I think my math is correct but the magic number for the Wolves to make the Play-in games is 5.
man i love this team so much. i don't really care how far they go into the playoffs should they make it. they're having fun and it's so much fun to watch.
— CJ Fogler AKA Perc70 #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) March 10, 2022
They are an immensely likable team. And here’s to Beas continuing his scorching ways.
Now if the Nuggets, Mavs, and Jazz could lose a game or 4, that would be nice. Wolves are 8-2 last 10 games and the Nugs are 9-1. The other two are 7-3.
I would prefer it be the Nuggets because Jokic annoys me.
But is he Super Cool?
I didn't turn it on until the last 8 minutes or so (there's curling on this week), but even the end of the bench guys looked like they were having fun.
BREAKING: Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have reached a tentative agreement on a new labor deal, sources tell ESPN. While it still needs to be ratified by both parties, that is expected to be a formality, and when it is:
Good thing I was too lazy to get my wallet from upstairs.
Saved myself $1.17
Now I want to watch this show again.
Actually, I've been going through it again. Not as active viewing, but I pop on episode or two on while cleaning up after everyone goes to bed. I guess I'm treating it as if it was in syndication.
I saw that 9 inning double headers and regular extra inning rules will now apply for the season. I haven't seen any other details like pitch clock, shift bans, terms of service before free agency, luxury tax, etc. I am sure they will come out in the next few hours (or maybe already agreed to and I missed).
Looks like universal DH in 2022. And the aforementioned 9 inning doubleheaders and no runner on second base in extra innings either for 2022.
Other rule changes such as pitch clock and shift ban would be in 2023, but not necessarily. I get shift ban needs some study as it could go dozens of ways but a pitch clock would be easy to implement now. It's been in the minors for a couple of years.
I hate the idea of banning the shift. If the problem is not enough balls in play, I'd rather make the strike zone smaller and balance it by having a less lively ball. Hitters would have to focus more on hit placement, pitchers would need to be that much better at control to get the ball in the zone, but also with a less-lively ball, they have less of a "home run penalty" disincentive for throwing strikes. Personally, I don't love the shift towards more of the three true outcomes, but it's not necessarily an easy problem to solve -- you have a lot of different variables in play.
However, I love, love, love pitch clocks. Everyone figured out that if you give the pitcher more rest between pitches, they can throw harder. But the game is just better if there is less time between pitches. The pitchers will have to adapt by throwing less hard (which could potentially be good for their arm health) and/or throwing more strikes.
The way the minor league pitch clock is implemented is totally fine, but I also like the idea of a chess clock style for limiting time between pitches. Give a team like 120 seconds on the clock to start the game, and add 17 seconds to the clock for each pitch they throw. At 120 pitches, they would be forced into an average pitch time of 18 seconds per pitch, and after that, they would have to go at 17 seconds per pitch. On the other side, I would say that either batters cannot request time out, or each team is limited to 3-5 such time outs per game, something like that. Make the batters be ready for the pitch. If they're not ready, then they'll just have to take their chances on the pitch being a ball or strike. Penalty for stepping out of the box without a timeout is a strike, penalty for violating the pitch clock is a ball. Also, with the chess-style clock, I would say it should run for every pitch of the game, including when runners are on base. If you want more time to work with runners on base, then you need to work more quickly with runners not on base. It would also make it easier to run on a pitcher who is running low on their pitch clock, and I think that anything we can do to make stolen bases higher percentage is good, because stealing bases is a fun part of the game -- you just need the incentives aligned correctly so that home runs are not too frequent and successful steals are high-enough percentage.
I don't really see anything on there that will benefit the fans. Service time rules still suck.
The anti-tanking provisions seem pretty tame. Also I would have loved to see some sort of bright line spending floor.
My guess is that a salary cap, and floor, will never happen because the CBT already effectively functions as a cap. The owners get to control spending without guaranteeing a minimum.
Spending floor is the wrong way to do anti-tanking. You can tank even harder by overpaying some crappy veteran players.
For the NBA, I think they should base the non-playoff draft order on how many years it has been since you missed the playoffs -- but NBA #1-#5 picks tend to contribute a LOT more quickly than MLB top picks.
Honestly, from a competitive standpoint, I think the best solution is to have:
- Teams get a set number of credits to spend every year.
- Abolish all the drafts.
- Limit player contracts to 3 years plus a player option. Renegotiation every offseason is allowed if both parties essentially want to extend by a year.
- The credits include all player contract expenses, including rookies and veterans, bonuses, etc.
- Tie a percentage of league revenue to the payout for players, and then convert the credits into dollars.
- Credits go away if you don't spend them in a given year -- there is no incentive to hoard them.
- Have some minimum salary per year.
For instance:
- Each team gets 200 million credits to spend.
- That's 6,000 million credits leaguewide.
- But because teams don't always hit their full budget, teams wind up paying out 5,500 million credits by the end of the season.
- Players get 50% of the league's revenue.
- 50% of the league's revenue converts to 4,500 million dollars.
- Players get paid out at a rate of (4,500/5,500) dollars per credit for that season.
Under this system, players would hit free agency way earlier, and teams could completely reload their rosters every three years, so you can't get completely wiped out as badly by a truly awful GM. Less security for rookie players -- I'd guess signing bonuses would be lower because you're not going to produce a ton in your first three years, but also there's more upside for rookie players because they can be a free agent just as they are leaving the minor leagues. In general, compensation would match performance much more closely because you don't have these overly suppressed arbitration salaries, which lead to a weak free agent market, which lead to a lot of money chasing few players every offseason, which leads to drastically overpaid free agents.
With a cap like this, everyone has equal resources to spend, and by tying total player compensation to the leaguewide revenue, I don't think there are any logical arguments against having a salary cap.
I really think the contract-length limit would tremendously help the health of the league. These long 5-7+ season deals are just terrible for teams, practically no one is really worth the back end of the deal, but GMs are more or less forced into signing deals like this because there are so few players on the free agent market every year (because of the huge arbitration period, but also because the 5-7+ season deals themselves keep players off the market forever.) MLB's free agent market is just sooooo unhealthy.
I am just a big, big proponent of a strong salary cap for competitive balance -- each team gets 9 players in the batting order, each team should have the same resources to build their roster. I think the only major downsides of salary caps are teams getting stuck in a bad long-term situation, and players seeing their compensation limited. But I think you can solve those problems by limiting contract lengths and by tying league revenue to the total amount paid to the players.
Baseball is really back. Nine inning doubleheaders and regular extra inning rules return. Man on 2nd is a thing of the past.
The great news above was immediately tempered for me, as I learned yet another classmate from my smallish graduating class of 150 died by suicide. I know you guys all know the means for help, so I’ll just say to love yourself and yours.
You do the same, Milkman. I’m sorry.
Oh, man. These have been some pretty hard months with real consequences. Hang in there.
I can get ismlblockedout.online for $1.17 after taxes through my hosting service. I'm gonna grab it.
That's starting to feel like it's not going to need much scripting. Plain text will do it.
I'd pass.
Happy 117th Birthday Chelsea FC. Hmm... wonder what birthday presents the club will get?
https://www.espn.com/soccer/chelsea-engchelsea/story/4613373/chelsea-owner-roman-abramovich-added-to-uks-russian-sanctions-list
I think my math is correct but the magic number for the Wolves to make the Play-in games is 5.
man i love this team so much. i don't really care how far they go into the playoffs should they make it. they're having fun and it's so much fun to watch.
They are an immensely likable team. And here’s to Beas continuing his scorching ways.
Now if the Nuggets, Mavs, and Jazz could lose a game or 4, that would be nice. Wolves are 8-2 last 10 games and the Nugs are 9-1. The other two are 7-3.
I would prefer it be the Nuggets because Jokic annoys me.
But is he Super Cool?
I didn't turn it on until the last 8 minutes or so (there's curling on this week), but even the end of the bench guys looked like they were having fun.
We're back, baby.
Earlier than I expected.
Good thing I was too lazy to get my wallet from upstairs.
Saved myself $1.17
Now I want to watch this show again.
Actually, I've been going through it again. Not as active viewing, but I pop on episode or two on while cleaning up after everyone goes to bed. I guess I'm treating it as if it was in syndication.
I saw that 9 inning double headers and regular extra inning rules will now apply for the season. I haven't seen any other details like pitch clock, shift bans, terms of service before free agency, luxury tax, etc. I am sure they will come out in the next few hours (or maybe already agreed to and I missed).
Tim Dierkes has been tracking the proposals. I believe what is listed as MLB's (counter)proposal is what was accepted.
Looks like universal DH in 2022. And the aforementioned 9 inning doubleheaders and no runner on second base in extra innings either for 2022.
Other rule changes such as pitch clock and shift ban would be in 2023, but not necessarily. I get shift ban needs some study as it could go dozens of ways but a pitch clock would be easy to implement now. It's been in the minors for a couple of years.
I hate the idea of banning the shift. If the problem is not enough balls in play, I'd rather make the strike zone smaller and balance it by having a less lively ball. Hitters would have to focus more on hit placement, pitchers would need to be that much better at control to get the ball in the zone, but also with a less-lively ball, they have less of a "home run penalty" disincentive for throwing strikes. Personally, I don't love the shift towards more of the three true outcomes, but it's not necessarily an easy problem to solve -- you have a lot of different variables in play.
However, I love, love, love pitch clocks. Everyone figured out that if you give the pitcher more rest between pitches, they can throw harder. But the game is just better if there is less time between pitches. The pitchers will have to adapt by throwing less hard (which could potentially be good for their arm health) and/or throwing more strikes.
The way the minor league pitch clock is implemented is totally fine, but I also like the idea of a chess clock style for limiting time between pitches. Give a team like 120 seconds on the clock to start the game, and add 17 seconds to the clock for each pitch they throw. At 120 pitches, they would be forced into an average pitch time of 18 seconds per pitch, and after that, they would have to go at 17 seconds per pitch. On the other side, I would say that either batters cannot request time out, or each team is limited to 3-5 such time outs per game, something like that. Make the batters be ready for the pitch. If they're not ready, then they'll just have to take their chances on the pitch being a ball or strike. Penalty for stepping out of the box without a timeout is a strike, penalty for violating the pitch clock is a ball. Also, with the chess-style clock, I would say it should run for every pitch of the game, including when runners are on base. If you want more time to work with runners on base, then you need to work more quickly with runners not on base. It would also make it easier to run on a pitcher who is running low on their pitch clock, and I think that anything we can do to make stolen bases higher percentage is good, because stealing bases is a fun part of the game -- you just need the incentives aligned correctly so that home runs are not too frequent and successful steals are high-enough percentage.
I don't really see anything on there that will benefit the fans. Service time rules still suck.
The anti-tanking provisions seem pretty tame. Also I would have loved to see some sort of bright line spending floor.
My guess is that a salary cap, and floor, will never happen because the CBT already effectively functions as a cap. The owners get to control spending without guaranteeing a minimum.
Spending floor is the wrong way to do anti-tanking. You can tank even harder by overpaying some crappy veteran players.
For the NBA, I think they should base the non-playoff draft order on how many years it has been since you missed the playoffs -- but NBA #1-#5 picks tend to contribute a LOT more quickly than MLB top picks.
Honestly, from a competitive standpoint, I think the best solution is to have:
- Teams get a set number of credits to spend every year.
- Abolish all the drafts.
- Limit player contracts to 3 years plus a player option. Renegotiation every offseason is allowed if both parties essentially want to extend by a year.
- The credits include all player contract expenses, including rookies and veterans, bonuses, etc.
- Tie a percentage of league revenue to the payout for players, and then convert the credits into dollars.
- Credits go away if you don't spend them in a given year -- there is no incentive to hoard them.
- Have some minimum salary per year.
For instance:
- Each team gets 200 million credits to spend.
- That's 6,000 million credits leaguewide.
- But because teams don't always hit their full budget, teams wind up paying out 5,500 million credits by the end of the season.
- Players get 50% of the league's revenue.
- 50% of the league's revenue converts to 4,500 million dollars.
- Players get paid out at a rate of (4,500/5,500) dollars per credit for that season.
Under this system, players would hit free agency way earlier, and teams could completely reload their rosters every three years, so you can't get completely wiped out as badly by a truly awful GM. Less security for rookie players -- I'd guess signing bonuses would be lower because you're not going to produce a ton in your first three years, but also there's more upside for rookie players because they can be a free agent just as they are leaving the minor leagues. In general, compensation would match performance much more closely because you don't have these overly suppressed arbitration salaries, which lead to a weak free agent market, which lead to a lot of money chasing few players every offseason, which leads to drastically overpaid free agents.
With a cap like this, everyone has equal resources to spend, and by tying total player compensation to the leaguewide revenue, I don't think there are any logical arguments against having a salary cap.
I really think the contract-length limit would tremendously help the health of the league. These long 5-7+ season deals are just terrible for teams, practically no one is really worth the back end of the deal, but GMs are more or less forced into signing deals like this because there are so few players on the free agent market every year (because of the huge arbitration period, but also because the 5-7+ season deals themselves keep players off the market forever.) MLB's free agent market is just sooooo unhealthy.
I am just a big, big proponent of a strong salary cap for competitive balance -- each team gets 9 players in the batting order, each team should have the same resources to build their roster. I think the only major downsides of salary caps are teams getting stuck in a bad long-term situation, and players seeing their compensation limited. But I think you can solve those problems by limiting contract lengths and by tying league revenue to the total amount paid to the players.
Goodbye, Manfredball. May you never return.
The great news above was immediately tempered for me, as I learned yet another classmate from my smallish graduating class of 150 died by suicide. I know you guys all know the means for help, so I’ll just say to love yourself and yours.
You do the same, Milkman. I’m sorry.
Oh, man. These have been some pretty hard months with real consequences. Hang in there.
So sorry, spooks.
FWIW, Know the Signs
Maybe the worst goal the Wild have ever scored?
Oh, I didn't realize that was against the Wild