Outside The Confines: Breaking through the glass

We are now in Day 357* of the Major League Baseball lockout.

We got some historic firsts this week, which would have been awesome if there wasn’t a lockout and we could celebrate it.

• The Yankees made history yesterday when they named Rachel Baklovec as the manager of their Class Low-A Tampa Tarpons. Baklovec will become the first woman to manage an affiliated baseball club.
• Lindsey Adler has more on Baklovec and her baseball career. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• More history was made down under as Genevieve Beacom became the first woman to pitch in the Australian Baseball League. Not only that, but she threw a scoreless inning in relief.
• Since there are no locked-out women in the MLB Players Association, MLB.com has a list of trailblazing women who have set firsts in baseball history.
• OK, that’s it for the good news. Just as a reminder, Evan Drellich notes that the owners are expected to make a new proposal soon—but actual progress is not likely to happen until we get closer to Spring Training. (The Athletic sub. req.) (Also, Al wrote a story on this on Friday.)
• Jeff Passan explains why so little progress has been made so far and suggests what a final deal might look like. (ESPN+ sub. req.) Although his “solutions” are a little vague.
• A roundtable discussion as to when the lockout might end.
• Ken Davidoff makes his suggestions to end the lockout, which basically consist of “give the owners everything they want in exchange for a $1.2 million minimum salary and ending free agent compensation.” I’m sure the owners would love a system that ends salary arbitration and replaces it with a system that would pit players against each other and the union. This thing is an owner’s dream straight out of “Union Busting 101.”
• Bob Nightengale has ten questions and predictions for the 2022 season. It’s a combination of stuff like “How will the lockout end?” and “Who will win the 2022 World Series?”
• Chelsea Janes looks at the long-shot lawsuit by 40 former minor league clubs to end MLB’s antitrust exemption.
• ESPN has announced their new broadcast team for Sunday Night Baseball: Karl Ravech, David Cone and Eduardo Perez. Former color commentator Alex Rodriguez will host an alternate “ManningCast”-type broadcast along with Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay for between 10 and 12 games.
• Ken Rosenthal reports that the Padres have denied the Mets permission to interview (former Cubs first-round pick) Ryan Flaherty for their bench coach position. (The Athletic sub. req., but you can read a free version of the story here.) It’s usual procedure for teams to allow personnel to interview for jobs that would be a promotion, but the Padres are claiming that it’s too close to the start of the season, which seems optimistic.
• On the other hand, Eric Chavez has accepted an offer to become the Mets new hitting coach. The Yankees had just hired Chavez as their assistant hitting coach just a few weeks ago.
• Buster Olney doesn’t think it’s a good idea that writers are releasing their Hall-of-Fame ballots before the winners are announced. (ESPN+ sub. req.) Olney also says that this year’s releases indicate that only David Ortiz has a chance to get elected this year, and even he’s no sure thing.
• David Schoenfield lists the best player not in the Hall from each position. (ESPN+ sub. req.)
• Nick Selbe writes that pitcher Tim Lincecum’s “greatness wasn’t built to last.” When my daughter was two, I put her in a Lincecum shirsey and joked that it was the same size that Timmy wore.
• Andrew Baggarly has five New Year’s Resolutions for the Giants. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Maddie Lee looks at how the White Sox starting rotation collapsed in the playoffs and what that means for 2022.
• Eno Sarris looks at four pitchers due for a bounce-back season in 2022. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• R.J. Anderson predicts where the remaining top free agents will sign.
• And finally, Anthony Castrovince of mlb.com remembers six cities that “almost” got an MLB team.

End the lockout. Have a nice day.

*Or so it seems. It may not be exactly that many days.