White Sox Game Thread Dread

 

While the Yankees trade to fill short term holes, Tampa trades for long term success

Yesterday, the Tampa Rays once again did what the Yankees seem incapable of: They traded a player at the height of his value, so a younger, cheaper version can replace him.

Specifically, they dealt starting SS Willy Adames, 25, and reliever Trevor Richards, 28, to Milwaukee for two stud relievers - Drew Rasmussen, 25, and J.P. Feyerisen, 27, a former Yankee farmhand. The two should markedly boost Tampa's bullpen. Feyerisen, whom the Yankees received in the famous Clint Frazier/Justus Sheffield-for-Andrew Miller deal, has been lights-out this year.

Tampa then promoted Taylor Walls, a 24-year-old switch-hitting SS who was batting .327 in Triple A. (The Rays use Triple A to develop prospects, as opposed to the Yankees, who use Scranton as a place to stash aging lug nuts.) 

Every year, Tampa trades players at the crest of their talent curves, rather than wait until they're descending, and then trying to dump their salaries. 

Soon, they will promote Wander Franco, a 20-year-old wunderkind SS, reputed to be baseball's best prospect. Franco is hitting .281 at Triple A. (Comparatively, the Yankees top prospect, 18-year-old Jasson Dominiquez, has yet to see a professional pitch.) When Franco arrives in Tampa - possibly this summer - they'll likely trade Walls for more pitching. 

For the last 20 years, Tampa has been developing and trading young talent, and challenging for the AL East, while paying fraction of the costs incurred by the Yankees. 

My guess is that whenever Hal "Food Stamps" Steinbrenner screams at his employees, raging about the $210 million Yankee payroll, and orders Cooperstown Cashman to limit the payroll, he is staring at Tampa's roster and wondering why the Yankees cannot do the same?

Good question. 

Of course, the Yankees play a different strategy, based on how much money a player is being paid.  They absorb big contracts with the assumption that if you pay enough money, the player will perform well. 

Last month, they didn't really need a second-baseman. But with Texas offering to pay the entire salary of Rougned Odor, the Yankees signed on. It was a financial consideration. Thus, they traded young prospects for Odor. (By the way, they're running out of young prospects to trade.) And while he's rather plucky - great turn on the triple-play last night! - Odor has yet to crack .200. From an offensive standpoint, he represents a career in decline.

The Yankees almost never deal players at the height of their trade value. Cashman fears a star blossoming elsewhere, which would make him a pinata for the NY press. So... we keep Gary Sanchez. 

Right now, the Yankees have no emerging star in Scranton, a player who might force his way into the Yankee lineup. (I suppose you could say OF Estevan Florial, who was just promoted, but he doesn't look ready and - besides - we'll probably trade Florial for a CF band-aid. That's the kind of trade the Yankees make.) 

It's not that complicated. Every year, Tampa simply trades players at their peak value and replaces them with younger, cheaper versions. Yeesh, you'd think it was the Manhattan Project. So Tampa keeps chugging, Cashman fills another hole, and Food Stamps Hal, tucked away on his yacht, will continue to wonder why his team is always chasing the Rays?

(Note: You might ask why I'm not celebrating the winning streak. I am practicing reverse juju. As long as we are winning, nothing good can come from speaking hopefully. ) 

Yanks resume great historical rivalry with White Sox Game Thread

 You know, Dan Pasqua...

Because you're worth it

Alex Rodriguez launches makeup for men https://t.co/zq5potaboQ pic.twitter.com/TYso27fD0m

— New York Post (@nypost) May 21, 2021

HoraceClarke66: Was Corey’s No-Hitter a Mogridge or a Monte?

Corey Kluber’s no-no was officially the 12^th no-hitter or perfect game by your New York Yankees. 

I say “officially” because MLB, in its infinite wisdom, has discounted 2 no-hitters. 

 

One, most of you will remember, came in the midst of the plague years, on July 1, 1990, when Andy Hawkins, on a horrendous Sunday afternoon in Chicago, pitched 8 hitless frames.

 

 

With one out in the 8^th, though, White Sock Sammy Sosa (Remember him?) reached on an error by third baseman Mike Blowers (Remember him? I hope not.). Two walks later, with the bases loaded, Hawkins got Robin Ventura to hit a lazy flyball to left. Which leftfielder Jim Leyritz lost in the sun. And dropped. Ivan Calderon then hit a flyball to right-center. Which rightfielder Jesse Barfield dropped.

 

Hawkins got old friend Dan Pasqua to hit a pop-up that shortstop Alvaro Espinoza managed to actually catch. But when the Yanks went down quickly in the top of the ninth it was all over, depriving Hawkins of any chance to pitch a “real” no-hitter, and creating perhaps the ugliest line score in baseball history:

 

 

 

Back in 1910, a year which nobody here will remember, Tom L. Hughes—the second Yankees pitcher in the deadball era named Tom Hughes—threw 9 no-hit innings against the Indians. “Salida Tom,” as he was nicknamed, gave up a hit in the 10^th, but kept the shutout into the 11^th, when he surrendered five runs and the game.

 

Should these games have been no-hitters?

When it comes to Hawkins, an absolutely awful pitcher with the Yankees (and to this day the only pitcher to win a World Series game for the San Diego Padres), it’s hard to say you should get credit for a no-hitter when you don’t pitch the toughest inning in such a game, even if that’s not your fault.

 

As for Hughes—absolutely! That’s an idiotic ruling! You start and pitch nine, no-hit innings, that should be a no-hitter.

 

One more interesting stat (unless somehow you don’t find this interesting!):  When a Yankee pitches a no-hitter, it generally means good things.

 

Seven of the years in which they did—Sad Sam Jones in 1923, Monte Pearson (below, doing his famous "ventriloquist's dummy" act with Lou Gehrig) in 1938, Allie Reynolds in 1951 (twice!), Don Larsen in 1956, Doc Gooden in 1996, David Wells in 1998, and David Cone in 1999—ended with World Series wins. 

 

Indeed, it felt as if Gooden’s 1996 no-hitter really turned around the team’s prospects for the whole season, and that Wells’ set the tone for 1998.

 

Did they, really? And will Corey Kluber’s change the tone for the Yanks this year? 

 

Or will it be more like the no-hitters thrown by George Mogridge (winner of the good posture award) in 1917, Dave Righetti in 1983, and Jim Abbott in 1993, feel-good moments in otherwise undistinguished seasons? (I’m assuming that Mogridge’s felt good. It was 1917, a time when getting an orange for Christmas was a big deal, so how bad could it have been?)

 

A Mogridge or a Monte? Which will 2021 be? 

In the White Sox tonight, the Yankees confront Hal Steinbrenner's greatest sin

In February of 2015, as spring camps opened nationwide, most of baseball accepted one inevitability:  

The Yankees would outbid everyone for 19-year-old Yoan Moncada, the best Cuban prospect in years, who had emigrated to Florida and won free-agency. 

It seemed a done deal, if only because of the sense it made. The Yankees' farm system was depleted, they'd finished another dismal year in second place, they desperately needed an emerging star, and Moncada came with no strings attached, aside from the money, in which the Yankee ownership regularly bathed.

Then - out from under Hal Steinbrenner's sunscreen-buttered nose - Boston signed him.

They paid a signing bonus of $31.5 million, with another $31.5 million in luxury taxes - an outlay that the Yankee brain trust decried as excessive. How dare Boston fritter away such money! The Yankees had held private workouts with Moncada and were considered frontrunners in the bidding. They capped their offer at $25 million and refused to budge - similar to what they did two years earlier with Robinson Cano, before he left for Seattle. 

That's when we began calling Hal Steinbrenner "Food Stamps" and "Haligator Arms." Hal had his signature strategy: Talk up the bidding, assure Yankee fans he was willing to spend, then drop out at the last minute and whine about the ridiculous price tag. (Later, the Yankees would suggest that Jessica Steinbrenner's ex-husband, Felix Lopez, somehow botched the Moncada negotiations. Nobody wanted the blame.)

Today, we can look at Cano and congratulate ourselves on not being saddled with  his contract. (Instead, we have Giancarlo's!)  But it's worth noting that in 2014, the year after Robbie walked - or jogged - our second-baseman became Brian Roberts, who hit 5 HRs and batted .237. A lineup with Cano might have won a world series, but I guess we'll never know, eh? "Food Stamps" was earning his nickname.

Moncada immediately became Boston's top prospect and a hot commodity - he was  main plank in the 2016 deal that brought future Cy Young winner Chris Sale - and a 2018 world series ring - to the Redsocks. 

Even now, Redsock fans believe Sale will return in September and pitch Boston to a championship. We'll see about that. But Sale - a bona fide Yankee killer - led Boston to its fourth world championship in this millennium, and we have nothing to show since 2009... aside from Hal's pulled-out pants pockets when he poormouths about luxury taxes. 

Tonight, the Yankees face Moncada - one of baseball's best 3B - who is hitting .285 with 5 HR and 25 RBIs. (Aaron Judge, the Yankee team leader, also has 25.) 

Close your eyes, and you can see the last six crapola years hinging on Food Stamps' refusal to match and beat the Redsocks' bid. How much money have the Yankees squandered on bad deals - Hicks, Stanton, Ellsbury, et al - since they refused to go the extra mile?

Boston has a ring. Yankee fans? We can celebrate the Haligator's frugality. What a thrill. 

So, Bobby Murcer would have been 75 today

Seems like a good time to revisit something I wrote 7 years ago. 

I still feel the same way. Murcer should have a plaque in Monument Park. Sadly, with every year that passes, I think the chances get more and more remote.

Afternoon vs the Rangers thread

 

The Klubermensch, the Klubot, the Klubermeister, the Kloob... Kudos, Klubos!

Congrats to Corey Kluber, who last night showed the world that a man can come back from just about anything, as he inscribed himself into Yankee history with his first no-hitter. 

Because we smart-mouthed know-it-alls at IT IS HIGH never hold back on condemnations of underperforming Yankees (or their owners), we need to acknowledge when someone has given us a game for the ages... and that's what the 35-year-old Kluber did last night.

Mr. Kluber, sir... bravo!

Along with Kluber - now 4-2 with an ERA of  2.86, All-Star game starter? - let us praise several lesser-known extras for their role in the night:

Kyle Higashioka, for catching the game. He has become the starting catcher and accomplished the impossible: He's made Gary Sanchez a better player. Behind every masterpiece pitching performance is a brilliant game by the catcher. Kudos to Higgy.

Tyler Wade, for coming off the bench and saving the night. After starting RF Ryan LaMarre tweaked something running to first - a sad moment for a fringe player - Wade, an infielder, took over. In a night that threatened to be unbearably frustrating - the team hit into five double-plays - Wade came through. His triple scored the game's first run. And in ninth, after being told by Brett Gardner that they would have to dive after any ball, Wade ran down a liner that looked like trouble. He made it look easy, but only because he is the fastest man on the team and that he got a great jump. Kudos to Wade, who deserves a shot to win the lefty slot at 2B. 

Eric Cressey, a Yankee management widget, who was hired last year to overhaul their conditioning programs. Cressey worked with Kluber over the winter, and he clearly pushed the team to sign the free agent. He set up Kluber's audition for scouts but gave the Yankees the inside track and Brian Cashman - yes, the odious magnet for IT IS HIGH critics - deserves credit for signing onto it. Of course, Kluber isn't home free - at 35, he's always a tweak away from oblivion - but damn, a no-hitter is a no-hitter, and nobody can ever take it back. Kudos, Mr. Cressey!

Michael - (I can't believe I'm writing this) - Kay, who did a masterful job of calling the game on YES. He didn't overplay it. He didn't ignore it. And when the final out landed in Luke Voit's glove, Kay shouted that Kluber had pitched his way into history. Kudos, Kay. 

A sad night for LaMarre, who likely goes on the injured list and then back to Scranton. For whatever it's worth, Estevan Florial - the Yankee preferred OF hope - came up four times last night for the Railriders and never put his bat on the ball - walking once, and fanning thrice.

We're going to have to do something about the outfield. But for now, let's enjoy it. On the IT IS HIGH Scale of Celebrations, this gets the full THREE TAYS. 

Kluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuber!

 

Sherman, set the IT IS HIGH Wayback to exactly 10 years ago... today.

 Time is God's way of fucking with us.

To keep reading, click here. Fooled ya... here.

Grasping at straws...

 Focus on those colorful things poking out of those glasses and think one thing:

Miguel Andujar.

He hit the ball well last night and looked more comfortable settling under fly balls, and playing the carom, than Frazier ever has.

When he was young, and had no position, I suggested ( hoped ) he would settle in LF.  I knew he didn't have the reflexes to star at third ( I used to play there, so I know...right, Duque?);  first base is not a position where you just stick someone and they can automatically play there.  It is not like in kids' games where the worst player gets right field.  First base takes unusual skills. And you have to want to be a first baseman since you were a kid. 

But LF seemed perfect. 

Andujar was a good defender ( because he could play adequate third base ) and he had a rifle arm (because at third base you must, right Duque?).  So a speedy, hard hitting good fielder with a rifle arm seemed natural at our LF position. 

He should be given the LF position, period. 

Boone, of course, will either sit him down tonight or play him somewhere that messes with his head. He'll feel obligated to the Red Menace and stick him back in the line-up.  

Let Frazier try to play first. 

By the way, does one of you scholars know the origin of " grasping at straws?"  Or is it straw?  As in, you are a hungry cow?  Or is it just a barroom thing, as in, " everyone fight for a drink sitting on the counter? ( see above).

My grasp is that Andujar is ready to break through, if our asshole manager will let him. 

The "Real" Problem

Last night's game aside, as Duque points out, the Yankee offense is pathetic. 

While it's easy to point at horrific batting averages, a lack of situational hitting, poor baserunning, shoddy lineup construction, and a general lack of talent... I fear that there is something greater at work.

I can't shake the feeling that they just go through the motions... without passion for the game. 

Maybe it's a reflection of Boone's management style. Maybe it's the de-emphasis on weight training (and its anger inducing supplements). Maybe it's the yoga. But something is missing. 

Case in point, their lackluster "bench support gesture". The "tapping the arm thing" just seems sad and pointless. 

Compare to the "thumbs down" gesture or the "dugout roof bang" from years past. This one seems like they feel obligated to do something. 

(I will say this about Odor...he plays with passion. Maybe it will rub off and we will get a good gesture out of it.)

There is a school of psychology (don't ask me which one because I am making this up) that says that the mind is influenced by gestures. 

If so, I humbly suggest that the bench adopt the "palms up, eyebrows arched with head nod" as if to say, "It's about FUCKING time. Let's bury them!"

The bottom of the Yankee lineup has become an abyss

Fred Nietzsche, the founder of Uber, once said, "If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you." For nearly two centuries, nobody knew what the fuck he meant.

Then came the 2021 Yankees...

Last night, the Death Barge rallied to beat Texas, the AL's fourth-worst team after the Twins, Tigers and Orioles. If anyone wonders why the Yankees sit in fourth place in the AL East, you only need to ponder the abyss - that is, the batting averages that accompany the last five hitters in our lineup.

Here is what you find. (Note: When navigating this list, do not hesitate or spend too much time pondering one name. Keep moving. Keep stepping. And if any of the haunted entities on this list calls to you, DO NOT ANSWER.)

Yeesh. This is as paltry as anything we've experienced in the last 12 brutal years. 

The fact is, Yankee fans have become desensitized to mediocrity. We've stared into the Abyss. It's become our reality.

We've watched modern analytics drain the game of its spirit, beauty and poetry. These days, a 10-strikeout game is nothing. 

We have come to expect $200 million Yankee lineups that struggle to score three runs or more. The infamous Mendoza Line should be lowered - from .200 to .150.

We have gotten so used to injuries that nobody is surprised when Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Hicks go down. (Nor will we when Aaron Judge joins them.) 

We don't flinch when our eighth and ninth batters take long HR swings, or hit balls directly into defensive over-shifts. That's baseball, Suzyn. (In case you're wondering, we have 10 hitters under .200, and eight above it - 55 percent Mendoza herd immunity.) 

But what is galling is how the Yankee bullshit factory spent last winter describing an Olympian, Ruthian lineup that would roar from top to bottom - a circular attack, they called it. The Yankees were favored to win the AL East, with firepower throughout the order. If anyone questioned  their lack of a lefty-bat, the answer was simple: Who in this championship lineup could be replaced? 

Look again at those averages. Just don't stare. 

Texas Game Thread

 

HoraceClarke66 channels the Proclaimers: “But I could run some 90 feet/ And I could run another 90 feet/ But that’s it, I mean my quads are barking/ Da d-da, da, da di-da, da, d-da, di-da-da.”

 From the mind of HoraceClarke66...

With apologies to The Proclaimers

 

So I looked up the numbers on our Glass Slugger, Giancarlo Stanton. And as Alphonso, our Dauntless Leader, and several others have surmised, it’s not as if he has been severely taxed.

 

Since the season started on April 1, G.S. has played in 33 games. All as DH, of course; the Yankees have not dared to play him in the field since an entire 13 games in 2019.

 

In 2021, G.S. has a total of 37 hits so far, plus 13 walks. Of the hits, he has 6 doubles and 9 home runs. And of course he has not attempted anything so dare-devilish as a stolen base.

 

In other words, all told, Stanton has had to jog up to first base or around the bases a total of 44 times. He probably ran hard 6 times—those darned doubles!—and likely a couple other times, during the 7 runs he’s scored that did not come on a home run.

 

Folks, this is less exercise than your average golfer gets. And I mean a golfer who goes hole-to-hole in a cart. And with a caddy. 

 

And yet, the Glass Slugger’s body still did not hold up.

 

What is this all about? 

 

Well, Ron Darling had the answer last night, when Met Kevin Pillar got hit right in the nose with a 95-mph pitch that looked absolutely terrifying.

 

“There is too much velocity in the game today, and not enough command.”

 

That’s it in a nutshell. That’s absolutely brilliant, even if he is a Yalie.

 

Too much velocity. Everyone feels obliged to torque their body to the sticking place, in what has become an endless muscle race between pitchers and hitters.

 

And nobody has enough command—over their pitches, their swings, or their brains. Most players can’t pitch to contact, they can’t hit to the opposite field, they can’t do anything but produce more velocity.

 

They are, most of them, just an endless series of injuries waiting to happen.  

It's time to do something about Clint Frazier

If I were kidnapped, waterboarded and forced at gunpoint to sum up the 2021 Yankee season in one hard image, it would be Clint Frazier watching strike three float across  the plate like a Popeyes' chicken dinner.

It's a brain worm, a recurring loop, a form of PTSD that torments me in the night. It's the Babadook. Clint and I watch that ball together. Sometimes, it zips a corner of the zone. Sometimes, it just hangs in the air, the way the U.S. Navy describes UFOs, or historians describe the Spice Girls. But Frazier always watches. He doesn't swing. The ump calls him out. Then Clint trudges back to the dugout, looks to the skies, shakes his head and makes a grin-grimace, like Capt. Kirk surrounded by Tribbles. 

Once, he said something to the ump and got booted. Later, the Gammonites reported that Frazier's ejection was the first in his pro career, signifying an unprecedented slump. 

Last night, Clint came up with two outs and Brett Gardner on third, following an electrifying triple, the team's first of 2021. At this point, the game was within reach - considering that we were facing the second-worst starting pitcher in the AL, at least statistically. A single would bring us within a run. Clint assumed his stance and waited, and there it came - the Babadook - in the low-center of the zone. He looked to the heavens, shook his head and grin-winced. 

Frazier is hitting .151. He has 4 HRs, only 7 RBIs, and he has fanned 34 times, third on the Yankees, in 106 at bats. (I should note that he has 18 walks, also third on the team.) Among AL left-fielders, he ranks 23rd out of 25 in OPS. For a guy whose strength was supposed to be hitting, he has been a disaster. 

Time is running out. 

Soon, the Yankees must address the LF sinkhole, where nobody is hitting his weight. (Miguel Andujar is at .120 and Gardy, who is now in center, is .188.) The bottom third of the lineup has become an abyss, and Red Thunder is becoming The Scarlett K. Soon, as depressing as it sounds, Frazier - now 26 - might need to take his great potential to Scranton, to regain his stroke and confidence. He might need a new MLB city. This isn't working. 

For five years now, we've yearned for Frazier to get a shot. In the last two seasons, management always seemed to have higher priorities - Giancarlo Stanton and the Aarons - leaving number 77 an afterthought. It hurts to imagine him in another uniform. But June is around the corner. Unless Frazier starts hitting soon - like, now! - this mind-loop thing is getting us nowhere. 

I AM CALLING FOR A TARGETED JUJU INTERVENTION, BEGINNING TONIGHT, WHEN CLINT FRAZIER COMES TO BAT. WHEREVER YOU ARE, WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING, CEASE AND  DESIST, AND DIRECT ALL YOUR RIZZUTONIC FORCES INTO THE TELEVISION OR BROADCASTING DEVICE, WHICH WILL THEN BE CHANNELED TO THE OUTSKIRTS OF DALLAS, WHERE OUR TECHNICIANS WILL THEN ROUTE THE ENERGY INTO FRAZIER'S APPROPRIATE BODY PART. 

EACH TIME FRAZIER COMES UP, ASSUME YOUR JUJU STANCE AND PROPELL YOUR ENERGY FORCES IN THE DIRECTION OF TEXAS. IF YOU ARE NOT SURE WHERE TEXAS IS, GET A MAP. THIS IS NOT A TEST. THE FUTURE OF CLINT FRAZIER MAY DEPEND UPON WHAT YOU DO. SO, DAMMIT, DO SOMETHING! SWING, BATTAH!

Ranger Danger Game Thread

 

About Time....

 Finally, just when he was proving to the world that he was a dangerous and productive hitter, the Yankees have put Giancarlo Stanton on the 10 day IL.

The injury is related to the quadricep muscle, which can be strained when trying to move too great a weight at too great a speed.  

As in, for example, running out a double and sliding into a firmly fixed base. 

His absence should downwardly shift the Yankees typical run production from 2.0 to 1.1 per game.

And only Cole can manage that. 

More to come.... 

HoraceClarke66: “I Wonder Why Nobody Likes Baseball”—Part 329

 From the mind of Hoss...

So in between the Birds hammering the B-side of our bullpen today—you know it’s a bad game when it’s a Luis Cessa game—I tried switching channels to see if the Mets could somehow take one of three against the TB Rays.

 

No could do. It seems that in New York, at least, the Metsies and the Anonymous Floridians were only being shown on some sort of new baseball streaming channel/service that cost extra money.

 

Even discovering this took sometime, thanks in part to the fact that America’s Paper of Record no longer covers sports. But the really weird thing is that, later on, I couldn’t even find a reference to the final score—not after some extensive searching. The YES Network didn’t even have it up.

 

This is, of course, one more part of the brilliant powers-that-be’s decission to separate and hoard information, which is to be expected now that everyone in America seems to take great pride in discovering just what a greedhead they can be.

 

Maybe it was always thus. And hey, how truly exercised can you get over the fact that you have to pay an extra fee to Apple-++ or HBO to the Third Power, or whoever for the pleasure of viewing a TV cable series that ended five years ago, or maybe yet another superhero movie?

 

But for baseball to join up with this?  Now???

 

Like French generals, the Lords of MLB are always fighting the last war. Back in the day—way, way back in the day—it took them years to even allow radio broadcasts of their games.

 

Who was going to come out to the park, they figured. when you could hear it all over the air, complete with snazzy sound effects, such as rapping a pencil on a table to simulate bat hitting ball?

 

Well, after only about 20 years for most of them, the owners realized that radio actually served as a great advertisement for the game. Then, they were equally reluctant about television.

 

And hey, who knows? The late Roger Kahn actually thought that maybe, at first, the novelty of seeing the game on TV DID keep some people at home.

 

Baseball responded, of course, by annihilating as many nearby minor leagues as they could, so people would have no alternative but to tune in. Hence the sad demise of the Newark Bears.

 

It was, of course, the Prince of Darkness himself, Walter O’Malley, who came up with the idea of how to make money not only from all the ads, but more directly. In the mid-1950s, Walter took up with a company called Skiatron, which promised to put a little metal box in your house that you would have to put a dollar in per game—like poor English coal miners paying for each degree of heat, but in this case to watch the Brooklyn Dodgers play baseball.

What could possibly go wrong with that idea? 

 

I mean, beyond many denizens of Brooklyn taking a baseball bat to the little tin box while yelling, “I got your dollar deposit right here!” after a less-than-satisfying effort by the Bums?

 

It was one of Walter’s few financial missteps. Skiatron went belly-up, and The O’Malley lost several hundred thousand dollars with it.

But that’s the kind of idea that gets you tagged as a baseball visionary by the sportswriters drinking your scotch and eating your steaks for free.

 

Pay-per-view baseball took a little longer. But before long, the Red Sox had moved their games to UHF, then the Braves built their own cable network. All such innovations forcing everybody to pay a little more, just to watch every game.

 

One would have thought the teams starting their own, immensely profitable networks would have satisfied them all. But no. Now we have extra pay channels and streaming services you have to pony up money or at least your personal data for in order to see every game.

 

As it now stands, anyone wishing to see every Mets game—and soon, I am sure, every Yankees game—will have to be able to get the old network channels, the new team channels, the MLB channels, a basic cable package, and all kinds of new streaming services.

 

Commercials plus cable fees or dish, plus special fees, and other really special pay channels or internet fees. 

 

Which we’ll all do, right? Because these days baseball is so incredibly exciting and invigorating? Now really is the time to milk us all for just a little bit more…

 

Why do I have the feeling that all of MLB could be the next Skiatron?