Longgone

You speak of controlling costs as if it were a nefarious plot. You own a business you have to control costs to survive. But the actual business of a sports league is competitive balance.

I kind of admire your cynicism. However, the essence, the essential quality of any sports league is the ability of each member to be able to compete. No one wants a league of perennial haves and have nots, and no teams should be granted inherent competitive advantages. The idea is to win, not balance spreadsheets. You have to cost control to remain viable, but you have to have competitive balance to maintain a healthy interest in the league itself. The motivating, historical issue for the draft was competitive balance. Sure, it also controls costs, but parity was the issue.

The motivating issue was competitive balance. Of course they want to contain costs, what business owner doesn’t? But do you think these rich, egotistical creatures bought a team to control costs? No! They all want to win and they want a fair playing field where they can compete, for their egos and for their communities. Cost control is just their nature.

That’s disingenuous. It was for competitive balance. Most of the teams in the league couldn’t compete with the big market clubs. It was a league of haves and have nots, and the majority of med to smaller market clubs pushed for a draft to alleviate that. Of course they also wanted to contain costs, the objectives are intertwined.

The main purpose is to distribute incoming talent in an equitable manner, which also happens to contain costs more efficiently than the alternative of big market clubs outbidding everyone for top talent. It serves no purpose to provide rewards, or punitive actions if it has absolutely no impact on corrective, constructive or positive behavior changes. Your last paragraph makes no sense, as a “garbage franchise“ is just as likely to get rewarded as any other since there is no correlation between the lottery and behavior.

Oh stop it. Drafts distribute incoming amateur talent in a most rational manner, and have been doing so successfully in most sports for many years. Lotteries, in any sport, have done absolutely nothing to affect or change team behavior even one iota, and only serve to dilute the true function of a draft. Lotteries address a perception, not a reality.

Prater has sucked since leaving the Lions.

Keith has eased the concerns regarding his defense, he probably will be able to stick at third. Most of the apprehension came from the fall league when he came back from injury rusty and overweight. Malloy on the other hand, has not shown any movement towards proficiency in the infield.

That was the resumption of a suspended game from August 7. That single has been hanging out there in suspension.

It's hard to say, often what looks like an awful throw was actually thrown exactly where the receiver was supposed to be, but the receiver ran the wrong route, made a different read, cut the route off or screwed up the play in some other way.

Every team does it.

FWIW, baseball execs and scouting and development staff were uniformly against this, it was the owners and MLB who pushed it through.

I think you are reading way too much into what was likely a casually phrased response to a reporters question. All I believe they meant to convey is that they hadn't received any updates and there was nothing new to report. I don't believe they were conveying any angst or expressing any concerns with the process.

I don't get all this Rodriguez is a flake talk. He took time off to salvage his marriage, successfully it seems. That's good, no? I don't know all the details, and I don't need to know. The Tigers seemed fine with it and welcomed him back. Why is that not satisfactory? I'm not too happy Detroit got ****ed at the trading deadline, but again, I dont have all the facts and motivations, so I'm not going to assign blame. **** happens.

I don't recall the exact quote, but at the time I took it to mean simply that they hadn't gotten any update, that there was nothing new to report, not that he had gone incommunicado. It felt like it was personal and they left him alone to take care of it. I don't see the negative in that.

Sure, that would still be a good value, and makes more sense than losing him for nothing. Probably better than you could replicate in free agency.

Well, those two both have big holes in their swings and poor plate discipline, that's not cultural. In general, the best hitting approach is to get a good pitch, hit it hard and hit it where it's pitched. You'll just look foolish trying to take many major pitches the other way or altering your finely honed swing. Hitting behind the runner is kind of an antiquated concept, like bunting the runner over.

You think that's due to a poor team culture?

Likely were getting a top young catcher from the Dodgers, someone who doesn't strike out 40% of the time.

How you, Lee?

Faedo was coming to Detroit if erod was traded, not sure what they were doing with Sands, but it's logical he was also coming up to the big club, so you can speculate about that. They were just staged in Erie. No reason to make those moves in advance for minor league purposes.

No

I think the problem is, other teams were likely aware that a deal was close with LA, and they had all moved on at that late juncture. They couldn't wait around just in case the deal fell through.

He'd be a fool not to opt out.

I'm sure erod was involved in the process. They tried to work it out and couldn't satisfy him. How is that " a colossal waste of time"? It's a process.