I know there are only 51 guys but teams were allowed up to 60 players, hence the title of the post.
Note that Heliot Ramos and Marco Luciano don't even have numbers! And Billy Hamilton is number zero, which is cool. He will be perfect for that put-a-guy-on-second to start the 10th inning rule. I believe the guy has to make the last out of the 9th, so I expect to see Hamilton pinch-hit with two outs when the Giants are tied! (That tie-breaker rule is only for 2020, although there is considerable momentum for a big change with extra innings, like calling a draw after 12 or some such.)
I should note that Hunter Bishop (Giants 1st-round pick in 2019) tested positive for the coronavirus. Also, some MLB players are exercising opt-outs for 2020, notably Ryan Zimmerman and Joe Ross of the Nationals and Mike Leake of the Diamondbacks. I haven't heard anything from the Giants about opt-outs.
Spring Training is supposed to commence on July 1st with the season starting July 23rd and 24th.
--M.C.
9 comments:
In most areas, I consider myself left of Che Guevera. But not baseball. I want no changes. Ever. This season will make me very ill. Unless, of course, my boys go all the way.
It's gonna be weird.
Ian Desmond of the Rockies decides to opt out of 2020 and gives a long explanation on Instagram. You should check it out.
No minor league baseball in 2020.
You can expect a major contraction of the minor leagues after this. Teams will not want to keep players around who have no chance of making a big league roster. There will (I hope) be a big labor fight around service time. Teams have too many years of control, and the arbitration and free agent compensation rules are stupid and hurt players. There needs to be a quicker path to free agency!
One good thing that could come from the shrinking of minor league teams is the emergence of more independent leagues and teams. Fuck MLB. They don't deserve the monopoly they have been gifted. It is time to "free" baseball from their clutches.
I do, however, believe an MLB expansion will happen in the next few years. Two more cities. Let's hope they get rid of all the idiotic blackout restrictions and make the games available to any fan at any place/time. This industry takes two steps back for every one forward!
One of the problems with having free agency come much earlier in a players career, is baseball runs the risk, of fans not having enough time to develop player loyalty. Maybe not the fans that are big fantasy league players, but the fans that become loyal to a team because of the players. If players become free agents after one year or two years, it could create a bit of chaos. Who cares if your team wins, your players may be with the dodgers next year so WTF. Also I am not happy with baseball making big rule changes. Baseball is a time honored game with much tradition. Keeping the game similar to what it has been, allows fans to make comparisons over time. It is enough that the baseball may be more or less live certain years, and the mound height has changed. It is as if making too many changes alters the time line. Baseball's time line is linear and should not be warped into something else.
The flip side is that fans can look forward--with free agency--to the possibility that an exciting player will come and play for their team. That would rarely happen when I was a kid but now it happens all the time. Fans don't need much time to build "loyalty", that can happen overnight.
Teams have to work harder to make themselves an attractive destination for free agents. Player movement makes the game better.
A quicker path to free agency would incentivize teams to develop and promote players faster.
MLB expansion will happen in the next few years.
2 new teams. Count on it.
The existing owners want that $1 Billion per team fee.
It seems as if with much quicker free agency, the salary structure will change, and owners will then demand that caps be put on and the Union will then have pressure for serious salary caps. Also, if reasonable caps are not established, it will become even more of a game of the haves and have nots. The rich will become richer as will their franchises, and the poor will become poorer. Baseball may rightly or wrongly have a unique monopoly status, but it is a game of significant tradition. What do you think the percentages are, of folks that like rapid change, and follow the draft as if it were an audition to getting ones place in the holy bible of baseball, and those that at least like to see a bit more stability in their team with perhaps of modicum of changes? It seems that baseball has to have a delicate balance of tradition, and change, as their fan base may seem large, but times have proven that it is fragile.
I suppose I've seen so many big changes over the years that I don't see change itself as a threat to the game. Baseball is still baseball. I was born in 1959 right after the teams moved west. That was a big change. Night games. TV broadcasts. Division play in 1969 upended decades of tradition. The DH, of course. And the big one--free agency. The strike. Steroids. Tommy John surgery. Sabermetrics.
I feel like I've watched incredible changes to the game over my 60 years and yet I still enjoy watching the best players play.
I oppose the draft on principle. This is America. You should be free to peddle your skills where you want to. I also think it is a bad business practice, and ultimately it hurts players. Plus it perpetuates the vestiges of the reserve clause. I think they can come up with lots of ways to increase "competitive balance" if they want. The draft was instituted in 1965, surely there are better methods now. Other things have had a leveling effect, too, like free agency and expansion and increased playoffs, etc.
MLB has not earned the right to have Congress protect them from the vagaries of the marketplace. They have done nothing to deserve special status. I thought these guys were all big-shot capitalists and entrepreneurs! Why do they need special help?
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