adambr2

When exactly did Bledsoe turn into Ethan Happ at the FT line?

If the Bucks lose Middleton this off season they go from a top 4 team in the East to a 7-8 seed team. The Bucks can't replace him in FA and they won't be able to trade for a replacement either. The quickest way to get Giannis out of Milwaukee would be to allow Middleton to walk. I don't buy this. They're a top 4 seed team in the East still without Khris as long as Giannis is here. I think Brogdon is more important to their success than Middleton and his loss hurts them more right now. I don't have a problem keeping him depending on the circumstances but Middleton is not nearly such a team cornerstone that you're the top team in the NBA with him and a #7-#8 seed without.

No argument there, not many of those teams I can stand. The Knicks are hilarious in that they have every possible big market advantage possible and still manage to royally suck year after year. Their owner is a total joke and has zero self-awareness about that fact.

Why not just shorten the game to 8 innings and leave everything else alone? That alone is going to knock 20 minutes off games and reduce wear on everyone.

Easy to root for a $199M payroll team to get beat out by a scrappy $205M payroll team.

Which is why most projections I've seen for him have been on the conservative side.

Can anyone explain why Brook Lopez came to Milwaukee for so cheap? He was a 20M+ a year guy up until this year. He's not ancient, and it's not like he was bad last year. I don't really understand the nuances of how NBA salaries work, but that one is baffling to me.

I believe all 3 batter minimum sceniros called for a 10 day DL stay if a pitcher was removed for injury prior to the minimum being reached. That's awful too. How many times do we see a guy removed just for precautionary reasons when something happens, grabs something, line drive off a hip, etc? So the manager needs to choose in that moment between risking his player's health or a guarantee of not having him for 10 games?

Sorry, I absolutely hate that one. I'm all about specialization, and specialization is good for the Brewers. There are also times it's going to end up seeming silly in practice. What if an already overworked pitcher end ups throwing 17 pitches in his first 2 ABs? You're still going to force him to face another? In reality I think when these situations come up an injury is just going to be feigned. Here's a potential scenario, Brewers lead the Phillies 3-2 in the 8th and Jeffress comes in with 1 runner on first and 0 out and mows down the first two batters he faces and the runner ends up on 2nd. Now Bryce Harper comes up. What Counsell really wants to do is bring in Hader for the last 4 outs of the game, but he can't because of the 3 batter minimum. What exactly is stopping Jeffress from asking the trainer to come out and look at 'something' and subsequently being pulled from the game? I just think the whole thing has potential to just be turned into a mockery.

You can if said guy shoots 7%. 7.

If I were to tell you that one, but only one Wisconsin professional sports team will win a championship in the next 3 years, which of the Brewers, Packers, and Bucks would you bet on it being? I'll say Bucks. I would love to say Brewers, but the hurdles of the large payroll teams in MLB are a real and enormous obstacle. You still can't count out Rodgers winning one more in Green Bay if the pieces fall into place, especially when parity rules the NFL. The Bucks have probably the best player in the world who is still improving, have made steps already to keep their core in place, and are a team who could realistically challenge the Warriors if they made the Finals.

That K/9 number is scary if you're paying Kuechel top dollar. K's aren't the end-all, but I'm not paying 20M a year to a player who couldn't out-K Brent Suter.

No. But I think he might have been able to get 4/168 now and then 10/300 after that. As you mentioned though I certainly can't blame him for taking a guaranteed third of a billion right now. The lack of an opt out does surprise me. It's not just about wanting to spend the rest of your career there, it's a leveraging tool for players.

Harper's AAV to me isn't great news for Kuechel, who surely can't make a case for being worth 25M a year if Harper is worth 25M a year. At first I was thinking something around Arrieta's 3/75 from around this time last year. Now I'm thinking closer to 3/54.

I still would very much doubt that a player opt-out ever comes at a team request. That's like saying that a team option is mutually beneficial if declined because the team gets off the hook and the player gets to try free agency. In very, very rare circumstances, the player and team will be satisfied with the player decision to opt out. In many, many more circumstances, one of three circumstances will occur, none of which is team friendly: 1) The player outperforms future market value and opts out and the team does not benefit from the now team-friendly back end of the contract. 2) The player uses the opt out to leverage even more money from their existing team. 3) The player falls below market value, sometimes far below, and does not opt out, thus saddling his team with a bad contract.

I absolutely would pay to watch Dwight Schrute pitch.

Spring training soreness and discomfort as guys start to get back into a routine is very common both among perfectly healthy players and those returning from injury. This is a big nothing burger. They are obviously erring on the extreme conservative side with Nelson, as they should.

The good news is that Hernan Perez looks like he's on his way to an MVP season.

I personally don't really have any empathy for either the MLBPA or MLB. I have empathy for the guys toiling in the minors for less than minimum wage, but not for the guys like JD Martinez upset about the current situation. It's hard for me to really care who is right or wrong because of the different plateau that every one of them is on in their life. A comparitive perspective for us common folk would be a worker making $100,000 in the US complaining about not getting a promised annual raise from their company to another guy living in poverty in a 3rd world country. Does the worker have a legitimate beef? Sure, but the guy in the 3rd world country could probably care less. At the end of the day to me it's millionaires and billionaires fighting over the pieces of a 10 billion dollar pie. If they can't figure out how to divide that pie up amongst themselves, it's really not my problem. And if they make it my problem or try to garner sympathy from the public, they'll probably see the public turn their backs on Major League Baseball for years like they did back in '94 and really undo the progress they've made since then.

Hey, guys are just throwing around ideas, obviously there is a long ways to go, but I think raises at the MiLB level is a starting point at least. Since you are quite adept at roasting everyone else's suggestions, why not propose some of your own?

Here's my attempt at a peaceful resolution between players and owners: 1) All revenue is split 50/50 between players and owners, bringing this in line with other professional sports. While an exact 50% split isn't always practical, the owners shall agree that the 50% shall be the minimum split for players. When the split falls below 50% of share for the players, the balance shall go to the MLBPA to be distributed at their leisure to bring the split up to 50/50. 2) So let's start from the bottom, with the disgraceful pay at the low levels of the minors. It's a disgrace because the vast majority of those trying to achieve the dream of playing Major League Baseball never make it and instead toil in poverty, and after they finally have to give up on their dream they often have no good job prospects or education because they've spent their entire young adulthood trying to play baseball. MLB could easily afford to at least pay their players a living wage, they simply don't want to because they don't have to. Enough is enough, and both sides are to blame. It doesn't change because neither side cares. MLB doesn't care because no one forces them to care. The MLBPA doesn't care because they don't represent these guys. Well, it's time for both sides to care and do the right thing rather than simply fighting over the enormous pieces of the pie. So the basic solution is this: Far higher annual salaries, which are prorated based on time spent on an MiLB roster or disabled list when added during the season via draft or free agency, a full MiLB season equaling one year of annual salary. Players can elect to be paid during the season only or have their salary spread throughout the season. Players who begin the season on a roster and are released during the season will be entitled to a payout of their remaining annual salary and retain benefits for the rest of the calendar year. A ball and below - $40,000 annual salary with benefits A+ ball - $50,000 annual salary AA ball - $65,000 annual salary AAA ball - $80,000 annual salary if not on 40 man roster, $100,000 salary if on 40 man roster or MLB veteran with at least 1 day MLB service time. Players promoted to a higher level during a season shall have begin receiving new salary at that time based on new annual wage, players demoted to a lower level will retain their previous pay grade for the remainder of the year. 3) MLB minimum salaries increase to $1M. Players will automatically be paid at minimum salary for 2 season, then be arbitration eligible for 4 seasons. 4) The minimum salary offer by a team in arbitration is $1.5M for the first 2 seasons of eligibility, then $2.5M for the last two seasons. Arbitration eligible players can negotiate higher salaries with their respective teams, but old arbitration panels will be abandoned. Arbitration panels will make rulings based on more modern statistical measures. Arbitration panels will have the authority to assign a salary that is between the team offer and player request, without necessarily having to choose one or the other. 5) A team can either offer or decline to offer arbitration to an arbitration eligible player. If the team declines, the player becomes a free agent. A team that declines to offer arbitration to an arbitration eligible player must pay the player a severance of $250,000. 6) Service time manipulation is ended. A player earns a full service year for any year they are on an MLB roster with the following exception: - A player may serve ONE callup at the MLB level for no more than 15 calendar days without accruing a service year during the months of March thru August AND - A player may be called up on September 1st or later and spend as many days on the roster as the team deems necessary for the remainder of the season in ONE season without accruing a service year. If a team wishes to use both of these exceptions, they must both be used in the same season. A player who serves under either or both of these exceptions in one season will earn a full service year upon any future callup. Players will be paid at the prorated minimum MLB salary of $1M during these callups. 7) Players will be eligible for free agency upon accumulating 6 service years. Just my two cents. I think that a 50/50 revenue split is the best for both sides, or close to it, but the way they divided up may need to be what needs to change. Owners need to accept higher wages for younger contributing players, which should result in a better balance in offers to both veterans and arbitration eligible players. Players need to accept that their 50% split distribution needs to be changed as well, and that in doing so, the Jason Heyward and Barry Zito contracts may become a thing of the past.

That's way too much, and I want Brown. #30 is a fair offer. They should be thrilled to get a 1st in return given the lack of leverage they have and Brown's demands for more guarantees if traded. I don't see anyone topping that. If the Cardinals do, so be it. I don't see it. They're further than Antonio Brown away from contention.

You can insure anything for whatever you want. You could insure a contract that pays out X percentage if the player declines at Y age to certain performance barriers. You would just need to find an insurance company that would sign the policy. But yeah, most likely his contract is just insured for injury. And many big contracts are, but many are not.

THIS!! I have long said that Hernan is just another version of Marwin, poor man's version, but not that different. Now that Moose is at 2B we can use Hernan to his strengths and not overexpose him the way that Marwin has been revealed here. Good luck to Marwin, but he should be happy to play ball. PS--I fully acknowledge that Marwin carried HOU when they were missing players the year they won it all. That number also includes the out of character numbers from 2012 and 2013.

Honestly Mark A. didn't really say anything there that I wouldn't fully expect him to say. Not that it's not the truth.