2019-2020 MLB Non-Phillies News/Notes Discussion

Well that is a lousy idea. They also love small divisions too, so when we go to 8 4-team divisions you will have some mediocre division winners and teams with the best record in the league coming from weak divisions.

When they have 32 teams the ideal system is 12 playoff teams. 4 division winners get byes. 8 wild card teams playoff in 3-game series (make them all at the home of the higher seeded team to eliminate travel). Then you have 5-7-7 as we do today in the last 3 rounds.

This gives them the extra games they need with fewer gimmicks and little added length to the postseason (which also could be helped by going to 154 or 156 games in the regular season). They can eliminate play-in games too. Every other sport has tiebreakers.

I guess I'm old-fashioned, but I just cannot agree. I just have trouble with the idea that more than ¹/₄ of the teams in a league (as long as there's interleague play, there's really only one "league") should qualify for "playoffs" - what we used to call the post-season, when it was short, but which is now, more and more, the real season, after a long, less and less meaningful pre-season.

The leagues don't play each other enough to really want to have wild cards across leagues. I am actually OK with the interleague play though I would make it fair like the NFL. Play one division a year on rotation. No traditional rivalries because that makes the schedule unfair.

We DO want teams within your own league to play each other to make the wild card more meaningful. My 4 divisions with 8 teams works out perfectly for a 156-game schedule. 7x12, 8x6, 8x3. We need to cut a week off the season anyway (or a half week and add some more off days).

I am old fashioned too, but I do get the need for TV dollars and postseason games. Let's just make them meaningful. Give byes to the best teams and make the schedule as fair as possible.

New $57 million renovation for Mets' spring training includes new super nice club house for spring training only.

Mets spring training renovation for clubhouse. Not for use by minor league team!6

The Mets are only using it for Spring Training, not for the St. Lucie regular season, to give minor leaguers a reminder of the status they're working to earn.

Fangraphs has the first 2 parts of a series discussing the changes proposed in minor league baseball.

There is a 3rd part coming addressing the power and control consolidation that MLB wants. It does seem the motivation here is half cost savings and half trying to spend more resources on the better prospects. I guess what it comes down to for me is that they have enough money to continue this, so the reasons for changing may not fly. And if you get one major leaguer every 5 years out of a 30th-40th round pick, it is probably worth it.

Maybe they just cut 12 teams to 150 total so every team has only one short season team (and can do whatever it wants in complex leagues). Now if they move the draft back, maybe the short season leagues become something different. How about a 80-100 game season starting in May for advanced players that would be in extended spring? New draftees could join in July for the last month or 6 weeks.

MLB would prefer to have all these 30th round picks develop elsewhere (and probably not develop for the most part except for the occasional Indy league signing) as long as it is fair for all teams. I just worry that decisions like that are pretty short-sighted and harm the game in the long run.

MLB trying to insulate themselves against "the minor leaguers are underpaid" argument. It probably won't work but at least they make a few more pennies this season:

With all the talk about the free agency market being improved, it looks like opening day payrolls are on average only 1.4% higher than in 2019. And remember that there was a decline in payrolls in both 2018 (-0.6%) and 2019 (-1.4%). Revenues are not increasing 10% a year any more, but they did go up close to 4% last year ($10.3 billion to $10.7 billion). This means there has been a close to 20% revenue increase the past 4 years where payrolls have gone up less than 5%.

This is yet another piece of data that would support an immediate increase of 10%-15% in the luxury tax threshold, if not more. That would be an increase of $20 to $30 million in a couple of years if the players get their fair share of revenues.

And ZIPS projections. 82-80 for the Phillies in 4th place.

Seems reasonable though ZIPS seems pretty optimistic on the Mets.

Yikes. I am afraid to hear Nate Silver's election forecasts...

And if they are off base and we win the division, not so much.

That’s why we play the games.

Not me lol, I think we have a better team and manager than last year and I thought that was a 95 win team going in. Like they say, everyone has an opinion.