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Yes, every team plays under same rules for the season. Could who makes the playoffs be adjusted due to shorter season sure, but that does not make who wins any less legitimate than any other. 82 games will still be good enough to separate the teams. If they did just a tournament like World Baseball Classic or something like that, then no that is not a good way to determine who should be champ because hot streaks and slumps, which is part of the game, could greatly change the outcomes. That happens in playoffs all the time though. The most interesting will be how some pitchers will perform in late in the season with the reduced work load. May we end up with a different team than what would have been expected in full season, sure, but teams will have to adjust to new situation and that is sign of good team.

This draft will be a very interesting draft to look back on and see were the diamond in roughs were. We will say how was this person missed by so many teams. Think about how often a guy shoots up boards because of his season leading up to draft. Twins have in recent drafts made picks based on that. The HS kids are so hard to judge as a junior some times because of how they grown from ages 16 to 18. For college kids similar the lower classmen may not have the same exposure as they would normally because of loaded programs. I would read so many scouting reports about how a guy jumped up boards because of breakout seasons or after finally getting a shot at being regular at specific position that was blocked by a previous star player. The good front offices will need to read more into players with less to work with. I hope our front office is one of them, and believe they are, but you never know.

I will only answer the questions I have much to add. 1) Garver will continue to hit well. His approach is very good and he will not get himself out. Sure, he may take some called third strikes but he will never chase either. He will make that ump call that third strike on the edges. Pitcher will try to throw get me over curves at time, but my guess Mitch will figure that out and crush those as well. 3) Sano will be terrible at first for awhile. He will drop some easy pop ups just like he did at third. He will drop some good throws. However, we will not care when he is crushing the ball. If he is not crushing the ball then he will see the bench more often and will not see his terrible defense. Crazy to think he was signed as a SS and even played there a little in his very young years. 4) Arraez will not slump, depending on what you call a slump. Will he hit as well as first year maybe not, but he will have good OBP. and I think eventually he will get more benefit of doubt calls by umps when he looks and shakes his head at pitches that go by. 7) Buxton will not stay healthy, not because he is injury prone, but because he plays the game with reckless abandon and crashes into walls at full speed because he believes he is superman that can catch every thing. Until he dials it back a tiny bit to be more prepared to jump into the walls he will keep getting hurt, no way around it. Torii needs to teach him how to set yourself up for a good wall jump. Really, the issue is Buxton covers so much ground so quickly that he does not get set up with proper technique to protect himself on jumps and dives. Hopefully the kid learns this for his own sake. Starting back a few more steps and letting a couple of singles drops will help. 9) I expect Cruz will continue to hit well. I agree father time is undefeated but some guys go longer. There has been many good hitters that can play into 40's, some maybe with a little chemical help, but when all you are expected to do is crush pitches and nothing else you can still do it. What in Cruz recent years suggest he will just fall off cliff? He has short quick swing without much movement that helps.

Pretty sure each on the list had that conversation with Harmon. I have heard a few stories from people who have had personal interactions with Harmon, and he was an amazing man that understood the importance of the fans. He would stand outside and sign for every fan that waited for him. When he was asked, why he would be willing to do that, he response was if they are willing to wait it is the least I can do. Without the fans I would be farming. That is also why he wanted to make sure they could read it, because for him it was just a few seconds of his life, but for the fan it could mean a lifetime of memories to say that is his signature, and everyone could look at it and know. Personally, I wish more players would think about Harmon and his wisdom. Too many players feel entitled to play a game for insane amounts of money that fans pay hard earned money to watch. If fans did not pay, players would have to find another job. Players like Blake Snell get to me because they act like this is their birth right to play for millions and fans should be grateful they are willing to entertain us. When really, the players should be grateful we are willing to pay them.

From what was reported prior to his hiring Falvey had a huge role in the pitching development in Cleveland. Of course we will never know how much of a roll he really had, but when Twins were looking for GM there were many reports Falvey was on the rise because of his actual involvement in developing Cleveland pitchers, which was known for finding diamonds in the rough, and continuing to have reliable starters in the wings. So to say there is zero evidence or to call it idiotic is going a little far. This reports were from baseball insiders that had dealings with Cleveland and knew Falvey. He may not have made the final calls in Cleveland but reports are he had huge influence on how Cleveland developed pitchers. I guess you can take those reports as smoke and say there is no evidence Falvey had anything to do with Cleveland pitching success, but I tend to believe them. Do you give Falvey credit for Dobnik? Independant pitcher that flew through minors to start a playoff game? 29 other teams could have snagged him up, but Falvey must have seen something that the other 29 did not see. Not going to say 1 pitcher for 1 year of success makes a guru, Dobnik may fall off and be below replacement going forward, but first season looked good.

"Mauer is definitely not the most exciting interview or the most infectious personality, but he was in the lives of Minnesotans for so long, that a detail of his life would certainly be a must watch." That is an understatement. For as good as he was, he was about as boring as it got. There has been a documentary on Kirby, it was done in 1996, had it in VHS. An updated one would be great through. I was not even born when he debuted, and was so young when he was prime so barely remember it, but the more I read the more I am convinced he was at a point the best player in the game. I wonder if he would even be considered a top prospect this day in age just based on his height and lack of power as a kid. Most likely not a first round pick, twice like he was nor a top 10 prospect at all. The 91 season would be cool, maybe not 7 part, but the worst to first series and historic moments would be great. ESPN ranked game 7 of that series like number 2 of all time WS games. Game 6 was pretty high too.

For me, many of the questions about what the taxi squad is and how it works service time and transferring players needs to be answered before decisions can be made. I would agree having extra catcher or two. I would agree with load of pitchers. I would also think players that can play either premier defensive positions, CF and SS as well as utility players would serve best. I would shy away from offensive only players with limited defensive value, like Rooker. Unless Rooker shows he can rake at a level you are fine with negative defense, but when Buxton gets hurt, assuming he will, I would rather have someone that can defend center better than Kepler and let Kepler stay in RF. Even if this means a slightly less productive offense, we are pretty deep in that area losing our 9 hitter who is in for defense already we would want to replace for defense.

Part will depend on how the rules of expanded roster and taxi squad will work. I could be wrong, but believe I heard roster will go to 30 players, so an extra 4, and there will be a large taxi squad of 60 players that can be moved onto roster. I am not clear as to how those moves will be affected for time wise. So first, the 60 is well beyond the 40 man roster, so will you first need to move them onto 40 man? Will it be an "option" so limited to only players with them left, or a DL trip required of 15 days? Will there be many liberal moves allowed? This will have great affect on who will be on roster and how it will be used each game. The more liberal pitchers can be moved in and out will lead to more use of them and swapping around, much like they have in past couple years but this could be even more often. Regardless, I think shorter leashes for sure on pitchers due to importance of each game. I would expect much more of the hot hand for hitters taking over. Meaning if any player has a slump I would expect others to replace them quickly and if a player, regardless of experience is hot they will stay in line up. Once they slump they will be back out. Many times we see a guy with a quick start in first month and tail off, but they keep getting time because they were hot before. I do not expect that too much. The reverse is true that a guy used to do well in past seasons so they get extend look early in season to turn it around. We do not have that much time to make that happen now.

The outliers I was more referring to was the more modern guys like Ryan, who had the velocity that is sought now a days and still threw a ton. I was also more referring them to the outliers as they could handle the load that was asked of them, but you do not take too much note of the guys that could not, because they could not. However, in the recent 30 years we tend to try to point to instances were an injury altered a career. Also, prior to tommy john, when someone tore their UCL career over and we never would hear much about work load ect. So working off of a skewed data set will skew it. I agree each team had work horses that would pitch much more than what players now are asked. Back then velocity was much lower too. I remember even as not so long as early 2000's when 95 was considered high velocity and the very very rare would throw much more than that. Now, 95 is close to league average. 90 was the goal and if you could top that great, if not you better have movement. I totally support increasing innings pitched and getting pitchers ready for that. I was never a fan of holding guys to strict pitch and inning counts in minors, only to then expect they can throw 100 plus pitches and many innings in MLB. They never were asked to do that before, so why would they be successful now? I believe many pitchers could throw more per start and more innings per season. Not every pitch is equal wear and tear on arm. So where along the line someone said pitch count is what leads to injuries, maybe they had the data to back it up or not. So teams decided they did not want big injuries to their star pitchers and were willing to let them pitch less per start to increase chance they would start more. They balance the hope of more starts to reduce risk of major injury. You cannot weed out the ones that will have the injuries as well, and you do not get the full possible player either. I am a fan of going back to 9 inning starts and let them throw over 100 pitches. Now though teams look less at pitches but times through order regardless of pitches.

The reason for 5 rounds is MLB is losing a ton of money every day they do not have games. They have 0 money coming in right now, save a few apparel items that are being sold most likely. I read it is expected as a whole, MLB is losing about 74 million a day no games are happening. So dropping the draft to 5 rounds allows teams to save on costs of signing bonuses of players. Also, with no minor leagues happening these guys will have no where to go if they had full draft. Even if you move to 10 that is still paying 10 guys signing bonus to most likely go to FL to work out at team facilities, where they already will have many of lower level prospects doing the same.

I agree with this idea. With the Taxi idea and 30 man rosters you know the Twins will make full use of moving pitchers in and out of roster spots as much as they can. In a normal season under normal rules of optioning or DL use now back to 15 days, it would not be possible. However, in this year using two starters in a normal day would be useful. The biggest issue will be getting the pitchers on board and accepting it. If you can get starter to go 4 innings two trips through order, and use next starter 4 innings 2 trips through order, that gets you into 9th where you should have nearly whole bullpen ready. I would stagger the use of this though. Meaning I would not go berrios and hill back to back but split a duel starter between the two. That should hopefully give rest of pen more of break and less likely the need for other pen guys going back to back days. I would also look to mix up type of pitchers and if possible mix the side thrown from. This will make it harder for teams to set lineup for the pitcher. In the grouping listed, I would swap Thorpe and Pineda most likely. That would change up right lefty combo for two starts and velo versus movement as well. I like the Odo dobnik mix as one is fly ball pitcher other is ground ball pitcher. So two trips looking at more up in zone stuff to then face a heavy sinker next. Could lead to some adjustments.

Just to play devils advocate, it is what I do, these guys were the outliers of the spectrum of pitching. Ryan one of the most, as he had crazy high velocity for his time. So to point to a few guys that manged to not follow the norm of the bell curve is not the most effective way to point to pitch count having a counter to intended. That being said, clearly some can be outside the norm and pitch more, but how do you figure that out without doing it? Then if you are wrong you risk injuries. I believe the increased velocity is what leads to more injuries than anything these days. I am no doctor, have taken some classes on sports injuries, but I strongly believe that throwing as hard as most do now a days will lead to more injuries because of the strain in the elbow. I remember watching Zumia tear the tip of his elbow right off from how hard he threw, never to return again. I strongly believe in the past the great pitchers would pitch well, hitting spots and working around the zone keeping hitters off balanced, changing speeds even with their fastball. This would mean they were not throwing 100% all game long. Now I think pitchers have to throw 100% while out there because if they lose some velo they lose prospect rankings and teams look at that for contract and expected regression. If velo drops then it is assumed their effectiveness will drop so money drops. Players know this so they throw max all the time. I also feel many pitchers growing up are not taught that legs drive velocity more than arms. The arm is just what releases the ball, but the legs and core is what gets you the kinetic energy to run through the arm. It seems to many people, who have not studied it, counter to logic. However, the science is there that building up leg and core strength will help so much more than arm and elbow strength. This needs to get passed down to little league coaches and up to high school coaches. Teach the kids young how to use legs and core better. This will reduce the stress on the arm over all the years.

The portion about pitching was interesting to me, and sparked in my mind the debate on starting pitching these days, and what value they seriously add to a team, versus other players. I have always been pitching and defense guy for winning, and still believe that. However, I also feel the value of a starting pitcher has dropped a ton and they are not worth nearly as much in terms of contracts as they used to. If you go back to the era of 3 man rotations where pitchers would go 9 innings most games they had huge value if you had a top pitcher. As you go to 4 man rotations with still 9 innings each pitcher lost a little value but still have value. Then as you go to 5 man rotations with some 9 inning games and "work horse" pitchers going over 200 innings less value. Now, you have 5 man rotations, some with only a few "starters" and they will go 6 innings, 7 if lucky and the 9 inning game is something to write about. This shifts great value to bullpens from the starters. I am not trying to argue a top starter is not important and when you can get one they have great value as they will take work load from bullpen for other games. However, I think it has greatly skewed the pitching spectrum. I think you have top 10% starters that can go 7 plus innings a start and dominate giving your team a chance to win, but still only impacting a small portion of a team overall season. If no extra inning or rain shorted games, there will be 1,458 innings in a normal season. Last season only 15 pitchers got to 200 innings with top being 223. Texas and Houston had 2 such pitchers which means 17 teams did not even have 1 pitcher to throw 200 innings. 200 innings means 1/7 of a season, about. However, of the top 5 paid players in 2019 4 were pitchers. They impacted about 1/7 of the whole season for their team but got paid much more than their impact would suggest. Unless, you look at impact in playoffs. When you look at how a dominate pitcher can shut down teams and impact a very large amount of the playoffs, specifically when you reduce rotation to 3 or 4 depending on off days. Then they can have a huge impact. So even though, they have lower impact in a full 162 game season, their impact adjusts for playoffs to be much larger impact. Then they earn their money. Also, as stated the top tier starters will have much larger impact. However, the mid-level starters that used to get paid large amounts for basically replacement ball, they should start to see money drop and more investment in either top pitchers, or top pen guys that are eating the innings the starters used to do.

First, following the thought, Nationals would not have made the playoffs and would not have won the WS had the first 82 games record been the deciding factor. However, the flaw in this is knowing a season ends at 82 verses playing another 80 makes teams play games different. One, you would be less likely to try and stick through a prolonged slump of someone. Also, managers will make different in game decisions to win that particular game, as now it has more important roll. Instead saying I can give this game up to give my better players some rest, there would be more we need to win situation. How different were the schedules at the time of the 82 game compared to others. Yes, timing of when you play teams can be a huge thing, based on injuries, hot streaks, ect. But, when in a 162 game season Twins may have played a tougher first half schedule than whoever was ahead of them, but in a 82 game schedule each team will have same schedule. Think about it, some years the Twins have played several non division teams in the first half and will be done with them, while they may not have played others. So for example, say Twins played Yankees, Boston, Oakland, Houston in the first half and finished with them, while Cleveland played Baltimore, Seattle, Rangers, Toronto, and then you stop at 82 games, there are much better chance Cleveland will have easier schedule for first half, but much harder second half, where Twins would have reverse. After a 162 game schedule they will have played each team nearly equal amount of times for much more balanced strength of schedule. So as it is nice to look at how things could have been different, there are many flaws to just look at record at 82 games, when a team knew 80 more were going to be played. If you wanted to take the time to set a strength of schedule modifier to even that out, it would be a little better, but still does not factor in how decisions would have changed in a known shorter season.

I think if there is a deadline, it needs to be at least a month prior to end of season. If you allowed trades and playoff rosters to be set super late, I could see teams like dodgers and Yankees just trading for high priced talent right before playoffs, add little salary to luxury tax, and just throw in "cash" in the trade to the team. If they have to take longer cost that goes to luxury tax they would be less likely to do this. I really do not expect much in terms of trades, except for players teams know they cannot resign. If they have at least 1 year of team control I doubt they get moved and things will happen in off-season. With the short season some teams that start off hot, like Detroit last year will be in it, where teams that started off slow, like Nationals, eventual champs, would be out of it. If they have expiring contracts they would be willing to sell off, but I doubt any team will assume the short season is a sign of what the next year brings. I wonder, how this short season will help Berrios, someone who had faded in September over his career, is it the long season, or the weather?

I think the depth the Twins have, under the current thought of schedule, will lead to good things for Twins. It seems like they will allow teams to swap players a lot with out having to "option" them. Having several potential starters will allow for giving greater rest for starters that need it, like Hill may. I want Hill for playoffs more than regular season, assuming we will make it. He is proven to be a good playoff pitcher, only Dodger to pitch well at Houston during WS, because he was smart enough to change signs every 7th pitch, I heard reported. Dude is the vet that gets it done when he has too. He will even punch a dude out during the off season if he has too.

Exactly true. MLB is a perfect look into an unregulated capitalism, or free market economy. Yes, it is only a small sample size, but shows what a free market can look like. Specifically, when there is a monopoly. MLB has a monopoly on baseball, basically in the whole world. Sure, you can play in other leagues if you are not up to snuff for MLB, but MLB is the top league with the most money, not that Japan is much to sneeze at. However, as the players argue about not having a cap, it also means there is no floor. What keeps the game going is that both sides want to make money, and they both want to make the most they can. Both need to balance the risk of making nothing though by asking for too much. It is almost like a teeter totter, as long as both sides stay in the air they both make money and the game is played, but once one try to get too greedy then the game is not played and no one has fun or makes money. So when a player feels he is underpaid, what is he recourse, hold out, but there are hundreds of players willing to take his place, and the teams have them in their system. Of course the more you separate yourself from the pack, with higher WAR the more money you can command. If you are close to replacement level, why should a team pay you more than the league minimum that a replacement level player may be worth? During the two off-seasons mentioned, prior to the huge signings of last couple seasons. I was expecting the players to start to look at change in CBA. Still think they will, but my guess to get it they will need to give up on salary cap. Gone are the days of 5 plus year deals for 30 plus year old players. Too many teams have learned the hard way there is too much risk in those contracts. If you are in 27 age range at free agency, you are considered possible HOF player and so teams willing to take that 7 to 10 year contract risk, because one you get more years of good play, and assume they regress like normal HOF path players they will still be worth something late in deal. To get better FA deals, players need to get to be a FA before the age of 30 now. Only way to do that is to reduce the amount of years they remain under team control. They can get this, but I bet it will require salary cap. Salary caps are not as bad as players would think, because they also always come with a floor. What that means is no more just loading up on low cost replacement players while you "rebuild" knowing you cannot compete but you keep your stars in the minors while letting players you will one day cut loose when your stars are hitting prime at age 27 and still making third year minimum. The salary floor would help those age 31 to 35 players the most. It would also allow younger players to earn more quickly. For easy math, lets say cap is 200 mil and floor is 100 mil. Only 3 teams over 200 mil, and 8 under 100 mil some as low as 56 mil and a couple right around 100. Without knowing the revenue breakdown that would set up the cap, this cap would greatly increase the amount the players would get paid as a whole. It would maybe reduce what an individual gets paid, but would raise the player pay overall. Of course this is very simple break down, and local tv contracts really drive what local teams can earn, but the luxury tax basically is a salary cap at this point anyways. Why not get the floor? Teams like Oakland and the Rays pay very little for the wins they get, because they spend smarter not bigger. Both under 100 mil payrolls, rays as low as 65 mil. They get revenue sharing from the luxury taxes paid by the likes of LA and New York. Do they reinvest into payroll, doubt they do, because they can win without spending. Imagine if they had to spend 35 mil more, assuming they could afford it.

The title of article suggests the Twins do better than other teams, but upon reading the article, I would argue every team has found success in late rounds over the years. Just as every team has had many flops of first round picks. Baseball is such a hard sport to really know who will do well or fail at the next level. Also, some late round picks were there for different reasons. Sign-ability, low exposure, or bias of region is to name a few. There are many other reasons I am sure. Some players fall because they are expected to go football, or college, but drafting team gets them the magic number that is needed to sign. I read Trout dropped because prior years a player from his area turned into complete flop so teams shyed away thinking good players from there numbers were inflated from low talent level. Back in the day, players from cold weather HS got little exposure and scouts would hardly go there. Many of the guys listed were known for their mental game and work ethic, something that is hard to determine when looking at them play 1 game, or some tape. As Yogi once said baseball is 90% mental. I will not finish the rest of the quote but he is correct it is a mental game and watching tape of the physical aspects is hard to see their mental aspects.

Eddie is not a guy to use normal hitting approach comparisons with. He is not typical hitter. For the people that want him to be and site his chase rate and point out times he looks just ugly, fail to point out the times he crushes HR on pitches no one would swing at. He is who he is. He hits in the middle because he excels when runners are on compared to some. He has power. He wants the spot light. He believes he is the best there is and he can hit anything and make every throw. Sometimes he does, sometimes he does not. He will not change. Most likely his lack of hitting other way is based on how pitchers are pitching him. He has always been and always will be a streaky hitter. I have always liked his personality, although feel he is replaceable. However, when people talk about trading him they point out all the bad things he does and why he should be traded, but why would anyone trade for him if he does so many things bad? I do not expect him around long term, mainly because he is basically replaceable on the field. Not sure how he is in club house though.

Personally, I do not care DH or no DH, but now that interleague play will never go away, we need one rule to play by. As pointed out the DH allows some great hitters to keep playing later in their life as a DH. One thing I would point out, is until Astros came to AL to even leagues at 15 each, there was only 14 AL teams for years so even less teams that did DH. I agree that with the change in way game is played DH will happen I think in both leagues. This does not mean when you get a pitcher that can hit they cannot be allowed to DH on games they do not pitch. Look at Otani. McKay from Rays is being used in duel roles at times. Funny how there is now a rule that position player cannot pitch, unless extra innings or a huge gap late in game, but yet pitchers can play other positions and hit. The DH is not an easy spot to fill, it seems like it would be, but look at many long time greats that would DH and play positions over a year. Many would hit better when they were in the field than when they DH. Not all of course, but many have talked about it is a mind game you need to work through. I know when I play I hate sitting on the bench, even between innings of fielding I will walk around and never sit, could only imagine what it would be like to sit and watch for innings except for the short amount of time you are hitting.

I wrote a comment on this the other day. If interleague play is increased, and under this plan it would be, we would be without one of our best offense weapons for a larger percent of games. In a 162 game schedule you play about 9 games at NL parks, under this plan it would be 82 game scheduled with about 15 to 20 at NL parks. That is huge when you plan to have a DH for 153 games of your 162 games, versus 65 of your 82. This one means you are paying a player to do less, but also you did not plan for this. The NL teams would be at no disadvantage because they just get to have more games with DH, and their pitchers have hit for years, some AL pitchers have not hit for a very long time and spend no time really working on it all.

The fact that the players do not want to be in a city they would need to rent a place. That was one of the major things I read players did not like about the AZ FL plans. They would be away from their homes and family for months with little to no chance to see them. Sure they could try to bring family with them, but that means uprooting their family as well. I know I would not be happy to have to be away from my family for 4-6 months I was not expecting. Also, the additional cost of having to have a second home in the short term home area. Travel is not an issue of safety, as they charter planes anyways so only team and team officials would be on plane, but an issue of time. With having less off days, this would be less travel days, so reducing the distance on the plane helps. I mean you can have 9 game road trip and between the travel sites never get on plane if you do Milwaukee, Chicago, Chicago trip. Fly to one, that takes an hour, then bus between Milwaukee and Chicago takes like an hour to two. Also, I wrote in another comment in the past that the home place is not just about fans, it is about the team set up for the park. Our team is set up to allow fly balls, but we are in a park that tends to be little in favor of that, not like some but much better than others. Imagine if we had to play all our games at Yankee stadium, not that it would be likely, just using as example. HR fly out of right field like none other. There are many other HR friendly parks that would not serve well for our pitchers. May be better for our hitters, but you build your team with fact that 81 games should be played in your park.

Baseball has always had "shifts." Now they just get more note as there is more exaggerated with moving players to areas they traditionally did not play. For decades corner infielders would play in, drop back, play on line, play off line. These are all shifting of defenses to take away certain type of potential hits, depending on situation. Middle infielders would go to "double play" depth, or move deeper in hole or more up the middle, now they just swing even further. Outfield would move closer to gaps or certain sides of field, play more in, play more out. The concept of shifting defenses around depending on hitter, and situation is not a novel one. Now teams are taking a more extreme approach based on percentages. I forget who made the quote, but I remember hearing "hit it where they aint" as a quote for successful hitting. Now the players are just moving to different places, so you can still hit it where they aint. I cannot stand the people that want to input some rule to stop "shifting" I mean will there be a rule that players must stand in a designed circle on the field before the pitch is thrown? Will there be a requirement of all infielders stand on the dirt, or in front of a line drawn on field for astro turf fields? What happens when the old 5 man infield would some times come into play, can you get an exception? What is the outcome of a violation? I remember a story of Satchel Paige once telling his defenders to lay down, would that be allowed? Could a corner infielder come in to take a bunt away? Could a corner infielder guard the line? Does the manger have to ask the umpire if his defenders can move because of where the runners are on base and outs in the game? Do you need a waiver to try and get a sneak pick off? I have racked my brain thinking of a workable rule and nothing comes to mind. So lets just let defenders play where they want when they want. Let the hitters hit the ball, if they want to try and beat the shift great. I mean we never called it beating the standard defense if you got a hit before. Remember when hit and runs happened, players that could hit behind the runner in the vacated infield were regarded. Should the defender not have gone to the base, should he have stayed in his non-shifted place? If teams start to care more about OBP again over slugging, players will start to hit against the shift. I remember when teams started to move the SS much more up the middle and the 3rd bases man off the line against Joe. Then his hits he got early in his career were taken away. Should we ban the defenders from standing in the exact spot that a hitter is most likely to hit the ball? Gone is the lets try to cover the most ground, to lets make sure we cover the ground the ball is most likely to be. If only 10% of the time the ball is hit on the left side of the field, why would you use 2 defenders to guard that area? 90 percent it is up the middle or pulled, so use 75% of your infield defense to guard there, and the other 25% to defend the less likely area. Of course, as those numbers of hit percentage change the defense should too.

Most HS players that would not be drafted in top 5 rounds normally know that and already have a college plan. Even those that are have college plan. If they did not have a college plan, then most likely they would sign the 20K. I was mainly referring to those players that have a college plan already that they are less likely to sign. For some, they choose the pros because they do not want to go to school, they know there is no way they will be making majors for several years, but would rather spend full time on baseball. However, if you are hoping to maximize your earnings going to community college or returning to college for year to hope to fall in top 10 the next time around would be advisable over a 20K bonus if you were thinking you were a round 6 to 10 player.

From the proposal submitted by MLB I do not expect players to agree today. I think they will come to an agreement, but as the players union president stated, the 50/50 split is a salary cap, something that has been sneaking into baseball with luxury tax, but players have been against since FA started. So they will not just say yes. However, if the alternative is no money, that is hard to swallow for players. Sure many would be able to survive for a year without getting paid, if they planned ahead. Not many people expecting to get paid plan to not too though. For the people that just want the owners to pay full prorated contracts and most likely lose millions of upon millions of dollars, because they can afford to, you most likely have never owned a successful business. The owners do not own teams because they are willing to lose money. Sure, some owners make so much money with other business and willing to just break even for wins, but those are also when owned by single owners. Most teams are owned by groups with a main owner. Many of the minority owners will not say, hey it is fine if I lose millions this year. Business do not live long if being operated in red for extended periods. I think both the players and owners should think about the "regular employees" that need the paycheck and what a full no season would like for them. Already, many employees are not working and won't work even if a season does start with no fans. Many teams have agreed to pay these people for now, but for how long? If owners need to pay players more that may make employees get laid off. Overall, the owners always hold all the power. They can just say no season no one gets paid go find a day job, to the non-superstars that have already been paid. It always comes down to the owners on if baseball happens. They do it for money, not charity. They do it get our money to put in their pockets. They need the players to have a product, but this day in age, this is not the owners main source of income, but a side job. Players have grabbed a lot of power for themselves with having no salary cap, but the owners could shut it down completely if they wanted to. I am not saying either side is right or wrong to want what they want. I am just point out who has the real power, but as these two side fight over money, it affects many people that need their paychecks. Owners want to make money, so do the players. For that to happen they need each other.