2019-20 MLB Running Hot Stove Thread

That is the real problem. Politicians will even find ways to push these programs through in spite of public opinion. They do it because even if the voters refuse to support funding for a stadium, the politicians know there will still be a backlash if the team actually leaves. That is essentially why there was state and local funding for PNC Park and Heinz Field. People in the region voted against the funding in a referendum, but politicians got the money together anyway. They new there was a very real possibility that the Pirates would leave and people would be pissed. Some politicians even tried to stoke fears that the Steelers could leave, but I don't think anybody bought the idea of the Rooneys taking the team out of Pittsburgh.

 

The reason the Red Sox stuck with Fenway and Kraft built a new stadium for the Pats on land he already owned adjacent to the old one is Boston's ridiculous real estate market. There was literally no place to put new stadiums that wouldn't either die due to being in residential areas, because most land is already in use, or because it couldn't be developed more profitably for other commercial ventures, which killed all proposals for downtown or the waterfront.

 

Fenway is a lousy place to watch a ballgame, nostalgia be damned. They’ve done what they can, but you can only put so much lipstick on the pig.

 

There are like 24,000 good seats at Fenway and 10-12,000 ridiculously bad ones. But the park is the franchise's most valuable asset. People here "go to Fenway" not "go to the Sox game" in the common idiom. Besides there was no place else to go. They thought about the waterfront, but if anyone thought Candlestick Park was too cold for baseball, they'd change if there'd been a waterfront stadium here. The North Atlantic takes a long time to warm up after winter. There wouldn't have been a ball hit past the warning track until Memorial Day.

 

An old friend returns ... again

Tigers bring Cameron Maybin back to Detroit for third time

 

RIP LOOGys.

MLB OKs 3-batter minimum among rule changes

I'm surprised the rule changes are as extreme as they are. It almost makes you think MLB knows the game is in bigger trouble than most people think. I'd lift the three-batter minimum in the ninth. Don't understand limiting roster call-ups in September. Butlimiting the pitchers carried to 13 is good and like raising the DL back up to 15-days.

 

Padres will not wear Swinging Friar caps with logo that resembles swastika during Spring Training

 

Delayed LOL reaction after seeing that they just sold for a billion ... the Royals won the World Series in 2015. The Royals won it in a decade the Dodgers should've won it 3 or 4 times. Baseball is a strange sport.

 

This is a shit rule. Play the game as it’s been played and enforce the fucking rules on the books.

 

Great cover

 

Clevinger out 6-8 weeks with knee surgery.

 

Sounds like he will open the season on IR. The guy does seem to have some durability issues.

It could easily be the shorter end of things. A tear in the meniscus is relatively simple stuff.