San Francisco Chronicle – Susan Slusser: A lot goes into the making of a General Manager or President of a baseball club. They aren’t made in labs, despite how similar they may all seem. Teams need to keep looking through both traditional and non-traditional methods to find the best people for their teams. That means looking beyond the same faces we see over and over again when a new GM or President is announced. Billy Owens is a tremendous executive already, but it’s high time a team gives him the chance to be a GM or President.
FanGraphs – Jay Jaffe: Don Newcombe may not be a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t an all-time great pitcher. Newcombe faced numerous hurdles in his career, and he managed to be one of the very best pitchers in the National League for a period of time. If only that period had been longer, or he had been more of a standout during his time in the Negro National League. Alas, Newcombe wasn’t great enough for a long enough period of time, but damn, was he ever great for the years he did play.
Deadspin – David Roth: To fully realize that the battle between labor and ownership has been over for some time now all one needs to do is find the Reddit thread on r/baseball about this article. I know, I know, it’s Reddit, but just take a gander at it and the evidence that the owners long ago won any sort of battle with the players is clear as day. Comments attacking the liberalism of holding billionaire owners accountable for refusing to spend money on their teams; comments attacking the writing style of Roth and ignoring the content of his argument; poster after poster siding with billionaire ownership without offering actual reasons for why billionaires shouldn’t have to give players their fair value. The owners have won, people need to realize that.
Lead photo courtesy of Harry Harris – Associated Press
