Tiger337

Torkelson and Greene are not on the 40-man roster. I am a bit worried about Paredes though. $130,000 doesn't go too far with inflation as it is and Issac likes to eat.

He was headed for a Hank Aaron/ Frank Robinson career. He turned out to have more like a Manny Ramirez type career (without the taint of roids).

I was looking at players that played the majority of time at third base and then I counted all seasons they played at any position. Certainly if Cabrera played most of his time at third base, he would be #1 by a lot.

Third highest WAR for a Tigers thirdbaseman after Fryman and Kell.

You have to understand. When Archie refers to liberals, he is talking about people that support Mitt Romney.

Also, talk fast.

Prospects in particular. I bet if you went through all the proven player for prospect deals in the last 15 years, you would find out that the team getting the propspect loses more often than not. That doesn't mean a team shouldn't make those deals, but if your team gets into that position too often then the odds will be against them.

I think it's just the nature of prospects. They are risky. You are going to miss more often than you hit, so you need your hits to be big ones. There is a lot of luck involved too.

It seems to me that teams that trade proven players for prospects at the deadline lose the trade more often than not. When you repeatedly have deadline fire sales, you are not dealing from a position of strength.

I am glad that they are mostly peaceful. I support people who peacefully protest something that they strongly believe in even if I think they are choosing the wrong battle. I don't support them clogging up major roads for days and days. I supported BLM protests. I didn't support violent extremists hijacking their protests looting and destroying property. There is no fascist regime in the White House. That is silly.

Tony Phillips, baseball's ultimate utility player.

A lot of people dislike Frank Beckman. I think there were rumors about him being responsible for Harwell being fired, but that seems dubious. I thought he was a good broadcaster. He wasn't Harwell or Dickerson, but he wasn't rathbun/Rizzs either.

I think of tanking as giving up or not trying to win (not necessarily trying to lose). In the more specific usage, I don't think teams spend the whole season trying to lose, but I think it is tempting to not put the best product on the field at the end of the season to improve draft position or for international pool money. That's why I would like to see these things determined on July 31 rather than at the end of the season.

I meant that unloading salaries and not trying to be competitive in down years saves them money.

And there is tanking to save money for themselves.

Here is a SABR article talking about the dual purpose of the draft. https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-history-and-future-of-the-amateur-draft/

Reducing competition for draft picks, not minor leaguers. Prior to the draft, they could sign with any team. With the draft, they can of course only sign with the team that drafts them. I am too cynical to believe that MLB does anything out of fairness. They've been tinkering with the draft all along closing loopholes and changing signing rules to keep down salaries and bonuses down. Sure, the draft also helps competitive balance to an extent, but keeping down salaries is an important purpose of the draft.

I agree.

I always assumed one of the main reasons for the draft (which started before the players had any power) was to cut costs by eliminating competition between teams for players.

I drew the line at 8 teams because I guessed there are usually about that many teams that are bad and in need of help. It could even be varying amounts of teams such as every team with less than 70 wins. My other idea was for the draft order to be based on team records at July 31 which would eliminate any concern about teams trying to finish with the worst record. I know you said that doesn't happen, but I don't think it's out of the question that is has crossed the minds of front offices. It certainly has crossed the minds of fans.

I really doubt that a small lottery is going to screw anything up. The level parity that you guys want will be the same

Won/loss record is a measure of team strength in a particular year. It is not a measure of organizational strength or an indication of how much a team needs help. A team that is stacked with prospects after four years of losing is not more in need of help than another bad team with a barren farm system having it's first bad year.

But not the function of the draft. You're still helping the bad teams get better.

I think a lottery still allows weaker teams to become more competitive. I don't see how it distorts anything. You are still helping bad teams get better. You just aren't rewarding professional teams for finishing last which seems absurd to me. I like it. It's not a big deal to me, but I like it as a fan. And I don't think teams being bad is solely a function of tyrying to re-build. A lot of it is trying to save money and sometimes it is incompetence. I do agree that the lottery probably won't do much to change behavior of teams.