Re: MLB Off-Topic
That Acuna bobblehead will be on my shelf by year's end.
That Acuna bobblehead will be on my shelf by year's end.
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Originally posted by Gibson88 -
Re: MLB Off-Topic
Alex Cora with the motivation tonight
Cora, accepting Boston BBWAA Mgr of the Year Award: “Somebody might write this, I don’t care. If you guys thought last year was special, wait till this year.”Boston Red Sox
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Re: MLB Off-Topic
Here's a post that has the "C" word in it. Barry Bonds' former agent has come out and said some things. This is 4 days ago via CBSSports.com
Major League Baseball's owners are colluding against the sport's players, long-time agent Jeff Borris charged when he joined The Jonah Keri Podcast.
"When you look at the revenues coming into the game ... it broke an all-time record and over $10 billion, the cost of labor should hand-in-hand go up as well," said Borris, who's represented the likes of Barry Bonds, Mike Piazza, and Rickey Henderson, and currently serves as general council for Ballengee Group.
"When that doesn't happen, I think that is an indication of a tremendous collusive effort on behalf of the owners to suppress salaries for the players."
In 2018, gross revenue hit $10.3 billion for Major League Baseball, yet salaries actually fell slightly, logging their biggest decline in six years. If Borris takes that divergence as a sign of collusion, you can hardly blame him, given what he's seen in his 30-plus years as an agent.
From 1985-1989, baseball's owners blatantly colluded against players, with Borris filing 13 separate claims on behalf of his clients. That industry-wide effort by owners to suppress salaries would later result in MLB teams paying $280 million in damages.
That era included teams sharing a call-in number they could use to review other offers submitted by rival teams. The situation grew so grim for players, All-Star outfielder Andre Dawson and his agent showed up at Cubs spring training in 1987, handed over a blank contract, and told the Cubs to fill in any salary they wanted. The amount was $500,000, a pittance even back then. All Dawson did that season was win the National League MVP.
"If you talked to an owner now, he would refer to that period as the good old days," quipped Borris. "At that time period, the owners were very brash about it. They would say, 'I know how much you've been offered, I'm not going a penny over that.'"
Owners aren't nearly as blatant today in their efforts to tamp down salaries, said Borris. "Over the years [they] have gotten more sophisticated in the methodology of how they go about doing that. That's what you're seeing right now."
Borris cited several tricks that teams use which can have the net effect of dragging down salaries. One seems to be happening as we speak, in the bidding -- or lack of bidding -- for Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, two superstars in their mid-20s who might be expected to reel in record contracts. They might, that is, if teams weren't using members of the media to relay their messages.
"One thing that teams do that they're not supposed to do is, they're not supposed to communicate through the media," Borris said. "For instance if you were to take a team like the Yankees, and the Yankees say, 'We're no longer in the Manny Machado sweepstakes anymore' -- they're not supposed to do that, because that takes a potential suitor out of the hunt. That should not occur, that's really not fair, but it still occurs to this day."
Borris ticked off numerous other factors that have swung the balance of power toward owners and away from players. When one-third of the league goes into tanking mode, that lowers the numbers of bidders for players' services; less demand naturally leads to lower salaries. Today's age curve does suggest that players in their mid-20s are a better bet to succeed than players in their 30s ... but teams have taken that notion to the extreme, lowballing veteran free agents and forcing them to accept one-year deals, which only leads to more veterans larding the market the following winter when all those one-year deals expire.
Then there's the farce that is baseball's luxury tax, and teams' ham-handed attempts to justify spending less than the tax threshold, despite their ability to make tens of millions a year in profits either way.
"The luxury tax is a disguise for a salary cap," said Borris. "It's a disguise for owners to not go over a threshold, it's almost a gentleman's agreement, like, 'Hey, nobody go over this, and we'll all be OK. We'll all be better off for that.'"
Present-day shadiness aside, Borris also lamented the way owners squeezed Bonds out of the game. In 2007, Bonds hit an absurd .276/.480/.565, leading the league in walks and on-base percentage and ranking second in park-adjusted offense. Yet Bonds couldn't get a sniff from any team the following year, not for DH duty, not as a pinch-hitter, not at the league-minimum salary, not even when Borris offered to donate all of that league-minimum salary to kids' charities.
"Which was utterly preposterous, right on its face," said Borris, still angry over owners blacklisting the all-time home-run king. "You cannot take a player who has statistical performance like that ... it's unfathomable that he cannot even get a job."
Borris was quick to note that he didn't have any hard evidence of collusion against Bonds, just as he has no smoking gun now that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that teams are acting in concert to depress player salaries.
Still, whether it's arguably the greatest player of all time being unable to find a job anywhere, or player salaries going down at a time when teams are drowning in cash, you don't have to have irrefutable evidence to know when something smells.
He was also on PTS with Bob McCown and Richard Dietsch this past evening talking about it.
Member of the Official OS Bills Backers Club
"Baseball is the most important thing that doesn't matter at all" - Robert B. ParkerComment
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Re: MLB Off-Topic
Has any team said they are out of the running for players? Not sure where Borris is coming up with that.
I've seen Cashman say something like, "I don't know why anyone thinks we are in the running for Harper when we have a full outfield." That's just an obvious comment. You can't force teams to entertain every free agent especially if they don't necessarily have a need.
No one has said "We are no longer in the running for Macahado." Instead what we've seen is speculation that because of a particular signing it would seem likely that the team is no longer in the running for a player. And that's, again, just an obvious statement.
I don't think the teams are talking through the media.
Are teams colluding? I think Borris is right that it isn't as simple as owners calling each other and making a hand shake agreement. It's the system in place that is manipulating the market.
When every team hires from the same group of data crunchers that believe success comes from the same formula, eventually, those teams will also behave similarly in free agency. These guys don't need to talk to each other. They already think like each other."It may well be that we spectators, who are not divinely gifted as athletes, are the only ones able to truly see, articulate and animate the experience of the gift we are denied. And that those who receive and act out the gift of athletic genius must, perforce, be blind and dumb about it -- and not because blindness and dumbness are the price of the gift, but because they are its essence." - David Foster Wallace
"You'll not find more penny-wise/pound-foolish behavior than in Major League Baseball." - Rob NeyerComment
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Re: MLB Off-Topic
New alts for the Braves. No changes to the home whites, minor changes to the creams and road grays.
Edit: The number on the back on the blue jerseys is actually red, not blue like in the photo.
Last edited by LowerWolf; 01-19-2019, 01:13 PM.Comment
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Re: MLB Off-Topic
I heard there was some small change to the road grays, specifically the lettering on the front.
There was also a blurry picture, so I'm not sure what the change is.Boston Red Sox
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Re: MLB Off-Topic
They said they modified the script a bit on the grays to match the whites. I can't really tell a difference from the pics I've seen.
Edit: Watching the video, they said they changed the script of the A to match the A on the hat. They also added piping to the sleeve of the creams.Last edited by LowerWolf; 01-19-2019, 01:08 PM.Comment
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Re: MLB Off-Topic
I am so, so, so, so, SO HAPPY that the color uniforms finally match each other. Would have made the piping on the navy jerseys red to truly match but this INFINITELY better than the smoked out navy look.
I'm glad they removed the stars from the reds and they're making a comeback.Last edited by Watson; 01-19-2019, 02:32 PM.And may thy spirit live in us, Forever LSU
@AdamdotHComment
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Re: MLB Off-Topic
With red on the navy jerseys now, I would have dropped the all-navy cap and just rocked the standard cap home and road.
Or maybe an all-navy cap with a red A outlined in white for the alts.Last edited by LowerWolf; 01-19-2019, 01:14 PM.Comment
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Re: MLB Off-Topic
They better use the Away Grays more but I doubt it so I'm thrilled, ecstatic that the blue on blue on blue nasty disgusting horrendous jerseys are dead. Whoever designed those things should never have a job again.
Cheers to not ****ing things up.Comment
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"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." - Rogers HornsbyComment
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And may thy spirit live in us, Forever LSU
@AdamdotHComment
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Re: MLB Off-Topic
Yeah...the revamped blue jersey is nice, reminds me of the 90s/00s Indians alternate.
Sent from my SM-G950U using Operation Sports mobile appOriginally posted by Gibson88Comment
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Re: MLB Off-Topic
Wow...that revamped blue jersey is now a close #2 to the creme uniform. That is gorgeous...I hope that is the primary road uniform this year."People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." - Rogers HornsbyComment
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