The big event in baseball yesterday was the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft, and oh boy, that’s a sad sentence. The major league Rule 5 draft produces very few major leaguers, and even fewer who have lasting success. Even when a guy lasts, he’s way, way more likely to be Joe Biagini, a reliever who had a nice 2016 for the Blue Jays before fading into obscurity, than Johan Santana.
The minor league portion, then, is even less likely to produce a major leaguer. Sure, you’ll get your occasional Eugenio Velez (is this the newsletter’s first reference to Eugenio Velez? If so, I am deeply ashamed), but on the whole, what you’re finding there is minor league filler. In most years, it is essentially a non-event.
In 2021, it is not a non-event. It’s the only real baseball news happening right now, and it’s gonna be all we get for the month. After the announcement of the lockout, the minor league Rule 5 draft will end up being The Big Event of December 2021. Probably January too. Maybe February, or at least the early part before (hopefully) the players and owners reach an agreement around the time pitchers and catchers are supposed to report.
This is going to be our offseason this year. This is going to be how things are for months. There will be no real news, nothing stoking the flames of excitement, no reason to pay attention to baseball. Ordinarily this is where I would scold Major League Baseball for its organizational intransigence and say that other leagues would never be dumb enough to do something like this, except, well…
The National Hockey League has also contended with frequent labor disputes, as a 309-day lockout caused the cancellation of the entire 2004-05 season, while 103-day and 119-day lockouts in 1995 and 2012-2013, respectively, both led to shortened seasons
The National Football League has largely avoiding missed games due to labor disputes, but it has had its fair share of drama: A player strike shortened the 1987 season by one game but famously featured replacement players for a portion of the year, and a 136-day lockout in 2011 ended just before the start of the regular season.
The National Basketball Association has had four work stoppages, two of which—a 191-day lockout from 1998-99 and a 161-day lockout in 2011—caused shortened seasons with no postseason cancellation.
Every other league has gone through this since the 1994 strike, so these particular labor relations are not unique to MLB. It is, admittedly, a little worrying that each of the most recent lockouts in major North American sports leagues lasted at least 119 days, a timeframe which would smack right into 2022’s Opening Day (and that’s assuming no Spring Training of any kind, which is, uh, not a great assumption).
So get ready for nothing. No big news, no big announcements, teams officially prohibited from even mentioning the names of the players who are on the team. There will be no push to pique your interest for the season, no major league signings, no highlights from 2021, no looking forward to 2022. The cupboard will be bare, and the people who ensured its bareness will castigate anybody who reminisces about the time there were cups in there.
Sure, minor league signings will occasionally trickle through, but they won’t be the kind of news people are desperate for. They’ll instead turn to other sports, to basketball or football or soccer or curling. Maybe even hockey, if they’re desperate. Baseball will become an afterthought.
This is the choice the owners made when they locked out the players. They think it will work out for them, since franchise values are perpetually increasing and they can make those values increase even more by ensuring in the long run, they’ll make more money. It’s a foolproof plan, really, which is good because it’s being enacted by a bunch of fools who are destroying the sport for money.
I’ll still find things to write about — there are still plenty of minority shareholders to profile! — but it’ll feel weird to predict anything about the season. We don’t know how long it is. We don’t know who the Giants’ fifth starter is going to be at the beginning of the year, or what configuration of outfielders we’re going to see. Dan Szymborski released his ZIPS predictions yesterday:
And my reaction was, okay, but, like, that’s only maybe relevant. Will they play a full season? What additions will they make? Will they win the bidding for Seiya Suzuki? These are very important questions and there’s no answer in sight and there’s no reason to even guess at this point.
The offseason is usually fun in its own, still-worse-than-the-regular-season way. Now, that’s gone. There’s just pettiness and greed from the owners, and no pictures of the players because of said pettiness and greed. What are they expecting us to do this offseason? If we’re being honest here, probably something else, and they don’t care that much.