Andrew Romine announced his retirement from baseball. Ben Rowen also retired, and has accepted a position in the Angels front office.
Job Posting: Milwaukee Brewers Development Scout
Are rule changes a good thing or a bad thing? I think that depends on which rule and which change.
Long time scout, Jim Fregosi Jr. died at 57.
I don’t know …
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
OT: My kinda comedy…
https://twitter.com/NowhereComedy/status/1465516185978556418
By trying to rebuild means dismantling a team to acquire draft choices to become competitive once again is being looked upon as some serious determent to the game. It is only the teams that finish under .500 for over 5 years running that make the game uncompetitive, not the amount of money it spends on payroll. The Angels are always in the top 10 in spending but not winning. In the last ten years the White Sox and Astros and Braves have all traded away their players and rebuilt. The Dodgers and Padres too. By keeping the payroll high on the field and low in the front office what have the Angels accomplished? Certainly, putting a floor that is too high with payroll does not equate to having a winning record and more so to even getting to the playoffs.
Will making Pittsburgh spend more on payroll make the Pirates contenders? I think looking at things through a 5 year window may make some sense in a drafting order. Teams need to look at the big picture such as the minors, Latin and Asian player drafts, teaching and coaching, training. I do not know how to force Arte to build a better organization and jettison his know nothing friends he keeps on payroll. Should owners be made to sell after any 10 year run without a winning record?
Changing the draft order is a maybe at best but not because of payroll. I think teams should be given a window to dismantle and rebuild to bring in new blood like Atlanta recently did, not be judged on what they pay players.
Good ole Romaine. He was awful
Lettuce agree that he deserves to have his moment.
On the issue of tanking, I think it is probably clear that the system needs to change to factor in variables other than where the team finished in the standings. However, simply flipping it to the best record non-playoff team getting the first pick is extreme in my opinion.
I would think that an analysis could be done where the team’s payroll in combination with where it finished in the standings are taken into consideration and a formula developed. For example if a team ends up with the worst record but has less than $80 million in payroll, maybe they get a lower pick than the first selection. Conversely, a team with a payroll of $150-plus million gets a boost to their draft position if they end the year with a certain low winning percentage.
The formula would need to be worked on but it would factor in both worst record and highest payroll. So if 2 teams finished with the identical record, the team with the higher payroll would get the higher draft pick.
A team like the Orioles would likely fall to around 8th in the draft due to its very low payroll.
The league should probably threaten some of the real clown teams with relegation. Naturally, the MLBPA will fight against that. I’m not sure if there is a way to do that without MLBPA cooperation.
Actually thought of a simple formula that factors in season record at 70% and payroll at 30% to determine draft position.
You take the draft position by season record. That will be a number 1-30. As an example in 2021 both the Orioles a d Diamondbacks would be assigned the #1 due to having the worst record. SF would be assigned the #30 for having the best season record. That number is then multiplied by 7. This is the Record Factor or RF.
Then you figure out the team’s payroll and determine if it’s the first highest, 2nd highest etc. first highest gets assigned a #1 then it progresses through 30th (lowest payroll). That number is then multiplied by 3. This is the Payroll Factor or PF.
You then add the RF to the PF and divide by 10. That will give you a total number (weighted draft position or WDP) that is then compared with all 30 teams. The lowest WDP gets the first pick, the highest total gets the last pick.
The equation is (RF + PF) % 10 = WDP
I am just spitballing but this would definitely ha e an impact on teams who are purposely tanking.
The problem is those owners who don’t care about the draft. They’re not tanking, they’re just putting out the minimum product. Houston tanked. Pittsburgh just loses. If there’s ever a salary floor Pittsburgh will reluctantly meet it but no higher…and then they’ll lose some more. They’d *like* to not have a good draft slot because they could pay the draftees less.
For everybody else, though, a formula like yours makes good sense.
How did the Astros tank?
The MLB draft is nothing like the NFL or NBA draft. It’s not like the top 4 picks in the MLB draft are gonna be playing in front of thousands on opening day like Trevor Lawrence or Zion Williamson and expected to lift the franchise out of the abyss. Mark Appel sure didn’t do that (#1 pick in the 2012 MLB draft). The MLB draft is a lot about slot money (BTW there needs to be a foreign player draft for sure) and unlike the NFL and NBA about player development and the colleges do most of that for those other two sports.
Relegation is the only cool thing about soccer. But how do you relegate an MLB team? How do you “bump up” the Albuquerque Isotopes? It sounds fun as hell, but how do you make it work? The MLBPA is the least of your problems.
“However, simply flipping it to the best record non-playoff team getting the first pick is extreme in my opinion.”
I think this statement’s very much on the ball. See, because we’re all envious wankers, we hate the idea of owners having money and their team’s sucking…. ignoring the fact that any teams owner, good or bad, will be rich. The truth is that most of the poorer ownership groups or owners want to win, they just don’t have the coin to ever “go big”. Owning the Indians or Rays is still a business and it’s only morons who think the people who own these teams should throw all the money they have on the fires of passion.
There are actually very few total pieces of crap that own teams, guys who just collect revenue sharing money and happily field crap teams. Carl Poldad with the Twins back in the day. Nutting’s Pirates now.
There are a lot of teams like the Reds, Tigers, Royals, A’s and Indians who are legitimately trying to put together winners with the limited resources that they have. They just don’t have big fan bases. When they do get close, and then “try” financially (see the current Tigers) it’s a huge gamble for them. If those gambles fail, along with a few prospects flopping, they are back to square one.
I don’t want to create a system where those poorer teams wind up drafting 6th while the Nationals, Red Sox and Yankees have a shot at the #1 pick just because they had a single bad year…. usually while they reset their Lux Tax streak.
This issue really just pisses me off because it’s grown ass adults playing dumb. I wish they’d all just man up and the large market owners would just say that they will continue subsidizing small market teams, but said teams have to account for all the revenue sharing dollars. The money MUST go to player’s salaries or player development, IE getting better players or keeping good players. The excuse for that money hand out is that they need it to do these things, so make them do it.
I like the idea of a salary floor, but I don’t see why we should even have that. Maybe we have a low salary floor so that an asshat like Nutting doesn’t just take 50M in rev share and then have a payroll of 51M. Maybe you need a 50M payroll to qualify for revenue sharing? Maybe small market teams qualify for dollar matching? Maybe do special dollar matching for “franchise players” who both the FO and MLBPA understand want to stay on a small market team? So, in 7 years, if Spencer Torkelson wants to remain a Tiger, he signs for 10/300M but the MLB agrees to match the Tigers dollar for dollar on that contract.
There are a lot of ways to keep teams competitive, make fans happier, keep owners rich, but not just give Nutting and Wolf free money.
Teams like the Reds, Royals and Twins will draw when the the product is good and competitive, like 2.5M on average when competitive. Reds have a solid fanbase. They just got caught in the Covid year, investments did not pan out, then they shed, too quickly. Tigers drew over 3-million in the recent Leyland days. Illitch would spend when needed. Peter Angelos was a mad man for a long while, throwing out large contracts. If they don’t have a good pipeline of prospects coming up, they seem to not invest and withdraw from issuing the larger FA contracts
The Pirates are a real sad situation. Beautiful park and history. “Bottom Line” Bob Nutting. The 10th richest majority owner in baseball. Not the biggest fanbase to draw from. Plagued by horrible trades; Chris Archer being the most recent. They were on the cusp for a couple of years, underperformed and got rid of talent. Now they go sideways until the minors produce. But if you are Pittsburgh, you don’t rush out to sign a guy like Scherzer or Ray or Seager until you are ready to compete.
Yeah, those teams draw 2.5M a year when they are good… sometimes. The problem is, they draw squat when they aren’t good, they make far less money from Ads and broadcasts, and generally speaking their profits on everything from food to tickets are lower on average.
So even if the Reds magically managed to be good for five years they would still be miles behind the Cubs and Cardinals financially. In fact, we are seeing that with the Brewers, who have been good, but still can’t “spend competitively” at all. If we change the draft structure so that the top spending non-play off team drafts first then a 90 win team from an East division will draft first the majority of the time. A 90 win team with a 170M payroll will always be picking first, the Brewers, once they have a couple bad seasons, will never draft all that high again and will never be all that good again either.
Stark’s idea is just stupid… unless you’re a Mets or Phillies fan or a Red Sox fan who needs just one more leg up on those pesky Rays to fall in his lap.
Not a good offseason for us…….. 😥 😠 😭
Lettuce all wish Romine a happy retirement.
I wish I could afford to retire now, much less at that age.
My favorite lettuce fo sho.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RD49DYTlrk
Back when SNL was funny.
Dig that Dawson leisure suit.
This week’s Christmas card sketch was actually funny. First time in a while.
Quite the lineup of stars!
Jayson Stark in the Athletic has an interesting idea to put an end to tanking- put the teams that get closest to the playoffs at the top of the draft order, incentivizing actually trying to win. His partial draft order looks like
Pick No. 1 – Blue Jays (91-71)
Pick No. 2 – Mariners (90-72)
Pick No. 3 – Athletics (86-76)
Pick No. 4 – Reds (83-79)
Pick No. 5 – Phillies (82-80)
…
Pick No. 20 – Orioles (52-110)
Pick No. 19 – Diamondbacks (52-110)
Pick No. 18 – Rangers (60-102)
Pick No. 17 – Pirates (61-101)
Pick No. 16 – Nationals (65-97)
Frankly, I like it. Tanking and the July player dumps are only hurting the competitive level of the game.
I definitely like some draft component but I think a salary floor will pretty much eliminate tanking.
I’ve been working on a piece about forcing owners to use revenue sharing proceeds (which are intended for player payroll) on players. In 2019, each team received $125 million from the local revenue sharing pool yet 10 had payrolls lower than that number. The Pirates pocketed about $50 million just from that pot.
If teams have to spend money, they’ll try to do it to win. Or at least extend some fan favorites. And considering the repeat offenders are the same year in and year out this should get an easy yes from both the MLBPA and 20+ owners.
Make them spend on players, give the smaller market clubs some extra picks between rounds, and maybe do a draft lottery for the teams with the 5 worst records.
Has the “salary floor” worked for the NBA? If anything, the NBA salary floor / salary cap has created a mess of where teams still tank – but it’s created by the advent of the “super teams” structures.
Agree. DRAFT ORDER: reverse draft slots for the non-playoff teams & FLOOR: make owners invest in the product with the revenue sharing pool. There will always be violators and poorly run franchises but some tweaks might help. By fixing the draft by itself, that won’t eliminate tanking or teams not going for it.
So…. Jayson covers/roots for….? Not a small market team.
You might as well just not have teams in Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Miami etc if the f***ing Phillies, Mets, Cubs and Red Sox get to draft ahead every time a division rival beats them out.
As I don’t hide the fact that I pull for all SoCal sports teams it is nice to see the Chargers winning with their stud QB Herbert. 30 TD’s in each of first two seasons is a new record and one that Tom Brady cannot own as he owns every other record.
Tonight the Rams are playing and they need the win to stay close to Arizona.
If you are a Rams fan should you hate the Chargers? Or vice versa? Ditto with the Lakers/Clippers? Ducks/Kings or Trojans/Bruins?
While we would all love to see a World Series between the Angels vs Dodgers with the Angels coming out on top, it sadly has not happened. But in 1967 something similar took place. The USC Trojans and the UCLA Bruins played in the last game of the Season for #1. UCLA had Heisman Award winner Gary Beban vs USC and OJ Simpson and they fought to see who would be the Top Dog. USC prevailed as John McKay would add on to his outstanding career as coach. Tommy Prothro would go on to coach the Rams and McKay to coach and GM in Tampa.
While the Rams could face the Chargers in a Super Bowl the Lakers vs Clips for a title could not happen, why not?
The way that Hockey and Basketball are set up is with Western and Eastern divisions play for the title. But in the NBA that made the 1980’s the most fun of all the major sports with the Lakers or Boston playing for the top honors.
Angels vs Dodgers would have been fun too with Trouty vs Kershaw from 2014 to 2019.
Yes, I still think we need one more Starting Pitcher that can handle 180 IP to contend along with a decent SS added in. Backup Catcher that can really catch would be a treat. Now if we can get steelgolf to get the two sides in the same room maybe we can get back to debating about how the Brass should put our team together. Lot’s of laughs except that it is what is called for.
Born, raised, and have lived in So. Cal my whole life. Clearly I do not like $c, the doyers, or the sucks. And why anyone would root for a JV basketball team is beyond me.
FYI The Mighty Sucks aren’t so sucky anymore. Their nucleus of young talent should be the envy of all professional sports teams ( Are you listening Arte?)
Kings have a lot of young talent too..
Lived in SoCal for my first 19 years. Angels, Lakers and UCLA. Liked the Lakers better before Lebron joined. Rams ceased to exist when they fled to St. Louis. The Chargers will always belong in San Diego for me. Never followed Hockey.
Best version of the $C fight song is dead now Riley is there……oh well, I’m sure they’ll get caught cheating again “Sooner” or later.
fighton.wav – USC fight song deflates.
The Chargers were always my AFC team – I loved the Dan Fouts era Chargers in particular. Even though I was raised on the Showtime era Lakers, I had Clippers season tickets for a while – a much cheaper way to see the other NBA teams when they came to town.
I was also a fan of the Dan Fouts era Chargers, the only team in football that could score 40 points and still lose by 2 touchdowns….
Halos/Lakers/SC for life
As we descend into the cold dark winter of no trades, signings, etc. Enjoy your families, friends etc for the holidays. I don’t think we are going to see any agreement on a new CBA until after the New Years celebrations. I would like to invite Manfred and Clarke to a Festivus Celebration for the Airing of Grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people and you are going to hear about it!!! You have had 2 years, at least, to work out a deal, 2 years !!!!
Rules added just to add a rule to fix something that ain’t broke are not good (extra inning runner on second). Rule added to fix what is broken then fine. Adding a pitch clock is fine, but giving too much time to it is not fine. Pitch clock should start when catcher has control of the sphere and only 20 seconds until next pitch. New rule should be no stepping out box but for one foot by batter. No walking around the mound and rubbing up a Baseball by pitcher. All of this to speed up the game. Even I get bored with 3 1/2-hour games. All of this predicated on Mia’s approval of course. (humor) at least attempted as such.
Get the Umbrella’s ready and for some of us the Snow Shovels. It’s a big storm that’s a comin’ fer sure. Jeez but don’t we need the water.
Stay warm, stay safe and don’t drive in deep water or on black ice.
Watch any old game on MLB TV, such as when Bob Gibson was pitching. See what everybody did. Match that. It will knock an hour out of every day. However, measure the length of commercial breaks between innings and pitchers. I bet that accounts for a lot of the problem.
Bob Gibson never stood around for 90 seconds waiting for commercials to end on TV.
Rule changes are a good thing if I personally like the change, and the commish is a goddamn fool if I don’t.
Great reply, laughing is a good way to start the day.
I don’t know either.