GregAlso

4 hours ago, m0nkey said:

Yeah, shut the fuck up cody!

Wow, the only Astro who came across as sincere and like he knew how to make an apology just blew himself up. Couldn’t even keep silent for a week. Remain silent and appear wise or open your mouth and remove all doubt you are a fool. Guess we know which path Correa and the Astros are choosing.  
 

this will only get worse for them. Pathetic 

A good one about today. 
 

Pretty much

Gonna be a fun year around the league..

More Angels getting involved in this. 
 

59 minutes ago, Mark PT said:

Absolutely. They need to figure out how to blend both approaches for the benefit of the organization. If they figure this out, the Angels will grow into a success. Arte needs to mediate the two, hopefully he can.

You sure Arte won’t just get angry about the differences, take his toys, and go home?

I love his response as I feel the same way about all this. These were adults and they weren’t a bunch of children. Stop acting like kids. 
 

I wanted to hit a “loved it” reaction to that!

And a twist... Epstein sees it differently!

https://theathletic.com/1601120/2020/02/11/theres-three-sides-to-every-story-including-joe-maddons-cubs-departure/

“That would conflict with some of the things that he and his agent were saying and doing towards the end of the season,” Epstein said on Tuesday. “It doesn’t mean it’s not true. And if that’s how he feels, especially with the benefit of hindsight, then I’m not going to dispute it. But that doesn’t really reflect the conversations we were having. Up until the very, very end, the last day or two when we talked about it just being best for everybody.”
 

At the end of the 2019 season, after Maddon and the Cubs parted ways, Epstein talked about some of those clubhouse changes. He spoke of the “unconventional methods” that were used to try and reach certain players – ideas that players had spearheaded while identifying areas of concern. But these methods, Epstein said, were something he “never want(s) to have to do again.”

Maddon’s methods obviously worked at one time, and he was open to tweaks and adjustments. But being more hands-on was clearly an area in which he and Epstein didn’t see eye-to-eye. While Epstein and the Cubs have been very careful not to discuss flaws they perceived in Maddon’s approach, there’s a reason Maddon is no longer in Chicago. 

6 hours ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

They can fix the tanking issue without fucking up the postseason. Just add a salary floor that functions like the luxury tax and start punishing teams for losing really bad.

Also the one game play-in doesn't need to be best of three... it's still just a coin flip. This has the added downside of essentially turning the division series into a three game series rather than the 5 games it is currently. (And yes I do know the division series still exists in this new proposal).

Do you not see the danger in that? What if a team tried, looses badly, then gets punished because they failed. You set a loop that spirals downward and can go out of control. You have to incentivize winning not make loosing worse. Some team is going to loose, its inevitable. The goal is to make winning more valuable than throwing away wins.  

Was this ad intentionally placed on this thread??

1 hour ago, ettin said:

I'd like to see baseball do everything it can to allow teams to rebuild faster. The MLB pipeline and farm system can be painfully slow, taking small market teams in particular 2-4 years to rebuild.

Trading draft picks (allowing teams to target windows of contention by harvesting picks from other teams over a one-year period would infuse a lot of talent into a defined time range), fixing service time issues for calling players up, and other potential methods of assisting quick rebuilds would be useful in my opinion.

I don’t know I see an easy fix for service time issues. It needs something but I haven’t seen a suggestions that really changes it that much. I would love to see them trading draft picks and I can’t find one reason why that shouldn’t happen. I can’t believe it hasn’t happened already. 

I don’t get all the vitriol and frustration at Manfred. I understand nobody likes change and this does diminish the regular season. But it also goes a fair distance in fixing one of the players (and frankly fans) grievances, tanking teams.
 

Teams tank because they don’t see a realistic shot at a playoff spot. More teams in the playoffs means less tanking teams, and not just two each league, but 3-4 more who believe they have a legit shot at making it.
 

It also turns the 1 game playoff into a three game, which fixes the grievance everyone has had about the one game playoff. It gives one team a bye in this 3 game wild card round so that winning the league means something. That feels more like the pre-LCS era. The other division winners have home field through the first round so they have some advantages. 
 

Other than it being foreign and people don’t like change I can see a lot of reasonable things about the proposal. It doesn’t seem completely absurd as some are saying. I mean the wild card round is only 8 years old and the division rounds is 25 years old in current iterations. That isn’t some long history in my mind. Just not worth getting worked up about. 

2 hours ago, True Grich said:

 

This would mean discovery, players being subpoenaed and forced to testify under oath. If they’re found to be lying then they could face jail time for contempt of court. this could be awesome if it is allowed to proceed past the objections of the players. 

@True Grich The Wilpons are still looking at the medicals and they are holding it up. Until then the trade is on hold. They don’t believe my arm will hold up. 

5 hours ago, True Grich said:

I think Eppler has done his best work this off season. I was impressed the way he was able to pivot after not signing Cole.  I appreciate the fact that he hasn't traded away any significant minor league assets. I think he has improved the rotation over all and the offense looks incredibly dynamic.

The telling thing will be if he stays in Anaheim and I'm not necessarily talking about Arte giving him an extension. I will be curious to see if he wants to stay and doesn't take another job. If he's frustrated with Arte at all, he hasn't shown any signs of it, but I wonder. I hope he stays because I like the way he navigates the turbulent waters that is Angels baseball with Arte.

Completely agree with this. I think, especially in light of how this trade didn’t happen, that Eppler is creative and a smart baseball mind. He has probably had other solutions nixed by the rea power behind the org, Arte. 
 

In the last press conference we got a hint of this. Arte watched Rendon since college and once he became available Arte wanted him no matter what. Arte may not be as foolish as the 1980’s Steinbrenners but he has shades of that. 
 

Eppler deserves an extension no matter how the 2020 season turns out. 

What this means to me is that Arte is the real GM. It doesn’t matter how the team performs this year Eppler deserves an extension. He works hard to come up with creative solutions that benefit the team. Unfortunately Arte gets in the way of some of these. Vernon Wells? Maybe that was Arte and not Reagins. Pujols? Almost certainly Arte and not Dipoto. Not sure how many more ways he’s interfered but I’m sure those aren’t all of it. Eppler is a good GM and he is doing the best he can with the owner he has. My 2¢

If you want to see a very coherent reason why Rose doesn’t deserve to be back and why the Astros’ situation is different then click on and read this entire tweet thread. 
 

There’s always this. It isn’t perfect but does feel kind of ok. 
 

Another suggestion and update... not what you’d like. 
 

I read one speculation that the earliest the deal is done is Sunday. So... have a fun and safe Saturday night!

4 minutes ago, failos said:

Are we overrating Marsh? Why so low?

Uh, that’s not low. Just being in the top 100 prospects in baseball is really good. There are 30 teams with something like 100 minor leaguers each. Roughly 3,000+ minor league players and he is the 51st best as far as this group determines. 
 

We used to have 1 or 2 in the top 100. This is great. 

I’m just so glad I’m not a Mets fan. That fan base has just been brutalized by their ownership. 

Wilpon gonna wilpon

Some pre-trade analysis.

Considering Macy’s was wanting to sell these monstrous Hats I wonder why they’re failing?

maybe these barely see the light of day.

59 minutes ago, Mark68 said:

That's a very specific, very narrowly-defined range. 

That’s why Jeff gets the big bucks and we all just argue here on AW.