MASN dispute resolved

Here you go. 

What's it mean? It means first we can stop talking about this thing which always drove a small wedge between me, who thought MLB were the bad guys, and Nats fans, who saw the Orioles as that. I won't relinquish my position. 

When the Expos moved to DC what SHOULD HAVE happened was MLB should have told the Orioles to stuff it, "broadcast rights areas" are made up nonsense, we're putting a team here. The O's wouldn't necessarily had a legal leg to stand on because this is all true.  Of course MLB is made up of owners and owners don't want to break that broadcast rights areas" agreement (or didn't at the time) because it was crucial to soaking cable channels for rights fees or cable providers for channel fees. So instead they gave the Orioles control of the Nats broadcast for a certain time and dollar amount. 

 What SHOULD HAVE happened next is "too bad, so sad" Nats, MLB got you a bad deal but a deal is a deal. Instead after a few years and when the Nats finally had ownership, MLB basically started working with the Nats to try to get out of the deal using questionable arbiters and rulings. The Orioles sued over it and we ended up in forever litigation bc the core components, if you push it, who can make these money decisions based off what, were very gray. 

The funny thing is just letting things go in a more black and white way would have probably put the Orioles over a barrel anyway with far less legal leverage but no one had the patience for that. 

Now it means the Nats have their broadcast rights and can be sold and perhaps it means that Ted Leonsis, who wants both the team and stuff to air on his channel, will get the team.  Or someone else. Or no one else. Or the rights are secretly promised to MLB for whatever their plans are. Really we don't know. 

However when it comes to the Nats, MLB and broadcast rights deals we can be sure there is some back alley deal that was made.Why break tradition?

Monday Quickie

Anything going on in Spring so far?

The same song and dance - we look for things that are WAY out of line to suggest injury or issues or I guess a new beginning because just generic really good stats or really bad stats should be ignored completely. Nothing proven but gives us things to keep an eye on early in the season when things matter to see how real they actually are. This is even before that - which is coming out of Spring. This is stuff to keep an eye on for next start because what else are you going to do? Just sit back and enjoy some baseball? 

No real homer busting for the Nats but Robert Hassell has hit 1 homer and three doubles (though granted in about double everyone elses ABs.  He's going down to AAA but also is a fringy player so they are pumping his ABs while they can).  As a top level prospect who had an injury that sapped his power and didn't seem to recover yet this is interesting. 

If you are a Drew Millas, Amed Rosario, or Yohandy Morales fan - very early signs aren't promising. However outside maybe Yohandy you probably aren't interested.  

Alex Call has taken 8 walks in 17 PA.  Maybe trying to re-invent himself? 

Pitching is a harder because they are really trying new things or are focused on getting something down and may not care too much about results. To keep an eye on : 

DJ Herz has been really wild. Shinnosuke looks like a AAA pitcher. Cole Henry looked real sharp. Soroka was sharp (but his stats match Adon's if you are wondering how fleeting these glances should be with those eyes)