Marc Normandin, Author at Marc Normandin is creating baseball coverage, featuring leftism

The Pirates are insulting your intelligence again

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In the past week, the Pittsburgh Pirates have seen a major shakeup in their front office personnel. Longtime president Frank Coonelly left the organization last week, and then, on Monday, general manager Neal Huntington was fired. Both of these changes might seem like reasons to rejoice if you’re a Pirates fan, but don’t worry: team owner Bob Nutting immediately hosted a press conference to tell you that your optimism is unwarranted.

Nutting didn’t say that in those exact words, but why does this outlet exist if not to parse the words of rich dudes who love to lie and imply? In short, Nutting says he and the Pirates don’t want to use the team’s economic situation as an excuse for their poor performance and lack of effort, but also, they are going to use the team’s economic situation as an excuse to change nothing:

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Kris Bryant’s service time grievance is under review, and it has huge implications

On Brandon Taubman, the Astros, and MLB’s domestic abuse problem

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The Astros have been in the headlines for the wrong reasons this week, as their assistant general manager, Brandon Taubman, publicly chastised three sports reporters — all women — about Houston’s 2018 acquisition of domestic abuser Roberto Osuna. Stephanie Apstein, a Sports Illustrated reporter who was on the scene, described the moment in a story that the Astros initially declined to comment on:

And in the center of the room, assistant general manager Brandon Taubman turned to a group of three female reporters, including one wearing a purple domestic-violence awareness bracelet, and yelled, half a dozen times, “Thank God we got Osuna! I’m so f—— glad we got Osuna!”

The outburst was offensive and frightening enough that another Houston staffer apologized. The Astros declined to comment. They also declined to make Taubman available for an interview.

Despite the scene being so alarming that another Astros’ staffer felt the need to apologize for Taubman’s behavior, the Astros would eventually deny that it even occurred by releasing a statement whose tl;dr is “fake news.” The slightly longer version of it is that the Astros claimed Taubman was trying to help out a player having a rough go of things, even though Osuna wasn’t even present at the time of the incident.

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MLB threatens to shut down MiLB teams, and they aren’t bluffing. Just greedy.

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If you’ve been paying attention, you knew this was coming: MLB is finally threatening to shut down a number of Minor League Baseball teams, because overhauling stadiums, clubhouses, equipment, and paying players costs money they do not want to spend. They have the money, of course, being a $10 billion per year industry, but MLB’s owners would prefer that MiLB’s owners pick up the tab instead: that way, MLB can modernize the minors and improve pay for minor-league players, but not at their own expense. So, more of the same from them, really.

This conversation is happening because the Professional Baseball Agreement between MLB and MiLB is close to expiring: the 2020 season is the last that will be played under the current agreement. With horrid minor-league pay a more public concern than it’s ever been following MLB’s lobbying of Congress to restrict it, MLB has tried to public relations their way into being in favor of better pay for those players despite all of the evidence to the contrary. While teams could just, you know, do that — paying every single minor-league player in an organization $50,000 per year instead of poverty-level wages would cost every MLB team something like $7.5 million annually — they are instead now threatening MiLB’s owners to do more of the spending in the future, or else be cut out of this joint product.

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MLB teams are about to be even more in thrall to their investors

On the Tomahawk Chop and the confusion of symbolism with action

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The Braves’ use of the Tomahawk Chop during games came under additional scrutiny this week, thanks to a Cardinals’ rookie pitcher. Ryan Helsley, said Cardinals’ rookie and member of the Cherokee Nation, spoke up after Game 1 of the Braves-Cardinals National League Division Series:

“I think it’s a misrepresentation of the Cherokee people or Native Americans in general,” Helsley said. “Just depicts them in this kind of caveman-type people way who aren’t intellectual. They are a lot more than that. It’s not me being offended by the whole mascot thing. It’s not. It’s about the misconception of us, the Native Americans, and how we’re perceived in that way, or used as mascots. The Redskins and stuff like that.”

The Braves, to their credit, listened to Helsley’s remarks, and did not distribute the customary foam tomahawks to each seat in the stadium prior to Game 5. They didn’t listen that much, though, and therefore don’t deserve that much credit, as the real promise here was just to not perform the chop — or the music that goes along with it that prompts everyone in attendance to start chopping — whenever Helsley was in the game:

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Randy Dobnak, Uber driver, is a symptom of a larger MLB problem

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The Twins were swept out of the postseason by the Yankees, but not before pitcher Randy Dobnak could make an appearance. Dobnak, a rookie right-hander, appeared in nine regular season games, including five starts, and pitched brilliantly in the process. The 24-year-old wasn’t a top prospect in the organization entering the year, but thrived across three levels in 2019, anyway, and then there he was, starting an American League Division Series game against the Yankees. You’re not a true Twin until you lose to the Yankees in the postseason, you know: it’s a huge honor.

For Dobnak, it was the end of a long journey, one which saw him sign with the Twins as an undrafted free agent in 2017 after pitching in independent ball. Dobnak received a $2,000 bonus, and… that was it. After that, he was fully subject to the poverty-level wages of Minor League Baseball, wages which caused him to drive an Uber around this past spring in Fort Myers, spring training home of the Twins. Dobnak was actually working as an Uber driver in between games in the spring: someone had to pay him, and minor-league players don’t get paid during spring training, even if they’re taking part in it.

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The Nationals, Astros, and luxury tax aversions

It’s not even the offseason yet, but the Flexibility Wanters are everywhere

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If you’ve been following along with MLB’s front office buzzwords the last few years, you know that “flexibility” is one of the more popular ones. It doesn’t mean what it’s supposed to mean here: no, within an MLB context, coming from an owner or general manager, “flexibility” is more about the potential to spend money should an opportunity arise in a vague future that will likely never come. The 2019-2020 offseason is apparently not going to be any different, as, before any postseason games had even been played, multiple team leaders went out of their way to bemoan a lack of flexibility or promise their team won’t do anything with the flexibility they do have.

The Colorado Rockies gave a two-part performance in this regard, with team owner Dick Monfort telling assembled reporters that “[the Rockies] don’t have a lot of flexibility next year.” The Rockies spent $145 million in 2019, or, $61 million below the $206 million luxury tax threshold. A year ago, they pulled in $291 million in revenue — this before their cut of revenue-sharing — and this season, though they were terrible, they still drew just under 3 million fans, the sixth-most in the league. And the kicker: the day before Monfort said there wasn’t much flexibility, he announced the signing of a new television deal for the team, one with a “sizable jump” in money for the franchise. The Rockies can afford to spend more than they do, but they don’t want to, so here we are, having to read about all of this as if can’t is the same as won’t.

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Author: Marc Normandin

The Pirates are insulting your intelligence again

Kris Bryant’s service time grievance is under review, and it has huge implications

On Brandon Taubman, the Astros, and MLB’s domestic abuse problem

MLB threatens to shut down MiLB teams, and they aren’t bluffing. Just greedy.

MLB teams are about to be even more in thrall to their investors

On the Tomahawk Chop and the confusion of symbolism with action

Randy Dobnak, Uber driver, is a symptom of a larger MLB problem

The Nationals, Astros, and luxury tax aversions

It’s not even the offseason yet, but the Flexibility Wanters are everywhere

September call-ups, MLB pensions, rule changes, and MiLB exploitation