why
The Official 2024-25 MLB Hot Stove Thread
- Thread starter ineedsleep212
- Start date
OGBobbyJohnson
Veteran
blues_funk_reggae
Veteran
dude already got facial hair going
blues_funk_reggae
Veteran
One of the GOAT baseball brawls , that entire inning was f*ckery , I remember watching this on MSG back when the yankees were on that channel
I think it was Bernie that took Armando deep, he blew the lead and wanted chaos, even the angry Australian Grame Lloyd got in on the action
Found it:
Go to 0:55 , Darryl got decked, his jaw at 1:10
King P
Legends Never Die
My 2 cents on the stupid ass hair policy...
It's really a George rule, I don't think Hal really cares all that much about. It's been brought up to him in the past, and he's said that he hasn't really thought about it because nobody has actually complained about it or even brought it up. They all seem willing to shave/cut their hair, so there hasn't been any need to change it. What Hal doesn't realize is that nobody is gonna publicly complain about the hair rule, they just won't sign there. MLB does player surveys at the end of the year though, and the surveys have shown that the Yankees lose out on free agents because of their grooming policy.
Devin Williams is a different story though, because he was traded to the Yankees. He didn't ask to a Yankee, he didn't willingly come here, it wasn't his choice. I wonder how things will go if he pushes back on the policy. Mind you, there's a precedent for this. The Reds used to have the same policy as the Yankees. It was worse actually, because at least the Yankees let you have a mustache. The Reds wouldn't let their players have facial hair at all. Well in the late 90's they traded for Greg Vaughn. Vaughn was already unhappy about being traded there to begin with. And when he he was asked to shave his goatee, he flat out said he wasn't shaving it. Which led to the fans telling that bytch Marge Schott to drop the policy, which she did.
Whether Devin presses the issue or not, I think the Yankees would eventually cave if a player or 2 vocalized their displeasure
“Per today’s report from Woo & Rome, that yes to a trade list originally included the Astros but they were removed, perhaps due to the recent Tucker trade & uncertainty around Alex Bregman situation.”
Sounds like Arenado wants Bregman to sign wherever he is going to sign so he doesn’t end up as a bench bat for us should Bregman want to come back. Per reports Arenado could still end up with Houston once Bregman decides what he’s going to do.
Sounds like Arenado wants Bregman to sign wherever he is going to sign so he doesn’t end up as a bench bat for us should Bregman want to come back. Per reports Arenado could still end up with Houston once Bregman decides what he’s going to do.
Spidey Man
Superstar
Probably wants more moneywhy
Yordan is there best playerThey just traded their best player
Question imo are BOG willing to lose a whole season to get in done like the NHL did. If they are, gonna be rough 2027.
The most important question in Major League Baseball is not when the league will expand to 32 teams, or if technology should aid umpires in calling balls and strikes. It’s whether commissioner Rob Manfred and the owners are preparing for the largest fight for a salary cap in more than 30 years.
The expiration of the sport’s labor deal is still two years away, at midnight Eastern entering Dec. 2, 2026. That makes the next year a crucial time when both owners and players will formulate plans for the negotiations.
An offseason lockout again looks highly likely in 2026, yet that doesn’t overly worry industry officials who now consider it pro forma. They instead wonder whether the lockout this time will cost regular-season games. Because if owners decide to push aggressively for a cap, history says the fallout will be ugly.
Manfred was coy last month in a press conference during owners’ meetings in New York when asked whether his owners would go that direction.
“To date, we have not really even begun, in a meaningful way, discussions about labor,” Manfred said. “Certainly can’t make a judgment as to what we’re going to propose on any labor topic.”
At baseball’s Winter Meetings last week, three days after he finished negotiations with the New York Mets on Juan Soto’s record-setting $765 million deal, player agent Scott Boras was asked if he expected calls for a cap to arrive again.
“There is every five years,” he said, a reference to the length of each collective bargaining agreement. “What’s new?”
Owners are indeed considering a cap proposal, according to people briefed on their conversations who were not authorized to speak publicly. But it would also be surprising if they weren’t. More notable is that, for a few reasons, owners could be energized to pursue a cap in a way they have not for a generation.
The future of local television rights is a key motivation.
It’s evergreen to say baseball owners want a cap for its potential cost savings, and to make baseball operate as other major U.S. sports leagues do. The NBA, NFL and NHL all have caps and floors.
Smaller-market teams and their fans have also always complained about the exploits of bigger-market teams, and they’re not lacking fodder this offseason. Soto’s most serious suitors were limited to the sport’s biggest markets.
The World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers, meanwhile, are carrying a projected $335 million payroll per Cot’s Contracts, the highest in the sport, and have deferred more than $1 billion in salary to later seasons.
But well before this winter, it seemed MLB could newly push for a cap. Shortly after the last CBA negotiations, Manfred created an “economic reform committee,” a group of six owners dedicated to reviewing two issues: the future of local television, and club revenue disparities.
By the end of 2025, likely about two-thirds of the league will have taken a pay cut in rights fees at some point in the last three seasons. In response, Manfred wants to radically change how teams share their revenues, pooling all the local TV money together while reducing or eliminating what teams share from other streams.
A cap could be a unifier amongst his owners, something that all 30 could gather behind even if they wouldn’t like the changes otherwise — a potential means to an end. The large-market teams, in particular, don’t want to share more of their valuable TV revenues, but could greatly benefit from a cap.
For owners, a cap has also always been an end of its own. Perhaps the end. They have long sought an upper limit on player spending, while the players have only wanted a minimum or floor to be installed, but the sides will never achieve one without the other.
The union declined comment for this story. MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said in spring 2023, “We’re never going to agree to a cap.”
Mark Attanasio of the Milwaukee Brewers, John Henry of the Boston Red Sox, Chris Ilitch of the Detroit Tigers, Terry McGuirk of the Atlanta Braves, dikk Monfort of the Colorado Rockies and Mark Walter of the Dodgers make up the economic reform committee, a person briefed on its proceedings said. McGuirk is the chair, having succeeded Walter.
Monfort chaired Manfred’s labor committee in the 2021-22 negotiations, when owners locked out the players during the offseason. Attanasio and Henry served on it as well.
The lockout froze the winter, halting free agency, trades and most anything else. The league then made one cap-like proposal early in talks, but quickly moved on when players balked.
“We didn’t miss any games, and that’s what really matters at the end of the day,” Manfred said in a recent interview with the website Questions for Cancer Research. “Offseason lockouts are offseason lockouts, you know? It’s sort of the norm in professional sports.”
The sentiment of a lockout as the “norm” might be more representative of reality circa 2011, when the NBA and NFL both had lockouts. Besides baseball, none of the three major U.S. men’s sports have had a lockout, offseason or otherwise, in more than a decade, since the NHL in 2012-13. But those other three leagues also have CBAs that run longer.
A lockout that cuts into the 162-regular game season would undoubtedly be a different animal than one that does not. And no single issue in baseball is more likely to produce that result than a cap — if owners don’t budge.
Collectively, players have always regarded a cap as a third-rail issue, believing the system would produce a bevy of negatives for them, including, over time, a reduction in how much money they make overall. A fight over a cap sat at the center of the ugly 1994-95 strike, which lasted 232 days and led to a canceled World Series.
The full impacts of a cap and floor would be intricate and massive, in no small part because the league and players would be agreeing to share a set percentage of revenue annually. The league could produce a long list of pros it would argue, and the union cons.
Besides the overall economics, competition is another major talking point. The league believes a cap would help parity, giving smaller-market teams a better chance to retain and sign the best players. Players, meanwhile, have long felt a less restricted system is better.
“Competitiveness is what should run leagues, and the idea of how they compete in our league has a varietal approach to it,” Boras said. “There is no bar to it.”
Franchise values still appear to be growing at a healthy rate even as cord-cutting hurts local TV fees. The major sports leagues all now allow private equity firms to buy stakes.
“We have now got billionaires buying teams in all sports. That’s what’s changing,” Boras said. “You’re going to have not one person buying it. You’re going to have multiple people, contingents buy it. … The prior generation of owners will receive massive wealth from that.
“It is a billionaire business. It is not a local, regional-shop business anymore, and that, I think, is the adaptation we have to look at. Not the rule structure of the game and how we work. We all know what cap systems have brought in other sports, and frankly, it’s not been particularly exciting.”
It’s unclear how baseball’s new owners, such as Steve Cohen of the Mets and David Rubenstein of the Baltimore Orioles, will influence labor, and whether they would prefer to stay in the fans’ good graces. Conversely, a new generation of owners could be eager to push change, believing they can succeed in challenging the union where their predecessors did not.
If owners do aggressively pursue a cap, plenty more unknowns await. Would they hold together while foregoing potentially a year’s worth of revenues, or more? Would players?
The game has a shine right now. MLB took in approximately $11.6 billion in 2023, and Manfred said in October that the haul increased this year. The introduction of the pitch clock two seasons ago has helped increase attendance and interest, and the 2024 World Series featured a marquee match-up between the Dodgers and New York Yankees.
Missed games, however, could tarnish the league’s leverage in future TV negotiations.
The expiration of the sport’s labor deal is still two years away, at midnight Eastern entering Dec. 2, 2026. That makes the next year a crucial time when both owners and players will formulate plans for the negotiations.
An offseason lockout again looks highly likely in 2026, yet that doesn’t overly worry industry officials who now consider it pro forma. They instead wonder whether the lockout this time will cost regular-season games. Because if owners decide to push aggressively for a cap, history says the fallout will be ugly.
Manfred was coy last month in a press conference during owners’ meetings in New York when asked whether his owners would go that direction.
“To date, we have not really even begun, in a meaningful way, discussions about labor,” Manfred said. “Certainly can’t make a judgment as to what we’re going to propose on any labor topic.”
At baseball’s Winter Meetings last week, three days after he finished negotiations with the New York Mets on Juan Soto’s record-setting $765 million deal, player agent Scott Boras was asked if he expected calls for a cap to arrive again.
“There is every five years,” he said, a reference to the length of each collective bargaining agreement. “What’s new?”
Owners are indeed considering a cap proposal, according to people briefed on their conversations who were not authorized to speak publicly. But it would also be surprising if they weren’t. More notable is that, for a few reasons, owners could be energized to pursue a cap in a way they have not for a generation.
The future of local television rights is a key motivation.
It’s evergreen to say baseball owners want a cap for its potential cost savings, and to make baseball operate as other major U.S. sports leagues do. The NBA, NFL and NHL all have caps and floors.
Smaller-market teams and their fans have also always complained about the exploits of bigger-market teams, and they’re not lacking fodder this offseason. Soto’s most serious suitors were limited to the sport’s biggest markets.
The World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers, meanwhile, are carrying a projected $335 million payroll per Cot’s Contracts, the highest in the sport, and have deferred more than $1 billion in salary to later seasons.
But well before this winter, it seemed MLB could newly push for a cap. Shortly after the last CBA negotiations, Manfred created an “economic reform committee,” a group of six owners dedicated to reviewing two issues: the future of local television, and club revenue disparities.
By the end of 2025, likely about two-thirds of the league will have taken a pay cut in rights fees at some point in the last three seasons. In response, Manfred wants to radically change how teams share their revenues, pooling all the local TV money together while reducing or eliminating what teams share from other streams.
A cap could be a unifier amongst his owners, something that all 30 could gather behind even if they wouldn’t like the changes otherwise — a potential means to an end. The large-market teams, in particular, don’t want to share more of their valuable TV revenues, but could greatly benefit from a cap.
For owners, a cap has also always been an end of its own. Perhaps the end. They have long sought an upper limit on player spending, while the players have only wanted a minimum or floor to be installed, but the sides will never achieve one without the other.
The union declined comment for this story. MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said in spring 2023, “We’re never going to agree to a cap.”
Mark Attanasio of the Milwaukee Brewers, John Henry of the Boston Red Sox, Chris Ilitch of the Detroit Tigers, Terry McGuirk of the Atlanta Braves, dikk Monfort of the Colorado Rockies and Mark Walter of the Dodgers make up the economic reform committee, a person briefed on its proceedings said. McGuirk is the chair, having succeeded Walter.
Monfort chaired Manfred’s labor committee in the 2021-22 negotiations, when owners locked out the players during the offseason. Attanasio and Henry served on it as well.
The lockout froze the winter, halting free agency, trades and most anything else. The league then made one cap-like proposal early in talks, but quickly moved on when players balked.
“We didn’t miss any games, and that’s what really matters at the end of the day,” Manfred said in a recent interview with the website Questions for Cancer Research. “Offseason lockouts are offseason lockouts, you know? It’s sort of the norm in professional sports.”
The sentiment of a lockout as the “norm” might be more representative of reality circa 2011, when the NBA and NFL both had lockouts. Besides baseball, none of the three major U.S. men’s sports have had a lockout, offseason or otherwise, in more than a decade, since the NHL in 2012-13. But those other three leagues also have CBAs that run longer.
A lockout that cuts into the 162-regular game season would undoubtedly be a different animal than one that does not. And no single issue in baseball is more likely to produce that result than a cap — if owners don’t budge.
Collectively, players have always regarded a cap as a third-rail issue, believing the system would produce a bevy of negatives for them, including, over time, a reduction in how much money they make overall. A fight over a cap sat at the center of the ugly 1994-95 strike, which lasted 232 days and led to a canceled World Series.
The full impacts of a cap and floor would be intricate and massive, in no small part because the league and players would be agreeing to share a set percentage of revenue annually. The league could produce a long list of pros it would argue, and the union cons.
Besides the overall economics, competition is another major talking point. The league believes a cap would help parity, giving smaller-market teams a better chance to retain and sign the best players. Players, meanwhile, have long felt a less restricted system is better.
“Competitiveness is what should run leagues, and the idea of how they compete in our league has a varietal approach to it,” Boras said. “There is no bar to it.”
Franchise values still appear to be growing at a healthy rate even as cord-cutting hurts local TV fees. The major sports leagues all now allow private equity firms to buy stakes.
“We have now got billionaires buying teams in all sports. That’s what’s changing,” Boras said. “You’re going to have not one person buying it. You’re going to have multiple people, contingents buy it. … The prior generation of owners will receive massive wealth from that.
“It is a billionaire business. It is not a local, regional-shop business anymore, and that, I think, is the adaptation we have to look at. Not the rule structure of the game and how we work. We all know what cap systems have brought in other sports, and frankly, it’s not been particularly exciting.”
It’s unclear how baseball’s new owners, such as Steve Cohen of the Mets and David Rubenstein of the Baltimore Orioles, will influence labor, and whether they would prefer to stay in the fans’ good graces. Conversely, a new generation of owners could be eager to push change, believing they can succeed in challenging the union where their predecessors did not.
If owners do aggressively pursue a cap, plenty more unknowns await. Would they hold together while foregoing potentially a year’s worth of revenues, or more? Would players?
The game has a shine right now. MLB took in approximately $11.6 billion in 2023, and Manfred said in October that the haul increased this year. The introduction of the pitch clock two seasons ago has helped increase attendance and interest, and the 2024 World Series featured a marquee match-up between the Dodgers and New York Yankees.
Missed games, however, could tarnish the league’s leverage in future TV negotiations.
Clark’s leadership was challenged early this year by a group of players unhappy with a variety of issues. Owners could see the union as weaker than in the past, but a cap proposal could also galvanize players.
At least a small segment of players and agents may be cap-curious, wanting to learn more about its effects. Some might even support the change, believing that, at the least, their own individual lot could be improved. But there’s no evidence that MLB has a groundswell of support among players for a cap.
Manfred’s own legacy will be affected by the path he and the owners choose. The next CBA is to be the commissioner’s last, ahead of planned retirement in 2029.
“I do think that there are a lot of positives going on in the game right now. I think our attendance is very strong, and that’s always a great thing for us,” Manfred said during his interview with Questions for Cancer Research. “It shows that the game is popular. And I think that the positive things that are going on always motivates the parties to find a solution to the economic issues that face the game.
“We’ve never missed a game, and I hope to keep that record intact in my last go-round.”
At least a small segment of players and agents may be cap-curious, wanting to learn more about its effects. Some might even support the change, believing that, at the least, their own individual lot could be improved. But there’s no evidence that MLB has a groundswell of support among players for a cap.
Manfred’s own legacy will be affected by the path he and the owners choose. The next CBA is to be the commissioner’s last, ahead of planned retirement in 2029.
“I do think that there are a lot of positives going on in the game right now. I think our attendance is very strong, and that’s always a great thing for us,” Manfred said during his interview with Questions for Cancer Research. “It shows that the game is popular. And I think that the positive things that are going on always motivates the parties to find a solution to the economic issues that face the game.
“We’ve never missed a game, and I hope to keep that record intact in my last go-round.”
I think what's going to happen is that the owners, through their lackeys in the media, will push the angle to the fans that a salary cap is about leveling the playing field so the Pirates and Royals and Athletics of the league have a more realistic chance at competing.
But I think it's missing the broader implications about capping players' earnings.
Maybe it's inevitable that a salary cap comes to MLB, but there would have to be a huge concession for it.
I don't know what that would be. Maybe shortening the number of years of control teams have over minor leaguers...or something like that.
But I think it's missing the broader implications about capping players' earnings.
Maybe it's inevitable that a salary cap comes to MLB, but there would have to be a huge concession for it.
I don't know what that would be. Maybe shortening the number of years of control teams have over minor leaguers...or something like that.
Def need to install a cap. NBA did it well and you get teams like the OKC Thunder being actual contenders when they draft well and have Bird rights/max contracts to their star players. I would like to see smaller market teams like the Reds with Elly or the Pirates etc to get a chance to actually compete against bigger market teams.
@Remote you can’t sit there and say player salaries have gotten out of control recently?
Spending massive money on a single player then installing a “luxury tax” isn’t going to get it done. The Dodgers gave the blueprint to private equity firms that if you defer money and win championships to gain revenue then you can fatten that pig and sell it high (which is what’s going to happen when that Ohtani contract comes due).
@Remote you can’t sit there and say player salaries have gotten out of control recently?
Spending massive money on a single player then installing a “luxury tax” isn’t going to get it done. The Dodgers gave the blueprint to private equity firms that if you defer money and win championships to gain revenue then you can fatten that pig and sell it high (which is what’s going to happen when that Ohtani contract comes due).
The only thing the Dodgers have done is use their credit card.
They're leveraged to hell and back and hoping that the day never comes where financial hardships force them to pay up.
In theory I could support a cap, if it means that it significantly boosts the salary floor of minor leaguers and young major leaguers.
And if players could enter free agency earlier so they could earn more money sooner into their careers.
