RedRamage

So you're saying he needs just one more to tie Davenport.

The idea that was swimming in the back of my head that prompted this thread was trying to figure out some way to get a salary cap, but also give the players some slice of the revenue outside of salaries... thereby eliminating the idea that MLB is artificially limiting players salary and pocketing big chunks of money without any cap there. Of course this would be a major change for everyone so I'm not sure how it would go over and I'm not sure I'm smart enough to have thought of all the unintended consequences, but my idea would work something like this: Part 1: Salary Cap and Salary Floor are set (I'm with @chasfh here of the floor being closer to 90% than 40%). I would also set the cap lower than most people probably would expect it. Part 2: All media revenue is pooled together. 70% is distributed to owners based on their teams salary. 20% is distributed to players based on their individual salary, 10% is evenly distributed to players. Now I suspect part 2 might be confusing so here's a simplified example: Owners 70%: To make the math easy, let's say the Salary cap is $100, the floor is $80. There are 5 teams. Media revenue totals $50K. Then each team's portion of the media revenue would come out like this: The idea here is that the teams that spend more on their salary get a larger share of the media revenue. This way teams are encouraged to spend more on salary to get more media revenue. Players 20%: This would work out similar to the owners 70%. Players get a chunk of money based on what percentage of total players salaries equal their current salary accounts for. Players who have a bigger contract get a bigger cut. Players 10%: This would ensure that even those who are making league minimum would get something extra from media revenue. Obviously the percentages can all be adjusted here to what makes things seem fair. But my goal here is to set a salary cap to try to enforce a bit more level playing field for all team. I also want to make sure teams can't just pocket the big market revenue and not spend it on improving their team. I also want to try to make it so that players aren't locked out of making extra money if profits for MLB go up.

Yeah... it's not an easy quick fix... maybe we should have a thread where we throw around some major ideas to restructure things in MLB. There's an idea... 😉

Okay, so the idea of this thread here is very much a thought experiment. Here's the senario: MLB and MLBPA have come to you... yes you personally.. and said: "Our system is broken and we're worried our league is gonna fall part. We need you... yes you... to fix it for us. Please create a financial system in terms of balancing big market/small market, revenue sharing, player salaries--including caps and/or floors, and owners interest in a fair and equitable manner as possible." The rules here are pretty simple: You have the power to do anything, BUT... you need to be at least reasonably realistic about it. You can't say: "Owners only get to make $100 profit per year on their team." Nor can you say: "Players agree to a cap of $5M per player per season." Your goal is to set up a system that at least won't have the players or owners storm out of the room vowing to make their own league (with blackjack and hookers). Your system should also not assume owners or players are kind, noble, and altruistic. In other worlds: Expect some to try to game the system and build in safe guards to prevent it where possible.

My reply to them would be: How much would your 15 million local fans be in watching just the Mets, Yanks, Dodgers, and Angels play each other 162 times a year?

I think this is a good start, but if I'm a big market team who's been able to grow the media demand, I want some level of assurance that small market teams aren't just going to pocket the inflow of money. Now, I certainly think that many teams will use the money to try to improve their teams, but I also wouldn't be shocked to hear that some are simply happy to live off what the major market teams have built.

The solution is to just call him down at the 1. That's what the VAST majority of people think it should have been AND it probably means a TD in two or three plays anyway. This (almost certainly) isn't a game altering call, so it seems so odd that they called it in such a strange way.

So, this is part of the problem with replay in my humble opinion and why there should be specific rules around... which there actually are! But those rules needs to be enforced. My understanding is that replay looked at it, and said there was at least some evidence that he didn't have control of the ball when he knee was down, therefore he wasn't down and the play should continue. Then he recovered control in the endzone, and therefore it's a TD. That's not an unreasonable story, and if the story is correct than it's correct to call it a TD. BUT: What's the evidence? Did the ball move a bit? Maybe. Did he not have complete control? Maybe. But... did the ball also move because it hit the ground? Maybe! There is no clear evidence what happened regarding control of the ball and if you're going to say that the evidence maybe shows loss of control then I think there's just as much to say that the loss of control came because the ball hit the ground. So why are you picking the maybes that fit one story but ignore the maybes that fit a different story? Shouldn't all "maybes" just be ignored? Sorta like a rule that said clear evidence has to show what's happening? What do we know for sure looking at the replay? He had his hands on the ball AND his knee was down AND the defender had contact at the 1-foot line. He may or may not have bobbled control as he skidded into the endzone. That's not clear to me at all... certainly not anymore clear than that the ground caused the ball to move. In the end this call doesn't bother me because 1st and goal from the 1-foot line is 99.99% of the time going to end in a TD, so I don't feel like the Lions got jobbed here. But it definitely feels like a case where the refs decided to take some questionable evidence as fact while ignoring equal evidence that could have led to calling it an incomplete pass.

I feel just horrible about that... just horrible.

That makes ALL the sense in the world... which is why it won't be Germany.

If they do add more commercials, does that mean that they might actually cover the Lions pick rather than cutting to commercial right when it comes in?

I will be disappointed if Skubal suits up in a Tigers uniform on March 26 AND the Tigers have done very little to add to the roster. I don't think 2026 Tigers will be significantly better if other pieces aren't added. I expect them to be a fringe playoff team at best. IF the Tigers aren't going to seriously try in 26, then trade him for a load of talent. If they are going to try, then keep him around.

It's probably toner instead of ink.

Egads... a grandfather at 44? I mean I guess that's just averaging having a kid at 22, which isn't like super young... but that just seems odd to me. I've got a decade on him and no grandkids myself.

FWIW, here's the thread on reddit that @AlaskanTigersFan was screen shotting. Most of the fans there were also not believing it. https://www.reddit.com/r/Dodgers/comments/1pirr0z/the_skubal_deal_is_essentially_in_place_whats/ One interesting point raised there by one fan: Could the Dodgers be taking Baez as part of the deal? That would be one way to get his money off the books. Edit to add: Another commentor on Reddit indicated that Pingalore primarily covers NBA and NFL. If true that makes it even less likely that he's the only one to get the scoop on a blockbuster MLB move.

Yeah, I'm not sure I trust Pingalore as a source. Obviously I could be wrong, but I'd like to see more sources than one random sportscaster from a local TV station.

All-in probably isn't the right term. As others have already said I think it's possible to make good decisions that benefit you in 2026 and beyond. Specially, sign some solid, even high level FA. I absolutely would not shop some of the young guys in a all out bid to make a huge push in 2026. I would look at adding high priced FA to maximize our 2026 potential while still giving up good options beyond.

I should probably point out that I would prefer the Tigers to sign him long term as well... I just see that as unlikely. Assuming no signing, then trade him. But I fear that's not going to happen either. This reminds me a lot of the Suh situation with the Lions way back in the day. The Lions basically did nothing... didn't trade him, weren't able to resign him... he just walked away and the front office looked like a turd because they appeared to have no plan and did nothing.

So there's three reasonable actions the Tigers can take regarding Skubal: Try to resign him Trade him Build a serious WS contender for his last year here Given that #1 not only seems unlikely but also seems like their not even trying... we'll left with #2 and #3. Given that Ilitch does NOT seem willing to open the purse strings much, if at all, #3 seems highly unlikely. So... we're hoping for #2 then? But do we even think Harris will be able to get a good return for him? I mean, Skubal should be worth it, even if it's just one year of Skubal, but we do have faith that Harris will get it done? I think Harris has made a number of smaller trades that have worked out well enough, but I don't know about a blockbuster level trade. Perhaps it's not fair to judge him sole on the ERod incident, but I don't have much faith in Harris when it comes to make trade deals right now.

Forgive me for coming into the conversation late here, but is the general coconscious these days that the Tigers aren't extending Skubal? That's certainly the feeling I get... that they're just not going to pony up the cash to give him a competitive offer.

1934, actually... and, this is going to ruffle a few feathers, the Lions didn't invent Football on Turkey Day. They weren't even the first NFL team to do it. What made the Lions effort unique were two things: First was the fact that Lions owner George Richards also owned WJR, which was part of the Blue Network (which became ABC) and the Lions game was broadcast nationwide on the radio. And of course the second thing was that the Lions would go on to do it (almost) every year after. (They didn't play in T-Day during WWII.) So the Lions didn't invent it, but they were the ones who made it wildly popular and cemented it as a NFL tradition. Lots of the info here was pulled from the wikipedia article on NFL on Thanksgiving Day if you want to read more. Some numbers (also pulled from there): The Lions have played 85 T-Day games. Second closest is of course the Cowboys with 58. The Bears and Packers are tied for 3rd place with 38. Most wins also goes to the Lions with 38 wins. With them also having 46 loses and 2 ties that's a sad .452 WPct. Second place is unsurprisingly the Cowboys with 35 wins. The Arizona Cardinals have the 5th most T-Day games as they used to host them quite regularly in the past in their various stops around the country. As the Chicago Cards they hosted 1922, '24, '33-'35, and '50. As the St. Louis Cards they hosted on '75 and '77.

I suspect an argument could be made that a RBs success is, at least in part, dependent on the OL. Exhibit A would be J-Will. Averaged 482 yards per season rushing in 2017-2021, and 2023. Averaged 2.3 TDs per season rushing. In 2022 had 1066 rushing yards and 17 TDs. I think it's safe to say that he didn't suddenly become a pro-bowl talent in 2022, then lose that talent in 2023. So, the question then becomes how much is Gibbs success because of OL and how much of it is his talent? Certainly he gets a boost playing because a great (at times) OL. But there's also no denying that Gibbs has TONS of talent. To try to argue that the Lions could just swap in any other RB in his place is pretty silly imho.

In theory, yes... but that's only works if you win the challenges and are able to call for them at a period where you would be willing to have called a TO in case you lose. Furthermore, if you use them up then you won't have a challenge if you need it later. You have a lot of people in the NFL looking for any advantage they can get. If strategic use of challenges lead to "extra" TOs I'm sure we'd be seeing it used much more often.

Actually, I don't think so. I think it was a smart challenge. Dallas needed to start using timeouts to ensure they got the ball back with enough time, so there would have been some good logic in using a timeout at this point anyway. Instead, you use a challenge. Worst case senario: You lose the challenge and you lose a TO that you would likely have used anyway right here. Best case senario: You win and "gain" a TO.

There was a rumor floating around that he injured his wrist earlier in the season. Obviously just a rumor, but it might explain it somewhat.