Noah Frank – Baseball Prospectus ($): The secret has always been that the way the Oakland Athletics became a winning franchise in the Moneyball era was bad for baseball. We ignored that though, for plenty of reasons. It was fun to tie in our research with a front office more willing to consider said research, finding players with “hidden” talents was exciting, and so and so forth. The whole time the A’s were building a model that existed to exploit those who make the game of baseball possible, the players.
Sheryl Ring – Beyond the Box Score: In totality, the response by Major League Baseball and it’s member clubs has been woefully inept. The key reason for that is that in order for any response to carry weight those teams and the MLB organization would have to look in the mirror and accept just how racist they are. It’s clear that they don’t want or intend any action that would lead to accountability. Thus, empty platitudes and lies about always being against racism are all we are getting. Atlanta and Cleveland still exist, but I guess their racism is a-ok with MLB executives and team owners.
Kyle Glaser – Baseball America ($): Watching some MLB teams dance back and forth on the idea of playing their minor leaguers has been an interesting exercise in the futility of capitalism. Billion-dollar organizations can afford to pay their minor leaguers what amounts to below poverty-level wages and yet they want people to believe that they can’t. The cat is out of the bag with MLB and the greed of owners has been laid bare in their inhumane actions.
Thanks to Laura Peebles for becoming a Patron!
Lead photo courtesy of Unknown – Unknown
