2021 MLB Season / 21-22 Offseason Thread

[Mick]

1 hour ago, CM Busch said:

Bonds should be on the ballot for another year because his career should've carried on past 2007. Very obvious collusion. He still wanted to play in 2008 yet all 30 teams looked at his stat line and supposedly said "nah" despite a league-leading .480 OBP AT AGE 42!!!

Now I want to do a short run of the Rays in 2008 on OOTP, sign Bonds and see if they can win the World Series  . 

[The Buscher]

MLB has requested a federal mediator to help resolve the lockout.

The mediator used in 1994 resulted in the players officially walking away and the Works Series being cancelled.  But mediation has led to successful CBA agreements in many of the other recent sports strikes.

[The Buscher]

Aaaand the early reporting is that the union will decline the use of a mediator.

Can’t say I blame them.  They’ve already conceded more than the owners have.  A mediator pushing the remaining issues to the middle still results in a win for the owners.

Meanwhile, the players declining a mediator (or using one but declining the offer they come up with) makes it easy for the league to spin the blame on the players.

[gunnar hendershow]

Owners are ready to cancel everything through Memorial Day. All they want is the ASG and playoffs, everything else means nothing to them.

[The Buscher]

14 minutes ago, damshow said:

Owners are ready to cancel everything through Memorial Day. All they want is the ASG and playoffs, everything else means nothing to them.

Yeah, they're basically already at the drop dead point to start spring on time.  I always held out some hope that the Super Bowl being the unofficial "baton passing" moment to baseball would ramp up the pressure to get a deal done.  Well we're now a week away from the game and there's probably only a window of 2-2.5 weeks after that where they could get a deal done and still start Opening Day on time without losing too much of Spring Training to make it realistic.

But as it stands right now they're still miles apart on loads of important issues and yeah, my optimism fades with each update.

[MalaCloudy Black]

Joe West has officially retired. 

[gunnar hendershow]

 

[The Buscher]

Normally by now you’d start hearing about some players breaking down and just wanting to take any deal and get on with it.  Ultimately that’s how the NFLPA got railroaded in their last deal.  The average NFL career is only 2-3 seasons, and there were just too many union members unwilling to risk game checks under any circumstances.

Haven’t really heard about any of that from the MLB players.  The union has an emergency fund set aside for the lowest paid players in case checks are lost.  The players seemingly remain united in their hatred of Manfred.  Dude is trying everything he can to kill the sport.

[Krabby]

Sounds like Jason Giambi passed away

[RazorsEdge]

3 minutes ago, Krabby said:

Sounds like Jason Giambi passed away

Nah, his brother Jeremy.

[The Buscher]

47 is no age to go.  And it follows Gerald Williams passing away at 55 from cancer yesterday.

Gerald was best known for opening a game by charging the mound

 

[The Buscher]

Manfred is addressing the media after the owners meetings today, it is expected they will officially announce a delayed opening to Spring Training (yeah, no shit) and I'm sure he'll try to spin this as being the fault of the players.

Meanwhile, the next meeting between the league and union is set for Saturday.

I do kinda laugh when I see people claiming they'll be boycotting baseball if the season is shortened again.  Yeah right.  The diehards are always going to watch baseball whenever it comes back.  But much like WWE, the average age of the baseball fan is getting older and older.

[Maxx]

Universal DH has been agreed to

[Krabby]

Not really related to this season but it is a baseball thing, randomly came across an ebay listing for a Todd Zeile rookie card from the 1990 for like $20K and I was like - did I miss something? Like he was an average power hitter I guess but did he murder someone or do something wild to make the price of his shit go up? 

Nope, just a guy trying to get clickbait views for his ebay store lmao

 

[The Buscher]

13 hours ago, Maxx said:

Universal DH has been agreed to

I was pretty firmly in the camp of "NL rules are better!" for a long time, always cited the strategic elements etc but it's been clear for several years now that with rare exception, pitchers are even more useless at hitting than ever now.  They make no effort to even practice being good at it, nor do teams want them to because of injury risk.  Even the strategic elements of it are neutered now with how often teams go to the bullpen. 

Seeing the universal DH in the shortened 2020 season finally got me to jump ship on the whole thing.  Watching actual hitters up there just made for a better brand of baseball.  And then going back to pitchers hitting in 2021 and watching deGrom hurt himself swinging a bat in his quest to hit .400 just hammered it home for me.

[gunnar hendershow]

Very rarely you'll see pitchers bat in the AL, usually if a team has lost its DH making a switch. It's limited to extra innings and is much less common than position players coming on in relief.

I'm fine with this. Everyone will get used to it.

[Krabby]

Yeah - I was against it for some time as well because I liked the idea of pitchers hitting like they did in High School - but at this level, that notion was just becoming obsolete and the Universal DH just makes so much more sense.

[Lowerdeck]

I cam only recall a few pitchers who are actually good at hitting.  Ohtani is in a league of his own.  Outside of that, there's maybe a few who could hold their own.

 

Didn't Bumgarner hit instead of a DH during an interleague game?

[GhostMachine]

Jeremy Giambi's death has been ruled a suicide. 

I wonder if the Universal DH will cost the MLB fans. I'm not thrilled with the idea.

The one caveat I hope they do make? Expanding the # of HoF inductees if a pure DH goes in. A pitcher or fielder shouldn't have to wait a year because someone who doesn't do anything but hit goes in. The DH role was created to extend the careers of players who were too old or injured to field anymore, but could still hit. 

[Lowerdeck]

1 hour ago, GhostMachine said:

I wonder if the Universal DH will cost the MLB fans. I'm not thrilled with the idea.

 

American League has been doing fine for 50 years