While every other site is wasting time discussing the 3B Coach rumors, Mets Police is here for you.
The Los Angeles Times spoke with Mets #2 Starter Max Scherzer about the lockout. Max said…
This negotiation is about the integrity of the game from our eyes. We feel as players that too many teams have gone into a season without any intent to win during this past CBA. Even though that can be a strategy to win in future years, we’ve seen both small-market and large-market clubs embrace tanking, and that cannot be the optimal strategy for the owners.
As for the service-time manipulation part, there are other forms of it beyond the obvious Kris Bryant example. Teams are putting long-term discounted extensions in front of players before a player even makes his debut. They’re told take the extension and you will be in the big leagues tomorrow but if you don’t sign it you will stay in the minor leagues. Playing in the big leagues is everyone’s dream, and teams are now leveraging that desire to gain financial control over a player’s career. That’s why the Kris Bryant grievance case is so important to all of us players because if it could happen to him, it can happen to anyone.
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The grand bargain is that you make less money early in your career so that you can make more money later in your career. Teams have shown that they’re not willing to pay for players’ past production for a whole slew of reasons. And if that’s the case, that’s the case. But if we’re going to look at players that way, then we need to then allocate more money to players earlier in their career. We’re seeing that happen more than ever now, of front offices chiding away middle-class free agents. That’s going at the fundamental part of the grand bargain, and a solution must be found to balance it.
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You’re training ready to be good to go for when spring training starts. If that doesn’t happen, then you make different decisions based on that. But until that happens, you have to have the mentality that we’re going to be playing on time. Any other kind of speculation is just hearsay.
There’s lots more and I encourage yo to read it at the LA Times.
