2020 General MLB off-season

[ChickenSandwich 9852]

5 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

Actually, I think it's exactly the same salary reduction as the first offer, which is how the owners arrived at that number of games.

Also logistically cheaper for the owners.  Less weekly testing, boarding, food and their family amenities; or rent at Disney. 

[Skipper 6200]

So it doesn't seem like any closer to a deal. Everything about this is the most MLB thing ever.  The sport gets less popular by the year and 'drama' like this only accelerates it. 

The MLB players union is somehow infinitely more powerful than any other league despite the miniscule amount of injury risk MLB players have compared to other athletes.  The competitive balance and payroll inequalities inherent in MLB are an absolute joke compared to other leagues.  And now here they are, with a league that should actually be in season with a game that can be played with absolutely minimal COVID risk to players/coaches as compared to NHL, NBA and NFL and yet they can't figure it out.  It's really beyond pathetic.  

Considering we will have NBA/NHL playoffs during the dog days of summer before football starts I'm perfectly fine if the entire season is cancelled.  The entire thing needs to be blown up.

[Bartles 769]

Today's news seems like an inevitable step in the final stretch of negotiations. Players said no to changing salary structure; owners said no to 114 games. They still have a few days to find an acceptable number of games with prorated salaries. Presumably in the 50-81 range.

[TonyTexas 10527]

19 hours ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Also logistically cheaper for the owners.  Less weekly testing, boarding, food and their family amenities; or rent at Disney. 

Is this the 2020 General NBA Off-season thread?

Edited June 3, 2020 by TonyTexas

[ChickenSandwich 9852]

1 hour ago, TonyTexas said:

Is this the 2020 General NBA Off-season thread?

Well they could be providing Disney trips. We just don’t know!

[clapclapclap 9000]

Hmmm

https://670thescore.radio.com/sources-mlb-owners-could-impose-48-game-season-players-full-prorated-pay

 

...A key revelation Monday was that commissioner Rob Manfred and the league have the right to start a season of any length as long as the players are paid their full prorated salary, according to sources. The league can do that based on the terms of a return-to-play deal that the sides agreed to in late March, when the league advanced $170 million to players and they negotiated with the hope in mind that fans could still attend games.

The collective bargaining agreement doesn't allow the players to strike or the owners to impose a lockout under the fair labor rules of the deal.

Over a 48-game season at full prorated salaries, the players would be paid $1.206 billion. Under the owners' previous proposal, the players would've netted $1.236 billion for an 82-game season. 

That 82-game slate would've paid players an average of 50% of their already prorated salaries as well as an additional $200 million if an entire postseason was held. That offer can't be enforced by Manfred because it didn't include fully prorated salaries.

The owners have informed the union that players won't receive any postseason money in the new proposal with a much-reduced schedule. Any expanded postseason format or extra playoff games must be collectively bargained by both sides. An expanded playoff schedule could lead to more money for the league and the players....(snip)

[ss13 1832]

 

 

[Beau Vine 54429]

JoePos:

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“Understand this: The minor-league players, the player you’ll never know about, the players that never get out of rookie ball or high-A, those players have as much impact on the growth of our game as 10-year or 15-year veteran players. They have as much opportunity to influence the growth of our game as those individuals who played for a long time because those individuals go back into their communities and teach the game, work in academies, are JUCO coaches, college coaches, scouts, coaches in pro baseball.

“They’re growing the game constantly because they’re so passionate about it. So we felt it was really, really important not to release one minor-league player during this time, a time we needed to stand behind them.”

— Dayton Moore explaining Royals philosophy

I would say that at least once a day for the last few days, I’ve gone back and read that quote — I love it so much. It’s a reminder of something about baseball that I think a lot about, a question that was getting lost even before we found ourselves in a pandemic, the Great Depression and 1968 all at once, something that recent days have highlighted in a whole new way.

Who is looking out for baseball?

I mean the game. Who is looking out for the game? Who is looking out for this sport that has been leaking popularity for many years now, this game that ranks fourth in popularity among young people, this game that no longer has the national presence it once did, this game that is aging before our very eyes.

Let’s talk for a moment about where the game is — or was before the pandemic. More than half of the people who watch baseball games on television are 55 and over. The average age of the baseball fan, according to Sports Business Journal, is 57 — so much older than the NFL (50), NHL (49), NBA (42) and, particularly, MLS (40).

Here’s a sobering fact: The average age of today’s baseball fan is roughly the average age of horse racing fans in 2006. Let that sink in. Think of what has happened to horse racing since 2006 (well, for one thing, the average age rose seven years). It ain’t coming back.

To be transparent, baseball fans have been older than the fans of other major sports for many years now. It is, by its very nature, a sport that relies on nostalgia and history rather than violence and blurring action. But the age-gap has reached a whole new level. Only 9 percent of all Americans listed baseball as their favorite sport in the latest Gallup poll, the lowest percentage in Gallup history.

And that number would have been much lower except for the 15% of people 55 and older who still love baseball most.

Among people 54 and younger — baseball at 7% ranked way behind football (35%), basketball (12%) AND soccer (11%).

Then there’s this: Think about how few African American faces you see in baseball now. On Wednesday, MLB released a statement about how the game has zero tolerance for racism. The statement itself seemed like a lot of words to say very little, but more to the point: Where are the black stars in the game? If you are young and African American, how do you see yourself in this game?

There are zero African-American GMs in baseball. There are two African-American managers — one of them, Dusty Baker, hired only to put out the flames after the Houston Astros cheating explosion. And African American stars?

Well, there’s Mookie Betts, a superstar who got traded during the offseason. George Springer is wonderful. Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge are great but have been hampered by injuries for a couple of years now. Marcus Semien was fantastic in 2019 and is mostly unknown. David Price won a Cy Young and is still an effective pitcher. Andrew McCutchen has been a star and a credit to the game for years but he’s so vividly on the downhill. Lorenzo Cain has never gotten the credit he deserves. Same with Michael Brantley. Josh Bell smashed 37 homers last year. Tim Anderson showed some star potential in 2019. Byron Buxton is so fun when healthy, which is rare.

How many of them would you call big stars?

Now, depending on your age, think of the players who defined baseball for you.

I was 11 years old in 1978. That year Jim Rice and Dave Parker won the league MVP awards. And the list of black stars behind them is seemingly endless and spread out in every single baseball town — Reggie Jackson, Joe Morgan, Amos Otis, Vida Blue, Willie Randolph, Andre Dawson, Dave Winfield, J.R. Richard, Andre Thornton, Bill Madlock, Gary Maddox, George Foster, Fergie Jenkins, Jim Bibby, Ken Singleton, Don Baylor, Willie Stargell, Dusty Baker, Ellis Valentine, Warren Cromartie, Eddie Murray, Dock Ellis, Hal McRae, Frank White, Ron LeFlore, Lou Whitaker, Al Oliver, Mickey Rivers so many more.

Mike Schur, who is a bit younger than me, goes off the top of his head and points to his childhood of Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, Willie Wilson, Kirby Puckett, Fred McGriff, Gary Sheffield, Dwight Gooden, Tony Gwynn, Albert Belle, Lee Smith, Barry Larkin, Mo Vaughan, Reggie Sanders, Kevin Mitchell, Ron Gant, Kenny Lofton and Tim Raines, literally just off the top of his head, typing in a flurry of memory. He didn’t even get to Hall of Famers Ken Griffey and Frank Thomas or the guy who is probably the best player of the last 50 years, Barry Bonds.

He didn’t even mention the most famous baseball player of the 1980s, perhaps, Bo Jackson.

Remember when Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders and Michael Jordan, the greatest athletes of the day, ALL wanted to play baseball.

We are so far away from all that now. There are many reasons for the dearth of African Americans in baseball and, yes, there are people dedicated to turning back the tide. But the point here is that so many people don’t see themselves in this game now. The game’s range narrows.

And who is out there looking to expand that range again?

This, I should say, is NOT one of those “Baseball is dead” essays that people have been writing since, no kidding, the 1890s. Major League Baseball, in many ways, has been doing better than ever because it’s still a force in local markets. Attendance has been going down, yes (it’s essentially flat for the last 22 years) but baseball is the most popular summer show on television in any number of cities.

And franchises have skyrocketed in value. Twenty or so years ago, the Kansas City Royals couldn’t find a local buyer willing to put up $100 million. Last year, they sold to local businessman John Sherman for about a billion dollars.*

*It is so unnatural for us to understand numbers as high as a million and a billion, so here’s a little primer. Let’s say you get a job paying $50,000 a year. If you work at that job for 20 years, you will have earned $1 million. How long would it take you make a billion?

Answer: 20,000 years.

No, this is not about MLB dying. This is about baseball itself. The game. Who looks after it? Who promotes baseball? Who proselytizes baseball? Who spends all their creativity and energy and focus on making baseball a better, more interesting, more inclusive, more exciting game for fans — not today’s fans but those in five years, ten years, 20 years?

There are, unquestionably, some people trying. But we don’t see them much. What we see are teams and managers, without hesitation, sacrificing parts of the game that might be interesting or daring in the interest of efficiency.

What you see is a rise in ticket prices and how that has priced out families and so many children who otherwise might fall in love with the game.

What you see, I believe, is a shortsightedness, a submission to the moment, a perpetual fight over the game’s riches. This last part, in particular, has played out over the last few weeks while a global pandemic rages on, and do you think most people care if it’s the owners or the players who are at fault? No. Most people just see that people can’t come together, even now, for this game that they’re all supposed to love.

So who can blame someone for asking: If that’s how they treat this game, why in the hell should I care?

Dayton Moore is a friend of mine. We don’t see eye to eye on everything, to say the least, but we’re good enough friends that we have had numerous arguments about our disagreements, have poked lots of fun at each other about our individual feelings, and we never think less of each other over it.

The reason, at least on my side, is this: I admire Dayton Moore. I believe I know where his heart is — especially when it comes to baseball.

Dayton Moore loves baseball. He loves the game with a depth that, I think, goes beyond the ordinary. He loves every single part of the game. We’ve had long discussions about how much he loves grounds crews. We’ve had long conversations about how much he loves scouts. We’ve had long conversations about my mother in law, Judy, who lives in a small Kansas town and every night watches and roots for the Royals with everything she’s got, no matter how far out of first place they might be.

Dayton and I almost never have a conversation — even short ones — where he doesn’t ask me about Judy.

He loves high school baseball, college baseball, minor-league baseball. He loves baseball played by kids in Latin American countries. He loves baseball played in Japan and Korea. He was at the heart of building a youth baseball academy in Kansas City. He wants to takes baseball everywhere, to every boy and girl in this country, because he believes baseball is the best game, the game that teaches the best lessons, the game that equalizes the playing field, the game that allows you to thrive even if you aren’t the tallest or the fastest or the strongest.

He is the truest of baseball believers. I love that about him.

Stunningly, I don’t think that sort of love is all that common in the game. And it should be.

What’s so wonderful about the quote above is that, frankly, I’ve never heard anyone else say it. And it’s so true, so obvious once you think clearly. What Dayton Moore is saying is that every minor leaguer no matter how high they get in the game is a hero to someone. High school baseball fields are named for them. Little League teams are coached by them. Junior college and college players learn from them. Raw talents are spotted by them.

There are highway signs with their names on them throughout America.

Baseball might treat them shabbily or take them for granted but they are Johnny Appleseeds for this game. They are a critical part of the game’s purpose … and the game’s future.

THIS is how baseball should be thinking about everything, not just now but always: How can we celebrate baseball? How can we reach new audiences? How can we bring live, exciting baseball to more communities (and for less money)? How can we show young people how much fun the game is to play and watch and follow? How can we get into communities? How can we make a difference? How can we draw more young people?

There aren’t easy answers. But there are no answers if you don’t take the time to ask the questions. If I was commissioner, I would put Dayton Moore in charge of the game’s future.

 

[clapclapclap 9000]

 

[ss13 1832]

Two people died in his pool, now this. Stupid fuck. 

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Former MLB outfielder Carl Crawford has been arrested on a domestic violence charge in Texas, according to TMZ.

The details of the arrest are reportedly unclear, though TMZ says jail records show Crawford is facing a charge of “assault fam/house mem impede breath/circulate.”

The 38-year-old Crawford reportedly surrendered at the Harris County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday and is being held on a $10,000 bond.

Crawford played in MLB for 15 years with the Tampa Bay Rays, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers, earning four All-Star honors. He retired in 2016 after the Dodgers released him from his contract.

The reported allegations against Carl Crawford

According to court documents obtained by TMZ, the alleged victim said she recently broke up with Crawford after a two-year relationship, but met with him on May 8 at her apartment to talk things out.

Crawford reportedly arrived visibly upset and revealed a semi-automatic handgun, then began interrogating her. He reportedly warned he would hurt her if she lied to him. Per TMZ, when the woman tried to leave the apartment, Crawford pushed her to the ground in the hallway, grabbed her head and neck while holding the gun and demanded to know how long she had been dating a male acquaintance.

Crawford reportedly slammed her head against the wall several times when she said she only knew the acquaintance for a week and started choking her. The woman reportedly thought she was going to pass out until her 1-year-old daughter walked over and distracted Crawford long enough to allow her to flee the scene.

Crawford reportedly left his gun at the scene. Police were later called to the scene and reportedly noted pink areas on the woman’s neck and a hand injury.

The woman reportedly said Crawford sent menacing text messages after the incident, with one saying “That wasn't a beating u just mad I made u confess.”

 

[Beau Vine 54429]

$142M can't buy brains.

[HoffaJimmy 316]

It's pretty sad that The NBA, NHL, and MLS are fucking closer to returning than baseball is. Tack this on to the long list of what killed baseball story whenever it is written. 

[David Dennison 18946]

36 minutes ago, HoffaJimmy said:

It's pretty sad that The NBA, NHL, and MLS are fucking closer to returning than baseball is. Tack this on to the long list of what killed baseball story whenever it is written. 

This is a big part of what makes baseball baseball.

[WBT 20669]

51 minutes ago, HoffaJimmy said:

It's pretty sad that The NBA, NHL, and MLS are fucking closer to returning than baseball is. Tack this on to the long list of what killed baseball story whenever it is written. 

They've been working on that story for 100 years

[ss13 1832]

Former MLBers in Japan. 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/06/former-mlb-players-in-npb-japan-central-league.html

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Kosuke Fukudome, OF: Another former Cub, Fukudome is still chugging along at 43 years old. He hit .256/.347/.394 in 403 plate appearances with the Tigers last season — his 16th in NPB.

 

[Beau Vine 54429]

JoePos wants MLB to do a CWS-style post-season, and honestly, just the thought of this gives me a chubbie:
 

Quote

So, here are my top three thoughts about the 2020 baseball season:

1. It won’t be a real season no matter how many or how few games they play. This is nobody’s fault; a global pandemic hit. Everybody should have let go of the notion of it being a “real season” a long time ago. There won’t be fans (or many fans). There won’t be pennant races like we have seen in the past. There will be challenges and could be any number of setbacks. This season will, by definition, be unlike anything that has ever happened in the history of the game. To those people who are still trying to bring “legitimacy” to this season: Stop. It won’t be that kind of year.

2. Because it will not be a real season, there are two main ways to handle things. You can try anyway — out of deference to baseball history — to create something resembling a season. I believe this is pointless. Or, you can embrace the fun. You can try cool new things. You can try to make 2020 — best you can — a celebration of the game, a gift to Americans who are hurting and anxious and fearful and angry and lonely and desperate for something to feel good about.

3. Everybody — EVERYBODY — in baseball is going to lose money. And you know what? Nobody outside of the game wants to hear about it. Forty million Americans are out of work. One hundred plus thousand are dead from this virus. Millions of people are marching in the street for racial justice. Nobody gives a damn about the baseball money. If you can’t shut up about the money now, in this moment, you deserve all the rage and, even worse, apathy that will rain down on your game.

So, with those three things in mind, I want to talk about something cheerful and thrilling and, yeah, I’m giddy about it. I want to talk about an idea for what the 2020 season could look like. For a long time, I’ve been thinking about how to turn the baseball year into something entirely different, a break from the past, a plan for the moment. So here goes:

As you probably know, owners and players have been arguing about how long the regular season should be. The players at one point talked about a 114-game season, which is a totally unrealistic idea for any number of reasons. The owners have talked about having players take enormous pay cuts to pay for the losses, which is also a totally unrealistic idea for any number of reasons.

And recently the owners have talked about a 48-game season, which I’ve heard people mock.

I think it’s the wrong argument. Who cares about the regular season? To be honest, I would be fine with a 48-game season. I could even love it.

And I’ll tell you why.

First, a 48-game season ends any and all pretense about 2020 being “legitimate” or whatever other word you want to use. And maybe with a 48-game season, the league would try some things to make the game more fun. In-dugout microphones? Sure! Fun new extra-inning rules? Why not? Seven-inning double-headers? Give it a shot! Incentives to speed up the game? Try it! Crazy-marketing plays? New umpiring techniques? Bringing the relievers out in bullpen carts? Having players in bubble-blowing competitions? Players wearing the name and number of their baseball heroes?

Look, anything and everything should be in play in 2020. I’ll say it again: Celebrate the game! I’m sure you have lots and lots of ideas that are way better than these that we could try.

But the second reason a 48-game season would be wonderful is we could do this:

A Major League Baseball version of the College World Series.

Yeah, that’s right: An MLB College World Series. When I think about how great this could be, I can’t stop smiling.

What would it look like? Glad you asked — I’m doing this off the top of my head, using last year’s standings, but I think it will help you imagine it.

OK, so first you would have regionals. The way I figure it it, you would have six regionals — four of them with four teams each and two more with seven teams. The idea would be to get it down to 16 teams. Here’s an example of how that might look, again based on last year’s standings:

Regional 1: Houston would host with Yankees, Minnesota and Oakland. They would play a double-elimination tournament* for seeding purposes. All four would make it (total teams 4).

*In the original of those posts, I kept calling them double-elimination round-robin tournaments — I guess that’s not the right way to say it. The CWS does it with double-elimination. We can decide the format as we go but I’ll just call them double-elimination from here on in.

Regional 2: The Dodgers would host with Atlanta, Tampa Bay and Washington. Again, they would play a double-elimination tournament for seeding purposes. All four would make it (total teams 8).

Regional 3: Cleveland would host with Milwaukee, the Mets and the Phillies. They would play a double-elimination tournament. The top three teams would make it (total teams 11).

Regional 4: St. Louis would host with Arizona, Boston, and the Cubs. They would play a double-elimination tournament. The top three teams would make it (total teams 14).

Regional 5: Texas would host with Cincinnati, the Angels, Colorado, Toronto, Miami and Detroit. That’s seven teams. I’m not sure the best format for this — maybe a special round-robin tournament and then a final series, we can figure that part out. Point is, though, only ONE team would make it (total teams 15).

Regional 6: San Francisco would host with the White Sox, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Kansas City and Baltimore. That’s seven teams. This would be like the fifth regional with only one team making it (total teams 16).

OK, now you have 16 teams.

And you go on to the Super Regional. Those are best-of-three-game series played at the sites of the top eight teams. So again, just playing through, it might look like this (the top seed will have home-field advantage for all games).

No. 1 seed: Houston plays the winner of Regional 6. Let’s say that was San Diego.

No. 2 seed: The Dodgers play the winner of the Regional 5. Let’s say that was Cincinnati.

No. 3 seed: The Yankees would play the Cubs.

No. 4 seed: The Twins would play the Phillies.

No. 5 seed: The Braves would play the Red Sox.

No. 6 seed: Oakland would play the Brewers.

No. 7 seed: The Rays would play the Cardinals

No. 8 seed: Washington would play Cleveland

These would be three-game series for the right to go to the MLB College World Series — we’d have to come up with a better name for that. How about the MLB Free For All? October Insanity? Fall Frenzy? Autumn Meshugaas? Baseball Bedlam? You decide!

Then we’d have the big event, eight teams, one place, a double-elimination salute to baseball. Are you kidding me? It would be like a baseball World Cup. It would be like heaven. I’m imagining the players acting like kids. I’m imagining every game feeling like a carnival. I’m imagining it, and it’s the first time in such a long time that I’m thinking delightful thoughts about what this game could be in these crushing times.

Finally, the winner of each bracket would play in a seven-game World Series.

I’m sure my exuberance is coming in hot and over the top, but I honestly cannot begin to tell you how fired up I would be for this. And here’s the best part: I think it could work. I think this format, in addition to being awesome*. also seems like the best hope to try and combat COVID-19. You would be limiting travel. You would be creating baseball hubs. You would be giving everyone a chance to stay in one place with the expectation of social distancing.

And for the country it would be a big, sprawling, sunny, exhilarating baseball story, wall-to-wall ball, it would be the absolute greatest baseball thing since the bullpen car.

*I honestly think it’s so awesome that we’d never want to go back to the old system but I might be getting carried away.

I fear some people misunderstand why I and so many people I know are so angry at the people who run baseball now. It isn’t exactly that they’re struggling to find a way to play ball — I get that there are various challenges unique to baseball, and this is a hard puzzle, and we are living in unprecedented times.

I sort of get that the trust between players and owners is at low-tide and it’s hard for them to find common ground, even if that’s what the moment demands.

I even get that there are several hundred million dollars at stake and that’s a lot of money, even for some of the richest people in the country.

No, I’m angry because I sense no love for this game that I love. It doesn’t come across at all. At this moment, we could be talking about an MLB COLLEGE WORLD SERIES. Think about how much that would be to talk about, to argue about, to plan for, to dream about? What if Mike Trout’s Angels made a surprising run into the Series? What if the Dodgers lost early in the double-elimination tournament and needed to go on an epic run to make it to the Series? What if someone like Ronald Acuña or Francisco Lindor or Pete Alonso just got super-duper hot and the whole country was fired up about him? What if Max Scherzer or Blake Snell or, God help us, Trevor Bauer just took over because one pitcher could have an ENORMOUS impact in this kind of format.

Point is: We could be spending our time thinking about how cool it will be to see the players out there again, playing the game with a special kind of joy because the real point of this baseball season, the real point of this whole terrible year, should be to pull through together, to encourage and inspire and support each other, to find those thin rays of hope and happiness and common ground.

There’s only so much baseball can do in this obviously, obviously. We all know what’s really important. But baseball should damn well be doing something. An MLB College World Series — I’m telling you, this is it, this is the thing. Come on! Just give us a chance to fall in love with baseball again.

 

[C-Man 27262]

On 6/6/2020 at 2:04 PM, Beau Vine said:

JoePos wants MLB to do a CWS-style post-season, and honestly, just the thought of this gives me a chubbie:
 

 

Why not? I keep thinking what's the point of anything less than an 81-game season -- this could be a breath of fresh air, which means it won't happen.

[Biff Tannen 45741]

On 6/3/2020 at 6:48 PM, Beau Vine said:

He didn’t even get to Hall of Famers Ken Griffey and Frank Thomas or the guy who is probably the best player of the last 50 years, Barry Bonds.

This is a dumb sentence.

[Beau Vine 54429]

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Major League Baseball claimed umpire Angel Hernandez eavesdropped last July on a league investigative call looking into why a game between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays was delayed 14 minutes over confusion about the rules.

Hernandez served as the acting crew chief for that game, in which the Red Sox played under protest but ultimately, after the loss, declined to further pursue the protest. He sued MLB in 2017, claiming the league racially discriminated against him by not promoting him or giving him recent World Series assignments.

According to MLB legal filings Friday in the lawsuit, after the July 24 Rays-Red Sox contest, the league under then-chief baseball officer Joe Torre launched an investigation into the confusion and interviewed the umpires involved in the game. Torre then later claimed Hernandez did not get off the phone when his interview ended and listened to the interview of umpire Ed Hickox. MLB conducted a separate call with Hernandez on Aug. 19 to question him on the alleged eavesdropping. 

“As you know, members of the Commissioner’s Office interviewed you and then Ed Hickox in back-to-back telephone conversations regarding the July 24 incident,” Torre wrote Hernandez in an Aug. 23 letter, a copy of which was attached to MLB’s filings. “These were purposefully scheduled as separate conversations, both to ensure confidentiality and to avoid the tainting of recollections. At the conclusion of your interview, unknown to anyone else at the time, you remained on the line during Hickox’s interview. 

“You acknowledged that you were aware prior to the calls that they were intended to be separate and did not dispute that you remained on the line. Instead, you offered a number of excuses for why you remained on the line. You claimed to not know whether you were supposed to stay on the line and that you wanted to be available if anything further was asked of you … your purported justification for staying on the line (to address any further questions) strains credulity in light of your claim that you only heard portions of the Hickox call and the fact that you remained silent even when you heard statements by Hickox that you later claimed to be inaccurate. Simply put, we find your asserted justifications for remaining on the line to be implausible, internally inconsistent, premised on facts that are incorrect and not credible. As a result, we have concluded that you remained on the line in an effort to intentionally and deceptively eavesdrop on a confidential conversation in order to hear what Hickox would say about the July 24 incident. This is an egregious offense.”

Torre then wrote he was stripping Hernandez of his acting crew chief status.

A lawyer for Hernandez slammed MLB.

“There is an old saying among lawyers if you have nothing to say about your clients attack the victim,” said Kevin Murphy of Murphy Landen Jones PLLC. “Angel Hernandez did not eavesdrop, he was invited onto that call … and MLB told Angel he made the correct decision.” Murphy described the eavesdropping allegation as a form of retaliation against Hernandez for pursuing his discrimination claims.

The rule issue involved the Rays moving pitcher Adam Kolarek to first base. When a pitcher moves to a defensive post, under MLB rules that team loses its designated hitter. But according to Torre’s letter, Hernandez “had to be reminded of this Rule by your crew” even though MLB had briefed him on this very situation before that series.

“Second, you failed to adhere to (a second) Rule … after Kolarek’s move to first base created two open positions in the batting order,” Torre continued. “When the Rays Manager, Kevin Cash, did not designate the batting order positions for his two substitutes, it was incumbent on you to determine the lineup. You did not.”

The confusion and delays were widely reported at the time, with Hernandez taking a large share of the blame in the media.

The Torre letter was affixed to a large batch of MLB filings seeking dismissal by the New York federal court of Hernandez’s lawsuit. Hernandez claims MLB has discriminated against him, and that Torre never forgave him for a call that went against the New York Yankees in 2001. Torre managed the club at the time and served as MLB’s head of baseball operations for nine years, until February, when the 79-year-old was named special assistant to commissioner Rob Manfred.

“Hernandez has reiterated the allegation that Torre is motivated not by discriminatory animus but instead by the ire of a baseball manager against an umpire over an allegedly bad call in each subsequent amendment to his complaint,” MLB argued in a motion to dismiss the case. 

In the motion, MLB does not dispute most of its crew chiefs are white, but writes that it is not statistically significant. 

“Based on the results … for the employment decisions at issue, Dr. Denise Martin (MLB’s expert) concluded that the observed outcomes for crew chief promotions and World Series selections all were ‘statistically likely’ and that there was no statistical significance to the fact that there have been no minority umpires promoted to crew chief since 2011 and that only two were selected for the World Series between 2011 and 2018 (one being selected in two separate years),” MLB argued.

A large part of the Cuba-born Hernandez’s argument is that MLB has long had a discriminatory practice of elevating white umpires and assigning them to the World Series. He points to the track record continuing under Torre of mainly white umpires getting promotions and plum World Series roles.

“The evidence elicited in this case and discussed in this Motion shows that MLB has discriminated against Plaintiff individually and has also instituted policies and practices that have had the effect of disparately impacting both Plaintiff and other minority umpires as well,” Hernandez argued in an April 24 motion asking the court to rule in his favor. “MLB’s lack of diversity in leadership positions across baseball is widely known.”

MLB’s response in legal filings is that its history of umpiring diversity doesn’t apply because Hernandez does not have the comportment to be a crew chief or work the World Series (Hernandez, who has received above-average evaluations from the commissioner’s office, did so in 2002 and 2003 before Torre assumed his role). In addition to the July 24 game delay and subsequent eavesdropping claim, MLB listed other incidents, including: 

• Acting as an interim crew chief in 2012, Hernandez violated MLB rules by asking Homer Bailey, who had pitched a no-hitter, to autograph 11 baseballs for himself and the crew.
• Having three calls overturned by replay in the first four innings of a 2018 playoff game between the Yankees and Red Sox.
• Torre testified he observed Hernandez in another game throwing his headset after having his call overturned on instant replay. 
• Allegedly refusing to change his mind on a replay decision from a 2013 Cleveland game.  Torre writes that the umpire still insists during his annual reviews that his call upholding a double high off the wall, rather than a home run, was solid. (Hernandez in his April motion explained: “the screen on which umpires reviewed replay at the time was small and was not in high definition.” Replays in 2013 were handled locally by the onsite umpires.)

The Bailey incident is more severe, according to MLB, than reports in April, which were based on deposition testimony that Hernandez had tried to have one ball autographed for a crew member who called Bailey’s no-hitter. But in a letter dated Oct 2, 2012, attached as an exhibit to Friday’s filings, Torre wrote to Hernandez, “It has come to our attention that prior to the Reds-Pirates game of September 29, 2012, your crew sought out an MLB Authenticator and requested that he visit the umpire room. Upon the Authenticator’s arrival, your crew instructed the umpire room attendant also to summon Reds pitcher Homer Bailey who had pitched a no-hitter the night before. When he arrived Bailey was asked to autograph eleven baseballs, which then were authenticated for your crew’s own personal use.”

Torre took the Bailey autographs seriously, writing in the disciplinary letter, “Threats to the integrity of the game will not be tolerated.” The letter ordered the umpire to return the balls and carried a fine, too. The amount is redacted, but the letter clearly got Hernandez’s attention. His check to MLB is dated Oct. 3, the next day. A copy of that check, with amounts blackened out, is included in the exhibit.

 

[ss13 1832]

I posted about that game live, it was fucking comical. 

[UTexasFight 9528]

Just hang up the phone and text Wilcox a different dial in

I can’t stand Hernandez but holy hell this isn’t that hard, MLB.
Unless they were trying to bait Hernandez in to doing exactly what he did, in which case....holy hell MLB, that is even stupider than not changing phone lines.

[Vic Mackey 47151]

 

[Beau Vine 54429]

3 hours ago, UTexasFight said:

Just hang up the phone and text Wilcox a different dial in

I can’t stand Hernandez but holy hell this isn’t that hard, MLB.
Unless they were trying to bait Hernandez in to doing exactly what he did, in which case....holy hell MLB, that is even stupider than not changing phone lines.

Maybe they just assumed that Angel would miss the call?

[WBT 20669]

5 hours ago, UTexasFight said:

Just hang up the phone and text Wilcox a different dial in

I can’t stand Hernandez but holy hell this isn’t that hard, MLB.
Unless they were trying to bait Hernandez in to doing exactly what he did, in which case....holy hell MLB, that is even stupider than not changing phone lines.

No shit, someone teach Torre to webex.

And what's wrong with Torre thinking Hernandez is a shitty umpire because he...missed a call in a Yankees game?

[tx 3 putt 77426]

6 hours ago, Vic Mackey said:

 

It’s getting close .....

[Beau Vine 54429]

9 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

It’s getting close .....

That's not as close as it looks -- it's 75% of prorated salary if the playoffs come off without a hitch.  It's 50% if playoffs have to be cancelled.

[C-Man 27262]

26 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

That's not as close as it looks -- it's 75% of prorated salary if the playoffs come off without a hitch.  It's 50% if playoffs have to be cancelled.

Yeah, Evan Grant was on The Ticket yesterday and said MLB's latest offer was worse than the last.

Hard to believe MLB and MLBPA are going down this road with everything going on the world but MLB gonna MLB. (BTW, I think 48-game season would be stupid unless you do some of the goofy shit and treat it as a one-year, tricked-up quasi-exhibition season).

[ss13 1832]

Interesting decision by the union here. 

 

 

[LTtxfan 49356]

 

[ss13 1832]

Good article on the probable #1 pick. 

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29256888/first-basemen-never-go-no-1-mlb-draft-here-why-spencer-torkelson-change-that

[ss13 1832]

The latest... 

 

 

 

[TonyTexas 10527]

I don’t think that this latest MLBPA proposal.is close to being palatable to the owners. It is worse for them than the original March deal. 65 games at pro rata salary with a piece of additional expanded playoff revenue is probably the sweet spot. 

[ChickenSandwich 9852]

Do I have the leverage right?

If no deal is struck MLB has the power to play a schedule length of their choosing at full pay per game. 
 

The players have the right to reject any playoff changes?  Am I missing anything else here? (Besides optics)

Seems if the players are not going to budge of full game day checks, the league can just reduce the games to the level they want but not get their extended playoffs?  
If so, advantage owners. 

[Beau Vine 54429]

7 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Do I have the leverage right?

If no deal is struck MLB has the power to play a schedule length of their choosing at full pay per game. 
 

The players have the right to reject any playoff changes?  Am I missing anything else here? (Besides optics)

Seems if the players are not going to budge of full game day checks, the league can just reduce the games to the level they want but not get their extended playoffs?  
If so, advantage owners. 

I believe that's correct.  

The thing I don't understand is why the owners would implement a 48-game season since they've been claiming that they'd lose money on every game played.  Well, I mean, other than the fact that they're lying about that...

[ChickenSandwich 9852]

Probably fills some TV contract metric and gets them to the post season. (More TV money). Less games is also less logistic$. 

Edited June 10, 2020 by ChickenSandwich

[Underdog 28773]

 

[TonyTexas 10527]

This negotiation will a case study on how to not do it. 

Jon Heyman of MLB Network and Karl Ravech of ESPN are both reporting that Major League Baseball is expected to make a counter offer to the players today that, once again, offers less than prorated pay. Heyman says it’ll be a 72-game season at around 80% of prorated pay. Ravech says it’ll be around 70 games and 80-85% of prorated pay.

[UTexasFight 9528]

This negotiation will a case study on how to not do it. 

Jon Heyman of MLB Network and Karl Ravech of ESPN are both reporting that Major League Baseball is expected to make a counter offer to the players today that, once again, offers less than prorated pay. Heyman says it’ll be a 72-game season at around 80% of prorated pay. Ravech says it’ll be around 70 games and 80-85% of prorated pay.

my first thought after reading this:

[TonyTexas 10527]

 

[Beau Vine 54429]

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-to-make-750-million-cash-free/

[ChickenSandwich 9852]

5 hours ago, TonyTexas said:

 

Players should take it. Their deal clearly created room for renegotiation if no fans in stands. Monetary losses will help the owners more than the players at the next collective bargaining session. Any lost popularity will translate to less add dollars and smaller TV contracts that will both disproportionately effect the players vs the owners. Losing fans will also hurt both sides but the players more in the short term (next CBA)

[TonyTexas 10527]

Least surprising story ever 

A federal judge on Friday said he would unseal a letter that allegedly shows that the Yankeesengaged in a “more serious, sign-stealing scheme” than Major League Baseball revealed publicly in 2017.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nj.com/yankees/2020/06/judge-to-unseal-letter-that-allegedly-shows-mlb-hid-yankees-sign-stealing.html%3FoutputType%3Damp

[UTexasFight 9528]

The only thing less surprising than that would be if the judge died of corona Sunday night

[The Earl of Texas 3161]

 

[Halohal 502]

 

[henrygandorf 29194]

well i would hate to see the reputation of a franchise tarnished. will the yankees have to vacate any of their ws wins/appearances from the past 10 years?

[Helobious 9464]

Multiple insiders saying the letters don’t contain shit. Prepare to be disappointed Astros fans. 

[Gourmand 7774]

2 minutes ago, Helobious said:

Multiple insiders saying the letters don’t contain shit. Prepare to be disappointed Astros fans. 

Could be but you have to wonder if that's the case then why are the Yankees and MLB fighting the release of that letter? Why are they worried about "reputational injury?"

[htown85 159]

4 minutes ago, Helobious said:

Multiple insiders saying the letters don’t contain shit. Prepare to be disappointed Astros fans. 

Link?

[htown85 159]