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Klawchat 12/3/20
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Keith Law
1:00
Don't waste your words I don't need anything from you. Klawchat.
Ross
1:01
Biggest surprises among non-tendered players?
Keith Law
1:01
David Dahl for sure. I'm going to write a short post on 3-4 of those guys who would have otherwise made my top 40 free agents had they been non-tendered in early November.
Eric
1:01
Do you see Steve Cohen/Sandy Alderson putting the right pieces (front office, scouting & of course players) in place to be a perrenial contender?
Keith Law
1:01
Yes, but I don't think my opinion there means anything at all. It's based mostly on trust in Sandy's intelligence and track record, although even he has had his mistakes.
Guest
1:02
Is it concerning that the Mets haven't been able to find anyone for the front office hires? Or is it a combination of timing and they're just being overly particular?
Keith Law
1:02
I do not believe for a second they've been unable to find anyone. Reports that everyone is turning them down are probably just bullshit.
Steven Matz
1:02
Wow,how am I making 5.2 million dollars?!
Keith Law
1:03
Good for him. Few players have worked harder to come back from injuries that could have ended a career than Matz has.
Scott of Lincolnshire
1:03
Is the idea of Kyle Schwarber greater than the results of Kyle Schwarber?  $8 mil doesn't seem like a ton of money for .800 OPS
Keith Law
1:03
That OPS masks trouble vs LHP and doesn't consider lack of positional or defensive value.
Guest
1:04
Do the White Sox survive La Russa?
Keith Law
1:04
Yes. They might even succeed under him. But they have ceded the chance to be better under a more capable and progressive manager.
MLB
1:04
Now that we have crushed minor league baseball, what else can we do to have fans be less interested in our game from all over the country?!
Keith Law
1:04
More commercial breaks, probably.
Ryan
1:04
If owners refuse to open their books, why do all of them crying poor all the time get taken seriously. When will we decide that these are clearly arguments being made in bad faith? If Bill DeWitt Jr. believes that "the industry isn’t very profitable" then why has he owned a team for 25 years?!
Keith Law
1:07
Any reporter who accepts these lies wholesale - like the fink Bill Madden, who got laughed off the internet last week when he printed that the Phillies lost nearly $2 billion, just like the nonsense story he printed about Mike Elias and the pension fund a few weeks earlier, yet more proof Madden's Spink Award should be revoked - no longer deserves your attention or clicks.
Alex
1:07
If you were a GM with a limited budget (cough, Orioles, cough) with glaring holes in pitching and SS (and 3B)-- who would you be talking to right now (while keeping in mind the restraints listed above)?
Keith Law
1:08
I mean, they had Iglesias, a good value at shortstop whose defense would help any pitchers they're trying to develop, and traded him for very little.
Ed
1:08
Not a question, but looking at your Top 100 list, I can't recommend Castles of Tuscany more.  Looking forward to your eventual review!
Keith Law
1:08
I haven't gotten that one yet but thank you. I have mixed feelings on Feld games ... he gets way too enamored of complicated scoring rules sometimes, like in Merlin.
Matt
1:08
Do you buy organic food? If so, which categories (i.e., produce, meat, etc.)?
Keith Law
1:10
Yes. Dairy and eggs first, because I think there are tangible differences (organic eggs, in my experience, have harder shells and more defined yolks, although if you have a local farm with fresh eggs you can get the same whether or not they're organic) and I want to support antibiotic-free husbandry. I don't think there's a difference to the consumer between organic and conventional produce, but you may choose that for ethical reasons.
Ben (MN)
1:10
I may be in the minority among other lifelong baseball fans (in my early 30s), but I would support 7 inning double-headers even in a post-pandemic league. In fact, I would support 7 innings for all games. I will always watch the Twins, and I used to watch any game that was on tv. But i now find that other MLB games, including the playoffs, are so long that I find them unwatchable if I don't have a rooting interest. Do you think MLB would ever be willing to shorten the games?
Keith Law
1:10
Dear God I hope not. This isn't high school baseball.
Hadley
1:10
Let's stipulate for the sake of argument that MLB is unable to spend any more total $ on MiLB than what it's going to spend next year.  Given that budget, are the overall changes to MiLB going to be a net positive?  Is it fair to think of as a tradeoff of better QOL for minor leaguers vs. fewer total number of jobs for players and others in MiLB?
Keith Law
1:12
Let's see that money actually go to the remaining minor leaguers before considering that possibility. MLB has hinted at it, but it's just that until they do something about it I am reserving judgment.
BE
1:15
I know prospect for prospect trades are rare but what did you think of Bowden's Addell for Manning proposal? Angel's fans hated it but as a Tiger's fan losing Manning's upside is scary.
Keith Law
1:16
LOLOLOLOLOL
JJ
1:16
Julian McWilliams, the Boston Globe beat writer who covers the Red Sox, voted Alex Verdugo for 5th place on his MVP ballot and Xander Bogaerts for 10th place (the only votes either man received).  Isn't it a bad look for the BBWAA that they allow McWilliams, an employee of the John Henry owned Boston Globe, to vote for anything involving the John Henry owned Red Sox?  Maybe McWilliams saw something that every other writer (and Red Sox fan) missed in 2020, but it certainly seems like a conflict of interest.
Keith Law
1:18
MLB.com writers are now BBWAA members too, so there's a lot of potential for those conflicts. I do think employees of team-owned publications should recuse themselves from voting. It's the appearance of conflict that matters. Just voting for players on the team you cover isn't unethical or uncommon - hell, Tom Gage (another Spink winner) stuffed Tigers on his ballots all the time, and nobody but me seemed to give a shit.
1:19
(Also, end the Spink Award. The BBWAA is going to change the award's name, but it's the pinnacle of self-congratulation. Just get rid of it.)
MK26
1:19
Thank you for being blunt about media both-sidesism in your Stick to Baseball posts. I think the media (outside right-wing batshit outlets) did a pretty good job calling lies lies post-election. But you rightfully point to NYT as one of the worse culprits of prioritizing balance over truth. I half-expect their World Series coverage to run an article "Rays Claim First World Series Title Without Citing Evidence, Opponents Disagree".
Keith Law
1:20
The Times is home to some of the best journalism in the country ... and some of the most regrettable stuff too, from headlines to news articles to the opinion pages. I'm glad Bennet and Weiss, both integral parts of the problem there, are gone, but Bret Stephens' continued employment there is a bigger symptom. Climate change denial is not an opinion. It is a delusion.
Todd Boss
1:20
Do we really think that these new wood bat leagues that the short-A/rookie league teams are turning into will be successful?  You could easily argue there's already way too many such leagues now (there's dozens and dozens of wood bat leagues all over the country).
Keith Law
1:20
These will have MLB's imprimatur and may push some of the less-known wood bat summer leagues into oblivion.
JohnC
1:21
Love the chats. Have you read Andrew Yang's War on Normal People book. Good read and he makes a very compelling case for UBI. Thoughts on UBI?
Keith Law
1:22
I haven't read it and don't plan to. I've read some economic research on UBI and think it has parts worth using, but implementing it in the US is a pipe dream and I'd rather work towards goals we might achieve in our lifetime, like expanding child care and preschool options that allow more parents to work, and increasing the minimum wage.
1:23
Getting right-wing voters to agree to "pay people to do nothing" is a non-starter. Paying people more to work, regardless of where that money comes from, is viable, and also just generally good for people.
Arnold
1:23
I recently finished reading The Inside Game--fantastic BTW--and have a question regarding the poor odds of drafting high school pitchers early in the draft.  For the few high-drafted high school pitchers (Bum, Kershaw, etc.) who succeed in the majors, are there any commonalities that might be predictors, such as more mature bodies, less wear and tear on the arms, or the types of pitches they throw?  I assume someone has tried to study the exceptions to the rule.  I ask as the much older brother of a pretty good, but still young high school pitcher.
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