In advance of the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement in December, Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association exchanged their first proposals.
ESPN's home page features a video witih Passan saying the sides "could not be further apart," which is something that's literally true with first proposals. It'd be concerning if they "could not be further apart" by mid-November. Late May is the time for mission statements, which have been thoroughly covered elsewhere:
Basically, the league wants a salary cap and a 50/50 revenue split, but isn't yet defining what constitutes revenue. The union wants players to get paid earlier, with a higher minimum salary and faster ways to reach arbitration and free agency. There's shared ground in that both sides think revenue sharing can be directed to boost the smallest payrolls to a considerably higher floor, but it'll be a while before either side starts conceding anything.
Spare Parts
Rikuu Nishida has broken contain as a subject of idiosyncratic fascination. Bradley Woodrum looks at the history of players who posted astronomical minor league OBPs without power, and a player like Nishida doesn't have much recent precedent, at least a successful one. At least he also hits his way on base, so he's not entirely reliant on drawing walks from wild Triple-A pitchers.
Chris Getz's maneuvers get a national audience, and so does his verbal tic ("He was juiced, he was" and "It’s never been about 2026, it isn't"). There's nothing that hasn't been covered here, but I thought his way of characterizing the situation he inherited was worth highlighting:
When Getz was promoted to general manager in October of 2023, he told White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf that updating the inner workings of the organization would be a priority. The White Sox farm system had not been highly ranked in many years, and not counting the shortened 2020 season, the team had been to the playoffs once in 14 seasons. As Getz studied other teams around the league, he’d grown to believe the White Sox systems were out of date. Their baseball operations lacked cohesion. Ideas trickled down, they didn’t spread from within.
“There were just valves that were turned off,” Getz said.
- West Sacramento launches into national competition for MLB expansion -- Sacramento Bee
- Grades for all 30 teams at Memorial Day -- USA Today
Sorry, Sacramento. Buried deep in a Bob Nightengale notebook is this item about expansion cities:
While cities like Portland and Sacramento are preparing their bids for potential MLB expansion sites in 2031 or later, they might be wasting their time.
If MLB indeed expands, Salt Lake City and Nashville are the heavy favorites.
Nashville's bid is interesting, in the sense that it has a lot of marketing juice, but doesn't have land or principal owner(s) lined up to foot the bill. It's possible that so many people in the game want an MLB franchise in Nashville that those seemingly important specifics can wait.
The White Sox aren't the only team that can trade with the Rays and live to tell the tale. Cristopher Sanchez just set the Phillies record for consecutive scoreless innings at 44⅔ innings and climbing, lowering his ERA to 1.47. Philadelphia originally acquired him for Curtis Mead in a deal that first developed as a steal for the Rays, only for the tables to turn abruptly.
The White Sox have created some distance between themselves and the AL Central cellar, and it's getting pretty dark down there, both with the Royals ...
... and the Tigers. As Josh and I talked about on this morning's podcast, I hadn't realized that the White Sox and Tigers had identical second-half records last year (28-37), but they'd approached that mark from opposite directions. Detroit's had a ton of injuries, but the lack of talent is eating away at the way they want to play the game:
The Tigers this season rank last with minus-20 Outs Above Average and No. 28 with minus-15 Defensive Runs Saved. Whether you go off metrics or the eye test, the Tigers have been one of the worst fielding teams in baseball. When Wenceel Pérez missed a ball at the right-field wall Tuesday night, it led to Hinch sticking with a clearly gassed Will Vest in the eighth inning as Vest’s pitch count crept over 30. Vest ended up giving up a grand slam to [Vaughn] Grissom that cost the Tigers the game.
The Tigers have made 23 outs on the bases, more than any other team in the American League. Not all have been products of their supposed aggressive brand. Although the Tigers still go first to third and take extra bases at the highest rate in the sport, FanGraphs grades the Tigers as worth minus-1.8 runs on the bases, No. 26 in the league.
We've seen this same story play out with the White Sox over the previous three seasons, particularly 2024, in that it's hard to play a clean, high-IQ brand of baseball while trailing. The Tigers didn't respond well to pressure while losing two of three to the Angels, and the White Sox's highly aggressive baserunning exploits are next in line.
