Morning Mound Visit: MLB and MLBPA agree upon universal DH and draft lottery

In speaking with the media Thursday, Rob Manfred announced the league and union have agreed upon the universal designated hitter and a draft lottery. It’s not official yet, but it appears that pitchers won’t hit anymore. Rejoice if you’re a pleb who only likes chonk boi homers. Gnash your teeth if you’re a person of refinement and will miss random pitcher dingers.

Gone too are the days of rooting for draft order as a lottery system appears to be on its way. The lottery will serve to discourage tanking, so in the future, if your team finishes with less than 70 wins you won’t be able to say it was on purpose.

Evan Drellich | The Athletic $: Contrary to what was expected, Manfred did not announce a delay to spring training. Manfred is optimistic that the season will begin on time because the league plans to issue a proposal on Saturday. The commissioner said the upcoming proposal is “a good one,” but an immutable law of nature is that if Manfred thinks a thing is good, it is, in fact, bad.

Manfred also made some baffling comments about how owning a baseball team yields a lesser ROI than investing in the stock market. It’s unclear why he would say that because he is either lying or admitting that he’s doing a bad job. Really, either would be par for the course for a man whose sole purpose in life is to step on rakes in public.