Rob Manfred and the Destruction of Baseball (LOCKOUT 2022)

Major League Baseball asked for the ability to eliminate hundreds of minor league playing jobs in its latest labor proposal, sources told ESPN. The league would not be allowed to implement the plan until after 2022.

Details, free and unlocked, at ESPN: https://t.co/ZkKNE7LhsG

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) February 15, 2022

Manfred is turning out to be a bigger sleazeball than I could have imagined.

Excellent piece: https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/pitchers-and-catchers?r=1jtu0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

and we fans will come back because this game has a grip on us.

*sigh*

Well, let's see what's hap -- shit.

@BNightengale
The #MLB and #MLBPA negotiating session is over after just 15 minutes.

Last chance to cancel your MLB.tv sub...

Yikes, thanks for the reminder, cancelled. The "reason" field didn't have "Manfred is an asshole" option so I had to go with "other".

Associated Press photo taken by Lynne Sladky earlier this afternoon of MLB commissioner Rob Manfred at Roger Dean Stadium, where labor talks are being held. pic.twitter.com/isAzV6P86o

— Michael Silverman (@MikeSilvermanBB) March 1, 2022

i'm a casual baseball fan, mostly just the twins but this is really sad to me

i just did a twitter poll but i started to wonder - does the average non-sports fan know the name of ANY major league baseball player? i kinda doubt it

Good question. I wonder if Derek Jeter (or maybe Ichiro) was the last time you could confidently answer "yes" to that. Mike Trout should be an easy yes, and so should Mookie Betts and Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw, and then there's Soto and Tatis and Guerrero and Acuna. But I'm not sure if that's the case.

Is there any way to stop baseball teams from being owned by groups that actively hate baseball?

xpost oh sorry I meant active players (I even put Jeter is retired in the question cuz I knew he'd be the one)

I've never heard of Tatis or Acuna

This shit sucks. Two shortened seasons in three years? In a sport that’s already finding itself behind the times? I used to have Brewers games on constantly. I don’t even really know who’s on the team anymore.

jacke bradley jr has gone back to boston, for one thing….

MLB took advantage of fan excitement for a new deal to push out propaganda about where the negotiations were at so that the players would look like assholes who changed their minds. https://t.co/wyEk1kujKr

— Lindsey Adler (@lindseyadler) March 2, 2022

uuuuugh

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2022/3/1/22955596/mlb-lockout-february-deadline-end-point

the owners are russia

everyone knows they're wrong, it happens anyway

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