[Cobra Mgr]

Baseball America had a looooooong article. But I needed it to understand the problem.

Seems to me MLB knows they are about to pay for their unfair work practices and want someone else to pay.

I also think it is absurd they expect to force teams to move up in classification and then they pay for the "privilege". Almost typical thinking of billionaires. They think they are doing you a favor by letting you do them a favor.

I'm also skeptical of MLB doing this to reduce travel for their players. More likely it is to reduce travel for the parent club front office when they want to visit their affiliates. Imagine you are a GM for the Brewers and your top 3 affialites are in San Antonio, Biloxi & the suburbs of Raleigh. It is admittedly dumb for Washington's AAA team to be in Fresno. And I'm sure clubs like the Brewers and Twins wish some of the Midwest League cities were in AAA.

As the article said, I think this is the MLB coming in with a higher demand with an eye to lowering their proposal as they negotiate. Some dead weight teams will be dropped, a couple affiliations will change a league or 2 will reorganize and affiliate contracts will be lengthened. The hardest part to agree to will be the $ as always.