That mad dog character has the most abrasive voice I have ever heard in my entire life on a national show. He needs to keep that s**t in New York
Looking at the Astros schedule for 2018, it looks like May and September will be the most challenging months. I'm going to hazard some guesses at the Astros record at the end of each month. March/April: 6 of 30 games played against opponents projected by Fangraphs to finish the season above .500 May: 22 of 28 games against projected >.500 opponents June: 6 of 27 games against projected >.500 opponents July: 3 of 24 games against projected >.500 opponents August: 10 of 26 games against projected >.500 opponents September: 14 of 27 games against projected >.500 opponents I'll venture that the Astros win 70% of their games against teams .500 and under, and 55% of their games against teams over .500. That leaves us with the following projected monthly records: March/April: 20-10 May: 16-12 (c*m. 36-22) June: 18-9 (c*m. 54-31) July: 17-7 (c*m. 71-38) August: 17-9 (c*m. 88-47) September: 17-10 (c*m. 105-57) If the Astros are in a commanding lead of the division in September, Hinch may well step off the gas some in the final weeks of the season to rest the playoff starters and gives some chances to the September call-ups. That could easily push the September record to 14-13 or 13-14, leaving us with ~102 wins on the season, very much like in 2017.
But then wouldn’t it be more fair for these guys trying to get their first big deal...to get their first big deal? Yes, players get underpaid on the front end... and overpaid on the back end... which does partially even things out in the current system. I don’t like the current system either and would much rather prefer an nba-like model... but within this system, the more fair position would be for the previously underpaid players to be compensated.
Easy fix would be to have minimum and arbitration salaries increase with baseball revenues instead of being nearly flat.
Nothing earth shattering here, but a good read: https://www.fanragsports.com/astros/aggressive-astros-trying-blast-championship-window/ To say everything that transpired was part of a grand plan formulated from the start is specious at best. No team plans to have first picks bust, make a blockbuster trade that turns disastrous, or hire a manager with the intention of him being there for the long haul and firing him before he completed two seasons, but the plan itself is secondary to adaptability and flexibility within that plan. It’s a fanciful notion to believe that all top draft picks and developmental techniques will work. That notion can doom a front office if it clings too tightly to it at the expense of the greater good.
Not sure how they can increase arb salaries since it's an offer & request system, but I totally agree with the minimums. I've always thought that a salary floor and cap would be a good idea (adjusted every 2? years), but there's a snowball's chance in hell of the MLBPA agreeing to that.
This is a good example of why the Yankees are so hated. Fans are so arrogant (and in the case of this guy, so ignorant).
Yeah I’ve listened to this guy on XM, always biased I’ll take the underdog role if they want to give it to the Astros again. One of the things I love about this team is that they want to put in the work to get better regardless of the success they’ve had. Let’s get better and grind out another series win.
I thought that too once upon a time. But with these new, financially prudent, GMs eschewing the long term old guy contracts, players are gonna see their share of the pay relative to revenue continue to go down. And the thing is, players have absolutely zero to bargain with. They allowed teams to slash spending on the draft and international players, and got literally nothing of significance in return, they just gave it away. They are gonna have to find some way to shorten team control, 7 years is too much, and I can't imagine what they can offer the owners in return for that. At this point a stabilized piece of the pie may be in their best interest financially. While I feel bad for a guy like JD (not too bad) I think an offseason like this is good in bringing to light what a f**ked system the MLBPA has gotten themselves into. Teams under no pressure to spend any kind of money, and the biggest spenders hamstrung.
They really should have negotiated a reverse luxury tax when they agreed to the luxury tax. Something like a tax on any salary gap below a certain threshold that is evenly distributed to all players at end of season.
Hinch sure seems like he expects Gattis to catch. Luhnow framed the situation as “Gattis will DH and Stassi will be the backup”, whereas Hinch is more “McCann and Gattis are our catchers, we are trying to see if we keep three, that will be between Stassi and Fedorowicz.” I may be reading into it, but the fact they are saying different things makes me think they aren’t settled due to a potential move (Lucroy or Realmuto).
Arb system is based on rules agreed to by MLB and MLBPA that arbitrator looks at to see what is fair according to the rules. If arbitration rules had a stipulation that arbitration prices should go up by same percent as baseball revenues, it would cause what an arbitrator sees as fair increase at a rate commensurate with baseball revenues.
