The predicted midweek realignment blitz did not materialize, but it doesn’t sound like our impressions of where things will go should have changed too much. In an appearance yesterday on ESPN’s College Football Live, or whatever that show’s called, our oracle, Pete Thamel, offered clarity, some timeline, and what felt like a hint.
I’ll admit to not having understood the breadth of the significance of the Pac-12 opening its TV negotiations early when said news was announced a few weeks ago. If I heard and understood Thamel correctly yesterday, what that did was start a 30-day clock on the negotiations. Why 30 days? I don’t know. Which is part of why I’m a little skeptical of my ears and of my processing of the information presented. But, I believe “30-day” was said, and it was said in the same breath as a mention of the Big Ten’s own ongoing TV negotiations, something that will have an impact on the TV side of the TV/college football market, not only in setting prices but in determining which channels even have slots available for broadcasting games.
Where our understanding is at, then, is that the Pac-12 is waiting to see what it hears from the TV networks, but not just on that wacky little ACC partnership we heard about last week. They’re waiting to hear from the TV networks on the entire scope of their contracts, and where that scope lands depends, in part, on where the Big Ten’s scope lands. The Big Ten gets to go first. You fill the jar with the rocks, then add the sand.
What comes after the rocks go in? Thamel pointed to Washington and Oregon as the ringleaders on the Pac-12 side, seeming to say that those two schools would have to take the TV offers for a league, presumably expanded to include Boise State and a second new member—Thamel notably mentioned San Diego State, though that could have just been conventional speculation—and let everyone compare those to what they could get elsewhere. From there? Thamel mentioned the ACC next, saying the ACC could add what he called “a western wing” but notably not specifying what schools that might or might not include, bringing us back to our Stanford-vs.-Oregon speculation. The presumption, then—mine at least—is that the Big 12 would come next, cleaning up whatever scraps they’d like, though it’s certainly possible the Big 12 could jump the line against the ACC.
One note on the ACC side: It is possible that the ACC could add four teams, opting for 18 football-playing members instead of 16. If they do, a full remaining-West-Coast move adding all four of Washington, Oregon, Stanford, and Cal would make sense, though the question there is whether Oregon adds enough once Washington is added to increase everyone’s slice of the pie, or if the overlap between the Oregon and Washington markets, having already been picked up with Washington, would make Oregon less valuable. The same should be asked in a much bigger way of Stanford and Cal, where the overlap is a higher percentage of Cal’s market than it is for Oregon in the parallel situation up north.
So, we could be in for a few more quiet weeks, but it’s hard to believe we’ll get far into August without new movement of some sort, whether it’s the Pac-12 refilling or the Pac-12 breaking apart or some new front erupting in the Great Realignment War. Sentinels, continue to stand watch.
Vaccination and Trade Value
Oh boy. The Royals have a lot of unvaccinated players.
We aren’t going to get too deep into specifics here, because you can hear both sides of the drum banged loudly and often (in our opinion) unproductively in a lot of other places, but the Royals are putting ten players on the Restricted List ahead of their series in Toronto this weekend, most notably Andrew Benintendi, one of the top trade deadline targets…at least outside of the American League, now.
Does this affect Benintendi’s market? Yes. Already, the Yankees and Blue Jays are reportedly out on the guy (the Blue Jays piece is obvious—the law is in place in both directions, so coming back to the U.S. is as much of a problem as coming into Canada). Even outside the AL East, it’s an issue: There’s something like a 20% chance ALCS games are played in Canada, and a 10% chance World Series games are played in Canada.
Looking ahead to future free agency for these sorts of players, if the rules stay in place and the vaccines continue to be demonstrated to be safe: Will players cave? Will they circle the wagons? There’s something in here about polarization and hardening into positions that are increasingly wrong, but…I’m gonna be a sports blogger right now.
On the field last night, and around it:
- The Mariners swept the Nationals and the Orioles beat the Cubs, each extending their winning streak to ten games in the process. Every team in the AL East now has a winning record. The Mariners have pulled even with the Red Sox and Blue Jays and sit 1.5 games back of the Rays in the Wild Card race.
- The Blue Jays beat the Phillies, making John Schmidt undefeated as interim manager in Toronto. Teoscar Hernández homered twice.
- The Rays beat the Red Sox again, with Shane McClanahan his typical dominant self. This wasn’t the deciding factor, but the Rays did score again by way of some Red Sox throwing foibles.
- The Twins beat the Brewers on a Jose Miranda walk-off home run. Josh Hader is in a rough patch, with just one good outing in his last five trips to the mound.
- The White Sox beat the Guardians, ending their four-game set where they started it relative to both Cleveland and Minnesota.
- The Dodgers came back from a 6-0 deficit to beat the Cardinals, whose tired bullpen couldn’t hold off Los Angeles down the stretch. The last time the Dodgers lost two in a row was more than two weeks ago.
- The Giants got a key win over the Diamondbacks, Wilmer Flores’s late home run leading to Brandon Crawford’s walk-off single, which in turn propelled them to one game back of the Cardinals and percentage points ahead of the Phillies for the final NL playoff slot. The Padres lost again to the Rockies, closing the gap on that side as well.
- The Mets beat Atlanta, taking the series two games to one and creating some breathing room in the East, at least for the moment. The Mets would have to suffer a pretty rough weekend in Chicago to not enter the All-Star Break in the division lead, and while that wouldn’t have felt like much of a victory in May, it would have sounded great back in March.
- Shohei Ohtani struck out twelve Astros, playing stopper for the Angels yet again. The Angels are 3-10 in their last thirteen. Ohtani has started each of the three wins.
- The Reds got to Luis Severino. Or, his shoulder did. He’s got an MRI scheduled. The Yankees did come back to win in extras on a series of wild pitches.
- Julio Rodríguez and José Ramírez are committed to the Home Run Derby, leaving us one player short, I believe.
- Mike Trout is still out with back spasms (now described as belonging to the upper back), but he’s expected to play in the All-Star Game. At least as of now.
Adam Silver’s Mad at Kevin Durant? You Don’t Say.
Adam Silver is upset with Kevin Durant for demanding a trade one year after signing an extension, which makes a whole lot of sense. Contracts are contracts, but players kind of always have an out where they can decide not to play, or decide to show up and play like shit. Does everyone have this out? Of course not. Superstars do, though, and—surprise—those are the ones who matter most to a league. Silver says there’ll be negotiations with the Players Association to address this kind of thing, and that’s good. In other sports, where the CBA’s are still pretty lopsided, it’s hard to ever feel bad for a player on something contract-related without ignoring a whole lot of angles. In the NBA, though, owners have done a good job of working with the players, rather than against them, which gives them plenty of credibility to push back on something like this.
In other confusing Nets situations, Kyrie Irving maybe doesn’t want a trade? And the Lakers would have to include two first-rounders for Brooklyn to send him west? And the Lakers don’t want to do that? It looks like we’re headed towards Durant and Irving running it back in New York City, which is great news for Ben Simmons if it does come to pass.
In other housekeeping, E.J. Liddell tore his ACL in Summer League, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope signed a two-year extension with the Nuggets, and Pat Connaughton signed a three-year extension, so he’s with the Bucks through 2025-26 now. Bad news for the Orioles. Gotta put a damper on the winning streak.
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Running out of time, so we’ll circle back tomorrow to NHL free agency and anything else we missed. In the meantime, here’s Iowa State’s nonconference schedule release for men’s basketball. Enjoy.
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Viewing schedule, today/tonight, second screen rotation in italics (customary acknowledgement that we have the British Open on for ambience):
- 12:10 PM EDT: Pittsburgh @ Miami, Thompson vs. Garrett (MLB TV)
- 3:10 PM EDT: San Diego @ Colorado, Snell vs. Freeland (MLB TV)
- 7:10 PM EDT: Boston @ Tampa Bay, Crawford vs. Rasmussen (MLB TV)
- 7:15 PM EDT: Los Angeles @ St. Louis, Anderson vs. Hudson (MLB TV)
- 7:40 PM EDT: Chicago (AL) @ Minnesota, Cueto vs. Gray (MLB TV)
- 8:05 PM EDT: New York (NL) @ Cubs, Carrasco vs. Thompson (MLB TV)
- 9:45 PM EDT: Milwaukee @ San Francisco, Burnes vs. Rodón (MLB TV)
