Jeff Passan – ESPN: I’m not a big fan of Passan and his scoop centered “I’ll write whatever you want just give me the details” style of journalism. That being said, sometimes his willingness to barter his integrity for access pays off. I’m glad Major League Baseball’s May Plan was leaked, it is a truly awful plan. At its core, the plan reveals how little Rob Manfred and the owners think of all the actors it takes to put together a baseball game. The league and the owners will toss any plans against the wall as long as they make that collection of ghouls money, the safety of everyone else be damned.
Jim Allen – jballallen: The idea of Nippon Professional Baseball expanding is hard to reckon with the insular nature of NPB owners. For years all those charged with running the organization have taken a “we have our slice of the pie and that’s good enough” approach. All the same, they’ve managed to build a solid reputation and put themselves in a relatively decent position to expand in the coming years. I hope they do, and I hope they attempt to challenge MLB in some way.
Meredith Wills – The Athletic ($): The research Dr. Wills has done isn’t life-altering, but all the same it is nice to see MLB caught up in its own lies. That’s the thing about science and research, Manfred can lie as much as he wants and spin until he can’t spin anymore but the science is still there and it is still truthful. The aeroball situation of 2019 isn’t even that big of a deal, all MLB needs to do is admit they have little control over the balls or they intentionally doctored the balls and most will move on quickly. Manfred can’t do that though, the truth is his main nemesis.
Lead photo courtesy of Unknown – Unknown
