Greetings, loyal Say Hey, Baseball readers. Apologies for the slow week, but we were preparing SB Nation’s 2018 MLB season preview for y’all. Also, there wasn’t much going on this week in the baseball world until suddenly a lot was going on, but then it was too late because we were waist-deep in preview land. Anyway, let’s go through that preview!
The 2018 SB Nation MLB preview is here!
Friday’s Say Hey, Baseball looks at our season preview and Congress screwing over minor league players.
Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images
Here it is! The preview in all its landing page slash index-y glory! That link will also lead you to the opening feature, “Spring Tanking,” written by this guy right here, about the shots fired this offseason by ownership that are going to lead to the next labor war in Major League Baseball.
One reason for the next labor war will be the rise of cheap in MLB, as chronicled by Grant Brisbee. Young players are not just often better, they’re also always cheaper, and it’s created an obvious need for reforming some of the basic principles of baseball’s salary economics. Any reform is going to be met by much yelling and disagreement and possible work-stoppage level furiosity.
As Whitney McIntosh writes, the Marlins’ mask is slipping: new ownership should have been a time for change, but instead, it’s more of the same, with even less subtlety.
There’s also a look at how Shohei Ohtani will get paid, and soon, even if the Angels aren’t contributing to that even a little bit. And, of course, we have our usual slate of predictions — some of them will be right, even! — and a preview page for each team in baseball, like this one on the 2017 world champion Astros. There’s even an interactive element to the team pages, so. hey, have fun, start clicking buttons.
- MLB’s multiple years of lobbying paid off — well, for the billionaire owners, not for the people who actually needed a pay off — when Congress agreed to shove a portion of the anti-labor “Save America’s Pastime Act” into the latest spending bill, passed in the middle of the night on Thursday. Here’s an explanation of just how this screws MiLB’s players.
- Also in the season preview are look-ahead posts from each of SB Nation’s MLB team sites: the idea this year was to look not just at 2018, but also the overall outlook of an organization’s health financially, on the farm, and so on. Here’s last year’s NL champ, the Dodgers, as reference.
- Eno Sarris, writing for The Athletic, discussed a technological breakthrough in MLB that might actually benefit hitters instead of pitchers for once.
- David Roth wrote about Ronald Acuña being sent to Triple-A to begin 2018, and the ridiculous things we don’t even notice anymore because they’ve been normalized.
- Craig Calcaterra also wrote about Acuña, saying his starting in Triple-A is “a farce” that is obviously service time manipulation.
- You would think the Braves would realize the extra year of team control might not be worth it considering Acuña’s youth and the way Kris Bryant has very publicly handled his own service time manipulation, but they’re giving it a go all the same.
- Jeff Samardzija will begin the year on the disabled list with a shoulder injury.
- Wade Miley might have a groin tear, but he reached an agreement to stay with the Brewers all the same.
- Camden Chat wonders how much better Alex Cobb makes the Orioles.
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