LAT: Bernie Sanders is on a crusade to save 42 minor league baseball teams

[Stradling]

18 minutes ago, Kevinb said:

You get reps by playing which 19 year olds would in A ball. 

So I’ll just throw this out there.  If the guys who develop players for a living think they need more than 3 teams, shouldn’t that kind of end the discussion?   

[kevinb]

Just now, Stradling said:

Yes.  Which is why they need more than 3 teams.  

No I don't think so. If other athletes in other major sports can play in leagues with guys who are 1 to 3 years older than them but baseball players can't then that's just funny to me. Excuses why baseball can't change is always #reasons. 

[kevinb]

1 minute ago, Stradling said:

So I’ll just throw this out there.  If the guys who develop players for a living think they need more than 3 teams, shouldn’t that kind of end the discussion?   

Bernie Sanders develops players as a living? Shit that guy does a lot and at such an advanced age. Who knew. 

[Stradling]

2 minutes ago, Kevinb said:

No I don't think so. If other athletes in other major sports can play in leagues with guys who are 1 to 3 years older than them but baseball players can't then that's just funny to me. Excuses why baseball can't change is always #reasons. 

Yes reasons which are basically legitimate excuses. 

[Stradling]

1 minute ago, Kevinb said:

Bernie Sanders develops players as a living? Shit that guy does a lot and at such an advanced age. Who knew. 

There’s been more than 3 levels they’ll continue to be more than 3 levels. 

[kevinb]

Just now, Stradling said:

There’s been more than 3 levels they’ll continue to be more than 3 levels. 

Maybe. Hopefully not though. Definitely need to condense it. But at the end of the day I honestly don't care that much. I have yet to go to a minor league game and probably won't in my lifetime. So it really doesn't affect me much at all. 

[Stradling]

1 minute ago, Kevinb said:

Maybe. Hopefully not though. Definitely need to condense it. But at the end of the day I honestly don't care that much. I have yet to go to a minor league game and probably won't in my lifetime. So it really doesn't affect me much at all. 

Yet you’re convinced they could get away with only 3 levels.  Ok.  
 

[kevinb]

1 minute ago, Stradling said:

Yet you’re convinced they could get away with only 3 levels.  Ok.  
 

I am. 

[Tank]

7 hours ago, Lou said:

4 minutes 11 seconds

That’s marginally better than 2 ministers and 21 seconds.

[Tank]

13 minutes ago, Kevinb said:

Bernie Sanders develops players as a living? Shit that guy does a lot and at such an advanced age. Who knew. 

Now you know why he has multiple homes around the country.

[Lou]

3 minutes ago, Tank said:

That’s marginally better than 2 ministers and 21 seconds.

Freudian slip?

[ten ocho recon scout]

2 hours ago, Lou said:

Freudian slip?

.... i literally thought that was the joke tank was making. 

"Hes hittin the dew hard today!"

[AngelsLakersFan]

You might think that MLB has the number of minor league levels that it does because player development guys within the organizations think there is value in it. If they don't think there is value in it then they should want to get rid of it. The fact that this proposal is tied to increasing minor league wages reeks of a political move. It's MLB's way of telling fans that they will collect their pound of flesh if they are forced to pay minor leaguers minimum wage. 

[Dollar Bill]

5 hours ago, Kevinb said:

Trout came up at 19 and played in the bigs. People can do it. It just doesn't happen enough. If they change the system people will get used to it. Kids who are 19 jump into the NBA with grown men and that is a much more physically demanding sport then baseball. 

In football and basketball, college is basically the minor leagues, at no cost to the NBA and NFL.

[Tank]

6 hours ago, Lou said:

Freudian slip?

It’s the sabbath and I had other things on my mind.

[Lou]

7 minutes ago, Tank said:

It’s the sabbath and I had other things on my mind.

[kevinb]

4 hours ago, Dollar Bill said:

In football and basketball, college is basically the minor leagues, at no cost to the NBA and NFL.

Basketball is one year and it’s happened before and will happen again when kids can go straight from high school to the nba. In football it’s three years and 18 year olds are playing against 21 year olds. In hockey 18 and 19 year olds are playing against adults all the time in leagues. I don’t know what your point is or what you’re trying to say? How is baseball completely different than any other sport. There’s college baseball and they still play in the minors and “graduate” the different levels after being drafted. 

[arch stanton]

I'm going to channel my inner Adam and say that while I'd love to save the teams it seems heavy handed to use federal intervention. Maybe it's time to lift the anti-trust exemption and let nature take its course

[Docwaukee]

39 minutes ago, Kevinb said:

Basketball is one year and it’s happened before and will happen again when kids can go straight from high school to the nba. In football it’s three years and 18 year olds are playing against 21 year olds. In hockey 18 and 19 year olds are playing against adults all the time in leagues. I don’t know what your point is or what you’re trying to say? How is baseball completely different than any other sport. There’s college baseball and they still play in the minors and “graduate” the different levels after being drafted. 

Baseball is much different than every other sport.  Mostly because it's much more difficult to determine early on who will be a good player and who won't.   For that reason, there are just more players to evaluate.  They could easily do exactly what you're talking about and the age ranges would shift at those three levels but you'd be leaving out a ton of players from getting development time.  There's probably too many players right now, but cutting it to three teams would thin the pool out too much.  

At the end of the day though, people are trying to make other realize that it's not just about finding talent to fuel the major league club.  It's also about the culture of the game.  

There's got to be some happy medium.  I don't really know what that is.  Hell, maybe what they should do is make the cuts and promote and support college baseball more but that would mean dealing with the NCAA which generally has it's head up it's behind.  

It would also require a complete revamp of the way foreign baseball works which is about 20+% of all the players.  Which is really where the challenge lies.  How do you convince teams to change the structure so the new age for signing or frankly drafting a foreign player gets changed to 18 from 16?  That's a huge difference between baseball and other sports.  Basketball and Hockey have way more international development and infrastructure not funded by the NBA or NHL whereas pretty much all of foreign baseball is funded by MLB.  

[Stradling]

1 hour ago, Kevinb said:

Basketball is one year and it’s happened before and will happen again when kids can go straight from high school to the nba. In football it’s three years and 18 year olds are playing against 21 year olds. In hockey 18 and 19 year olds are playing against adults all the time in leagues. I don’t know what your point is or what you’re trying to say? How is baseball completely different than any other sport. There’s college baseball and they still play in the minors and “graduate” the different levels after being drafted. 

We can have a real discussion after you go watch some rookie ball games and some A ball games.