bill hAll Star

I mean, are you expecting a World Series roster with 34-year-old Yelich window making $30 million? The window is probably still 3 years just like it was before. Yes. Why not? I guess after further thinking I'm OK with it. I'm usually the big contract understanding type. I just think that they had him cheap on a deal probably that reached the end of his prime. We've basically added extra to the end to pay for some decline years, but if he remains elite, it could pay off.

I mean, are you expecting a World Series roster with 34-year-old Yelich window making $30 million? The window is probably still 3 years just like it was before.

Can't wait to complain about this contract literally 1-2 years after his original contract would've ended.

I bet the Red Sox had concerns about this which fueled the motivation to trade Betts.

I agree. However, I am leery - has CC ever done a strict platoon at any point in time? I'm old and maybe I am forgetting something. Thames/Aguilar was until Aguilar busted through the doors. I'm sure there are others from his first year that I'm forgetting but generally you end up with things like Shaw platooning all around the diamond. Asking a forward-thinking team like the Brewers to use the data and do platoons is like asking me to eat this delicious sandwich that you've given me for free and put 2 foot away from my face. Of course I will. The Brewers will absolutely platoon but it will be shifting guys all around the diamond and also getting guys rest. There may not be many strict, "this is our 3B against lefties, this is our 3B against righties" type of thing. They may also use more variables. "This guy is good at hitting splitters and righties so he's playing 3B today against the righty splitter thrower."

If we are to assume that we are getting "good Sogard," he has been fine against RHP in his 2017 and 2019 runs.

If he merely becomes a solid reliever out of the bullpen, this is highway robbery. Not really, solid relievers don't make much in arbitration. As a solid reliever I don't think he is making $15mil in arby. If anything it would be a wash. Right. Claudio in his final 5 years that one could compare to Freddy will probably net $8-9 million combined. Someone slightly above that will probably combine to make $15, which I would call a wash, maybe a steal given inflation that will come (if we're still on the same system).

What depth does he actually provide with this current team build? He's mediocre in CF as is Garcia. He hits LHP better despite being a lefty and every single OF we have other than Yelich hits LHP better than RHP. He's not a defensive replacement vs Yelich in LF or Garcia in RF. If you play him vs RHP he's pretty broken, so whats the point? You want Cain Braun Garcia and Yelich in vs LHP. Broxton is at least speed and defense plus. Taylor will be back shortly enough to be the injury call up if someone goes down. He's a decent player who doesn't fit. Gamel has an option left and he's a likely better than Taylor and Broxton. Pretty simple. And if injuries don't hit too hard, he's perfect to have as the late game bench bat for a late-game hit where you need the ball to go in play as opposed to Broxton, Taylor, or Ray.

Severino has 3/$30m left plus an option. That's a very fair deal if he is 2018 Severino but that seems like a pretty big risk for the Brewers given the concerns coming into this season, even before he officially went in with forearm soreness.

I personally am still betting more on Burnes, though the slider is the wild card for Peralta. To me, for Burnes, he showed he had the repertoire to be a good pitcher, he just got unlucky and eaten alive allowing the ball to be hit in the air last year. That seems like something that could be fixed. Peralta was destined to be a long/impact reliever unless he developed another pitch. That is a whole different endeavor that could work but is less likely, IMO. At least he is on step 1 of developing it.

Especially considering that you're going to be asking the bottom rung relievers of the world to consistently be hitting the Astros and teams to be costing themselves games just to prove a point. Taylor Williams won't be helping out his career by plunking Carlos Correa. The Rangers aren't going to want to be drilling Altuve or Springer at every chance since they'll be trying to chase them for the division.

Well the good thing is that this all happened this past Saturday so I think we're in the clear there unless he has an incident reclining his seat on the flight to Phoenix from Chicago.

Other than the fact that the Rockies somewhat stupidly went "all-in" signing a lot of their vets and now are deciding they want to rebuild, the trade makes a lot of sense to me. You get a prospect and a player arguably almost as good (or as good, depending on belief of Colorado effect) as Nolan Arenado and you're off the hook of any money for your next window of contention. You can also flip Kris Bryant at some point in the next 2 years if you are going into a deep rebuild. You get out of the contract just as the decline should begin. The Cubs get an elite player on a fair, yet long deal. It honestly makes less sense to me for the Cubs. They're trying to get out of luxury tax-land and they trade for a guy that is making double the annual value of Bryant's current arbitration agreement for this year. I would guess there is some form of salary relief for this year and maybe next coming back from Colorado in this trade. Maybe Tyler Chatwood returns to Colorado in this trade. If Arenado opts out in 2021, other than the $ and prospect, the deal is a wash.

Isn't Jerry being accused of being cheap because he won't give Dak $40M a year? Disregard whether that's his value or not or if that's even smart to try and fit within the cap but I'm seeing Jerry being ripped because he's "cheap" for not giving Dak what he wants. Whatever the situation is, when a player isn't getting his desired salary the fans and writers will scream "rich billionaires hoarding their money" because it's easier than actually assessing the situation. We could be in different circles, but at least in the posts/articles/tweets I read or just conversation about the sport, more people seem to understand the salary cap is there. I have more people laughing at Kirk Cousins' big contract and how many players the Vikings have to lose than are calling Jerry cheap. If someone thinks Jerry is cheap for not signing Dak, they are probably detached enough from the sport that they don't even understand the ramifications...and I think the idea of the salary cap is present enough that most people that are sportswriters or invested fans know how it works. There are a lot of credible people (some of which are highly followed Wisconsin/Brewers twitter personalities or MLB-twitter people) that honestly believe that the Red Sox are just taking this as an opportunity to cash out and buy some yachts and will be running a $175 million payroll for the next 10 years because they are evil billionaires and every move is assumed to be nefarious. However, it's pretty clear to people that are invested in the patterns of these teams and long-term payrolls that once this number resets and they have a better roster outlook, they will be right back to handing out ridiculous contracts. I believe there was an Athletic article that noted a Betts extension at 10/$400 for the Red Sox, if they did not get under the deep luxury tax level they are in while he was on the contract, it would actually cost them 10/$715. And you know that in 4 years if the Red Sox tried to get under the luxury tax threshold with Betts on the roster, they'd have to sit out an offseason or two...drawing complaints from the exact same fans...so it's likely that the Red Sox would have to pay close to that $715 million figure all while Betts probably starts to decline a bit earlier than expected in his early 30s.

The Red Sox traded Mookie Betts to get under the luxury tax this year. The Cubs couldn't afford Alex Claudio because they didn't want to exceed the luxury tax this year. The luxury tax essentially is a salary cap & the richer teams have been treating it as such for some time now. Here's how WS winners have ranked in payroll over the last 10 years... WAS (7th), BOS (1st), HOU (18th), CHI (14th), KC (16th), SF (7th), BOS (4th), SF (8th), STL (11th), SF (10th) I'm somewhat with you here. The luxury tax seems to just be flattening the wealth among the top 5-10 teams. The Cubs and Red Sox sit the offseason out because they want to get under the tax, allowing the Angels and Yankees to grab Rendon and Cole while Betts is dealt to the Dodgers. I don't see the Royals picking up the scraps from that. Machado going to San Diego or Cain going to the Brewers are the few examples of the lower market teams getting something from this. So I think that in the absence of a cap, the large market teams are almost always going to be playoff teams or at least in the mix. The other 3 teams in the mix are whichever smaller market team that happens to be in their 2 or 3 year window. That payroll thing is a bit misleading as most of those champions are mammoth markets that flew into the top 5 in payroll shortly after. You could argue that they got bloated with veterans and that's not a championship way, but I'm not sure that the Cubs have Lester or Heyward to help them win the title if they are a small market...because they knew in 2 years that Lester + Heyward + Rizzo's extension + Bryant's arbitration would put them in the top 5 in payroll. Ditto on the Astros giving up peanuts in prospects and just absorbing the majority of Verlander's $ owed. Here is the main, major reason I want to see a real salary cap: So that I don't have to read several credible sportswriters and masses and masses of people that are mad about billionaires incessantly complaining that these teams won't pay for X player because they're "cheap." I don't blame most of these people for not paying attention to cot's/sportrac salaries as I do, but with luxury tax, the Red Sox, if they want to field a competitive roster that includes Mookie Betts on an extension, will likely pass the $350 or $400m level of actual cost for a bunch of soon-t-be mid-30s guys that will start to wash up very soon. Ditto on the Cubs. Meanwhile, the Dallas Cowboys are capped at about $200 million this year...and nobody says a word. Sorry, fans. Salary cap.

I guess then why apologize for anything? In this case, yes. Placate some fans and sports writers is all it will accomplish. And those that have already pre-determined their apologies are insincere will still think their apologies are insincere. I doubt this changes the opinions of opposing players one way or another. Personally, the only Astro I want to hear from is Verlander about how he fought tooth and nail that they end the charade. Seeing as he's baseball's morality cop, he had to. I think this combo put together sums up my thoughts. 1. I don't care that much if they apologize. But more importantly, there is almost NOTHING that would've satisfied the masses short of outright handing the trophy back (which will not happen). If they were more sincere in their apologies and admitted to actual events, the door would be open for so many things. Lawsuits, sportswriters and fans losing their minds about the fact that they have the trophy with a tangible admission from the players, etc. 2. From a PR standpoint, this is being talked about as a disaster. While it might not have been perfect, again, if Altuve said, "I am deeply, deeply sorry for the buzzer I had on my chest, which may have cost the Yankees a shot at the World Series," this story would literally never end. Instead, they took the brunt of anger in February for being vague and the story will fade. 3. Going with #2, it's hard to apologize when you cannot say much of what you're apologizing for. And again, maybe it's a problem with the world and America in 2020...but it would be incredibly stupid to give up any specific details in an apology. Not only would you open up lawsuits/reasoning for pulling the championship/contracts in jeopardy thus setting a precedent...I'm 90% sure that at least 5 or 10 other teams are currently doing something similar. Putting more focus and scrutiny on the matter is only going to uncover more of those issues to the public eye. I'm sure some will respond with, "good, everyone should be punished" but I'm not sure if the game would recover very easily from that.

I think a good compromise may be a 6-teamer then. Have it in NFL format with 2 byes and you can still do the selection show (twice) as the 1-seed could pick their opponent in the 2nd round. Do the 3-game home series thing for the bottom 4 in each league and have 2 teams waiting and the higher seed can also pick their opponent there.

There have been a lot of takes about "rewarding mediocrity" on here and in response to Manfred's proposal. Not just yours, but quoting as this was one of the more recent ones. What is excellence in the current MLB format? There are ~20 teams at a MAJOR disadvantage financially given the current format. Really, the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, and then some rotation of the other big markets (SF, TEX, Cubs, Philly, Houston, DC, NYM) are somewhere near the top seed a vast majority of the time. The Cards were a bit of a unicorn as a mid-market that was always truly successful. I know a lot of people like to tell themselves that some of these owners aren't trying. Let's say that all of them are trying in an alternate universe and everyone agrees with that but the financial disparity among teams still exists. That means that most years, like 2 out of the other 20 teams get to have a "successful" or "non-failure" of a season. That kinda sucks for the other teams and honestly feels futile. I think there would still be weird tanking issues if there was a salary cap, but in the absence of it, it would be fun to have a lot of the have-nots in budget feel like they have more than a once-per-decade shot at the thing.

Then everyone wins. 9 years out of 10 the juggernauts will still win. But the 80-83 win teams get to play meaningful games in August and September. Debatable but they may try to win instead of sell in July as well.

It's another game that they can fill up a stadium and put the game on TV. I'd agree that nobody cares (as we've discussed NBA vs. MLB on this thread) as the Bucks line up for said 8 seed and even most of the games as said 8 seed...but it makes the owners more money.

I am somewhat on board with what Braden is saying. Of course they need a salary cap/floor to combat this. The luxury tax is helping smooth things out a little bit at the top but it's still way too favorable to the large markets. But say that salary cap change is off the table. What is Braden's solution? It's cute to say that tanking teams get to still make the playoffs, but give me that 1000 times out of 1000 over tanking/middling teams being completely done by July 20, and realistically, fans and GMs know that they're done before it even starts.

There's a give and take, here. I don't like that part sometimes, either. The NFL just had its best regular season team lose to a 9-7 Wild Card. A few years ago, the top seed in the NCAA lost to a 16 seed. Sometimes that feels illegitimate, but it's also part of the game's lore. The MLB playoffs are to most's liking in fairness right now and yet the Dodgers still have not won a title. So it's so fluky already that it probably doesn't reward the best team over the course of time. But more importantly, I would probably trade off a time or two where a 95 win team loses 2/3 to an 81 team for all of the times that you could watch 5-10 fun games per day in August and September that all play into playoff seeding (which now matters) and entry instead of 2-3. Especially if I'm a fan of a team that generally is stuck at the mid-market 81 win level anyways. I have liked the NBA in the past a bit more, but even if I was a bit more into it right now, you couldn't convince me to care about any of the games from now until April. They mean literally nothing. Bucks are the #1 seed in the East, Lakers probably are in the West. Maybe a 2 or 3 seed will pull an upset in May, but absolutely nothing is of interest right now if you just care about teams that could win the championship trying to make the playoffs.

The NBA is so, so, so different. Arguments where the NBA is brought up should be immediately thrown out. There is essentially zero chance for an 8 seed to win the title. Like literally zero unless it's some team with a superstar that was hurt for half the season. You also need to tank because a top 5 pick can change the franchise immediately in the NBA. We've seen the 4 or 5 seed win how many times recently in the MLB? A 6 or 7 seed could absolutely win it. My example wasn't great because there will still be the bottom 5 or so teams cutting corners and tanking in the majors. The Orioles were so bad they probably still would. How about the Mariners? We all knew they were a bit of a fluke but they started out the season on fire, began to fall back to earth, and sold off their entire roster. It's hard to accurately project last season's standings on to this thing because so many of these teams ripped their lineups apart in July and only won ~70 games. Those teams absolutely could've won 78-80 and kept fans in it for the whole season. Instead, they sold off their lineup to contenders. And to me, it's more of the preseason thing. Maybe teams with OK outlooks would be more interested in adding during the offseason. Instead, they sit on their hands knowing that their window is still 2 years away.

Yeah...so I am really kinda indifferent/don't mind a lot of it. The traditionalist in me feels like I will miss the selective playoffs and a team getting rewarded with a home playoff game, etc. But this will help address tanking, which again, I am not hugely against, but there are teams that probably will draw 12k fans on their 2nd home game of the season because they knew they were going to max out at 72 wins so they just tanked from the start. But the biggest takeaway from me is I do not see a single reply on twitter feigning any sort of support. People are going to hate it because they've already decided they hate everything Manfred will try. Alright, well if you don't like it and love baseball "the way it is and Rob keeps trying to change it," please tune into a Tigers/Orioles game in August this year to help the MLB's bottom line. Of course those may be two of the five or so teams that will outright tank no matter the playoff format, but there will be intrigue for over half of the league all the way until the end of the season under this format instead of 2/3 of the league packing it in after July or so.

I’m typically the last person to complain about tanking but in general, do you guys enjoy the years where the Brewers punt from day 1? And we’re lucky to rarely do it over the past 15 years. It’s good that teams right now are smart enough to know that they are only likely winning 75 and they tank from the start...but wouldn’t it be fun to have only 5-10 teams fully tanking or not trying instead of 15? And then some of those middling teams also won’t be feeding all star deadline deals to the juggernauts as much, either.