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MLB 2016-2017 Offseason |OT| At Least Next Year is an Odd Numbered Year.

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C

CosmicQueso

Member
So I've watched 3 Jays preseason games and tonight's Dominican game.

Joey Bats looks like he's going to have a monster year. Dude looks ready to go and kinda pissed.
 
W

Windu

never heard about the cat, apparently
Still pissed that we don't get to see a US team with Bryant, Trout and Harper in the outfield. Ugh. Fuck the players that decided to sit out.
 
S

Silver Arrows

Banned
Minor League Players Move Pay Lawsuit Forward


By narrowing their scope, a group of former minor league players on Wednesday advanced their lawsuit against Major League Baseball.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero recertified Senne v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball as a class action, amending a July decision that had ruled that minor league players’ experiences were too broad to be appropriate for a class-action suit.

At that time, Spero decertified the class under federal law and denied the minor leaguers’ request to process as a class action under several state laws as well. When making his original decision, however, Spero noted that there was room for him to reconsider if the players limited their claim to those players whose experiences were most similar.

In response, the suit was narrowed to players who played at least seven days in either California, Florida or Arizona. The certified collective under the new decision will be “any person who, while signed to a Minor League Uniform Player Contract, participated in the California League, or in spring training, instructional league, or extended spring training, on or after Feb. 7, 2011, and who had not signed a Major League Uniform Player Contract before then.”

“After reviewing more evidence and hearing more arguments, Judge Spero’s order re-certified a narrower class under federal and California law,” the St. Louis law firm Korein-Tillery wrote in a release following the decision. The lawyers from Korein-Tillery, which is representing the plaintiffs along with lawyers from Pearson, Simon & Warshaw, include former minor league pitcher Garrett Broshuis.

Major League Baseball declined comment on the decision, via the Associated Press.

Ultimately, the players’ suit seeks to raise salaries for minor league baseball players by having minor leaguers included under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which establishes minimum wage and overtime rules for workers around the country. Because at present the players aren’t considered full-time employees by their clubs—Minor League Baseball has compared them on numerous occasions to interns or apprentices—they aren’t covered under the FLSA.

The suit notes that minor league salaries have risen just 75 percent since 1976, while inflation over the same time period has been 400 percent. Moreover, the average major league salary has grown by 2,000 percent during the same time period. Minor leaguers are also paid during the regular season only, which means they are not paid for spring training, instructional league in the fall, and the offseason.

To put that in perspective, Phillies prospect Dylan Cozens, who won Minor League Baseball’s Joe Bauman Award for leading the minors with 40 home runs last season, joked when he accepted the award that the $8,000 prize that came with the award was more than his salary for the entire season.

In anticipation of further action in this suit and for other lawsuits or legislation that may arise in the coming years, Minor League Baseball announced at December’s Winter Meetings that it was forming a Political Action Committee.

The next step for the suit is for the players and MLB to come up with a schedule for how the rest of the case will proceed. They must present their proposed schedule to Spero by April 28.
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B

bonesmccoy

Banned
CosmicQueso said:
So I've watched 3 Jays preseason games and tonight's Dominican game.

Joey Bats looks like he's going to have a monster year. Dude looks ready to go and kinda pissed.
Click to expand...

I hope we see a smarter Joey this year. Last season hopefully proved to him that his body was in fact like most other 35-36 year olds.
 
F

Friggz

Member
the yankees making clint frazier buzz his hair is the dumbest fucking thing on earth.

the yankees front office really makes it difficult to be a fan.
 
M

Malo

Banned
Friggz said:
i view ownership and the baseball analytics guys as one in the same. when i worked in minny, if you didnt play baseball you were part of the "front office"

/shrug
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Supposedly it's Jennifer Steinbrenner that makes sure players follow the hair policy.
Silver Arrows said:
I guess it should be mentioned since we are at this point, but is the requirement for hair and facial hair universally reviled in Yankees-land?
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It's a policy George Steinbrenner instituted when he bought the team in the early '70s, he wanted his players to look like "professionals".
 
S

Silver Arrows

Banned
Into the woods: How Lourdes Gurriel Jr. escaped on his zig-zag journey from Cuba to the Blue Jays

DUNEDIN, Fla. – On the far aisle in the clubhouse, the first two lockers belong to Kendrys Morales and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. It is a logical juxtaposition. They are new to the Toronto Blue Jays, but not to each other.

They first met 15 years ago, back home in Cuba, when Gurriel was eight years old. Morales was 18 and the country's best baseball player. Gurriel was the youngest member of the first family of Cuban baseball, a callow kid with a distinguished pedigree.

His father is a legend in his homeland. That connection, ironically, played an important part in the son escaping from Cuba and becoming a Blue Jay.

Now Morales and Gurriel share a clubhouse and an agent as well as a homeland. One is a veteran designated hitter, the other an aspiring shortstop who also has played a lot of outfield. Both escaped Cuba to chase their dream, Morales in 2004 on a crowded raft across the Florida Straits, Gurriel in 2016 on a serpentine road through five countries.

Soon, if the stars align for Gurriel, he will add a sixth country to the list: Canada.

Long before he defected, he had connections to Canada. A historic agreement between an independent Canadian team and the Cuban government allowed one of his brothers to play in Quebec. Serving as a translator in those negotiations was a former minor-league catcher who played for that Quebec club. Subsequently, the same translator would play a key role in bringing Gurriel to the Blue Jays.

The story of Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and his zig-zag path out of Cuba is a tad complicated, and there were tense moments along the way, but no serious hitches. He was lucky.

Kendrys Morales had a much tougher time. Morales lacked Gurriel's connections and family financial support. It took Morales eight tries before a boat finally took him and 18 others to Florida.

Gurriel, however, is paying a lot more in cash to pursue his dream.

He is paying his smugglers.

”It's in the seven digits," he says. ”It's in the millions."

And it's in installments. His specificity stops there. When pressed, he will say only that he considers it a fair price.

The Blue Jays are paying him $22-million over seven years. He has not yet played a professional game outside of Cuba. But his contract is guaranteed.

So are the payments to his smugglers, minus the paperwork.

The Blue Jays and Major League Baseball have nothing to do with that. Not directly, anyway.
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Malo said:
Supposedly it's Jennifer Steinbrenner that makes sure players follow the hair policy.
It's a policy George Steinbrenner instituted when he bought the team in the early '70s, he wanted his players to look like "professionals".
Click to expand...


I know what the policy is. I'm asking whether or not the majority of Yankee fans hate it or not.
 
S

Silver Arrows

Banned
Malo said:
Majority of fans don't care for the policy. Girardi said they cut Frazier's hair because it was causing a distraction, which it never did. And now by cutting his hair, they might have caused a distraction. Funny how that works.
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oh fucking wow, great logic there Girardi
 
E

evil solrac v3.0

Member
Silver Arrows said:
I guess it should be mentioned since we are at this point, but is the requirement for hair and facial hair universally reviled in Yankees-land?
Click to expand...

it's one of the dumbest things in sports. it's obnoxious and it makes the team and the front office look like a bunch of tightwads. it makes it hard to be a fan of such conservative ownership sometimes.

17 Seconds said:
america still wouldn't care about the wbc even if they did play, so why should they? i can't blame them.
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America voted for Trump, what do they know?
 
C

Choomp

Banned
17 Seconds said:
america still wouldn't care about the wbc even if they did play, so why should they? i can't blame them.
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Yeah, honestly, I wish the American players really cared but I don't have that big of a problem with them sitting out. Just thinking of the team we could have though, damn...
 
S

Silver Arrows

Banned
C6ldleaWkAAPkMA.jpg


Very quiet here in Lakeland after #BlueJays reliever TJ House hit on side of head from batted ball in B9th.
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TJ House is ok. Since it was the bottom of the 9th, they just decided to end the game.
 
N

NervousXtian

Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
Mortemis said:
we did it without felix, cano, and cruz too

world series bound!!1!
/s
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There was only 4 combined rotation guys between both teams. Still a great game... Great bunt in the 9th and O'malley with the walk off double. I was at the game and it was the best game we saw so far down here. Huge crowd over 12k. Had great seats too.

Watching Cubs fans crying was great.
 
C

chicagocubsfan

Member
NervousXtian said:
There was only 4 combined rotation guys between both teams. Still a great game... Great bunt in the 9th and O'malley with the walk off double. I was at the game and it was the best game we saw so far down here. Huge crowd over 12k. Had great seats too.

Watching Cubs fans crying was great.
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Revenge for the Lester walk off bunt game.
 
S

Silver Arrows

Banned
Team USA cares about the WBC, even if people in the US don't

MIAMI – Around the time Nolan Arenado’s face bounced off the first-base bag at Marlins Park, the entirety of the Colorado Rockies’ organization sucked down a deep, horrified breath. Here was general manager Jeff Bridich’s franchise player, the star that new manager Bud Black gets to pencil in to his lineup’s three hole, not just playing in the World Baseball Classic but playing like it was October instead of March. After the slider he swung at for strike three skated between the catcher’s legs, Arenado could’ve simply sprinted to first base. Of course, that would’ve betrayed who he is and what Team USA means to him. And that left him ready to break a cardinal safety rule: never dive into first base.

“I knew it was going to be close, so I just did it,” Arenado said. “I would like to apologize to the Rockies and tell Jeff Bridich and Bud Black that I’m sorry. The energy of the game got to me. My instincts took over. I’m trying to win, man.”

There’s this perception that the WBC, in its fourth incarnation, means less to the United States than it does to other countries – and when it comes to the fan bases around the world that go rabid for it compared to the Americans who see it as a milquetoast exhibition, well, yeah, that’s fair. Nolan Arenado, Nolan Arenado’s face and Nolan Arenado’s teammates, however, want to make clear: They care. They cared enough Friday night not to fold when a scrappy team from Colombia backed them into a corner, cared enough to yell and scream and fist-pump big strikeouts, cared enough that when Adam Jones laced a two-out single in the bottom of the 10th inning for a 3-2 victory, the team spilled out of the third-base dugout and moshed and emptied a Gatorade jug on Jones, checking off all the requisite walk-off tropes.

And because these are athletes at their peak, that is to be anticipated, sure. With three WBC failures in the United States’ rearview, though, and nearly all of the greatest American players choosing to skip the tournament, there is a built-in double barrel of motivation beyond the typical desire for excellence so common among all players – a craving for the wild patriotism expected at Saturday’s must-see game against the Dominican Republic to skew more American than less.

“I want to win everything,” Arenado said. “And represent our country right. I’m not gonna lie: There were a lot of Colombians there. And there are going to be a lot of Dominicans there [Saturday]. But this is America. We’re wearing the United States on the front of our jersey, and we want to represent it the right way.”

Arenado’s way was to dirty up the jersey. For the first 5 2/3 innings Friday, Jose Quintana, the indomitable Chicago White Sox starter and apple of every contender’s trade-market eye, had no-hit Team USA while three straight doubles in the fifth inning staked him a 2-0 lead. Then Brandon Crawford broke up the party with a single, and the first-round pitch limit of 65 sent Quintana to the bench. Ian Kinsler singled off reliever William Cuevas, Adam Jones doubled Crawford in and Arenado’s dive allowed Kinsler to score.

From there, tension asphyxiated the crowd of 22,580, which vacillated between Colombian and American joy or fright depending on the inning and situation. While it wasn’t exactly a crisply played game, the understanding that one mistake could decide it was palpable. Said 72-year-old American manager Jim Leyland, who retired after the 2013 season: “Now you know why I’m not managing anymore.”

The decisions, the situations, the pressure: They are not manufactured. The WBC itself may be, dreamt up as a way for Major League Baseball to control its own international product, particularly as the Olympic movement dumped baseball after years of treating it as an extra appendage it never wanted. And parts of the action do feel contrived. American starter Chris Archer cruised through four innings on 41 pitches before leaving the game. Why? His team, the Tampa Bay Rays, gave him their blessing only if he agreed to limit his first start to four innings or 60 pitches, whichever came first.
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S

Silver Arrows

Banned
Oh, Jung-Ho Kang is definitely not going to be in the line up for Opening Day.

Pirates' Jung Ho Kang placed on restricted list as he awaits visa

BRADENTON, Fla. — The probability third baseman Jung Ho Kang will play for the Pirates on opening day continues to plummet. On Friday, a week after receiving a suspended sentence for his third DUI in South Korea, Kang was placed on the major league restricted list.

An official announcement is expected shortly.

The restrict list is for players unable to play for reasons other than injury. While on the restrict list, players do not count toward the 25- or 40-man rosters, do not accrue service time, and they typically are not paid. Kang, 29, is due to make $2.75 million this season.

Kang already has missed a month of spring training. He was arrested Dec. 2 in Seoul, South Korea, after smashing his rented BMW into a guard rail and fleeing the scene as the passenger, identified only by the surname Yoo, took blame for the crash by claiming he was driving.

Kang was dropped from South Korea’s World Baseball Classic roster Jan 4. After a judge rejected summary proceeding and demanded a formal trial for Feb. 22, it was clear Kang would miss at least part of Pirates spring training. A fine and suspended sentence were handed down March 2, but Kang is still waiting to receive his visa for travel to the United States to join the Pirates.

Players aren’t paid their regular salaries during spring training but do get per diem money. While Kang’s absence from camp hasn’t affected his pocketbook too badly, missing days in the regular season time can be costly.
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B

BigAT

Member
Tanaka strikes out the side in the top of the first, Sanchez with a 2-run HR in the bottom. Feels good to bed back.
 
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