Brandon Hyde suffers for Orioles’ organizational sins

The Orioles didn’t struck when they should have the way they should have, and it’s becoming their defining feature under Mike Elias.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

There’s a common theme to 2025’s worst MLB teams, and it’s that they were pretty clearly going to have rough seasons. And yet, none of them did the things that would keep this from occurring. Three of those four squads have also fired their managers already — the Orioles being the latest thanks to getting rid of Brandon Hyde, following the Rockies and Pirates doing so a little earlier in May — because that’s one way to pretend you’re Doing Something about losses that have been brought about by an organizational-wide philosophy.

You can argue that the Orioles weren’t expected to be quite as bad in 2025 as they’ve been — they’re 15-30, on pace for 108 losses — but this is just arguing a matter of degrees. The O’s made it so that a whole lot of things had to go right for them to compete in 2025 like they did even a year ago when they won 91 games and lost in the Wild Card round, and none of those things have gone right. Instead, they’ve just hit the worst-case scenario in a few instances, but all within the realm of plausibility without the need for hindsight.

Continue reading “Brandon Hyde suffers for Orioles’ organizational sins”

Pirates, Rockies shuffle some deck chairs

Firing the managers will fix everything, sure.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

On Thursday, the Pirates fired manager Derek Shelton. On Sunday, the Rockies fired their manager, Bud Black. The Pirates had just lost seven games in a row and sat in last place in the NL Central, while the Rockies were one day removed from a 21-0 loss to the Padres, at home, that pushed their run differential to -134, twice as low as the next-worst team, the Marlins.

The Pirates made it seem like firing Shelton would be a move that would turn things around for them sooner than any other possible move, as if it was Shelton’s fault that they were the way they were, and simply elevating Don Kelly from bench coach to manager would undo that damage. The Rockies, similarly, let go of Black because what else are you going to do when you’re on pace for the worst season in modern history (and then some)?

Continue reading “Pirates, Rockies shuffle some deck chairs”

What we’re missing by focusing on the Pete Rose Decision

The stories have focused heavily on the Pete Rose part of the meeting with Trump, but there’s much more going on here.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred recently met with United States president Donald Trump, and the reports that came out of that meeting — and what subsequent time with the media has mostly focused on — is what this means for Pete Rose. Will he remain banned, will the ban be lifted, if the ban is lifted will he be able to enter the Hall of Fame? It’s not that none of this matters — because it does, reinstating Rose and undoing the idea of “permanent ineligibility” for gambling on sports is a terrible idea in a vacuum but even more so now when sports gambling is as ubiquitous in society as it is today — but there’s a more significant issue that’s been brushed aside a bit because of its existence.

Continue reading “What we’re missing by focusing on the Pete Rose Decision”

On MLB’s potential MLB.tv, MLB Network plans

The latest in MLB’s ongoing cable replacement saga.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Sports broadcasting is in a state of flux, and not just when it comes to Major League Baseball games. For decades now, cable has been at the forefront, and it has paid dividends for leagues to align themselves with cable companies, literally, thanks to the carriage fees that every customer — sports-watching or not — were saddled with. With cable subscriptions trending down, though, and streaming and cable alternatives having taken hold, a new future is needed, to provide new revenue streams. Or, at least, ones that aren’t headed in the wrong direction.

This, in a general sense, is old news with MLB — I wrote about their problems with the regional sports network (RSN) model and the kinds of complaints and negotiating tactics that the Players Association would have to deal with from management back in 2021 for Baseball Prospectus, and it wasn’t necessarily new then, either. It’s reared its head in some new ways of late, however, such as with the end of the ESPN/MLB partnership looming, and MLB’s pretty open desire to switch to a different revenue-sharing model that’s more akin to that of the NFL.

Continue reading “On MLB’s potential MLB.tv, MLB Network plans”

Notes: Rizzo on the Rockies, NCAA women’s tournament, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Someone else dislikes Dick Monfort as much as I do, why the women’s version of March Madness needs its own TV deal, and why the Jays were right to re-sign Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Before last weekend’s series between the Phillies and Dodgers, Philadelphia’s Bryce Harper made a perfect little statement. When asked about the Dodgers’ spending habits and all the complaining that’s been going on regarding said habits, he said, “I don’t know if people will like this, but I feel like only losers complain about what they’re doing. I think they’re a great team. They’re a great organization.” He’s right, in that this is some loser mentality stuff at work, but the thing is, we need more of that energy out there from players and the media to hammer home just how big that loser energy is.

Alanna Rizzo, formerly part of the Dodgers’ broadcast team but now back at MLB Network, apparently agrees. While speaking to Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post about the Rockies, she did not mince words when it came to owner Dick Monfort and his thoughts on the Dodgers and spending:

Continue reading “Notes: Rizzo on the Rockies, NCAA women’s tournament, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.”

Notes: ESPN deal, Rob Manfred talks salary cap again

ESPN doesn’t seem to believe that the MLB relationship is over after 2025, and Rob Manfred is trying to put the cat back in the bag again.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

ESPN opted out of the final three years of their national broadcasting deal with MLB, which wasn’t a surprise, necessarily, especially given the league’s devaluing of their own product in deals with (arguably) Apple and (inarguably) Roku. Over at Sports Business Journal, though, comes sourced word from ESPN that they don’t see this as the end of the relationship between the two after 2025.

Someone might want to let MLB know about that, since the league has been publicly airing its grievances with the worldwide leader and its coverage — or lack thereof — of MLB’s games. You’ll also find plenty of fans who aren’t broken up about ESPN ending things, since they, a little too regularly, act like they’re embarrassed to be covering baseball games. Which doesn’t do much for growing the game, no?

Continue reading “Notes: ESPN deal, Rob Manfred talks salary cap again”

Notes: Jackie Robinson, Pirates debt, MLB broadcasts

A response to the federal government trying to erase Jackie Robinson, another responding to claim the Pirates are in debt, actually, and Rob Manfred’s latest on MLB’s broadcast plans.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

I had no inside knowledge that Steven Goldman would have a reaction to the Department of Defense briefly taking down Jackie Robinson’s military history to relabel it as “DEI,” but I knew he was good for it, and that it would appear if I would only be patient.

The reward for that patience was significant: Goldman wrote a wonderful rebuttal, explanation, whatever you want to call it to what went into the decision to remove Robinson, the history behind what made his being there in the first place such a significant deal, and some strong jabs at Thomas Jefferson’s trying-to-have-it-both-ways routine, for good measure.

Continue reading “Notes: Jackie Robinson, Pirates debt, MLB broadcasts”

An announcement! The good kind!

A little update on me and this newsletter and also everything else.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Good morning, Marvin Miller’s Mustache readers. I’ve got a bit of news to share, and it involves this newsletter a bit. First thing: I accepted an offer for a full-time gig last week, and I start next week. I can’t say where it is yet, but everyone will know in just a few days, anyway.

It’s an editing/writing position, so, I get to stick around in an industry that I was pretty sure I was only going to be allowed to remain in as a freelancer and creator of a couple of independent publications. It’s hard not to think those things when you’ve been unemployed since late-2018 despite applying to a whole bunch of other jobs, but such is the state of said industry. Here goes, though, I’m getting another shot, and I’m thrilled for it.

Continue reading “An announcement! The good kind!”

Notes: Rays and the Trop, MLB scrubs diversity, the A’s and Las Vegas

The latest from two stadium subsidy quests, and MLB’s recent political erasures and silence.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

The Rays declined the massive public subsidies they had in place for a new ballpark in St. Petersburgh, but they haven’t abandoned the city or Pinellas County just yet. Which, to be frank, is a little odd, but it seems that current own Stu Sternberg wants to buy a bit more time, but not 30 years’ worth, while he figures out whatever’s next.

Continue reading “Notes: Rays and the Trop, MLB scrubs diversity, the A’s and Las Vegas”

The Rays won’t have a new stadium in St. Petersburg after all

The Rays are likely to stay in the Tampa region, but it doesn’t seem like it’ll be in St. Petersburg.

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Earlier this week, at Baseball Prospectus, a piece of mine published explaining why it was that commissioner Rob Manfred — along with some team owners — were pressuring Stu Sternberg to sell the Rays. This one is free to read with an email login, so you can check out the whole thing if you’d like, but the key idea to take from it for right this second is that Sternberg was very likely to blow up the stadium deal he had been working on with St. Petersburg practically forever, because he only realized it was a bad deal for the Rays after agreeing to it.

Over the weekend, The Athletic reported that Manfred and Co. would even go so far as to use collective bargaining to pull a reverse A’s on Sternberg, if he couldn’t be convinced to sell the team before then. Basically, rather than using bargained and temporary revenue-sharing funds to help the Rays along in their search, like happened with the A’s, the other owners would instead use the CBA to throttle the Rays’ share of the revenue. If Sternberg barely has the funds he needs to operate the team at a high level now, or to pay for the increased costs that the delay in coming to a final agreement supposedly created, then having his revenue-sharing checks cut down was not going to help matters.

Continue reading “The Rays won’t have a new stadium in St. Petersburg after all”