While the occasional article is free for everyone, the vast majority of this content is restricted to my Patreon subscribers, whose support allows me to write all of this in the first place. Please consider becoming a subscriber! -Marc Normandin
Category: Labor
Unlock with Patreon“What if MLB’s efficiency fetish could further infect the minors,” asks writer.
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.
On Monday, Travis Sawchik asked a question to Five Thirty Eight’s audience: “Do we even need Minor League Baseball?” Sawchik’s theory is that so much of player development happens off the field these days, in comparison to how development used to work, that the minors are a waste of time and resources. Sawchik, you might recall, is one of the two authors of The MVP Machine, which looked at how players can kind of just be created these days thanks to advances in analytics and the introduction of the concept of “Betterball,” so this is an arena he knows his way around.
To a point, anyway. As you might also recall, the book brings to mind some key questions regarding labor and homogeneity it does not know the answers to (or even how to answer them), and this article is something of an extension of that. Deadspin’s Albert Burneko, for instance, wants to know who the “we” in Sawchik’s headline refers to, and it’s not an exaggeration that the entire premise of Sawchik’s piece relies on the reader identifying with management in order for it to accomplish the job the author set out for it.
You should read all of Burneko’s piece, as it’s fan-centric and a rebuttal to the idea presented in the initial piece that MiLB exists in the service of MLB teams alone, but I’ll pull this paragraph from it for now:
Continue reading ““What if MLB’s efficiency fetish could further infect the minors,” asks writer.”
The trouble with “valuing” exploited MLB players
This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to gain access to the rest of my work and allow me to keep writing posts like this one.
Arguing about what the definition of the word “valuable” contained within the Most Valuable Player award means is a time-honored tradition in baseball. Does “value” mean the best player, or does it mean the best player on a postseason team, the one that helped said team actually make it to October with their presence? It’s always a mess, and yet, The Athletic’s Molly Knight wants to throw another version of the word valuable into the discussion, and it’s one that front offices and owners salivate over, one that should have nothing to do with the MVP award or how we view players.
In short, this article is a list of the value players have created compared to their salaries, or, a way to talk about value in a way that leaves high-paid and awesome players like Mike Trout out of the discussion. It’s a list of the most exploited players in the majors, basically, the ones who are most underpaid relative to their production, but for Knight’s purposes, it’s a list of who has provided the most “bang for the buck.” No, really, that’s what the table showing a player’s $/WAR is titled.
Knight does attempt to walk back her own messaging, by making sure to say this is a list that tells you “which players are most criminally underpaid.” Knight also takes the time to explain that she always sides with the players over owners in discussions of compensation. The problem is that saying these things and then writing this article up with the general framing and takeaways it has made those statements almost meaningless, or at least reduced their impact.
Continue reading “The trouble with “valuing” exploited MLB players”
MLB’s young players are better than ever, so pay them
While the occasional article is free for everyone, the vast majority of this content is restricted to my Patreon subscribers, whose support allows me to write all of this in the first place. Please consider becoming a subscriber! -Marc Normandin
The current NLRB is useless, unless you’re an employer like MLB
While the occasional article is free for everyone, the vast majority of this content is restricted to my Patreon subscribers, whose support allows me to write all of this in the first place. Please consider becoming a subscriber! -Marc Normandin
MLB bars players from Venezuelan Winter League, thanks to Donald Trump
While the occasional article is free for everyone, the vast majority of this content is restricted to my Patreon subscribers, whose support allows me to write all of this in the first place. Please consider becoming a subscriber! -Marc Normandin
25 years later, the 1994 strike is still the MLB owners’ fault
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.
Twenty five years ago, on August 12, 1994, the last strike in Major League Baseball occurred. It’s unlikely to be the final strike or work stoppage in the league’s history, but there have been 25 years of what some would refer to as “labor peace” since the last one. You should expect to see takes floating around the internet today suggesting that the strike was a bad idea, or that it was a disaster, and maybe even asking who was to blame for the strike, as if it isn’t management pushing the workers into a strike whenever one happens.
After all, we didn’t get to see Tony Gwynn hit .400, or Matt Williams challenge Roger Maris, or the Expos get a chance to win the World Series because of the strike, which apparently are the things we should really care about. Not that the strike kept MLB’s owners from implementing a salary cap, or that a federal judge stepping in at the tail-end of the strike stopped MLB from putting replacement players — scabs — on the field for games that actually counted, which could have destroyed the power of the MLBPA and had much further-reaching, dire consequences for the game than adding another 25 years onto the wait for someone to hit .400 again.
Continue reading “25 years later, the 1994 strike is still the MLB owners’ fault”
MLB prefers younger, cheaper players, so it’s time to get them paid
While the occasional article is free for everyone, the vast majority of this content is restricted to my Patreon subscribers, whose support allows me to write all of this in the first place. Please consider becoming a subscriber! -Marc Normandin
On Betterball’s creation of talent, and its danger to MLB’s labor
This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to gain access to the rest of my work and allow me to keep writing posts like this one.
The July issue of The Atlantic features a review of Ben Lindbergh’s and Travis Sawchik’s recently released book, The MVP Machine: How Baseball’s New Noncomformists Are Using Data To Build Better Players. Jack Hamilton, the writer of this review, didn’t just look at whether the book was enjoyable to read, but also at the subject being covered itself, and the problems contained within it: in some cases, he even asked and tried to answer important questions the authors themselves did not.
We’re going to look at the review and those questions today, because they happen to be labor-oriented. Let’s open with this background quote from Hamilton, on recent revolutions in baseball:
The steroid and stat revolutions have unfolded very differently so far, but they arose from a common source: a desire to deploy scientific methods to improve the way baseball is played. Steroid use focused on player enhancement, whereas analytics focused on player value. To put it polemically, one was a revolution driven by labor, and the other by management, which is probably one of many reasons the latter has been more readily accepted.
Continue reading “On Betterball’s creation of talent, and its danger to MLB’s labor”
The MLBPA’s recent firing shouldn’t be controversial, and yet
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 Major League Baseball Players Association recently fired a long-term attorney, Rick Shapiro, and as Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich report, it’s causing waves both internally and externally. Per that report, Shapiro was dismissed by the MLBPA as a way of shoring up solidarity. Agents, though, are concerned that this is the influence of Scott Boras, and that there will be downsides to getting rid of someone with Shapiro’s experience.
That’s the short of it, but something like this requires more than just a quick explanation. The Players Association and MLB are currently doing some early bargaining over economic issues, more than two years prior to the expiration of the current CBA, so the MLBPA getting a look at what is working and what isn’t with regard to their strategies and strategists comes with that territory. The MLBPA has a new lead negotiator, Bruce Meyer, and Shapiro was around and working on the previous two CBAs from 2012 and 2016, both of which have been derided — by myself and others in media, and some vocal players, too. Combine the unhappiness with those CBAs with the introduction of Meyer, and this bit from the report at The Athletic…
Continue reading “The MLBPA’s recent firing shouldn’t be controversial, and yet”