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As Adam Ottavino showed last season...

They did change the rule but I think get rid of roster expansion altogether. And I am not sure that rule was meant to be permanent or is still in effect Another part of the roster adjustments for 2020 was teams were allowed to carry 26 players but no more than 13 pitchers. The current Red Sox roster would be in violation of that rule, as the Sox have 14 pitchers. Most (all?) teams are still charging for each game in a double header separately...

Especially if she did it on 63 pitches...

There has never been a pitcher to get 21 K's in an MLB game. The record stands at 20, held by Roger Clemens (twice), Kerry Wood, Randy Johnson and Max Scherzer. The record for strikeouts in a perfect game is 14, held by Sandy Koufax and Matt Cain...

Well, if the Sox get a full strength Chris Sale back in August, it might be the best addition any team makes during he course of the season. (Noah Syndergaard arguments accepted.)

Well, the science behind hurricane paths is pretty much a mystery. But as most of science is "today's best educated guess," some slack needs to be given. And like all of science, the accuracy improves with more and more data over time, allowing for better and better theories and guesses. But that doesn't mean predicting the future will ever be a perfect art form, whether it is in meteorology or scouting or stock market analysis or just using a Ouija board...

I am against any more league expansions. The big problem with league expansions is they are not done to generate more interest. They only happen when the owners need to generate some quick cash to settle a lawsuit with the players union. At least, that was why we had the last 3 league expansions. As for interleague games, I would probably like them more if we just kept the #$%#$% DH everywhere and played by one set of rules. In fact, if anything, I would go back to having no divisions and just take the top 4 or 6 teams from each league for the playoffs. Letting in some mediocre team just because they sucked less than everyone else in their time zone never made sense to me, despite that every sport does it. But these geographic alignments are not really as necessary as they were back when teams occasionally traveled on trains and buses.

Also fine additions. The common use of the "getaway day" day game does help somewhat, but making it a mandatory thing can only help for the reasons you cite, especially in the summer. Saturday ghames during the day run in conflict with MLB's deal with FOX, who wants exclusive rights to Saturday afternoon baseball, so many teams play night games to avoid being blacked out. This is actually one instance where MLB actually tries to avoid their stupid blackouts. But to bring back league-wide Saturday aftermoon games, the deal with FOX needs to be reworked. And MLB would probably get less money from FOX, making it less likely. The problem with their broadcasting and blackouts is MLB has a good product, one I have enjoyed for decades. Why do they go to such ridiculous lengths to prevent people from accessing it? For example, I have been a Sirius XM radio subscriber for a long time now, back before the units were standards in cars. Back then, the only options were a 1 year subscription, a 2 year subscription, and a lifetime subscription. For the cost of a whopping $400, I purchased the lifetime subscription. That was 17 years ago. Now the Sirius radio unit itself was a gift from my wife and at the time had no MLB games, but once they merged with XM, I was able to get every game on the radio as part of that $400. Until yesterday. Two days ago, I would flip around from game to game when driving and the Sox were not on. Two days ago. Yesterday, I got in the car and headed out and flipped to the MLB game channels and suddenly the creen said "Subscription required". WTF? Do they want to me not listen anymore? I will probably pony up the $8.25 a month, because overall, I have gotten well more than my money's worth from Siruus XM. But the idea that they are once again trying to limit access to their product just baffles me...

I think I cut more slack than you to anyone whose job is to predict the future, because yes, if that is your job. you will be wrong at some point. I mean, the weatherman is the only guy on the news crew telling you about the future. Try and get tomorrow's scores out of the sports guy, see how well he does. Scouts have to do the same thing, and it gets increasingly difficult when they have to do it with these 14-16yo Dominican kids. I don't even know the criteria to determine whether or not the future of a puberty-ravaged third world child includes playing in the Majors several years down the road...

It's a stupid suggestion. If MLB wants to help their product and businees, I will (again? think so) make a much better set of recommendations. 1. Adopt the DH everywhere. No one likes watching pitchers hit. Except the other team. While some NL minor league affiliates let pitchers hit, the only two major leagues in the world that do are the Pacific Coast League in Japan and the National League. No one else. 2. Want quicker games? Stop mucking around with pick off throws and pitching changes. EXISTING RULE 8.04, already in the MLB rulebook, states "When the bases are unoccupied, the pitcher shall deliver the ball to the batter within 12 seconds after he receives the ball. Each time the pitcher delays the game by violating this rule, the umpire shall call “Ball." The rule is already in place, and when pitchers use it, it works very well. Ever seen Mark Buerhle pitch? You used to be able to go to the Cell on his day for a 7:10 start, watch him throw 7 IP and give up 6 hit and 3 ER, stick around for the end of the game, and still be home in time to watch the 10 o'clock news. Why? He worked quickly and obeyed the rules that no one wants to enforce. R.A. Dickey was the same way. 3. Stop making gimmicky extra innings rules. 4. A game is 9 innings. Not 7. If you're charging customers for 9 innings, give them 9 innings. 5. Dump the 3 batter minimum rule. Want fewer pitching changes? Crazy thought - stop letting teams use all 40 players for a full month. If your manager needs more than 26 players to win a game, the problem is not the size of the bullpen. And Bruce Bochy taught us all that if you let him have a 17 man bullpen, he is going to use a 17 man bullpen to its fullest extent. And this guy managed for a lot of years and taught God knws how many coache this strategy. And now it is our job to stop those coaches should any opf them ever become MLB managers. 6. Bring back Sunday double headers. Every MLB team used to play 2 games every Sunday, but it went away because ownership hating selling one ticket for 2 games. But it has three big advantages. 1) The extra game per week will have a long term effect on pitching changes, as managers will have to manage for subsequent games in mind. (See change 5.) 2) It would eliminate November baseball. Everyone loves October baseball, but no one loves November baseball. 3) It would help ESPN with their Sunday night broadcasts, as rather than having to guess before the season which August games will be meaningful and therefore be worth watching, ESPN would have a full slate to pick and choose from. And it would also prevent teams screwing over fans by bumping their Sunday afternoon game to Sunday night to accommodate ESPN. 7. Just drop the absolutely ridiculous blackout rules. They help no one and manage to screw over both fans and MLB at the same time. And for many teams, they also screw over the owners as well. Moving the mound back? Just stop. MLB cannot even figure out what problem they are solving any more. If moving the mound back is supposed to generate more offense, won't that also run counter to shortening the length of games? does this league even have a direction any more?

Really the Dodgers could have parted with any of a number of young pitchers - May, Gray, Gonsolin, Ryan Pepiot, or any of a few others, and Bloom might have accepted. But they chose to keep as many young arms as possible and instead traded away the less controllable one. As it was, they had to get the Twins involved just to get a young arm for Boston, and when that failed, Friedman decided to keep that arm for himself. So if you think Bloom focuses solely on hording young talent, guess where he learned it...

To b e fair, the scouts have to recommend enough players to fill a draft and, well, most of a minor league system. Fans like us can pick and choose how many or few of these players we then develop opinions on. Most of us probably would not thought much of Mookie Betts back in 2011 either...

Well, they were getting Mookie Betts

No one had him outside the top 6. Those names (Correa, Appel, Gausman, Buxton, Zunino and Giolito) were all etched into those top spots in any order. And only Appel was the flop...

.. which is exactly what they did. Although they obviously liked Appel, considering they took him number one overall the very next season...

Not sure why he is Cora's guy, considering this is the first year they have ever been on the same team. One would think Cora would be more partial to Marwin Gonzalez. (And IMO, he has been.)

Maybe not, but it might help the health of a few hitters...

Hey maybe Manfred will bring back mandatory underhanded pitching too! It was good enough for Tim Keefe!!

And see this is why teams like to have speedy leadoff hitters. You don't need someone to steal bases in front of your most productive hitters. But you do need someone who can avoid an inning-ending GIDP after the pitcher makes his inevitable out...

Apparently a lot of NL fans still like the extra element of strategy involved in letting the pitcher bat despite that no one actually employs that particular strategy anymore and hasn't since the advent of pitch counts. These fans undoubtedly still decry the advent of foul poles and how they destroyed the "last seen fair" rule...

I only hate the DH rule in that it only applies to the AL, which is just flat out stupid. That would be like when the NFL adopted the 2 point conversions, but you could only do it in Detroit. If I thought pitchers took hitting serously, I wwould campaign against th DH. But the overwhelming majority of them don't, and for good reason - they are not getting paid to hit. Sp just forego the pitcher hitting - a part of the game looked forward to by exactly zero fans - and get the DH in everywhere. No fan of the team at the plate has ever said "Thank GOD the pitcher is due up now!!" Now, fans of the team in the field? Yes. All of them say it. This is taking too f***ing long for something that is an obvious improvement. Especially since MLB reportedly juiced baseballs to increase offense. So increasing offense was a priority, but you still let the worst hitters in the league - players who rarely if ever even practice it - come to bat? Get a commissioner with a brain cell, MLB!!!

Very much so. Or not...

Yes, Eduardo Bazardo would be an all time classic name, even better than Cardinals' OF prospect Blake Drake...

Of course, I also hated the current college football overtime rules when they first went into effect. But over time, I have found they make the overtimes more exciting, probably because of the incredible ending to the 2007 Fiesta Bowl. I have my early doubts I will embrace these rules the same way, but sometimes all it takes is that one positive memory...

Yeah it was really unfair that MLB put that rule in about the initial placement only against the Yankees. I hate the initial placement. I hate 7 inning doubleheaders. And I hate the 3 batter minimum. But everyone has to play by the same rules...