On this day ten years ago, Indians' starter Chuck Finley struck out Tom Evans, Royce Clayton, Chad Curtis, and Rafael Palmeiro in the same inning after Curtis reached base on a passed ball. There have been 50 instances in baseball history where a pitcher struck out four men in one inning, but Finley did it three times, the only guy to do it more than once. Scot Shields is the last pitcher to strike out four in one frame, doing it less than a week after Scott Baker accomplished the same feat in June of 2008.
Let's take a look at what's being written around the baseball blogosphere…
- Titletahn wrote about the experience of seeing Stephen Strasburg's first professional start in person.
- MLB Fan Nation wonders if teams are colluding against free agents, or if they're just getting smarter.
- Statistician Magician ranks all 30 organization, with the Red Sox coming in first and the Royals placing last.
- Ladies… looks at some old faces in new places.
- The Baseball Opinion thinks there might be a fallout from the Matt Cain extension.
- Gear Up For Reds Baseball reviews Cincinnati's draft history.
- Blogging Mets looks at some active players who may be on their way to the Hall of Fame.
If you have a suggestion for this feature, Mike can be reached here.
The Players Union, like virtually every other Union today, is worthless.
Sure, owners are greedy. Sure, they don’t always have fans and winning as their top priority. That said, I find myself siding with management far more than siding with the players in these types of situations.
There is no collusion.
The MLBPA is far from worthless.
Yeah protecting worker’s rights is useless.
Explain why you side with the owners, who have been found guilty of colluding in the past, over the players? (And I hope it isn’t the ‘Try making 50k a year and pay the bills’ line you usually read here)
Unions are responsible for the way Detroit is today.
Yeah too bad multibillion dollar corporations had to pay US workers more than $3 an hour and provide benefits too and were protected from unfair labor practices. The Big 3 had great management and great strategies, but the workers are the reason why they failed.
To blame just one side for the collapse isn’t right, it’s never one thing that is the only cause behind an issue. You can say unions ruined Detriot, I said that if Detriot treated their workers better in the beginnin then they wouldnt have unions.
Except there would be unions in the beginning. Unions today are NOTHING like what they were originally intended to be back when they were created in the 19th century. They sought to protect worker’s rights because there were no federal laws. Today, unions mostly function as groups politicians pander to for support. They are a necessary evil (since you can’t trust all owners), but many are more evil than they need to be.
And I can say, many companies are more evil than they need to be. And really, neither of us can prove either of those statements.
When companies treat their employees fair, unions have little chance of entering the workplace. When companies continue to take actions that their employees see as unfair, that’s when union talk opens up. You can call it a necessary evil, but it’s not because companies were angels and the big bad unions came in and ruined their good policies.
He didn’t mean that protecting the rights of the players is wrong, he meant that the people running it are incompetent, as I feel. I tend to stay pretty neutral in those affairs, but the players union just disgusts me with how it does business. Specifically, the way they handled JC Romero’s situation would be a good thing to look at.
“The Players Union, like virtually every other Union today, is worthless.”
How does that translate to ‘The people running the MLBPA, and virtually every other Union today, is worthless”? If that’s what he means then ok, but that’s not what I’m reading.
Did they mess up the JC situation? Yes. I’m not sure that’s proof that the union is incompetent because of one example though.
Fransisco Liriano and his agent filing a grievance because the Twins found him too inept to make the roster in 2008 would be Exhibit B.
Why is that incompetent? What did they have to lose by filing that? What did they have to gain?
in·ept   [in-ept, ih-nept] Show IPA
–adjective
1. without skill or aptitude for a particular task or assignment; maladroit: He is inept at mechanical tasks. She is inept at dealing with people.
2. generally awkward or clumsy; haplessly incompetent.
3. inappropriate; unsuitable; out of place.
4. absurd or foolish: an inept remark.
It was “inappropriate”, “absurd”, and “without aptitude for a particular task [achieving the goal of getting service year credit]” because it is fully within a team’s right to keep a player in AAA. All it serves to do is sour labor-management relations.
We’re not talking about protecting their rights to have bathroom breaks or be provided a hardhat in a coal mine.
We’re talking about millionaires having the right to 5/10 clauses.
Sorry if I’m a little short on sympathy…
I didnt say you needed sympathy; but if you’re going to make it about money then supporting the billionaires over the millions like the original post makes no sense.
Why do professional baseball players need a union, when military soldiers don’t get one? Are you telling me the perils of life in the MLB are so much greater?
White collar unions and millionaire-club unions are utterly comical.
I have to say that I think the Rockies should be ranked higher in that organizational ranking thing done by Statistician Magician.
I agree, and the Marlins at No. 8 is way too high. Both Colorado and Texas should be higher than No. 10 and No. 14, respectively.
The Marlins belong there. A WS with that payroll? Texas should be higher, not sure about the Rockies.
Some people may not like how Marlins do business, but it’s hard to knock them for it when you look around at other teams in the league that draft bad, develop bad, trade bad and spend bad.
I’m not knocking the Marlins, they’re ran great. But the 8th best organization in baseball? Seriously?
They have a farm system with pretty much no impact pitching prospects and unimpressive depth, a fan base that could pretty much care less about the team, and an exceptional front office that can only build a contender once every few years because the owner cares more about profits than winning.
I love Beinfeist and Hill and those guys, they’ve done an awesome job with what they’ve been given. But in terms of resources already in place and the future of the organization, Florida can’t possibly be in the eighth best position of any organization in the game.
To put things into perspective, FanGraphs put Florida No. 22 in their rankings, and I think that they hold a hell of a lot more credibility than that blog.
I have to believe the Giants are raising payroll by 2012. Cain, Zito, Lincecum, Wilson, and Rowand will have about 75M tied up in 2012. that’s also J Sanchez’s last arb year and Panda’s 1st. The Giant’s are hoping their farm prospects pan out as there won’t be a lot of cash to fill out the roster.
I think the young guys are the key to the Giants 2012 team plans. They have high hopes for guys like Ford, Kieschnick, Neal, Crawford, Noonan, Bumgarner, Posey and more. When you look at the team that is on the field now, you have guys like Sandoval and Bowker that they are hoping to still be part of an everyday roster they can run out there. I think the Organization is putting themselves in a difficult position because they are putting all of their eggs in the “prospect basket”. I think that hoping 4 guys comming up and being ready to produce in 2 years is possible with the talent that they have now, but they are making moves that is going to require 6 of them to come up.
Hopeful 2012 starting line up (in order to be able to afford this pitching staff and not having to get rid of Lincecum, Cain, Affeldt or Wilson.)
C Buster Posey
1B John Bowker / Thomas Neal
2B Nick Noonan
SS Brandon Crawford
3B Pablo Sandoval
LF Aaron Rowand / Thomas Neal
CF Darren Ford
RF Roger Kieschnick / Thomas Neal
That is a lot of wishful thinking by the front office. Sabean has already said that they expect a lot from the young guys in the next few years. Look at all of the free agent contracts that have been signed lately…they all end by the end of 2011.
I understand the often-expressed sentiment that players are making millions (or at least in the high six-figures), but do we really think owners are motivated only by their “love for the game?” Owners leverage players to make money, so their goal is to squeeze out as much production as possible for little $$. While I don’t at all want to compare MLB players with blue-collar workers represented by labor unions, the principle really is the same.
That’s not necessarily true. While some owners use their team to make profit, Loria and the Marlins comes to mind of course, there are a lot of owners that actually lose money while owning the team. Some owners truly do it to become a part of the baseball community and history.
I don’t disagree that this could be true in some cases, but is this really the case with Loria? (I remember some discussion about how Cabrera and Willis were dealt on a heels of a season in which the Marlins were baseball’s most profitable franchise.) Regardless, the Marlins could potentially put a better product on the field if they spent more money. Being motivated by profit doesn’t have to imply it’s the only concern – just that it dictates how much money (and for whom) is spent.
The Marlins have continued to be the game’s most profitable franchise, as Forbes pointed out just a few weeks ago.
Loria has had numerous opportunities to improve the on-the-field product, supplementing their stars like Hanley and Johnson with short-term veterans. But Loria would prefer to be an 80-win true talent team with a tiny shot at contending in order to increase profits.
Loria ran baseball out of Montreal, and runs the Marlins with far too little concern for their competitiveness. I’m sure that Loria wants to win, you don’t buy a baseball team with absolutely zero interest in winning, but you simply can’t argue that it’s his No. 1 priority, given how the team has chosen to use its money.
Yeah, the Yankees and market sizes mess things up a lot, but owners like Loria can do a lot of damage to the competitiveness of the league, too.
Mets Blog made me laugh. I’m pretty sure it’s just some kid writing a list of everybody he remembers having played in an All-Star game the past decade.
Very succinctly put TV. My sides still hurt and I think I broke my office chair laughing…
It’s kind of like he found a box of baseball cards in his closet. “Hey, these guys are good, or somethin’.”
Collusion in a marketplace of 30 buyers is very difficult to maintain. Every single team has a direct incentive (winning) to break from the collusion and bring in a free agent that other teams are attempting to maintain at sub-market value.
Further, if the sellers (MLBPA) is allowed to collude to demand wages (league minimums, no salary cap, etc), why is it wrong for buyer (owners) to collude? That sounds like a lopsided marketplace.
Wow. Whoever writes that Mets blog is a stone cold idiot. Interesting debate, but why include a link to something that idiotic? Soriano, really? I could go on but it’s just not worth the time.
cardinals and redsox too high but still up their. rangers too low. flip-flop KC and pittsburgh.