2011-2012 MLB Off-Season Thread

[Beef]

Is Lotte like Lotte Chiba?

[jOOj]

They would ask you what it costs for you to have these delicious marlins shipped for lunch.

[Chewford]

Is Lotte like Lotte Chiba?

Same company, they're based in Japan and Korea and own baseball teams in both countries. They got the Marines in Chiba, Japan and the Giants in Busan, Korea.

You just got educated.

[Beef]

Are teams in Korea owned in the same way as in Japan? Are they generally owned by large companies? Are most of their names company names rather than city names? Are the baseball teams kind of secondary things for the businesses and almost used more for advertising than for making baseballs/baseball related monies? Thank you Chewie.

[Chewford]

Are teams in Korea owned in the same way as in Japan? Are they generally owned by large companies? Are most of their names company names rather than city names? Are the baseball teams kind of secondary things for the businesses and almost used more for advertising than for making baseballs/baseball related monies? Thank you Chewie.

Yeah, the baseball teams are Kia, SK (telecom company), Samsung, LG, Lotte, Nexxen (tire company), Doosan (construction company), and Hanwha (no idea what they do).

Lotte is the only team that turns a profit.

[Beef]

Cool, that was a fun learn.

[Metes]

Choo-choo, you gettin the World (American) Series?

[Chewford]

It's on TV with Korean commentary, but I have to go to work now.

[Metes]

Oh so you're drunk

[jOOj]

As is tradition.

[Chewford]

I can't drink alcohol, Matthew, my stomach is bleeding in 6 places!

[Party]

Jim Crane has told MLB he wants a $50 million discount on the Astros sale price in exchange for moving to the AL.

[THE_REAL_MIBS]

The worst-kept secret in baseball is finally, officially out in the open. The Red Sox and Cubs issued a joint statement Friday night announcing that Theo Epstein has resigned from his post as Boston's general manager to become the Cubs' president of baseball operations.

The move is "effective immediately," according to the statement, although the teams won't hold news conferences until Tuesday, the next off day in the World Series, when the Cubs will presumably introduce Epstein in Chicago, while Red Sox assistant GM Ben Cherington is expected to be named Epstein's successor in Boston.

The deal has been held up for more than a week already as the teams haggled over compensation the Red Sox would receive for letting Epstein out of his contract. Those negotiations continue even as Esptein leaves his hometown Red Sox. According to the joint statement, the teams "have reached an agreement regarding a process by which appropriate compensation will be determined for the Red Sox and that issue will be resolved in the near term."

The Red Sox aimed high in asking for compensation for Epstein. A baseball source told ESPNBoston.com that they initially asked for the Cubs' young star shortstop, Starlin Castro. Whey they were rebuffed, the Red Sox asked for arguably the Cubs' best starting pitcher in Matt Garza.

A major league source told ESPNChicago.com that at one point Boston proposed that the Cubs take pitcher John Lackey's contract. Lackey has three seasons remaining on an $82.5 million deal. He was 12-12 with a 6.41 ERA in 28 starts for the Red Sox in 2011.

But the expected agreement will include Cubs minor leaguers, although not top prospects Brett Jackson, Trey McNutt or Matt Szczur, the source said. Cash will not be part of the compensation.

The 37-year-old Epstein resigned with a year remaining on his contract as Red Sox general manager to run a team that has gone 103 years without a World Series championship.

With Epstein at the helm, the Red Sox ended an 86-year World Series championship drought in 2004 and won the title again in 2007.

Cubs fans can only hope he will do the same thing on the North Side. Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts fired GM Jim Hendry in July after another disappointing season.

Theo Epstein quits Red Sox, joins Cubs

[DColts]

These are dumb:

This fall, millions of Americans have been flipping channels to stay abreast of two distinct forms of competition: Major League Baseball's 2011 postseason and the Republican presidential debates.

The baseball competition has come down to a World Series between the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals—a series that shifts to Texas Saturday tied at one game apiece. The Republican nomination won't be officially bestowed until August.

Toggling between politics and baseball the other night, we heard a lot about candidate Herman Cain's signature tax proposal, which includes a 9% individual flat tax, a 9% business flat tax and a 9% national sales tax. So we had a thought: Doesn't Major League Baseball need its own 9-9-9 plan?

During the first two games of the World Series, the Journal's baseball staff reached out to players, managers, broadcasters, executives and a pair of economists to ask them what sorts of reforms they'd suggest.

NBC broadcaster Bob Costas contributed three ideas. Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent had a strong recommendation, as did incoming Florida Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen. New York Mets starting pitcher R.A. Dickey liked the idea so much he submitted a multipart proposal by phone, then called back later with revisions.

With apologies to the Cain campaign, here are the nine best proposals for planks in a 9-9-9 platform to fix baseball.

1. The 99-Game Limit

"I got a good one," Ozzie Guillen said before Game 1 of the World Series. "I want a 99-game season." Guillen said he knows this is a pipe dream. Baseball needs its 162-game-per-team schedule (which doesn't include the postseason) to maximize its revenues from tickets and television rights. Nonetheless, Guillen might get something along these lines. A person familiar with talks between baseball's owners and players' union over a new labor deal said players would be willing to play more double-headers in order to get more days off. Might we suggest nine extra days of vacation?

2. All Kids Tickets: $9

Andrew Zimbalist, an economist and baseball consultant, offers an idea to help baseball attract a new generation of fans: $9 tickets for kids. (We'd suggest that this is limited to kids nine and under). And while we're at it, Zimbalist says, baseball should limit the highest priced tickets to $999.

3. Pitchers Get 9 Reviews

Dickey, the Mets pitcher, suggests putting an earpiece and microphone in the home-plate umpire's mask. The purpose: If a pitcher objects to the umpire's call on a pitch, he could signal for an official video booth review. The verdict could then be relayed to the umpire by radio —so as not to slow play. "I hold out my hand a certain way and the people up top hit a buzzer," Dickey says. His other ideas: allowing teams to put a ninth fielder in fair territory (the catcher sits in foul territory, he explains) and putting nine umpires on the field.

4. The 9-Pitch Minimum

This postseason, fans are griping about the number of times some managers (in particular Tony La Russa of the Cardinals) slow games to a crawl by coming to the mound, swapping one pitcher for another, then dispatching that pitcher minutes later. Vince Gennaro, a consultant to baseball teams and an author of a book about baseball economics, proposes a nine-pitch minimum for anyone who steps on the mound (that includes you, Arthur Rhodes). Fay Vincent, the former commissioner, has a corollary to this rule: he would limit the number of times the pitching coach can visit the pitcher to twice every nine innings.

5. All 9 Fielders Bat

In case you're counting, this was the 39th season since the American League adopted the designated hitter. Other than the players' union, which appreciates a rule that allows high-paid sluggers to extend their careers, it's unclear who else likes this rule. Several members of the Rangers, including pitcher C.J. Wilson and first baseman Michael Young, say they prefer the National League style (where the pitchers bat) they experienced in the first two World Series games. "It's old-time baseball," Wilson said.

6. The Poor Get 9% More

To Gennaro, raising the pool of shared revenue baseball makes available to less-wealthy ballclubs by 9% could help teams like the Kansas City Royals and Pittsburgh Pirates compete with the New York Yankees and other cash-hoarding behemoths. "A 9% increase could help narrow the gap," he says.

7. No. 9 to Cooperstown

Baseball still hasn't come to terms with its steroids era and hasn't told fans what to make of the records of the sluggers who may have taken them. Costas says putting former New York Yankee Roger Maris in the Hall of Fame might go a long way toward clarifying who the real home-run champion ought to be. Maris held the record for 37 years before it was broken by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. "I used to feel differently about this but I've changed," he said.

8. Pitch Every 9 Seconds

Texas pitcher Matt Harrison starts Saturday in Game 3. He works quickly and likes the game to move along. "It gets incredibly annoying watching a guy walk around the mound for 15 or 20 seconds," he says. "I know guys do it to mess with the hitters, but it's seriously annoying. The same goes for the hitters stepping out." One possible remedy: hold pitchers to a nine-second maximum between tosses. Former pitcher Jeff Nelson says he would support an additional rule that gives hitters just 9 seconds "to get their butts into the box from the on-deck circle."

9. Playoff Games End by 9

Here's a proposal that would be heartily endorsed by everyone who lives on the East Coast and often has to suffer the after-effects of staying up past midnight to see who wins. Demand that the games are off the air by 9 p.m. Fay Vincent, the former commissioner, had this to say about the late hours: "I'm an old man, I just can't make it."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...305549678.html

[Party]

I like a pitch every 9 seconds. Put up something similar to a shot clock.