In a typical MLB season, many former big leaguers are kicking around in the upper minors and independent leagues, ready to grab an opportunity when one arises. In a 2020 campaign that won’t feature any minor-league play, that won’t quite be the case. While many players will be participants in MLB 60-man player pools, not all potentially worthwhile candidates landed a spot.
Accordingly, there has been chatter about a small, unaffiliated, two-team “league” in which former big leaguers and upper-level minor-leaguers would play. The players would stay fresh and gain a showcases opportunity.
It turns out that the idea wasn’t driven by Major League Baseball, as Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic explains in an interesting report. The Nashville Sounds, presently the Triple-A affiliate of the Rangers, arrived upon the concept as a way to generate some revenue. It’s a whole different model from a typical affiliated minor-league club, more akin to an independent league effort.
The plan is for two teams of 22-man rosters to compete during the MLB season. In conjunction with the organization More Than Baseball, the Sounds are working on non-traditional means of bringing in revenue, including crowd-sourced payments and various media concepts. It seems there’s some possibility of R.A. Dickey and/or Ben Zobrist — long-time MLB regulars that live nearby — appearing in some form or fashion.
It’s both an appealing and complicated undertaking for a variety of reasons. It certainly could function as a service to out-of-work players. But there are risks, too. Traditional injury concerns are present along with pandemic-related health issues, all without the deep pockets of Major League Baseball. Ensuring fair player compensation and protection will be tricky. Dealing with mid-“season” roster changes could introduce new challenges.
You’ll want to read the entire article to understand the full scope of the effort. It certainly sounds as if those involved are pursuing this with good intentions and strong player engagement. But translating those positive vibes into a worthwhile campaign will certainly be tricky.
We need to save the minor leagues.
this is a cool idea
I would say MLBTR is opening itself up to competition by preventing users from discussing the highest interest topics in the game. Ultimately this is a blog. With commenting disabled most of the interactive value is removed. It’s 2020– internet users don’t like being “talked at.”
I agree. This is a discussion forum. Immediately shutting down comments on articles that may harbor divisive and strongly differing viewpoints doesn’t help any discussion.
the problem is its not discussion. its just people launching volleys of rhetoric back and forth. i get that conversation is the best way to overcome disputes, but there are better places for it.
@DarkSide Sorry, but there’s not a better place to comment about sports online than on a sports blog. And if the ability to comment is unavailable, then as you point out the hosts can’t be surprised if people go somewhere else
Ignore it. Reply to what you want and move on.
This triggered culture is wholly pathetic.
The problem is that too many people weren’t talking about sports, they were spewing misinformation and nastiness. Legitimate sports-related discussions were choked out.
Darkside is right.
And on that note, I think the possibility of a two-team Nashville mini-league is interesting. It might help veterans get another opportunity that would otherwise be far more difficult and/or prospects in the upper-minors some sort of season.
It would be easier to maintain safety standards as well, assuming there would be no traveling involved.
@Stevil The solution to that problem is not censoring all speech. If it’s even a problem, which is open for debate. Everyone is used to all sorts of commenters on every site on the internet. There was nothing uniquely bad about the MLBTR comment section.
No, the solution is shutting off the comments, which they’ve done, or banning the commenters that instigate and fuel the nastiness.
And there has been a clear pattern with Covid-19 related posts.
Now, how about talking about the possibility of a Nashville mini-league?
Wrong. Solution is adding a block option so commenters can choose who to censor themselves. Don’t like what they post? Block. Done.
Looks bad when admins on this site delete certain comments but leave other comments related to covid or politics. Gives off the appearance of bias, which, if you’re running a site, will inevitably drive off users.
Leave comment section open, let users choose who’s comments they want to see or don’t see, and go the FB route; when someone reports a comment give them the option to block users before submitting.
I’m all for a “block” option.
But that isn’t always going to be enough. Seattle sports fans know this all too well.
Now how about your take on Nashville?
You’re acting like “driving off users” is a bad thing. I appreciate keeping things mostly baseball-related.
There’s P-L-E-N-T-Y of other sites/blogs/etc that you can litter with your thoughts in hopes of someone agreeing with you.
Without the comments, why would one spend more than 5 minutes here?
I wouldn’t.
Exactly vt. And when we are no longer lingering, there’s no reason for the advertisers to pay money to advertise on this site.
It looks like the issue has been resolved. We’ll see how objective the moderating is.
Disagree. This isn’t meant to be a socially devise chat either. On sensitive topics that include athletes breaking the law they should be closed. It’s posted because it’s an athlete, but the topic is not sports related.
@TJECK That’s absurd. That would be like articles about celebrities breaking the law having comments shut down on TMZ. When baseball players break the law, their fans who invested in them, rooted for them, and supported them want to talk about what happened and they have a reason able expectation of being able to do so on the baseball blog that is getting ad revenue from their traffic.
They even turned off the comments on the Robbie Ray article. That didn’t even talk about Corona.
It seems the owner of this site only wants one POV to be asserted, the one that paints this as a death sentence. It’s not. Many of these POSITIVE tests are ASYMPTOMATIC and the testing is flawed and riddled with false positives, But they’ll ban me for talking about a FORBIDDEN topic.
Pound sand if words trigger you, to anyone offended, move on to the next post. Facts still matter in this post-fact, feelings driven society.
that’s not true. its not like they were going against people with that point of view. the comment sections were always fairly balanced, so theee us
*there is no proof that they were suppressed that point of view.
That so many are “triggered” by the operators of this site exercising comment control is hilarious!
Start your own blog/whatever. And good luck to you. There’s “free speech” on your terms.
The cast may have changed somewhat but the guys here have done a great job for years. That they prefer a civilized exchange of ideas and opinions is a not flaw, despite yours, and others, insistence that it is.
The internet is full of people who are NOT civilized. You’ll see when moderation issues crop up in the comments on that blog of yours.
Until then, show some respect
Agreed. MLBTR used to be my browser home screen. Now I’m surfing other roto blogs and spending 75% of my time there.
They said yesterday that it is only temporary. Tim said that they were doing more moderating than putting time into articles. They were revamping things to make the moderation less time consuming. Considering how many threads turned to straight political nonsense and vile name calling, I can see why they are looking to revamp some things. I called it quits here for a short time when posters starting wishing cancer on other posters. Only a year ago I buried my wife. Had to watch her slowly die from cancer and not a thing I could do to stop it. Comments would start with some people starting some back and forth opining whether or not MLB could put together a season in some form and just about every article would devolve into the same troll type posters hurling the vile insults at those that dared to hold a different opinion than there own. Even on the article that announced this temporary move to withhold comments on Covid-19 related articles the vile insults began again. No idea how some people can take pride in being the most mean and vile on a message board.
Thank you for the honesty & for addressing what must surely be a very painful topic, @gozurman.
In my experience this is how a man conducts himself.
I don’t have the words to express my condolences.
My condolences, friend. I, too, had the unenviable task of watching my wife suffer and die. Hope you find peace.
@Ducky Buckin Fent++Thanks for your kind words.
@ MikeyHammer Thanks, my condolences to you as well. I hope you find peace as well. You also know how insane it is to wish such a thing on even your worst enemy and to use it on a silly message board just because someone else posting differs in their opinion.
Nice job hi jacking a post with unrelated bs yet again. The was a post yesterday dedicated to this, just go leave your manifesto there on your way to your favorite sporrts/covid discussion blog
Robbie Ray drinks Corona…..
Sorry folks, if you don’t like the egg sandwich served here, there’s another joint down the street…..
Two things I can’t (nor wish) to change about myself:
– I’m a die-hard optimist
– I love baseball
Lots of creativity & resourcefulness with this plan & others to salvage some sense of normalcy this summer. It very well may all come to naught.
I do understand that.
Optimist =/= Stupid (necessarily)
This is all completely unprecedented.
Don’t mind me, though.
I’m just going to remain hopeful as that’s just pretty much how I roll. 😉
On hopes:
Hoping we all (myself included!) can be respectful & understanding of one another today. Because *that* would be helpful.
Hot take: Mookie Betts does not play this season citing safety concerns, only to turn up as MVP of 1 of the 2 Nashville teams, with Keith Urban playing SS, Jack White in RF, Billy Ray Cyrus as utility IF, and Nashville-native Bill Belichick quitting football to fulfill his dream of becoming bench coach to manger R.A. Dickey.
Oh, that’s crazy talk. Belichick would NEVER accept anything below manager. (laffing)
Kenny Powers has to make a comeback in this league, right?
They might even be able to derive some revenue from MLB teams, a la the Arizona Fall League. I can see catchers and of course the ever-present relief pitchers being of interest.
AAAA players, guys that usually filled out AAA rosters, are really getting clobered. I see lots of early retirements and apllications for coaching posistions; MANY players have no idea what to do with themselves if they didn’t have baseball.
it would be cool if they could expand a bit so that teams can send some of their fringe prospects that they didnt want to commit a 60 man spot to on loan.
As a Nashville resident, I would love having some local baseball. Hopefully this paves the way for an expansion team to take root here.
So if it happens we may get appearances but R.A. Dickey and Zobrist, that’ll certainly be interesting. I wonder what Dickey’s knuckleball will look like today.
This is the best baseball news I heard in years. Bring back the oldsters and even some newsters and play against each other. Maybe even an exhibition or two against the Pirates and Tigers if they have the players good enough. Bout time we had some real ball.
I think it’s a great idea. Hopefully, they are successful and can expand it to more than 2 teams.
Great idea , but the players would want big bucks.
Think I would rather drive to Nashville to watch rather than boring no fans MLB.