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Open Letter

An open letter to the MLB and the MLBPA

Hey guys, I know you are busy meeting and posing and pretending to negotiate, but just wanted to remind you of the elephant that is not in the room. The fans.

Yes, I know we are not really a part of the negotiations and from your point we shouldn’t be. But I wanted to remind you that when you are slicing and dicing up that multi-billion dollar pie, that in reality it’s our pie. 

There is always a lot of talk about how the players want a bigger chunk of the owner’s money and how the owners are extremely rich people who can afford it and that the players are spoiled brats – blah blah blah. But whether you or anyone wants to admit it – those billions and millions spring forth from our tens and hundreds. We buy the tickets, food, drinks, clothing and souvenirs at the park. We pay the ever-increasing cable bills that fuel the ever-increasing cable deals with the league. We buy the products whose advertising ends up on your broadcasts.

And what do we want for our “investment”? Really not much. We want ballgames. We want the season to start on time. While we love having our young players (Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez anyone?) as long as possible, we don’t want the argument about the amount of years to arbitration or free agency to affect the start of the baseball season. We don’t care about how much money certain billionaires in big markets have to pay billionaires in small markets for not owning the teams in the big markets. We don’t care about how much bonus money might or might not be set aside to compensate players who have not made it to arbitration. We don’t care how they handle the International free agents (even though we probably should since the Astros have done a good in that market).

But we do care about baseball and the season starting on time. Make it happen.

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40 responses to “Open Letter”

  3. Got rid of cable years ago. Hannity and Maddow were frying my brain, but it’s not like there was a ton to pick from. Nowadays its Prime, Netflix, HBO Max, and a few smaller ones like Paramount or Peacock. Don’t have to put up with bad tv and worse cable news.

    My MLB package is only active in the regular season, so it looks like a smaller bill this year. So be it.

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  6. It’s hard to focus on baseball. No spring training in sight and it seems like a year since the World Series.
    When they decide to come back I’ll probably still watch. It’s
    in my direct tv package anyway.
    But boy they are something. Squabbling over money when we’re struggling through a pandemic.

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    • Good to hear from you Sandy. Sorry no baseball t speak of at this time. Hopefully the fools come to their senses soon, but then they wouldn’t be fools.

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  7. Probably not the best analogy to use but I feel like there is a war going on between two factions (owners/players) and while neither party is gaining ground a voluminous amount of civilians (fans) are getting wiped out in the crossfire. Neither side really cares for the fans but only to achieve victory in their minds. When it is eventually over will the fans return or will there be too many casualties to rebuild the base.

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    • I think if they settle things and the season is a full season, it does not matter at this time. If they are stubborn and stupid enough to lose parts of the season with the country suffering under Covid – there will be an effect – but as usual fans will at some point return.

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  8. (This is not meant as political) But I could not believe that MLB would put BLM up on the pitcher’s mound and do other advertisements. The reason was it was divisive. Why go out of your way to make some fans happy and alienate others. But they chose to do so. So when we as fans think “They can’t be this stupid” – sometimes they are.

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  9. All I can do is to keep reminding myself:
    Brantley in LF
    Chas in CF
    Tucker in RF
    Yuli at 1B
    Jose at 2B
    Pena at SS
    Bregman at 3B
    Machete behind the plate
    Yordan at DH.
    JV-LMJ-Framber-Urquidy-Garcia-Odorrizzi
    Javier-Maton- Baez-Montero-Stanek-Neris-Taylor-Pressly
    Meyers-Diaz-Castro-Siri
    And it could get better!
    This keeps me warm and dry while it is 20 degrees and snow blowing sideways outside.

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  10. Off the subject… but still baseball related, MLB has discussed using a baseball with a tacky feel. I get their intentions but, since the umpires rub up the baseballs with Mississippi mud, before the games, wouldn’t the mud cover the tack on the baseballs? It seems like it would and thus, render the tack ineffective. Thoughts? Comments?

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    • That is just a tacky comment sarge
      Don’t you have any tackt
      What kind of tacktick are you pushing for……

      To semi-answer your question – my assumption is that would be taken into account and perhaps they don’t have to rub the tackier baseballs??

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  14. I am thinking that a lot of players don’t care if the season is shortened, so they are not in a hurry to settle quickly. The owners would also be OK with a shorter regular season if they can have more playoff games where they make more money. Hopefully they figure it all out by the end of the month.

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  15. Daveb just cancelled his MLB.TV subscription. As far as I’m concerned, they have not even tried to get a deal done. They started by taking a 43 day holiday vacation that took them well into January. And has either side taken a moment recently to apologize to their customers? These guys are oceans apart. And they are oblivious to the fan. Let them play golf.

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    • To be honest I’d rather play golf that watch baseball but I still love watching our Astros. The last few golf tournaments were really good if you like that sort of thing but each to his own. As was mentioned if the minors still play I might go the route of MILb subscription and watch them Skeeters, (sorry Space Cowboys). Otherwise it’s golf at Pebble Beach this week. One thing about watching the PGA . Have you ever seen an ugly golf course on the tour? Love the scenery.

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    • Yeah when they reduce the schedule after missing the start of the season they probably will cut out all our easiest games from the schedule – right?
      But again you are showing why Astro fans should feel good going forward

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      • Astro fans should feel good going forward, but heck Dan, let’s face it, the news today is anything but positive. And to my point early this morning, MLBPA issued a brief self serving statement today, once again making no mention of the fans that pay their salaries.

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      • The longer Verlander and LMJ and Meyers have to recover, the better the Astros will be. So they can delay a month or more, as far as I’m concerned.
        And if there are less days off or double headers, name me one team whose starting rotation is as well prepared to handle it than the Astros.
        If they lose a month of games, the owners lose a month of attendance and TV revenue and every player loses one sixth of his contract. and that would suit me just fine. Maybe they will lose two months. Twice as good!

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      • 1OP, I was thinking about Verlander and Lance today. I think McCullers might well need more time. Conversely, Verlander has been away for so long, I think Spring Training starting on time would best serve his comeback.

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  18. dave, you’ve mentioning more than once LMJ needing more time. I’m not going to ask where you’re getting that info, because it’s not public & suspect it’s a hunch? Heck, I guess it couldn’t hurt, but truly it’s JV who needs more time bc it takes 18 months plus competitive pitching to get back from TJ. Lance only strained his arm from overuse, and his so-called “often injured” comments are also unfounded. He pitched on a torn UCL for over a year. Re: his two week shoulder discomfort last year, he stated clearly was an Astros decision to rest him. If you think about it, it allowed time to get in Odo, Scrubb, and others they’d hope to recover who didn’t; James, Baez, Pruitt.

    It is a great point made though about Meyers, but also Whitley Torres Hansen (minor leaguers with promise). What I worry about is the MLB Rule 5 still hasn’t happened! There’s actually a lot of fungible talent here * denotes those I think we’ll eventually use.

    *Y Diaz, *M Papierski, *E Valdez, *S Manea, C Shaver, C Salazar JJ Matijevic
    *S Schreiber, D Hensley, C Julks, R Adolf, *M Costes, *JP France, C Donato, N Hernandez, *B Conine, *J Record, *A Hansen, R Blanco J Olczak signed a MiLB deal, *J Torres, L Henderson, K Scheetz, P Mushinski, C McKee

    Especially Joe Record who Endersby sang his praises, and Enmanuel Valdez who led our minors in HR, since we don’t have much middle IF depth after losing Hinojosa and Robel Garcia.

    I wouldn’t mind if we got a sure-handed stopgap like Kiner-Felafa from TEX. They are IF rich these days.

    One thing I do wonder about is, if MLB locks the whole year out, will the minors still play? What a twist of fate compared to the ’20 season that would be.

    Dan, good article. I could feel the disappointment or ire you were trying to convey. Did you see what Dustin Garneau had to say about Manfred on twitter? Does it surprise you the guy who wasn’t afraid to fill that breach between a charging Laureano is not afraid to lose his job for saying what’s needed? Wish there were more with his courage!

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  19. GS1, guilty as charged. Regarding LMJ, sure it’s a hunch As for Verlander, I agree with you fully. He needs (again opinion only) to get back into a controlled pitching environment at this point. I’ve read the 18 months you’ve noted. I’ve
    also read 12 to 14 and 14 to 16. Yesterday he was climbing, almost vertically, up a canyon with a helmet on. I’d rather see him on a nice smooth diamond at ST getting to know his new pitching coach(es) in a week or so.

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  20. Way off topic but I lost another high school pal from Covid. One who refused to take the shots. I saw the CDC is reporting that fewer deaths currently but if you are unvaccinated, you are 20 times more likely to die if you do contact Covid. Let me encourage everyone to VOLUNTARILY get the vaccine. It apparently does not stop the scourge but does dramatically lessen the effect.

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    • Back in early 2020, we as a couple decided to distance ourselves for months from our kids and grandkids. We did that voluntarily and waited for a vaccine. We prayed for a vaccine.
      In January of 2021 our prayers were answered and we got the vaccine. After the second shot we started to interact with our kids and grandkids and we had a much better year in 2021 and in January, 2022 got our booster, voluntarily.
      We made our decisions by ourselves and for ourselves and we don’t try to convince anyone to do what we we did, but to make their own decisions.
      We don’t look at 2020 as a loss by staying away from others. We look at it like it was another event in our lives that forced us to grow as a couple and see the world change, again.
      My wife and I saw a lot of things we don’t like or agree with in the last couple of years. We aren’t going to change our beliefs and don’t expect anyone else to do it either. But, don’t try to force us to think like others do. That is where we draw the line. We were taught right from wrong and we will continue to try to live right and avoid wrong as best we can.

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    • Yes, they’re all working out where they can, Becky. Most utilize just that; college campuses or when you live in Dunn, NC, you train with all your old coaches and mates, like Matthew Barefoot. It doesn’t surprise me Meyers is seen though, he’s another gym rat.

      A quick story about Meyers, one of my friends interviewed him on Locked-On Astros said he heard Jacob’s parents in the gift shop at a game. Said, “Pardon Me, but is Jake Meyers your son, I interviewed him and he’s a great kid–you must be proud.” The father basically replied thanks but he’s got a long way to go.

      You can see that family is never satisfied, but always striving for more. It’s going to be tough for McCormick as driven as he is, to beat out Meyers but talk about two overachievers!

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