Looking Ahead - The 2020 Offseason Thread

NYCBrave said:
Once again, meddling owners, it never ends well. The decisions should be left to professional baseball people, not an owner who is a fan and gets opinions from "smart fans". The Mets don't even have a GM yet!
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That's just it - I think he'd actually be really helpful IF he's able to find a way to identify the smart fans' ideas rather than ideas from fans in general.

Don't get me wrong - I still strongly believe that being thought of as "the smartest poster" because you have a better understanding of many of the new metrics isn't exactly at the top of the list for hiring a qualified GM (sorry Enscheff), but that doesn't mean those people shouldn't be listened to VERY closely as well. Successful franchises don't ALWAYS make all the best "strictly baseball" decisions - for as great as it looks on paper right now, what are the chances Mookie Betts is still performing like a $30 million/year player 9 years from now? The beancounters will adjust $/WAR and projections to make his salary look more reasonable, but he will have been in the league for 15 years and will be competing with 23 year old kids who will have been exposed to significant advances in physical training, nutrition, analytics, etc. at that point. The successful franchises will limit themselves to only one (or two if they can afford them) of those types of deals - and they won't be ones that work out as badly as the Pujols, Miggy, and Cano deals have - the players with them may not be "earning" every dime, but will have generated extra revenue earlier on and they won't turn into total black holes that can't contribute anything more than being a cheerleader and good clubhouse guy.

A Freeman extension won't be the perfect baseball decision from an analytical standpoint - but there's almost NO WAY to avoid giving him one and there are ways to limit the amount of damage it will do to your opportunity to compete 3-4 years down the road if both sides are willing to work towards a compromise that benefits both sides. Deferred money, lifetime personal service contracts, and including the "smart people" when working out how the salaries will be paid (and reduced over time) as the player's production begins to dwindle.

Deals for both Bauer and Springer COULD work out great as long as Cohen uses the people that best understand the analytics and how to project them to structure them, and everybody involved (including Mutts fans) could get exactly what they want - at the end of the day we're talking about the Mutts though, and their track record of logically working these things out is far from stellar.
 
clvclv said:
That's just it - I think he'd actually be really helpful IF he's able to find a way to identify the smart fans' ideas rather than ideas from fans in general.
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Listen I get what you're saying, but here's the issue. Why even hire baseball people to make decisions then? The owner is going to have his own idea of what he wants to do, which will likely go against what his baseball people want. And that's just a bad situation overall. There should not be conflict between the owner and the GM. The GM/President should have fill authority to make decisions without someone looking over their shoulder and telling them what to do.
 
Because an owner wants a say before giving away $100M of his money. An owner doesn’t care about which guy is taken in the rule 5 draft, so he lets the baseball people handle it.
 
If I ever buy a Major League team, I'm going to ignore everything except the Rule 5 draft. All I'll do is send e-mails to my president of baseball operations demanding more work on the forthcoming Rule 5 draft, even an hour before the trade deadline. Ol' Mr. Rule 5 they'll call me, and I'll pretend to laugh at the nickname while using my fortune and personal connections to ruin the life of anyone who dares use it.
 
MadduxFanII said:
If I ever buy a Major League team, I'm going to ignore everything except the Rule 5 draft. All I'll do is send e-mails to my president of baseball operations demanding more work on the forthcoming Rule 5 draft, even an hour before the trade deadline. Ol' Mr. Rule 5 they'll call me, and I'll pretend to laugh at the nickname while using my fortune and personal connections to ruin the life of anyone who dares use it.
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When the press asks why you only have 20 guys on your 40-man roster at the deadline for setting it, your response will be an easy one: "Rule 5 baby. Rule 5."
 
NYCBrave said:
Listen I get what you're saying, but here's the issue. Why even hire baseball people to make decisions then? The owner is going to have his own idea of what he wants to do, which will likely go against what his baseball people want. And that's just a bad situation overall. There should not be conflict between the owner and the GM. The GM/President should have fill authority to make decisions without someone looking over their shoulder and telling them what to do.
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If this is a serious post then you are lucky to be a Braves fan cause AA could well be the only GM in baseball with the authority you cherish.
 
Looks as if they may try to slow play several guys - just noticed Kazmar was quietly re-signed last week. Wonder if that means he and Mayfield are the MIs at Gwinnett and Delgado and Shewmake at least start out in AA.
 
Bob Nightengale reporting that MLB and PA are at odds right now. The owners do not want players showing up to spring training until they have been given the vaccine. Pushing the start of the season back to May, playing around 140 games or less....the players think they proved they can follow protocols and want to play their full 162 game schedule at full pay
 
I doubt the owners are worried about the players showing up but more worried about fans not being allowed in to some capacity. They don’t want another empty stadium season.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
I doubt the owners are worried about the players showing up but more worried about fans not being allowed in to some capacity. They don’t want another empty stadium season.
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With fans in the stands for the Texas playoff games and other sports, I think you will definitely see fans in the stands for the full season.

Just depends on how many fans I guess.
 
bravesfanforlife88 said:
Bob Nightengale reporting that MLB and PA are at odds right now. The owners do not want players showing up to spring training until they have been given the vaccine. Pushing the start of the season back to May, playing around 140 games or less....the players think they proved they can follow protocols and want to play their full 162 game schedule at full pay
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Sorry players, but if you think you "proved you can follow protocols", here's the lost month of games for the Marlins and Cardinals, the joyride and corresponding social media video from Clevinger and Plesac, and the video of Justin Turner hamming it up with the other players, their wives, and their kids 15 minutes AFTER you told him that he tested positive as Exhibits A, B, and C for the prosecution.

Everyone turns to look at the defense table and sees Tony Clark and the players' attorneys wearing cricket outfits.
 
All BS. I think the owners want less regular season games so they can lower salaries and more playoffs so they can get more TV money.

I am hoping for a normal season b/c we are getting a 100 game season or less the next year when the CBA expires.

It's probably part of a long term strategy by the owners. Less games and prorated salaries last year, this year and lock out. That way the players are even less likely to hold out. I know they didn't plan the pandemic, but it looked to me that as soon as the pandemic came up the owners were focused on anything they can do to decrease player salaries.
 
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bravesfanforlife88 said:
Bob Nightengale reporting that MLB and PA are at odds right now. The owners do not want players showing up to spring training until they have been given the vaccine. Pushing the start of the season back to May, playing around 140 games or less....the players think they proved they can follow protocols and want to play their full 162 game schedule at full pay
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This is a brilliant move by the owners. There were previously 2 competing asks:

Ask 1: MLB wanted expanded playoffs to generate more revenue.
Ask 2: MLBPA wants the DH so there are 15 additional high paying roster spots.

Since the benefits of Ask 1 were far greater than the benefits of Ask 2, the players said no thanks.

Now there is another ask on the table:

Ask 3: MLBPA wanta a full slate of games so they earn full salary while in person revenues will still be lower.

Now, Ask 1 is closer in value to the summation of Ask 2 and 3, and it's based on dubious at best per-game revenue accounting. MLB floated the idea of delaying the season precisely to force MLBPA to beg for a full season and create Ask 3 out of thin air.

All owners have to do is agree to a full slate of games and the DH, and they likely get their expanded playoffs and the windfall those TV spots provide. Make no mistake, it has nothing to do with player safely, fan safety, or following protocols. MLB doesn't care who gets sick, they care about the extra money expanded playoffs provides them.
 
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Russ2dollas said:
All BS. I think the owners want less regular season games so they can lower salaries and more playoffs so they can get more TV money.

I am hoping for a normal season b/c we are getting a 100 game season or less the next year when the CBA expires.

It's probably part of a long term strategy by the owners. Less games and prorated salaries last year, this year and lock out. That way the players are even less likely to hold out. I know they didn't plan the pandemic, but it looked to me that as soon as the pandemic came up the owners were focused on anything they can do to decrease player salaries.
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And that makes them different from every business owner in the world how?

Seriously folks, it's time to stop trying to paint the owners as the villain in EVERY SINGLE SCENARIO. If the players were only interested in playing for "the love of the game" and the cheers from the loving fans, none of them would need agents and corporate accounting specialists. They could live quite nicely with significantly less than the average salary of $5 million.

Donald Trump spent the last 4 years doing EXACTLY what everyone expected him to do - try to change every rule and law to benefit himself, his family, his friends and his investors. The thing that embarrasses everyone is that if they were in the same situation they'd have done exactly the same thing - the only difference is that they'd have tried to do it on the down-low without thumbing their noses at everyone else that had some level of power in the hope that they'd let him get away with it since he showed them ways to cut more corners and keep more of their own money.
 
clvclv said:
And that makes them different from every business owner in the world how?

Seriously folks, it's time to stop trying to paint the owners as the villain in EVERY SINGLE SCENARIO. If the players were only interested in playing for "the love of the game" and the cheers from the loving fans, none of them would need agents and corporate accounting specialists. They could live quite nicely with significantly less than the average salary of $5 million.

Donald Trump spent the last 4 years doing EXACTLY what everyone expected him to do - try to change every rule and law to benefit himself, his family, his friends and his investors. The thing that embarrasses everyone is that if they were in the same situation they'd have done exactly the same thing - the only difference is that they'd have tried to do it on the down-low without thumbing their noses at everyone else that had some level of power in the hope that they'd let him get away with it since he showed them ways to cut more corners and keep more of their own money.
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Except that the owners are the villain “in EVERY SINGLE SCENARIO”, so ...
 
jpx7 said:
Except that the owners are the villain “in EVERY SINGLE SCENARIO”, so ...
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The owners made Johan Camargo a $1.36 million player and Luke Jackson a $1.9 million player for 2021?

Raise your hands if you think that if they'd have been free-agents and told their representation that they weren't playing for less than that this season they'd have jobs. Playing baseball that is - not as comedians.
 
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