Frayed Knot

=Ceetar post_id=38626 time=1592056467 user_id=102] MLB literally offering the same money each time, just demanding various amounts of work for it, and not negotiating in good faith.

"and there's four or five suitors that are out there to do something with ... ” OK, Jeff didn't write that but he is quoted as saying it (see above NY Post link). But today's NYP suggests that "four or five" might be a bit of an exaggeration ... by like two or three https://nypost.com/2020/06/12/jeff-wilpons-talk-of-four-or-five-mets-suitors-drawing-skepticism/https://nypost.com/2020/06/12/jeff-wilpons-talk-of-four-or-five-mets-suitors-drawing-skepticism/ Jeff Wilpon's statement on Thursday: “There's four or five suitors that are out there” to buy the franchise, is raising eyebrows in sports business circles. According to multiple sources familiar with the market for the Amazin's, if there are three or more bidders for the team, New York has a real mystery on its hands. “Four or five?” one person asked rhetorically. “I'd maybe believe three, and I couldn't tell you the third.” So after including the recent Harris/Blitzer interest and the ongoing J-Rod one, anything beyond that is either a well-kept secret (not too common in this type of transaction I'd guess) or perhaps Jeffie is just trying to stir up gossip. “If there's another bidder, I haven't heard of them,” one banker familiar with the situation told The Post. “Maybe Wayne Rothbaum is still out there with a lowball offer, or maybe Jeff is including Steve Cohen?” A "Wall Street source following the sale" added: “I'm sure a bunch of people have voiced at least preliminary interest ... And maybe four or five of those people signed something to get more info on the team, but that doesn't make them a serious suitor.”

at number 19, you'd think we could get a guy with no question marks about his hitting. =bmfc1 post_id=38566 time=1591883943 user_id=73] CF: That's valid but this Pete was supposed to go earlier. Keith Law, smart guy at The Athletic, had the Mets taking a college SP because his mock guessed that they wouldn't find the bat they wanted still available at 19. A few teams, including Boston, made surprise picks so C-A was still there (Law had him at 12).

And the league doesn't want to risk losing playoff games in case cooler autumn weather re-jump-starts Covid causing them to re-cancel things again. Because if the playoffs do get canceled then the teams lose not only their regular season gate money but then the TV playoff cash on top of that.

I remember him mostly for the guy with the classic trim-waisted, wide-shouldered build. Listed at a nothing-special (for sports anyway) 6' 0" / 190, but you know that when a room full of professional athletes would make jokes about him forgetting to take the hanger out of his shirt prior to putting it on that, even among a mostly well-built group of guys, his physique stood out. A 17 year career is longer than I would have guessed. Coming up two months prior to turning 20 y/o, in the midst of the early '70s A's teams, helped in that regard. Not as home-runny as you'd like (particularly if playing today) for a LH-hitting corner OF [164 for his career and never more than 17 in a season], but over 300 SBs, a pair of AS appearances, and an OPS+ of 106 doesn't speak too poorly of a career which, sadly, ended with his second stint in the Bronx.

=Ceetar post_id=38514 time=1591803434 user_id=102]Going to a baseball game is a risk totally separate from the grocery store, running errands, moving around.

Frayed Knot wrote: =Ceetar post_id=38504 time=1591792976 user_id=102]There are probably minimal risks overall, but [there] are risks. As there are anytime one walks out their front door. not even close to the point.

=Ceetar post_id=38504 time=1591792976 user_id=102]There are probably minimal risks overall, but [there] are risks.

Overnight the players responded to the latest owner proposals by countering with 89 games and, of course, full pro-rated salaries. So the pattern continues: the owners say that, with no live gate, they'll be losing money with each game so they either need a shorter schedule or a reduction in the pay rate, at which point the players respond with: 'OK, how 'bout a longer season and the idea of a reduction beyond pro-rated isn't even a topic for discussion'. At this point I think we're down to two choices: a very short season or no season. But at least the rancor generated by this whole mess brings next season into question as well.

=Ceetar post_id=38489 time=1591756212 user_id=102] sure but they have to walk past each other. at best it'd be row per group and then skip a row.

With outdoor transmission, particularly in warmer weather, said to be very low -- and even a new report from WHO saying that transmission from the infected but asymptomatic is also rare* -- it shouldn't be a problem allowing at least some tickets to be sold. Maybe not immediately but as the 'season' (whatever that winds up meaning) progresses. Below is a theoretical 10 Row / 12 Seat across section of seats. The X's are people, the dashes empty seats. Tickets are sold in blocks of four only so those buying them would (should?) be comfortable with those they're sitting with while each group has several feet of horizontal and vertical feet between it the nearest other groups. In this (totally made up) example the stadium sells 32 seats out of 120, or just over 25% How well something like this works out will depend on the public's acceptance of whatever plan each stadium comes up with, but a potential 10,000 seats sold for each game is a helluva lot better than zero. X X _ _ _ X X _ _ _ X X X X _ _ _ X X _ _ _ X X _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ X X _ _ _ X X _ _ _ _ _ X X _ _ _ X X _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ X X _ _ _ X X _ _ _ X X X X _ _ _ X X _ _ _ X X * Some WHO spokeswoman announced this on Monday and then had to do a bunch of verbal gymnastics to walk it back today. Nowhere did she imply that what she previously said was wrong (in the end she pretty much stuck to yesterday's story) but you can tell that the org was trying to NOT to make that scenario sound too rosy lest people hear "rare" and interpret it as a license to ignore social distancing norms.

Dillon Diggler, one of the (presumably MANY) children of Dirk.

Frayed Knot wrote: Then there was a clause in that agreement which stated that further talks needed to occur if the truncated season was going to be played in empty stadiums.... Players want to pretend it was a meaningless add-on; owners are claiming they can't function without a reduction off the pro-rated part. Meaningless add-on? Try having a contracts law professor explain that one. No contract terms are meaningless. Otherwise, why the hell would it be in there? Especially here, when both sides are represented by the most sophisticated attorneys in this particular field. Well that's been My point all along. Not that I'm rooting for the players to lose out to owners in this negotiations (I don't particularly care how it winds up) but I've been pissed at the player side reaction to this whole thing which has essentially been that the pay issue was already decided back in March (pro-rated portion of existing contracts) and that if the teams wanted something else then they should have brought it up back then. But of course they DID bring it up back then but the future was so sketchy at that point that there was no point in even talking about specific numbers. And each of their counter- proposals to plans from the ownership side have yet to acknowledge that the issue of something less than the same per-game rate is even in play. This is getting like the old days where the more negotiating sessions they have the further apart the two sides get.

Also real fast. [FIMG=450]https://www.kiro7.com/resizer/6F4iZHwbi28-kqX2_Fz87-RaRIQ=/1200x675/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-cmg.s3.amazonaws.com/public/4BAZQDBZCYNO4UJYNDNQSDMJUY.png[/FIMG]

=ashie62 post_id=38367 time=1591644769 user_id=90] So, if they play a 76 game or about 1/2 season the players get 75% pay? MLBPA would have to be total idiots to not make this work

So the owners' latest proposal is for a 76 game regular season with the players getting 50% of their pro-rated salary, a rate which would go up to 75% if the planned post-season is completed. I guess one thing the owners are worried about is a new spike in Covid right around the time post-season would start. At that point the players would have their money while the teams would lose out on the biggest share of TV money if no playoffs. If the full (76 + post) season does happen 75% of pro-rated would wind up around the same as full pro-rated at 57 games so the owners could argue that it's 'better' than their fall-back position of 50 games which Manfred could apparently declare to be the case although the players could counter that they'd need to work about 30% more just in order to get the same. The owners are also throwing in a waiving of the FA compensation rules this winter which would free potential FAs from a drag on their negotiations although with the CBA up after 2021 it's likely those rules have their days numbered anyway so this just speeds that up by a year heading into a winter where dollars are going to be tight coming off the reduced season.

=metsmarathon post_id=37863 time=1591205204 user_id=83] yeah, but the general idea at the time was that the shortening of the season, and the greed that caused it, turned people off from baseball, moreso than it caused people to forget about baseball. now, this season, the majority of the shortening is due to non-greed factors. the extent to which the season is further shortened is certainly due to greed-factors, and the extent to which that ends up being perceived as the driving factor will greatly figure into the fan response, i think.

Frayed Knot wrote: This is unprecedented. The owners are assholes. Courts don't do anything fast. In that case couldn't the Dodgers just deny Betts his FA-gency no matter what his service time adds up to? I mean sure, the Rules say that you can be a FA after six years but the clubs might just unilaterally negate that. they do this all the time. No. They. Don't. -- Not usually to the stars, but not bring up guys to start the season is basically "we're keeping you an extra year" And now, as usual, you're changing the subject and conditions of your argument. Delaying starting the clock on a guy's career (which, btw, is done MORE often to the stars than the average player although less often then is charged) isn't covered in the CBA while six full years = FA is. But somehow you claim that clubs deny FA-gency "all the time" to players who have earned it. Can you name ONE instance where this has happened? -- Or they'll declare it the 2020-2021 season and manipulate it somehow. Except they've already agreed that 2020 is a full season as far as service time goes no matter how long and the whole point of collective bargaining is that one side can't simply "declare" something and impose it on the other. If the owners could do that they would have Declared a salary cap and an end to free agency long ago and we wouldn't be having this discussion. -- Or maybe they'll just screw the minor leaguers more. Again, irrelevant to this discussion.

=Ceetar post_id=37818 time=1591135625 user_id=102]This is unprecedented. The owners are assholes. Courts don't do anything fast.

I could see, particularly the Dodgers, try to claim 2020 doesn't exist if they don't play, and that say Mookie Betts is NOT a free agent. While the players argue the opposite. That was one of those things decided back in the March 26th agreement (and part of the very first post in this thread on 3/27): "The biggest issue in the negotiations was service time, and the two sides agreed that if there's a season of any length, players would receive credit for a full year as if it was a regular 162-game season. And if the season is canceled, players will receive the same service time they accrued in 2019. This means that Los Angeles Dodgers All-Star outfielder Mookie Betts, who was acquired along with former Cy Young winner David Price in February from the Boston Red Sox, could be a free agent without playing a single regular-season game for the Dodgers." Now I realize that the above was written by a journalist (Bob Nightengale - USA Today) so you're likely to believe he simply made it all up, but Betts had 5 yrs + 70 days of service coming in and so will get credit for a full season if they play any part of this one and a full season if they don't. iow, he'll be a FA and if the Dodgers try to contend that it'll get thrown out of court faster than Lenny Dykstra's lawsuit.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: "Jeff Passan, ESPN" -- Unable to yet reach a return-to-play agreement, Major League Baseball has discussed playing a shorter schedule in which it would pay members of the MLB Players Association their full prorated salaries, sources familiar with the situation told ESPN. Though MLB does not intend to propose this to the players, the possibility of implementing a schedule of around 50 games that would start in July has been considered by the league as a last resort in the event the parties can't come to a deal, sources said. This is just a giant game of chicken at this point. The problem with killing this season and just saying 'Let's start afresh next April' (aside from the blown opportunity of course) is that the CBA is up at the end of '21 so the bickering is only going to increase to the point where it's not a given that they'll start on time even IF Covid is all under control by then. The owners are going to accuse the players of killing the season while the players will want revenge for their lost paychecks in 2020 on top of the FA money they think they were cheated out of for the last two/three years. So while it would be nice if the time could be put into reform rather than just slap-dash repairs ... I don't think that's what's gonna happen.

Given the circumstances, I find the contention that they'll lose money this year to be very credible. btw, the player's union DOES get financial data from the teams so things aren't totally on the 'cuz we said so' system. As far as how complete that data is I have no idea. Those figures aren't made public and none of us would know how to judge their accuracy even if they were. I would just prefer it if the overall union argument wasn't: no point in debating that issue because it's already been decided, and we won't discuss it further because it violates our principles. btw, Joel Sherman had a good column on this this morning (Mon) https://nypost.com/2020/06/01/sherman-mlbs-potential-disaster-isnt-about-players-greed/https://nypost.com/2020/06/01/sherman-mlbs-potential-disaster-isnt-about-players-greed/

=nymr83 post_id=37751 time=1591042143 user_id=54] Of course revenues will be down, but the idea that they are 'operating at a loss' isn't credible given that the numbers they usually show aren't credible either.

I saw an ad for LAUREL CANYON just a day or two ago and I couldn't figure out if it was for THIS movie or a different one. Now I know it's a new and different one. Now the only problem is not only have I not seen 'ECHO' but I also don't get the EPIX channel on which this new one appears so don't look for any compare and contrast analysis from me anytime soon.

I've seen Nobody's signature before and that one looks like a forgery to me.