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Wasn't there once a woman deposed who testified that Trump raped her when she was 13? I think that came out a couple or three years ago, maybe?

Just a reminder that more people voted for Hillary than for Trump.

They are already enforcing the laws on the books and are punishing people beyond a slap on the wrist. Cruel and unusual punishment won’t reduce crime. It never did.

This just baffles me. It feels as though Republican legislators simply want the people to shoot and kill each other on a massive scale, since they definitely know that this will happen, and yet they still want to make guns as easy to obtain as any items you might impulse-buy at a Walmart. I'm still trying to figure out why they would want this.

At least the popcorn will.

I would think that if a team investing $10-$40 million in a pitcher has any say, they would want them throwing as many innings as possible.

This, I agree with 100%. You and I are on the same page here.

Owning a baseball team is not the main source of income for any of the owners, and they have generational wealth that will survive them, so their risk is minimal. Not true of Players: for most of those guys, game stops, income stops. If for no other reason than this, it's obvious the lions' share of risk is on the players. This made me lol because, literally, the only reason you know what players make is the media.

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.