These aren't mutually incompatible concepts. The trade can be better for the Dodgers and have the Red Sox still improve their haul.

If there's one thing Dodger fans have been hollering for this offseason, it's been bullpen upgrades. I think Blake Treinen will help there, but a lot of folks have been like "what, that's it???"

It's unclear, afaik, whether Maeda just straight up didn't want to move to the bullpen, or if the Dodgers hadn't any interest in reworking his contract to replace the incentives with relief incentives (or simply add to the existing incentives); Graterol steps in as a kid with a big arm who apparently has a bright future as a bullpen piece.

The Dodgers, as mentioned, could afford to give up their #3 catching prospect and Jeter Downs, given their respective depth in those two positions. So, yes, they're "paying more" in prospect capital, but they didn't give up May or Lux, and the Red Sox's panic over Graterol had the knock-on effect of potentially improving the Dodger bullpen.

So, yeah. I think this trade probably IS better for the Dodgers than the prior version, even if the Sox ended up improving their haul as well.

FYI Sack, Maeda was asked to redo his contract to incentivize it to be a reliever and he declined. They could have just forced the issue and done it, but the Far East market is a good way to sign players and I don't think the Dodgers wanted to risk poisoning the well for future deals.

Red Sox got a better haul than before, but I think Gaterol has a much higher ceiling than the two guys the Dodgers gave up and there is something satisfying in knowing that fan base will be rooting for Jeter.

I agree. I didn't mean to imply the Dodgers came out worse here. I think this deal makes more sense for both teams.



The first deal that was agreed to made sense from the Red Sox perspective, but didn't return the value you'd expect from Betts. This deal is for a guy that should fall somewhere between a young Markakis and Conforto as far as value goes, a guy that is immediately their best prospect, and a legit catching prospect.



The Dodgers get a top 10 position player, a backend starter, and a late inning lottery ticket. Betts has a fenway park swing that probably won't play as well in LA, but he's still an all star center fielder.

Sources: MLB weighing major changes to postseason, including growing number of teams to 14

Why pay Mookie Betts when you can win 82 games, and then a reality show or something, and then the world series.

Those are some bizarre changes.

I'm not one to make dramatic statements but this would kill any interest I have in baseball. Win 110 games then lose in a best of 3 to a team that won 80 or so games, lol

If you:

1) win 110 games;
2) don't get the bye; and
3) pick your opponent and then lose to them in the course of three home games?

You probably SHOULD go home early.

I'm a baseball purist. I hate these new ideas. I'm not so much against adding teams to the playoffs, but it needs to be done correctly.

There is no team that wants to rest for 5-7 days waiting for other teams to play out earlier rounds.

This idea that the better teams get to pick their opponents to beyond dumb.

Maybe I am looking at this wrong, but nothing they change is going to draw in more fans. Baseball is baseball. You either like watching it or you don't.

Why play 162 games if half the teams make the playoffs?

Hockey on grass?

Agree though, absolutely stupid proposal. If he really wants to help the game he would do things to speed up play, maybe shorten the season back to 154 games and shorten spring training, but that affects revenue so the owners would bitch.

For pace
1-Enforce the damn pitch clock, 12 seconds from the pitcher getting the ball back to pitch.
*Batter can only step out of the box once per AB unless injured or its a strike
*Pitcher can only step off the rubber once per AB or its a ball
*Pitcher takes more than 12 seconds its a ball, batter isn't ready, too bad
2-1 minute between innings
3-Every mound visit by the manager results in a pitcher change, seriously, you can discuss anything you need to discuss with a pitcher about mechanics, location etc between innings.

In addition to the dumbness of picking your opponent this is going to stretch out things super long. Is this paired with a 154 game schedule? Otherwise I dunno if mid November baseball is a good idea.

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

Baseball just isn't a sport that lends itself to meaningful evaluation or results over a game or two. There's too much randomness.

I'd be like if the KC Chiefs went 14-2 but then had to play a 10 minute football game against a 6-10 team in the playoffs to advance It'd really be a coin clip, like the baseball playoffs are, and would lead to very unsatisfying results and random champions.

The baseball playoffs are already a coin flip, but at least it's difficult to get there so the regular season has meaning - a competition to get into that coin flip

The 3 straight games at the high seed would cut a travel day, but yeah, they would really have to consider a 154 game schedule if they went to this IMO. and maybe start the season a week earlier.

As a side note I was watching MLB Network while doing cardio this morning and was surprised at how much the hosts are behind this. Of course they could just be shilling for the network, but Harold Reynolds was in full hard on mode over the proposal.

You might be overstating things a bit there. More like a half to three quarters against a 9-7 team.

I think for the most part players/former players support it because it increases their chances to win a title.

Nope. You're looking at it quite reasonably and rationally, without ludicrous amounts of denial.

Perhaps. I guess the way to figure that out would be to compare first-half and first-quarter money lines in NFL matchups that fit v. money lines in MLB matchups that fit. I took a quick peak but couldn't find historical NFL 1st-half and 1st-quarter money lines. But my recollection is that MLB games are usually pretty close to pick 'ems unless there's a ridiculous starting pitching mismatch.

I agree when it comes to rules and other gimmicks like what's being proposed. But what would draw in more fans is getting rid of the ridiculous blackout rules like this is the 80's.


By the way, as it stands, I won't be able to watch Cubs games in the city of Chicago this year. I feel like that hurts the sport more than anything on the field.

Based on their performance today, I think the Astros should not talk to the press about the cheating, take the fines, and let the press and fans make up stories about them. The whole thing was cringe worthy.

RIP Tony Fernandez

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/16/us/to...rnd/index.html

Astros: Let's sound completely unlikable and out of touch
Manfred: hold my beer

Dusty Baker urges MLB to protect Astros from beanballs, retaliation

Am I wrong in thinking that Dusty is taking the right approach on this? I feel like a lot of managers would talk about this not being something the team should be worried about, the professionalism of the other players, blah, blah, etc. Dusty knows his players are going to be thrown at and is trying to get out in front in favor of harsh punishments.

What is the over/under on number of pitchers suspended for hitting Astro players? 5? 10?

Why bother? Manfred is already out of front of him on it at this point.

The failure of MLB to police the players involved leaves the rest of the players with two choices: police it themselves or simply allow it to go unpunished.

Clearly MLB prefers the latter.

I honestly can't fathom why there isn't a roughly 27-3 vote to remove that useless p.o.s. from office.

Because Manfred is good for the bottom line. Same as Goodell. As long as the money keeps rolling in, the owners don't care a lot about the game.

I think it may be a questionable business decision to refer to your sport's championship as a piece of metal.

Sportsbooks expect Astros hitters to be targeted often this season

Not the number I was looking for but I think I am taking the under. I think around hit batter 50, somebody is getting 25 games.

Dusty is definitely doing what's best for his guys in getting ahead of it.

This whole thing is a gold mine of tone deafness. We now have JD Martinez saying the Astros trashing has gone a bit overboard.

Shades of wrestling companies that don't have "a belt"

And of course you’ve now essentially got every other team being warned preemptively, affecting pitchers ability to pitch inside to the Astros and potentially handing them another advantage.

Tone deaf and clueless doesn’t even begin to describe Manfred and the way he’s handled this. He’s making 90s and 2000s Bettman look like a popular commissioner and a PR genius.

Steroids saved baseball.

This cheating scandal is way worse.

Maybe he is trying to lay some groundwork for the next CBA? You know, like, I let all the players go scot free, so dont strike.

Given the fact that he's got otherwise bland baseball players speaking out against him right now, I'd wager he's misread that situation. Although it's a little ironic to see he finally got Trout talking to the media, so there's a goal he's achieved :)

I was actually just wondering on a somewhat related note - if the players decided to strike until he was gone, is that something they would be able to do under the CBA, and what would the union say to something that obviously one teams worth of their members would be completely against? Not saying it's remotely realistic, but feelings do seem to be running awfully high.

The players should have been punished and the Astros should have been striped of the WS.

If what he says is true though then I can understand why they didn't punish the players. If the only way to get the full truth was to give the player immunity, then I guess that's what you have to do. Unfortunately, there are other things coming out they make it seem like the full truth wasn't really given.

Why can't MLB work with the union in a situation like this and come up with a punishment that fits? They're worried about fighting with the union, so why not find a workable punishment with them instead?

The whole thing is growing pretty tiresome, IMO. We're going to hear about it all season and more. I really hope when I am watching the O's play the Rays I'm not hearing about it.

What would be the basis for MLB punishing the Astro players without the information they got from giving the players immunity? Mike Fiers' word? Compelling Ken Rosenthal to give up his sources? It seems to me that without the immunity, MLB is in the same exact spot they were before Fiers spoke on the record. A great number of rumors and no real concrete evidence to act on. If Manfred could have gotten the details of the cheating without talking to the Astro players, I suspect he would have done it before The Athletic expose it. It seems like the rumors have been out there in baseball circles for at least three years now.

I don't think the union want any part of finding a punishment that fits if they can just go with no punishment at all. If rumors are to be believed, the Astros are not the only ones that have entered cheating territory. They were the ones who went the furthest and was the most indignant about it. Sometimes the crooks are one step ahead of the law

The union opposes any player punishment. That's kind of it's mandate. A handful of them are speaking out but I'm sure they would have preferred this staying under the rug. But at some point if you're getting asked about this 100 times a day you're going to say something other than "no comment" or you're going to start looking guilty yourself.

I don't think "everybody does" what the Astros did, to that extent at least, but I'd guess most players at least know of some kind of illegal sign-stealing scheme either on a team they were on, or something they heard from another player. Players and coaches change teams a lot, and there are SO many rumors you can dig up from various teams over the years.

The MLBPA is in a really bad spot. They've got players who have cheated other players. The Union has to defend it's players regardless, and they won't want a group banned or suspended on their watch. Other players are calling for heads and it's costing them their careers. MLB has to come down hard. I thought we were supposed to hear about Cora and Beltran yet that has been kept quiet. The trickle of reports that have come out after the punishments were laid have all make it look so much worse than before, you have to wonder how they decided back then, that they could get away with that punishment.

Speaking of the union, they released a statement on this yesterday. They say that MLB rules did not allow discipline of players over this, because under current rules and precedent, it is the club personnel's (non-players) responsibility to ensure compliance with electronic sign stealing rules.

When MLB went to the union requesting player cooperation in the Astros investigation, the union said they'd only permit that if MLB promised not to try to discipline any players. They got that confirmation, and the players interviews started days later.

Now they say they're they're negotiating ways to deal with future sign-stealing issues, and that "no issue is off the table", including player discipline. (though I'm sure they'd want something in return for bending on that.)

Evan Drellich on Twitter: "The MLBPA just released this statement regarding the Astros investigation: "Any suggestion that the Association failed to cooperate with the Commissioner’s investigation, obstructed the investigation, or otherwise took positions which led to a stalemate... is completely untrue."… https://t.co/TY1DgJOZl3"

So let's not pretend the players are angry no players were disciplined. Maybe a few stray voices will say that, but it's not the union's position. Players fought drug testing for years and years even though it gave players and teams competitive advantage to use banned substances. This is a business for them, they don't look at game outcomes and cheating the same way the fans do. The players who really lost the most here were the ones whose careers were impacted - like that middle reliever who got lit up against the Astros and never saw an MLB game again.

Mike Bolsinger


And the Union is correct and did a good job in meeting it's goals. However, the players are still going to pay a price for it. I can't help but think that the larger league will too.



And it's not just Bolsinger. Look at Maeda, Kershaw, Jansen and Darvish all got lit up. That didn't happen all season long, not in the span of 7 games. In fact, it was one of the things I was most frustrated about. That the team lost because things happened over those 7 games that simply did NOT happen at any point in the previous 162+. You can't tell me that only Bolsinger or other similar players weren't the only ones hurt.

I'm just not sure they players care about winning and losing the way loyal fans do. A fan roots for a single team for life, a player passes through a team for a year or two and is working towards their next contract. The union, by their mandate, is working towards that end. They oppose drug testing, player discipline for cheating, competitive balance measures, etc. The goal isn't a fair and even playing field, it's maximizing the revenue of their playing days. That's not a criticism, players have short careers and most of them are a bad year or an injury away from having to find another way to make a living. They'd much rather beat the owners than beat whatever team they're playing that day.

If they perceive their individual careers being impacted - (which they didn't seem to regarding steroids for whatever reason), then I can see more caring about that. But players only had to play the Astros so often. So you can see how that especially stung a player whose 1 big shot was against them and got lit up.

Why bother? I mean, it's only a hunk of metal at stake.

I do wonder if Manfred thought the cheating was more widespread that it actually was. When Brady got busted for deflategate, you didn't see Drew Brees, Russell Wilson, or whoever else you want to call a star call out Brady, saying his rings were tainted. You have reigning MVP's calling out the Astros and the Commish. If it was as widespread as most Astros' fans tend to think it is, I think you would have seen a much more muted response to the whole scandal, with the players just wanting to move on. But it clearly struck a nerve, at least cheating with a real time camera, to where almost everyone is saying the response has been inadequate.

I also find it hard to believe that the Astros had enough players come and go over the past couple of years that they'd be willing to speak on behalf of the Astros situation, but maybe only Fiers wants to be a "snitch" as many have referred to him as, while the rest of the players are just shutting up?

Perhaps a matter of degree? After the 45-7 beatdown from the Patriots, the Colts' tight end Dwayne Allen said "They could have played with soap for balls and beat us. Simply the better team."

That's not the case with the Astros' scandal. Knowing what pitch is coming is a HUGE advantage for the batters, and it could have very well changed the outcome of the 2017 and 2019 World Series (not to mention the regular season and playoff games).

I think the better comparison is Spygate

But even then, I think the bigger factor was that it was the Houston Astros. Not so much the players but the organization. From what I can tell, the Astros brass made it a point to shit on to every organization in baseball. I don't get that sense from any NFL organization towards the Patriots. There may be dislike but it is the dislike that comes from dealing with the team that wins all the time. It is not from the Pats telling them they less than the crap on the bottom of their shoes. Is there that feeling about any other organization in the game? I don't know if the Nationals for example would get a tenth of the grief that Astros are getting if they did it. It would be bad in general and the Dodgers specifically would have intense feeling towards them, but I don't think it drives the rest of baseball as crazy.

I also think that Astro mindset and behavior led Fiers to speak out as well. It is one thing to denied your dirt to people who are and have always been on the outside. It is completely different when you do it to someone who was on the inside during the cheating. I went back and looked. Fiers did not play in the playoffs during that World Series run and a below average player for them that season. Then, he was with Detroit the next season. Can you bang trash cans against a guy who knows the deal and then do the dugout dances to celebrate your greatness afterwards?

Madison Bumgarner moonlighting as a rodeo rider is a movie plot waiting to happen.

I've read the story a number of times in a number of places, and I'm still expecting a punchline at the end.

So now the Astros are saying it didn't help them. Never understood this argument. If it didn't help, WHY DO IT?

Ok, big Cubs fan and they are moving games to their own network this year. I have no idea yet if youtubetv will be adding this channel or not? I wouldn't mind paying a bit extra or if I were able to stream it from elsewhere for a fee, that's fine. Now I know it's all MLB and not just the Cubs, but why oh why when I saw the Cubs ST game in my dvr, courtesy of MLB network, did I think I would be able to watch it? Stupid me... I should have known, a ST game would be blacked out from my region. Wow!

Baseall is so good a shooting themselves in the foot. Their demo is older people and they are moving a lot of their platform to streaming. Its so stupid

Marquee Network (the new Cubs network) is not streaming, AFAIK.