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Especially in the only federally-protected monopoly environment in the country.

I don't think we know that there have been no concessions from the players. None of us are part of either side of the negotiating table—or, at least, I'm not. I'm just suggesting that if it was your intention to portray Players as an unreasonable, unyielding barrier to our continuing enjoyment of the offseason by highlighting what appears to be reasonable positions on their part, your effort is falling short of that mark.

To this end, I wonder how much of the idea behind the wild spending leading up the deadline was the owners essentially trying to "buy off" the players, softening them up for the negotiations by saying look at all the spending we were doing and you forced us to stop, so this is really your fault—that kind of thing? Two of the four players on the executive subcommittee for the players just got outsized contracts (Scherzer at 3/130, and Semien at 7/175), and Lindor (10/341) is a third player on that subcommittee.

This is wrong on a couple of levels. The idea that players are taking no risk is laughable because, again, baseball is the only source of income for most of them. As long as the game shuts down their income stops, and however long it stretches into the season--or seasons (!)--that eats into the short window of time they have to ply their trade and make any income at all. Plus, because players are well known and in the media all the time, every day the lockout stretches on, they're the ones who get blamed for the whole thing. That's the complete opposite of the owners' situation, since they are relatively unknown because they hardly ever appear in the media, and who all have multiple sources of non-baseball income. For a local example, consider the Ilitches, who own a pizza chain, a hockey team, arenas and theaters, and a casino hotel. Whether or not baseball is even played doesn't affect any of these businesses. It appears that you've misplaced the risk on the opposite end of the spectrum. Also, the idea that all players are millionaires. I can see why you believe this because the media, much of which is owner-controlled or at least sympathetic to them, lead you to believe that all players are millionaires. But this is true of only a small portion of major league players. Of the 1,374 players who stepped onto a major league field last year, about 30% were paid at least $1 million. That means 70% of players were not. Many of these players bounced up and down between the minors. Most of those guys scuffled for years at minor league money, which I guarantee is less than you make, before steeping into the sun for a brief moment. And many of those guys also came from impoverished circumstances from third-world countries. Unlike many of the men who own the teams, few if any players were born with the silver spoon. But ultimately, whether some players are millionaires is not even the issue. The issue is that revenue in the game has increased substantially, the share of that revenue going to players has dropped to historic lows, and as people working in an industry that generates the money, they have some leverage to improve their circumstances to at least what it was just a few years ago. This isn't like owning a restaurant, where it's the owner's world and the fungible employees just live in it. Players are connected to the game as people by the rest of us, so they are not mere employees.

None of this sounds unreasonable to me.

It's because of the jackrabbit ball. Pitchers are dreadfully afraid of giving up home runs, the worst outcome for them, so they put 100% on every single pitch, from the very first pitch of every game, for the sole purpose of inducing swing and miss. This is why they've been working on maximizing velocity and maximizing movement for at least the past decade and a half, which puts strain on the shoulder, arm and elbow and leads not only to more injuries over the season, but to shorter outings during games because they get completely gassed on fewer pitches and innings. As long as the jackrabbit ball exists and all nine slots in the order can take the ball out of the park, the days of pitchers pacing themselves and laying up on down-the-order batters are over. Deaden the ball, and you'll see longer pitcher outings, fewer injuries, and more 200+-inning seasons.

And so, I'm not clear why you appear to feel such sympathy for Baseball and none for Players.

I'm a business owner, too. The only thing we have in common with them is that we share the title of "business owner" with them. You and I have practically nothing else in common with the men who own baseball teams as part of their empire. They are a different breed of cat from you and me, and we are not in the same boat as they are. Even as business owners ourselves, we have to pay admission to even step foot on their boat.

What is the current position?

That's a good question. Missed games hurts Baseball as a collective, since the entire enterprise gets shut down and the gameday revenue stops flowing in, and it obviously hurts Players for most of whom this is their sole livelihood and source of income. But when it comes down to individual owners, I don't think baseball is the main source of income for even a single one of them. I would bet that for most owners, baseball is a very small part of their portfolio. For however long baseball is suspended and games are missed, every one of those individual owners will be fine and the income will still to flowing to them from their various other sources. So, I'm going to conclude that Players will be hurt more by missed games.

Except Players haven't been getting smaller incremental gains. They've been going backwards. Baseball is generating more revenue and Players are being paid less. So why is it Players responsibility that Baseball locks them out and stops the game cold in its tracks for accepting less and less while Baseball makes more and more?

Exactly. I would think the only thing the owners would demand is that things remain just as they are right now.

Outside of the top three or four dozen players and pre-arb minimum makers, the middle and lowest tier of established players are making far less than they did even a decade ago. Teams tax themselves for spending too much, but do not penalize themselves for spending too little. Baseball has also supercharged its revenue haul from non-gameday sources, such as MLBAM, broadcast rights, and agreements with gambling behemoths, of which the players take is zero. These are very large barrels that Baseball has the players over. I don’t know any issue on which the players have the owners over a barrel.

Claiming lack of availability is reasonable in the era of COVID, since it does take manual labor to construct the balls. On the other hand, Baseball loves them some homers.

He’s already in the 5-ish WAR territory, if you believe B-Ref.

If only the players would shut up and take what the owners decide to give them, this would not be difficult to resolve.

I’m guessing there are no player pictures on the MLB.com website because they have to license their use from the MLBPA.

Michigan was the first English-speaking jurisdiction in the world to abolish the death penalty. Personally, I always felt a lot of pride in that fact.

I won't aver that I think Baez will, since I have no behind-the-scenes evidence either way, but since he had that improvement once he went to a new organization, I do think it's more likely that they worked with him to make some adjustments, than it would have been if he'd stayed with the Cubs and had that same improvement. IOW, I think it's more possible that Mets helped him with his plate discipline than the Cubs would have helped him with it.

I do wonder how much of their improvement came from just watching Miggy work, and how much came from obtaining hitting instruction outside the organization. Maybe J.D. and Nick should give Javy their coaches' dets.

If metal detectors and armed police on-site at schools are "not the answer", then I see no purpose to implementing them. Throwing up your hands and saying oh well seems to be just as good an answer. I think stopping mass shootings, and shootings in general, has more to do with reducing access to guns, creating better and more equitable educational and vocational opportunities, improving social and health services, and generally making people feel welcome and a part of their community rather alienated and alone. I don't see the point in doing something anything even if it's not the answer, other than to give people some false sense of security that, hey, we've done something anything, so it's not our fault that the shootings continue unabated. The whole airport/school/stadium security theater debacle is really little more than a way for private companies to siphon off taxpayer dollars to no real end.

I do wonder about the coaching part. Joe Maddon is famously hands-off with his players, and David Ross played with Javy, so it might be hard for Ross to get Javy to do anything different. So conditions were right for Javy to be allowed to just do what he does. I definitely believe he will be coached more in Detroit than in Chicago, at least, and I also gotta believe he knows that's coming.

Anyone who is highly motivated to get a weapon into school can do so without much problem. Having an armed sheriff's deputy on-site did nothing to stop Parkland. If metal detectors and armed cops are not the answer, which you agree to, then all it's doing is making the grownups not affected by it feel better about what's happening someplace they never go to. Also, bonus: it prepares children to accept living in a police surveillance state, as befits the American notion of liberty.

Like at Parkland?

Imagine how much more gun deaths in Australia would drop if they would arm teachers and have metal detectors in schools.