They wanted to expand it without increasing the pooled money.
Any team that has a payroll above $50M or so, players would make less per game in the playoffs than the regular season. The only way it gets close to a normal payroll is if your team manages to win the World Series.
Odorizzi makes a lot of sense just because of the question marks surrounding the health of the current starters.
I would bet against them signing him though.
The issue is that we have been told in the past that we were resetting in 2020 so that we could go back above in the future. When will they go back above? That was the carrot they dangled for us holding our noses last year.
Remember, it's not our fault that they signed some above market extensions. Henry allowed DD to run roughshod over the budget in 2019 for no added benefit. In 2004-5, the Sox let go of a lot of FA's. They were in the afterglow of a championship and fans understood. This time around, they figured it would be better to just re-sign everyone to bring the 2018 back together for 3 more years or whatever.
We've talked about this elsewhere, but I don't think installing universal DH fixes anything. It can combat part of the problem, but it needs to go much further.
1. Market MLB stars better
2. Pitch clock to speed games up
3. Get rid of replay
4. Robot umps
5. Universal DH
6. Revamp current tv production (product is stuffy and old)
7. More urban youth baseball programs
The problem is that ownership brought it up as a negotiating ploy rather than just saying "hey, we're keeping the DH this year."
Ownership wanted to trade universal DH for expanded playoffs (aka more unpaid games for the players).
My son is playing his 5th year of little league this year. He has zero interest in actually watching an MLB game.
Great job MLB.
I had him ask his teammates last year who their favorite player was and who the best player in MLB was (just so that he could get to know his teammates better). Most of them didn't have a favorite player and some of them couldn't even guess as to who could be the best player (most often the answer was either Trout or Betts).