Rob Manfred is keeping baseball alive. 6 inning minimum for pitchers is on the table

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

The Pittsburgh pirates have not signed a free agent player to a contract longer than 1 year since 2016.


The owner of the Chicago cubs says openly his chief priority is turning a profit and everything else is secondary.

The owner of the white Sox despite being close to 90 is trying to shake down the state for another publicly funded stadium.

The billionaire heir to the gap clothing line intentionally ran his baseball team in one of the biggest markets in baseball into the ground so he could point to bad fan attendance to justify moving into a minor league park while trying to move to the smallest market and potentially smallest stadium in baseball so he can keep cashing revenue sharing checks from everyone else.

The family that owns the guardians won’t spend despite having more money than the steinbrenners.

The owners of the twins just gave away the entire roster in a fire sale to pay off their debts.

The owners of the nationals from 2018-today gave away all their best players despite winning the World Series.

The marlins have more fire sales than playoff appearances in their history and make no effort to spend whatsoever on anyone across every owner in team history.

The tigers are shopping one of the best pitchers in baseball in his 20’s because they just don’t want to pay him.

After decades of cheap ownership the orioles are sold to a new owner who also won’t spend to keep talented players on the team.

The royals have made the playoffs 4 times since 1986.

After making the World Series for the first time in 20+ years the first order of business for the owner of the diamondbacks was to try shaking down the state of Arizona for a new stadium despite their current one being less than 25 years old.

Be mad at owners like this instead

 

[Oldschooler]

The Pittsburgh pirates have not signed a free agent player to a contract longer than 1 year since 2016.


The owner of the Chicago cubs says openly his chief priority is turning a profit and everything else is secondary.

The owner of the white Sox despite being close to 90 is trying to shake down the state for another publicly funded stadium.

The billionaire heir to the gap clothing line intentionally ran his baseball team in one of the biggest markets in baseball into the ground so he could point to bad fan attendance to justify moving into a minor league park while trying to move to the smallest market and potentially smallest stadium in baseball so he can keep cashing revenue sharing checks from everyone else.

The family that owns the guardians won’t spend despite having more money than the steinbrenners.

The owners of the twins just gave away the entire roster in a fire sale to pay off their debts.

The owners of the nationals from 2018-today gave away all their best players despite winning the World Series.

The marlins have more fire sales than playoff appearances in their history and make no effort to spend whatsoever on anyone across every owner in team history.

The tigers are shopping one of the best pitchers in baseball in his 20’s because they just don’t want to pay him.

After decades of cheap ownership the orioles are sold to a new owner who also won’t spend to keep talented players on the team.

The royals have made the playoffs 4 times since 1986.

After making the World Series for the first time in 20+ years the first order of business for the owner of the diamondbacks was to try shaking down the state of Arizona for a new stadium despite their current one being less than 25 years old.

Be mad at owners like this instead

You're right but the reason those owners don't want to pay is because they know they are not able to compete vs the big market teams like Yankees and Dodgers. MLB needs to have a salary cap if they want more parity.

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

You're right but the reason those owners don't want to pay is because they know they are not able to compete vs the big market teams like Yankees and Dodgers. MLB needs to have a salary cap if they want more parity.

The Yankees don’t even try like that anymore. The last two big name free agent position players they signed were Jacoby Ellsbury in 2013 and Mark Teixeira in 2008. They’re openly content with making a “competitive offer” so they can say they tried. The days of Steinbrenner throwing the bag at stars to ensure that his teams have the best shot at the title are long over. Even then it was also a product of bad ownership.

Mike Mussina left because the orioles were cheap. Jason Giambi took their offer because the A’s wouldn’t offer a no trade clause (A’s ownership over the last 25 years was basically hand picked by selig and manfred by allowing them to submit non competitive bids to buy the team since they both wanted to end baseball in Oakland). Mookie Betts is in LA now because the Red Sox decided they didn’t want to pay him and decided that Alex Verdugo was a fair return. The 2018 nationals had Anthony Rendon, Bryce Harper, Juan Soto, Trea Turner, Max Scherzer, Steven Strasburg, and Ryan Zimmerman. That’s an incredible roster and they one by one let every one of them go, seemingly only trying to retain Soto long term. These are just a few examples of this sort of effect.


Well run organizations always rise to the top. It’s why the Yankees have grabbed the top seed in the AL just once since 2013 and haven’t grabbed the top overall seed at all since then. Baseball has had plenty of parity. The dodgers just became the first team to repeat as champs in 25 years and since 2000 we’ve seen the following teams win it all:

Yankees, diamondbacks (over the Yankees), angels, marlins (over the Yankees), Red Sox, white Sox, cardinals, Phillies, giants (over two big market teams whose owners did spend), royals (over a big market team), cubs, Astros (cheating), nationals, dodgers, Braves, & rangers.


Over the last 25 years we have seen 16 of the 30 teams in baseball win the World Series at least once and a few more have made the World Series even though they didn’t win it all (Detroit, Mets, Colorado, Tampa, Cleveland, & Toronto). That’s fantastic parity. 22 of 30 teams since 2000 have at least reached the World Series once and of the 6 who didn’t win it, 2 of them came one swing of the bat away from walking it off at home in game 7. All of that with so many terrible owners running their teams into the ground. Can’t ask for much more unless the bad owners go.