Evan Drellich – The Athletic ($): Rob Manfred doesn’t seem to care for baseball all that much, but as Major League Baseball’s Commissioner he does the job that the owners want him to do. Never has this been more clear than him using the ability of Minor League Baseball players to earn a living wage as a bargaining chip in labor negotiations. MLB owners wouldn’t be hurt one iota by paying MiLB players a wage that they can live on, but they’d rather not spend the money and so Manfred uses the well-being and health of MiLB players to try and get other concessions from the MLB Player’s Association on other matters. As always, Manfred is quite the capitalist warrior.
Andy McCullough – Los Angeles Times: Mike Trout is great, every single fan knows this and so do his peers. Hearing fellow great players wax poetic about the skills Trout possesses and how they would love to have just one of said skills from his toolbox is a loud reminder of the greatness we are getting to witness in our time. That’s it, that’s the whole write-up, Trout is great and everyone wants to talk about him, the end.
Anna Reser – Lady Science: MLB, and more importantly, writers covering MLB really want to push Trevor Bauer as a scientific genius and the new face of the league. Problem with that is Bauer’s tendency to be a completely abhorrent human being. Baseball writers don’t seem to want to come to terms with who Bauer truly is as an individual while at the same time hyping up his supposedly genius mind. Bauer shouldn’t be the face of anything beyond a campaign for what a misogynistic, climate change denying, transphobe bully looks like, though most baseball writers seem to think differently.
Lead photo courtesy of Jake Roth – USA Today
