Slightly Better than Replacement Level
Tommy Byrne was 13 seasons into his professional baseball career when he made the switch from a pitcher who pinch-hit from time to time to a full-fledged two-way player. It makes perfect sense that he would adopt two-way play in 1954 in the Pacific Coast League. At the time the PCL was an independent league […]
Sydney Bergman – Baseball Prospectus ($): Baseball players form a special relationship with the city they represent. This isn’t true of every player or every city but it happens enough to be a certifiable thing. Part of that relationship is a give and take based on the idea that by earning the cities trust you […]
Allison McCague – FanGraphs: Enjoying Major League Baseball is increasingly difficult these days. With each new scandal or incendiary revelation, it’s harder and harder to want to keep tuning in or paying attention. Baseball itself is fine, but its premier organization is in the middle of a stretch of bad news and decisions that feels […]
By the time he made affiliated baseball in 1952, Chet Brewer was already 45 years old. The former Negro Leaguer was chosen to be player-manager for the Riverside-Ensenada Comets who over the course of the season would become the Riverside-Porterville Comets and then just the Porterville Comets. Brewer was brought into the Southwestern International League […]
Daniel R. Epstein – Beyond the Box Score: At the heart of Major League Baseball, there is one truth that its owners and executives believe in more than any other. That truth is that the fans are idiots and that MLB can lie about their profits and the fans will be none the wiser. Even […]