Well the season's over but there's still plenty of baseball stuff on tap. The real games as it were.
October 31st 2026 – Cleaning Out
Not the lockers or the rosters.The cleaning out I’m talking about is the elimination of the last of the alcohol consumed while watching the World Series from my system.
November
2nd - Negotiating Window Ends
There
is an exclusive five day negotiating window where teams can try to re-sign their
Free Agents. After November second the players can negotiate with the rest of MLB. During this period teams can also make the Qualifying Offer to their Free Agents.
Last
year Cashman trying to be too clever by half decided to give Trent Grisham $22 million dollars
to stay for the extra year. He looked at Grisham’s numbers and figured he
wouldn’t take it because he could do much better in the open market and the
Yankees would get a free draft pick.
Grisham
looked in the mirror and said… KaChing!
This
year the only guy being seriously discussed is the team's closer David Bednar.
The QO is $23.15 Million. That’s a lot
for one year of a closer.
The 2nd
is also the night before Election Day. Don’t forget to vote.
November
9-12 General Managers Meetings
Brian Cashman, he of his 20thyear as GM of the Yankees is the dean of these meetings. Dean Wormer. He’s now the old guy at the bar.
Typically not a lot of deals get made here. It’s more of a set up for the
Winter Meetings but due to the potential lockout there will be even less to do.
Well other than the traditional playing of “Pin The Third Baseman on the Yankee
Roster.”
November 11th The Cy Young Award
Schlittler!!!!! There are other awards but none that concern
the Yankees. Schlittler!
November17th Rule 5 Draft Protections and player acceptance or rejection of the qualifying offer.
For the second year in a row Trent Grisham is expected to accept the qualifying offer even if it was not and could not be offered.
He will stand outside the
offices at One E. 161st and River Ave. in the cold rain with his nose pressed against the
glass, his mustache drooping, and look very, very sad.
Then
he will get into his Lamborghini, bought with last year’s $22 million dollar
salary and head into Manhattan for lunch at Chez Fifi.
Rule
Five Question
If
there is no Rule Five Draft due to the lockout do they need to protect anyone?
Minor League baseball will be played on schedule next year. So they might want
to take one more look and discover someone worth protecting.
Will MLB
move the draft to after the lockout ends? Will Cashman THINK MLB is going to
move the Draft and not protect the team’s best players?
NOV.
17-19: The Owners Meeting
The Owners descend on NYC for their
annual meeting wearing their traditional Top Hats and carrying diamond tipped
canes. They will then hold press conferences to explain why they have no money.
The Owners will also talk about how no small market teams can be competitive without a salary cap.
When it is pointed out to The Owners that the Milwaukee Brewers, a small market team, just beat the Tampa Bay Rays, another small market team, and won the World Series… the reporter who asked the question will be beaten to death with their diamond tipped canes.
NOV. 20: The Tender Trap
The tender deadline, sometimes called the
non-tender deadline, like it matters, is when the teams offer contracts to the their
arbitration eligible players. Generally these numbers will be turned down and
the players submit their own numbers representing what they think they are
worth.
This sets up the possibility of arbitration hearings where the club seeks to denigrate the players they hope will play hard for them next season.
They do this by using statistics to prove that he player isn’t any good because he always swings for the fences and strikes out way too much conveniently ignoring the fact that it was the team encouraged him to approach At Bats that way.
The most interesting offers will be to Clark Schmidt because he’s always hurt, Anthony Volpe, (Because he’s elite if the definition of elite now means he sucks) Austin Wells and Helliot Ramos. Maybe Ramos should be paying them.
December 1st The Lockout Begins
The current CBA expires at 11:59. That’s it for baseball until the two sides decide to come to an equitable agreement.
On the players side you have men who have worked their entire lives to perfect skills that have both a huge market value and a limited window to cash in before age and injury end their careers.
On the owners side you have robber barons and nepo babies who will be billionaires whether baseball exists or not and whose boundless greed and hubris and lack of caring about the national treasure that they find them selves stewards of are willing to destroy the game and any goodwill in the communities they syphon tax dollars from for the sake of throwing more money on a pile so large they couldn’t spend it in one hundred lifetimes.
A Legitimate Lockout Question
If you hire someone and you signed a contract and he shows up for work and you decide not to let him in the building but there is a signed contract, why don’t you owe him the money?
He came ready to work. You both signed the contract. You can’t just change your mind. I mean you could decide not to do the job or hire someone else or even fire the guy. But since there would be no cause… why don’t you own him the money?
The Most Important Date - Sixty Games Missed
From MLB Trade Rumors:
“... a key cutoff point will be if the lockout extends long enough to cancel at least 60 games of the 2027 season.
If that comes to pass, the league
would still be paid for 2027 as part of their national media deals. However,
most of those deals would tack on another year for the broadcasters.
The deals currently expire after 2028 but would push to 2029 if at least 60 games are missed in 2027. If the entire 2027 season is missed, the broadcasters would pay no fees at all for 2029. If a partial season is played, the networks would pay some fees. The specifics of a partial season fee aren’t mentioned but it is referred to as a “bargain rate” in the piece. The fees would presumably be relative to how much of the 2027 season is played.”
In other words, after sixty games lost, the owners start to lose money.
Hey, those diamond tipped canes don’t pay for themselves.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment