I know it's small market whininess, but I also know every word in that article is true, just like I know that the people in position to change the system could really give a shit about fans of the Brewers, Royals, Reds, etc...

So several years into his regime and 3 weeks into the regular season and it's just NOW that McCarthy decides that he has to hold his player accountable?

I'm not one of those guys who rip Bud Selig constantly. Things are better in baseball, at least in my opinion, than they were before he became Interim Commissioner for Life. Lately, however, Bud talks like there isn't anything that needs to be fixed in baseball's economic structure. And he's wrong. He's accomplished a lot to make the leagues more competitive and he accomplished those things in spite of the opposition of the most powerful owners in the game AND the union.

I love baseball. I love football too. When I was a kid it was MLB first, NFL second, but like almost everyone I know, that changed in the 80's when it became apparent that MLB was a structurally unfair league. The NFL managed to avoid falling into the trap of favoring its big market teams over its small market teams and I think that, in part, is why the NFL grew exponentially in its fanbase from 1980-2000, while MLB spent much of that time losing fans even as attendance of minor league games boomed. Bud tried to fix that and in many ways he's succeeded, but mid and small market teams are still at a dramatic competitive disadvantage and I don't see Bud doing anything to improve their lot anymore. And I wonder if the absence of institutions in baseball's economic structure designed to support small and mid market teams means that this brief flash of success for clubs like Milwaukee will vanish when Bud is gone, like the 12th century renaissance that preceeded another 300 years of famine, disease and war before european society finally got up off its knees.

Major League Baseball's economic and competitive imbalance isn't fixed. And it's time it's leaders stopped acting like it was.

Tom H.'s report. I'm a little surprised this isn't up here already, but I don't see it linked anywhere.

Probably won't happen, and quite frankly, I'm not sure it should if it costs Gamel or Escobar (or both) as I think this team is more than a single pitcher away. But then, I don't really know what I'm talking about.

Yikes.

I'd say Melvin was backtocali if it weren't for their differing views of draft-eligible talent.

Edit by TheJay:

"I'll be glad to have Ryan help if he wants to. I'll give him a badge and he can be my deputy. I don't know his motivation for saying it. It demoralizes the people in the organization at a time when we should be pulling together. It puts a bad taste in our mouths. That's a pretty strong statement."

This reads more like GM/agent droppings to me than reality. Heyman tosses the Brewers in offhandedly (despite their mention in the headline that was likely written by someone else). Peavy to the Brewers always seemed like a relatively bad idea to me given his contract and what I thought we'd have to give up to get him. The apparent terms of the White Sox deal, however, made me think we wouldn't have to give up nearly as much as it once appeared.

With the White Sox, and maybe the entire AL, now off the table, It seems likely to me that the Brewers were dropped as a possibility by the Padres in the hopes of pushing up the price the Cubs might be willing to pay to get him. If so, I don't really doubt that Peavy's agent would play along with the rumor if Peavy's resigned to being dealt sooner or later and he'd really prefer to play for the Cubs as opposed to anyone else. Obviously we know that Melvin was talking to the Padres last week. While I'm skeptical that Melvin is seriously pursuing Peavy, he probably doesn't mind being used to drive up the price the Cubs might eventually pay to finalize the trade.