If you’ve read all the articles at Baseball Nation and its affiliated websites today, and are still desperate for media to consume, I recommend this terrific anti-Selig broadside from Kris Liakos and Rob Iracane. As a sometime contributor to the genre of Selig bashing, I give it my highest endorsement (9 thumbs up).
Future TV analysts of the world, unite!
I also encourage you to download the latest episode of The Baseball Show with Rany and Joe. Here’s an excerpt about the genuinely terrible idea of letting players vote for All-Stars (which Rob wrote about yesterday):
Rany Jazayerli: How on earth do you not make a case for Chris Sale, unless the only stat you’re looking at is win-loss record? That’s what troubles me more than anything. It’s not the focus on 2013 to the exclusion of the past -- that’s a philosophical issue -- it’s the notion that Chris Sale, who has one of the best ERAs in the league, who’s got a WHIP under 1, for those of you who care about the fantasy side of things, a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 5 to 1, ridiculous numbers on a terrible team, playing in a very good home run park. The only thing you can look at on his record, literally the only thing that’s negative, is his win-loss record, which is less than meaningless for a team which is terrible. How on earth does he not get selected?
And like you said, it’s the players. The future TV analysts of the world have decided that Chris Sale’s 5-8 record trumps everything else and that he is not a deserving All-Star. And that is offensively wrong.
Joe Sheehan: There were results like that strewn throughout the player voting... At a very basic level, you’ve got to take the vote away from these people. You could put a reasonably bright 8-year-old in front of Baseball-Reference and generate roughly the results you’re getting by letting the players vote.
I swear, when Rany said that bit about the future analysts, it took every ounce of strength I have to keep from quietly nodding in agreement with him.
See More:
