Have they removed all of the guys that used amphetamines yet? Like Hank Aaron?
I think a majority of players used amphetamines.
And just a handful of players used steroids? The truth is the crotchety voters and numnuts like Lavelle have double standards. It's been the Hall of Jokes for a long time now.
Have they removed all of the guys that used amphetamines yet? Like Hank Aaron?
I think a majority of players used amphetamines.
And just a handful of players used steroids? The truth is the crotchety voters and numnuts like Lavelle have double standards. It's been the Hall of Jokes for a long time now.
Yes, I think many more players used greenies than steroids. It was much easier.
https://manginphotography.net/2009/12/baseball-without-greenies-not-as-much-fun/
Have they removed all of the guys that used amphetamines yet? Like Hank Aaron?
I think a majority of players used amphetamines.
And just a handful of players used steroids? The truth is the crotchety voters and numnuts like Lavelle have double standards. It's been the Hall of Jokes for a long time now.
Yes, I think many more players used greenies than steroids. It was much easier.
https://manginphotography.net/2009/12/baseball-without-greenies-not-as-much-fun/br >
85%?
Billy was a Beaut!
https://twitter.com/BSmile/status/1488686684069941249?s=20&t=9kcT3vu3aOPlINiP4tznTw
“When your best friend is the son of God, you get tired of losing every argument.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
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now thats funny
Rob Manfred is, once again, doing everything he can possibly do to ruin Major League Baseball. It is simply stunning.
I love La Tortuga.
[media] https://twitter.com/i/status/1489260089366118411 [/media]
When you tell somebody somethin', it depends on what part of the United States you're standin' in... as to just how dumb you are.
He tossed his bat 25 feet on a single in the 8th lol
He tossed his bat 25 feet on a single in the 8th lol
TYING RUN RBI single. 
When you tell somebody somethin', it depends on what part of the United States you're standin' in... as to just how dumb you are.
Looks like about 35lbs of "work ethic" hanging over that belt :popcorn:
Looks like about 35lbs of "work ethic" hanging over that belt :popcorn:
Dude's got talent. Not superstar, but he has big league talent. Take that work ethic joke and can it. It's stale. "Oh, boy, fat athlete! lol" 
When you tell somebody somethin', it depends on what part of the United States you're standin' in... as to just how dumb you are.
Since we're not gonna have MLB for a bit...this is rather sick:
[media] https://twitter.com/i/status/1490327771717025796 [/media]
When you tell somebody somethin', it depends on what part of the United States you're standin' in... as to just how dumb you are.
MLB delaying the start of spring training until March 5. Still don’t understand why MLB has such a long preseason compared to the other sports like NFL, NBA and NHL.
Keep your stick on the ice...
MLB delaying the start of spring training until March 5. Still don’t understand why MLB has such a long preseason compared to the other sports like NFL, NBA and NHL.
Because pitchers need time to recondition their arms to build up endurance, etc.
It's also the sport with by far the most players in an organization so it takes longer with more bodies.
[media] https://twitter.com/i/status/1498105734176722947 [/media]
My God....this is perfect....
When you tell somebody somethin', it depends on what part of the United States you're standin' in... as to just how dumb you are.
Last time I saw something like this was a north dakota/wisconsin game.
“When your best friend is the son of God, you get tired of losing every argument.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last time I saw something like this was during a north dakota/wisconsin game.
“When your best friend is the son of God, you get tired of losing every argument.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Manfred announced the first two weeks are officially canceled. No further negotiations for at least 2 days.
While holding a news conference that should have been somber and frustrated, Manfred stood at the podium grinning his face off.
Meanwhile, the MLBPA released this statement
https://twitter.com/MLBPA_News/status/1498793611323977736?s=20&t=jf0MB2hTb5qVVleQbPQJUA
Rob Manfred makes Gary Bettman look like Pete Rozelle
I don't have any inside knowledge here, and I haven't studied it closely, but the economics here seem to indicate that this one might go on for a while. The owners show no sign of breaking and the players are not giving in any time soon.
If players go international with playing, that will reduce their monetary loss from the lockout and it can mean this thing will go on for a very long time. I think owners have probably been preparing for this for a while and are gearing up for a long battle.
(Now watch-- they'll settle by Sunday)
I just can’t feel sorry for anyone given all the greediness in professional sports. Fans shell out a fortune to watch a game with a pop and a hot dog these days, and the higher ups are rolling in that money. While players whine because more than a half million to play a game just isn’t enough. It’s sad. I love baseball but I guess I’m just getting too old and crabby - if they decide not to play because they are all greedy I guess I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.
I just can’t feel sorry for anyone given all the greediness in professional sports. Fans shell out a fortune to watch a game with a pop and a hot dog these days, and the higher ups are rolling in that money. While players whine because more than a half million to play a game just isn’t enough. It’s sad. I love baseball but I guess I’m just getting too old and crabby - if they decide not to play because they are all greedy I guess I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.
It's reason like that I've started to shy away more and more from the NFL and have taken more focus in the college realm.
No sympathy for either side. The players increased their demands in 3 areas on one of their counters. That’s not how bargaining works, you don’t go backwards. Feel really bad for the stadium staffs.
This means no Fenway for the Frozen Four, 4th try foiled.
Plenty of good amateur/town ball to go watch for a fraction of the price.
Feel really bad for the stadium staffs.
This means no Fenway for the Frozen Four, 4th try foiled.
Yeah, those who actually work for the MLB are the ones being hurt by all the greed of the owners and overpaid players. They should all still get paid, out the team’s pockets.
I was looking forward to seeing a game at Fenway too so yeah that’s disappointing, but I’ll probably save a couple hundred bucks. 
I don't have any inside knowledge here, and I haven't studied it closely, but the economics here seem to indicate that this one might go on for a while. The owners show no sign of breaking and the players are not giving in any time soon.
If players go international with playing, that will reduce their monetary loss from the lockout and it can mean this thing will go on for a very long time. I think owners have probably been preparing for this for a while and are gearing up for a long battle.
(Now watch-- they'll settle by Sunday)
I get the feeling that the owners/Manfred would be OK with them missing half the season again, tbh. They started this lockout almost 90 days ago and didn't have any real conversations until 10 days ago, and even then they didn't begin to really "negotiate" until basically Friday night.
IMO, the owners are still millionaires.
The players want a fair share of that pie.
That being said, sure, a few players won't be hurt by this at all. What about the "schlubs" that make the minimum and are switched back to the minors quite often? This is their livelihood. They are well off, as long as they are in the majors, sure, but if there's nothing? Minors don't pay sh*.
When you tell somebody somethin', it depends on what part of the United States you're standin' in... as to just how dumb you are.
Wassup bro?
Take a swing bro!
IMO, the owners are still millionaires.
The players want a fair share of that pie.
That being said, sure, a few players won't be hurt by this at all. What about the "schlubs" that make the minimum and are switched back to the minors quite often? This is their livelihood. They are well off, as long as they are in the majors, sure, but if there's nothing? Minors don't pay sh*.
Owners are billionaires and it's only growing. A couple of tweets to show how much they're actually making. Atlanta is the only team whose books become public so they are always used as the example for how much teams actually make.
https://twitter.com/Travis_Sawchik/status/1498785693140668417?s=20&t=kpop6KiwRv7n8XmDkvhoXQ
https://twitter.com/Travis_Sawchik/status/1498795251309457409?s=20&t=kpop6KiwRv7n8XmDkvhoXQ
KFAN was talking about this...BALT Orioles pay out about $43MM/year. There are a couple players (singular contracts) that make that in a YEAR. LA Dodgers spend 6+ times that on the payroll. Baseball's system is broken as for money. I'm all for salary floors and caps, relative to revenue generated.
When you tell somebody somethin', it depends on what part of the United States you're standin' in... as to just how dumb you are.
I just can’t feel sorry for anyone given all the greediness in professional sports. Fans shell out a fortune to watch a game with a pop and a hot dog these days, and the higher ups are rolling in that money. While players whine because more than a half million to play a game just isn’t enough. It’s sad. I love baseball but I guess I’m just getting too old and crabby - if they decide not to play because they are all greedy I guess I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.
The problem with this line of thinking is that 1) players in the minor leagues are barely getting ANY money (they make between $8,000-15,000 a year). So they are working second and third jobs in the offseason around their daily contract-mandated workouts with the team to try to make ends meet and 2) if they are lucky/good enough to get to the major leagues, they are obviously not guaranteed a spot to stay, and the average career length at the MLB level is about 2.5-3 years. Obviously every team has a bulk of guys that will be around for 5-7 years or more, but for every one of those guys there are guys that play half a season (or less) and never make it back up.
In 2019 (the last year the data was readily available right now) over HALF of the total MLB Service time (games played/days spent on active roster etc) was made up by guys who combined for less than 10% of the overall salary of MLB players. This reason is two-fold:
Owners/teams are manipulating service time to save money by getting a free year before they are arbitration-eligible (we saw the Twins do this recently with Buxton a couple years ago) to try to get another cheap year of his prime rather than pay him. Kris Bryant, formerly of the Cubs, won NL rookie of the year by being with the Cubs for exactly 171 days. Why only 171? Because at 172 it would have counted as a full season and gotten him to arbitration one year earlier. He led the team to the NLCS that season. When he tried to challenge a grievance about the service time manipulation, the arbitrator ruled in favor of the Cubs because that's how it was written into the CBA. Passan even quotes a GM in the piece linked below that said "It's horrible. Six years should be six years. But what are we supposed to do, not take advantage of them?" Hell the league even has a WWE style championship belt each year for the team that does the best job saving money on arbitration-eligible contracts.
The other is this: Teams are paying for their absolute stars (the Betts, Tatis Jr., ace pitcher du jour, etc) guys, and then filling out the rest of their roster with guys in their first 3 years making minimum salary. This is forcing players in FA that aren't like Betts/Tatis Jr./Scherzer etc. to sign cut rate deals (in the sense of what their fair market value is, yes I'm aware they are being paid to play a game but that argument is disingenuous because we all pay to watch it/go to the game/buy their merchandise just like we shop at Target etc) in order to play. We saw this exact thing play out with Eddie Rosario here in Minnesota. He reportedly wanted $12 million a year in FA. Given his career here that would have been a reasonably fair price for him (if I was the Twins GM I would not have paid him that, but many others on this board would). But the Twins knew they had significantly cheaper options that could be (and IMHO will absolutely be) better than he is, so they let him go to FA and called up their younger cheaper options. He ended up signing for less money than he probably would have 7 years ago (relative to inflation) because many teams are actively trying to suppress contracts. We've even seen some young stars, like Acuna, sign contracts early in essence to ensure they get paid their market value rather than risk going to free agency in 4 years and getting shafted by owners trying to low-ball him.
Players can only really fully share in the MLB's CBA if they play 5ish years in the MLB. But the current system is incentivizing teams, and by that I mostly mean owners, to dump "older" guys, like Rosario, in favor of rookies making the league minimum. Then they wash, rinse, and repeat the cycle.
They have no salary floor (the only major sport that doesn't, IIRC) so teams like Baltimore can spend less money on their roster than fans spend on beer at their games. The competitive balance tax (or CBT) has served as a somewhat decent salary cap recently - the only two teams above the CBT threshold this year were the Padres and Dodgers - but they don't have any kind of floor like the rest of pro sports in America. Since the CBT's inception in 2003, we have had 13 different champions and 19 different teams playing in the World Series. The same split that we've seen in the league everyone raves about parody for (the NFL) and significantly better than the NBA. The NHL has had 11 different Stanley Cup champs and 21 finalists in that span.
The problem is: The CBT threshold has only risen 18% since it's inception, while league revenues are up over 40% in that span. Over the last 10 years, MLB franchises combined have increased in value from 15.7 billion too 55.3 billion. Despite that, player salaries on average have dropped. The Median salary in the MLB in 2021 was $1.15 million, certainly nothing to scoff at, but down 30% from where it was in 2015. That was by design.
Jeff Passan did a nice write-up about the entire disaster (where I took a lot of the numbers above from): https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/33362477/inside-self-inflicted-crisis-boiling-mlb-lockout-deadline-arrives
The players demands aren't outlandish (from the ones I've seen being reported, at least) and they are even willing to secede to adding MORE playoff teams which means MORE money for the owners because the playoffs are their biggest moneymaker.
The owners set this deadline after initiating the lockout as a "Defensive measure to stimulate CBA talks" and waiting 45 days to provide their first offer to the MLBPA. The self-imposed deadline was set by the owners today because they wanted to try to force the players to accept their offer or risk losing games this season (and losing games likely means losing paychecks for players). This is the first labor stoppage that will cause games being missed since the 1994 strike. The owners knew it and were hoping to force the players into signing another lopsided CBA.
The owners have consistently tried to deflect blame onto the players despite initiating the lockout unprompted (there was no reason to do it literally hours after the previous CBA expired except to use it as leverage, and even less reason to wait 7ish weeks to provide their initial proposal unless their plan all along was to miss games this season). They have tried to control the narrative over and over and over, to the point of forcing MLB Network and ESPN to cut away from the MLBPA's press conference moments after Manfred's speech (where he laughed and smiled his way through announcing that games were being canceled).
The worst part of all of this: The league has arguably the most young, exciting, marketable, and incredibly talented group of players it has had in decades. Tatis Jr., Vlad Jr., Shohei Ohtani, Trout, Betts, deGrom, Buehler, Buxton, Soto, Acuna, Franco, etc. etc. All poised to have potentially incredible seasons and re-spark interest in the game. And for the second time in 3 years (one beyond anyone's control with the pandemic, obviously) we'll miss out on these guys putting on a show. These are the types of players that the MLB could market the hell out of and make money hand over fist on. But instead they're locking players out because they're trying to save more money on the guys that are making them money. It's extremely frustrating as a baseball fan.
(Edited to add some more numbers and stuff)
Add room/board to the minor league players' costs, since they don't know what city they are going to have a "residence" in....
When you tell somebody somethin', it depends on what part of the United States you're standin' in... as to just how dumb you are.
I'm 100% in favor of the minor leaguers getting paid more. That said, at least baseball HAS a minor league system that they pay for themselves. The NFL gets a free pass using colleges (largely taxpayer funded) as their de facto minor leagues.
I'm 100% in favor of the minor leaguers getting paid more. That said, at least baseball HAS a minor league system that they pay for themselves. The NFL gets a free pass using colleges (largely taxpayer funded) as their de facto minor leagues.
While the NFL technically gets a free pass in this sense, I'd imagine the revenues generated from NCAA football compared with minor league baseball are astronomically lopsided.
Not defending the NFL here in anyway mind you but I think it's an important distinction.
MLB is just like any other large corporate business. The people at the top just keep getting richer and find ways to piss on the little guys.
[mention]Beauner[/mention] thankyou for the explanations. I actually read the whole post.
MLB is just like any other large corporate business. The people at the top just keep getting richer and find ways to piss on the little guys.
@Beauner thankyou for the explanations. I actually read the whole post.
You're welcome. I've been trying to follow this particular labor issue closely given the current state of the game and it has become increasingly clear to me that the owners DGAF if all of the games get played this season, and IMO they actively wanted games to get canceled. Just an extremely frustrating last couple weeks for me because I know for a fact that with the current crop of players, if marketed correctly, MLB could gain a ton of new fans.
Instead we get Rob Manfred being happy about canceling games.
MLB is just like any other large corporate business. The people at the top just keep getting richer and find ways to piss on the little guys.
@Beauner thankyou for the explanations. I actually read the whole post.
You're welcome. I've been trying to follow this particular labor issue closely given the current state of the game and it has become increasingly clear to me that the owners DGAF if all of the games get played this season, and IMO they actively wanted games to get canceled. Just an extremely frustrating last couple weeks for me because I know for a fact that with the current crop of players, if marketed correctly, MLB could gain a ton of new fans.
Instead we get Rob Manfred being happy about canceling games.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The current MLB SHOULD be extremely marketable. It’s still a fun game but unfortunately the reputation for many, especially younger sports fans, is “too many games. Baseball is boring” etc. etc. While I personally think there definitely could be less games in a season, I think it’s unfairly gained the reputation of being boring and it feels like the MLB has done little to combat this reputation. I’ve heard they’re really protective of any highlights that could be shared on social media. If this is true that’s stupid. Like it or not, the younger generations are on their phones watching Tik Toks, scrolling through Instagram and Twitter. They can see some fan page hate LeBron dunking or Mahomes throwing some crazy game winning pass. If they’re less likely to see Trout or Ohtani going yard when scrolling through Reels on Instagram then it’s out of sight, out of mind. We can roll our eyes all we want, but for a league desperate for young fans, making it harder for them to enjoy the sport in the way they view media is the opposite direction baseball should be heading. In fact, with the current reputation, this lockout is the worst thing for the MLB. This isn’t the turn of the millennium anymore and yet it feels like the big wigs still think it is.
Time to bring back the all American girls professional baseball league? I’ll play for free.
As long as a it’s weekend only. Gotta work.
I disagree. Today's game IS boring. From a fan's perspective, analytics have not been good for the game. Too many at-bats that end in a walk, strikeout, or homerun (ie: very few balls put into play). Huge pitching staffs and endless pitching changes. Exaggerated defensive shifts. Stealing, bunting, hit and run becoming almost obsolete. Hitters not swinging the bat unless they get a perfect pitch. 4+ hour games. I could go on and on.
Baseball is my favorite sport, and even I can't watch a complete game anymore.
MLB is just like any other large corporate business. The people at the top just keep getting richer and find ways to piss on the little guys.
@Beauner thankyou for the explanations. I actually read the whole post.
You're welcome. I've been trying to follow this particular labor issue closely given the current state of the game and it has become increasingly clear to me that the owners DGAF if all of the games get played this season, and IMO they actively wanted games to get canceled. Just an extremely frustrating last couple weeks for me because I know for a fact that with the current crop of players, if marketed correctly, MLB could gain a ton of new fans.
Instead we get Rob Manfred being happy about canceling games.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The current MLB SHOULD be extremely marketable. It’s still a fun game but unfortunately the reputation for many, especially younger sports fans, is “too many games. Baseball is boring” etc. etc. While I personally think there definitely could be less games in a season, I think it’s unfairly gained the reputation of being boring and it feels like the MLB has done little to combat this reputation. I’ve heard they’re really protective of any highlights that could be shared on social media. If this is true that’s stupid. Like it or not, the younger generations are on their phones watching Tik Toks, scrolling through Instagram and Twitter. They can see some fan page hate LeBron dunking or Mahomes throwing some crazy game winning pass. If they’re less likely to see Trout or Ohtani going yard when scrolling through Reels on Instagram then it’s out of sight, out of mind. We can roll our eyes all we want, but for a league desperate for young fans, making it harder for them to enjoy the sport in the way they view media is the opposite direction baseball should be heading. In fact, with the current reputation, this lockout is the worst thing for the MLB. This isn’t the turn of the millennium anymore and yet it feels like the big wigs still think it is.
They have historically been very protective of their clips, IIRC. I know they have a TikTok page now that has billions of views. I dunno if they have Instagram because I don't have instagram.
But you scroll through Twitter and see guys like Pitching Ninja getting thousands upon thousands of retweets and likes and responses on basically every single tweet and it's obvious there are still a fair number of fans out there. The MLB just hasn't figured out a way to capitalize on their stars.
I was talking with a "non-baseball" guy last night while playing Call of Duty and we were talking about this exact issue. Mike Trout may end up being the greatest player in the history of baseball when all is said and done. His Instagram page has significantly fewer followers than a mid-tier guy in the NBA named Tyler Herro (granted, Tyler Herro is dating/married to an IG model that has millions of followers so that is a factor) but things like that provide some evidence to the just utter lack of marketing the MLB does for their best players.
I disagree. Today's game IS boring. From a fan's perspective, analytics have not been good for the game. Too many at-bats that end in a walk, strikeout, or homerun (ie: very few balls put into play). Huge pitching staffs and endless pitching changes. Exaggerated defensive shifts. Stealing, bunting, hit and run becoming almost obsolete. Hitters not swinging the bat unless they get a perfect pitch. 4+ hour games. I could go on and on.
Baseball is my favorite sport, and even I can't watch a complete game anymore.
Analytics has very little to do with at bats ending in a walk, strikeout, or home run TBH. The pitching changes, defensive shifts, stealing/hit and runs do, though.
Edit: This probably sounded snarkier than I intended, I'll expand on these thoughts when I get more time at work.
MLB is just like any other large corporate business. The people at the top just keep getting richer and find ways to piss on the little guys.
@Beauner thankyou for the explanations. I actually read the whole post.
You're welcome. I've been trying to follow this particular labor issue closely given the current state of the game and it has become increasingly clear to me that the owners DGAF if all of the games get played this season, and IMO they actively wanted games to get canceled. Just an extremely frustrating last couple weeks for me because I know for a fact that with the current crop of players, if marketed correctly, MLB could gain a ton of new fans.
Instead we get Rob Manfred being happy about canceling games.
Essentially the owners get a lot of their money from TV deals. Especially in the postseason where it’s split. They don’t have to pay players during the postseason. If they cancel regular season games, they don’t have to pay the players as much. They are more than willing to drop regular season games as long as they get their postseason games.
MLB is just like any other large corporate business. The people at the top just keep getting richer and find ways to piss on the little guys.
@Beauner thankyou for the explanations. I actually read the whole post.
You're welcome. I've been trying to follow this particular labor issue closely given the current state of the game and it has become increasingly clear to me that the owners DGAF if all of the games get played this season, and IMO they actively wanted games to get canceled. Just an extremely frustrating last couple weeks for me because I know for a fact that with the current crop of players, if marketed correctly, MLB could gain a ton of new fans.
Instead we get Rob Manfred being happy about canceling games.
I couldn’t believe he laughed just as he was starting. What a terrible look for the owners representative. Smug bast***
'29, '40, '74, '76, '79, '02, & '03
GPL's Resident Cabin Enthusiast & Cadets Hockey Fan
Time to bring back the all American girls professional baseball league? I’ll play for free.
As long as a it’s weekend only. Gotta work.
Are you going to catch a pop fly like Dottie (Genna Davis) did while doing the splits?
Time to bring back the all American girls professional baseball league? I’ll play for free.
As long as a it’s weekend only. Gotta work.
Are you going to catch a pop fly like Dottie (Genna Davis) did while doing the splits?
br>
Probably not. I may never walk (or be able to pee) again if I tried to do the splits.
I love MLB and in some ways it's my favorite sport to watch, but even I have a hard time watching an entire game during the regular season, and in the playoffs when I should be more interested my impression is games times get even longer. There are 17 between-inning stoppages in a MLB game. It just makes it feel longer even if the average MLB game is just over 3 hours long.
We also do not need more playoffs. That just tells you it’s all about the money.
I love MLB and in some ways it's my favorite sport to watch, but even I have a hard time watching an entire game during the regular season, and in the playoffs when I should be more interested my impression is games times get even longer. There are 17 between-inning stoppages in a MLB game. It just makes it feel longer even if the average MLB game is just over 3 hours long.
If they were really concerned about the length of time it takes games, they'd cut back on commercials.
Go watch your average town ball game here in Minnesota. They'll get 9 inning games completed in 2 hours, 2.5 hours tops. There are no commercials. A pitching change happens? Pitcher gets 8 warm ups and then the batter steps back into the box.
This, IMO, would cut down significantly on the "The game is too slow" memes but it would also mean less money in the owners pocket so instead they'll mess with everything else about the game.