part of the game (as i cheer when paul dejong almost hits a home run into BIG MAC LAND in the LF upper deck at Busch Stadium, which itself named after a company/family)

if anyone wears crypto shit i hope they get beaned though

i don't think the players would have any control over what dumb ads they have to wear?!

i want a burger king logo right on the butt, B on the left, K on the right

NOT Brooklyn, BURGER KANG

burger king pants
bats with the ball
everybody's lookin at yall

can't wait for the pearl clutching when a player eventually covers up a sponsor logo for ethical reasons.

Automatic strike zone in 2023 finally

starting to have second thoughts about that. bitching about balls and strikes a pretty integral part of the experience. and do these robot umps really adjust for player height? no doubt it’s all been thought of, just maybe a little nostalgic for a simpler time..

I hear that. But sometimes the calls are just really out of whack…Ultimately it will benefit the game I hope, make things more fair for both the hitters -and- the pitchers

now that i'm thinking about it iirc the homeplate umpire can overrule the robocall, so that should provide ample opportunity for the traditional disgruntlement

Ohhhh. Well then 😊

A little nostalgic too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssx1hNSs4TI

pretty impressive to be ejected 91 times

Earl Weaver aside, I want them to get calls right. I think about the checked-swing call that ended the Giants' season last year (but that would be outside the scope of a robot ump, no? just balls and strikes?).

i'm not necessarily against robo balls & strikes, but several things worry me:

as of four or five years ago, the automatic zone was not more accurate than human umps. i'm fairly confident that, like the new ball-tracking system, it is better now. but it is also my understanding that mlb's agreement with the umpires union allowed it to unilaterally impose automatic balls/strikes if implemented by a certain date. so i hope the system is actually ready and not just being rushed in while still possible.

with framing skills moot, i'm not sure how catcher valuations will change, but i'm guessing it won't be to their advantage.

be careful what you wish for: there are pitches that are technically strikes -- e.g. something completely unhittable that nicks the zone by a millimeter -- that we've spent 150 years collectively calling balls. there are going to be some *weird* looking pitches called the opposite of what we're used to, and it's going to take time for everyone to adjust to it. fortunately baseball fans are famously accommodating of change.

the system will be easy to abuse. mlb has already shown that it's willing to change the composition of the ball mid-season; there's really nothing to stop them from tweaking the strike zone algorithm to goose preferred outcomes at any moment. you can *tell* umps to call the high strike, but they may or may not do it and they'll be blamed by the fans either way. if the computer says that pitch is a strike (or ball), well, there's no one to argue with, is there?

all that said, iirc there were few complaints when it was tested in the atlantic league a few years ago, so maybe it'll be fine

also it seems like placing cameras to study check-swings would be fairly simple, but first everyone would have to agree on what a swing actually *is*

There is a rule in golf about what constitutes a swing, is there not a parallel here?

A swing is an attempt at a pitch, that is not a bunt. That includes what is referred to as a “checked swing” or “half swing.” It is up to the judgment of the umpire(s) if the batter attempted at a pitched ball. Contrary to popular belief, a batter does not have to “break his wrist” in order to attempt at a pitch. While noting whether the swing carried the barrel of the bat past the body can aid an umpire on this call, the final decision is based on whether the batter actually attempted at the pitch.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hadn't heard of this before, but sounds a bit excessive and probably nor worth the technical difficulties.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/03/league-makes-proposals-to-mlbpa-about-sign-stealing-on-field-information.html

"One proposal involves the PitchCom system currently being tested during Spring Training games, as the league is now offering that players can continue to use the system on a voluntary basis during the regular season. PitchCom is an electronic method for a catcher to communicate signs to the pitcher — the catcher enters the desired pitch (or pickoff throw, pitchout, etc.) on a specialized wristband, while the pitcher is wearing an audio device in his hat that tells him the pitch call via an automated voice. The catcher and as many as three other fielders can also be wearing the audio device, to ensure accuracy and to make the information known around the diamond."

nonononono fuuuuuuck that

Seriously. Fuck that to hell. Why do people who hate baseball run baseball?!

Easier problem to 'fix' than trying to get people under age 40 to give a shit about baseball.

Is this really such a big deal? QB's have speakers in their helmets, does this ruin football? I'm old school when it comes to baseball traditions, but 50 on-field meetings discussions per game to discuss the signs kind of ruins baseball too.

i hate it in football too. but football has been a mechanized, militarized game for decades. offensive coordinators up in a luxury box radioing down plays. i don’t want that in baseball.

i watched a spring training game where they were testing out that tech and it seemed fine. i'm pretty sure the calls still have to come from the catcher at this point.

look if it leads to a situation where the opposing team hacks into the broadcast to confuse the pitcher then i'm all for it