Now What, Redux
As noted in the comments, the Rule 5 draft came and went without a single player coming to or going from the Nationals organization. No married or divorced players, either.
I’d been waiting to finalize the 2021 Watchlist until this, so that’ll probably be my next post. But after that? Yikes.
Perhaps we’ll still be talking about the aftershocks of the MLB takeover. Field of Schemes notes that the 18 SOL teams were recipients of $249MM in public funding. As previously noted, there may be cause for lawsuits, but will there be the stomach to pursue them in the current climate?
Otherwise, I think we’re looking at another long, cold, slow winter.
Evan Drellich over at the Athletic just went over the multiple steps of hell that the new minor league teams will have to hurdle just to be awarded their PDL.
It’s quite a disgusting read!
Spike lives!
This has been a relentlessly cruel and unpleasant year. It’s selfish to want the Nats to make an interesting trade or sign a top player just to distract us from the nightmare stuff happening elsewhere — the subjugation of the minor leagues is small potatoes next to the skyrocketing toll of the coronavirus or the prospective end of American democracy, but it’s like it’s all bad news, everywhere, all the time.
Can’t we just sign George Springer or Ha-Seong Kim or something? Is that really so much to ask?