The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 33 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
MLB contradicted its ethical stance by rushing Steve Cohen's ownership approval
“Baseball having just gotten through this huge ethical scandal. We've cleaned up the game. We've kicked Jeff Luno out for a year. We've kicked the manager out. We really care about ethics. And then they turn around and they rush through the approval process. A …”
Schwimer Projects Over 50% of Big League Advance Signees Reach the Majors
“We believe that over half the players we sign will play a day in the major leagues.”
Customer experience matters more to team economics than winning in MLB
“In baseball, in hockey, and in Major League Soccer, winning is probably more important, but even in those circumstances, winning and losing is less important, I believe, than the customer experience.”
MLB investigators could not prove GM Jeff Luhnow knew of cheating
“Major League Baseball, as I said, did an extensive investigation into this. Even they couldn't prove that Jeff Luno knew. You know, they looked at tens of thousands of emails and texts and They interviewed, like, dozens and dozens of witnesses, many of whom pr…”
Extreme analytical efficiency makes modern baseball an aesthetically stagnant product
“The most perfect, efficient base version of baseball means nothing happens, essentially. As you say, it's a lot of strikeouts. Hitters sell out to hit home runs. Fielders shift so that when hitters don't hit home runs, they'll be in perfect position to catch t…”
Electronic sign stealing in MLB was not limited to the Astros
“Sign stealing was not at all limited to the Astros, right? Nobody believes they're the only team doing it. They might've been pushing it farther than anybody else, but they weren't alone.”
MLB revenue sharing and rising valuations disincentivize teams from winning
“Winning is, in baseball in particular, kind of less incentivized than you would think. So there's plenty of teams out there who don't seem to be trying to win very hard. They'll do anyway because of the revenue sharing structure, because of just the fact that …”
MLB playoff share voting incentivized low-paid video staff to facilitate cheating
“The players were also responsible for voting on who else got a cut of these playoff shares, which non-players. And those could include people like the guys who worked in the video room who were helping the players out all year. And these are guys who make 50,0…”
MLB commissioner acts as an executive beholden to team owners
“A lot of people think of the commissioner as this almost like judge like figure presiding over the game, looking out for the good of the sport above all else, like a steward. That's not what he is. I mean, Rob Manfred has even described himself as almost a CEO…”
Big League Advance saw 38 of 77 Fund I players reach MLB
“Our first fund of 77 players, and keep in mind, remember, you have less than a 10% chance to make the major leagues if you're throwing a dart in the minor leagues, and we don't get first round picks. So the players that we go after, these non top 300 prospects…”
Schwimer: 24 MLB Teams Consulted Big League Advance at 2018 Trade Deadline
“Last year, the trade deadline, or, you know, in 2017, 17 teams called us. This year, 24 teams called us at the trade deadline asking our advice on who are the underrated prospects in this organization.”
Schwimer: Process Metrics Predict MLB Success Better Than Standard Moneyball Statistics
“The basic money ball stuff, exactly. And it really didn't matter in the minor leagues in terms of predicting major league success. And what I had to, the lesson I had to learn was it's not, the results are not predictive to future results. It's actually the pr…”
Schwimer Considers Paul DePodesta the Greatest General Manager in Baseball History
“And for those of you who don't know, Paul, he's the money ball guy. And I believe the best GM in baseball history for 20 years, took teams to the playoffs, winning records, and then tried to move on.”
Ben Reiter: Reports of baseball's business demise are exaggerated
“I'm somebody who thinks that reports of baseball's demise are kind of exaggerated. It is a different sort of business from the NFL and the NBA to which it's always compared. It's a much more local business. It's much more like steady business. You know, it's o…”
Astros owner Jim Crane ran team payroll under $30M during rebuild
“Fighting a Off the union and media who are kind of ripping him for running a payroll that was under thirty million dollars at one point, like embarrassingly low.”
Major League Baseball will continue to hold a World Series in 2071
“I do know 50 years from now, there will be a world series in October.”
Jim Crane faced a $5M fine but retained his championship and equity
“He was fined five million dollars, right? That's the maximum fine that an owner can receive in baseball. He lost a few draft picks, but keeps his ring, keeps his players, keeps the franchise valuation.”
MLB analytics departments have not yet solved how to prevent pitcher injuries
“Health is a big thing that teams have still not really cracked as far as, especially how to keep pitchers healthy.”
Jeff Luhnow faces a harder path back to MLB than fired managers
“Jeff Luno, I think, will have a tougher road. Well, especially now that he's suing the Astros for twenty-two million dollars. That probably doesn't help his chances, but he was always somebody who never quite shed his outsider status. In a lot of ways, he embr…”
MLB commissioner will likely introduce major rule changes to increase action
“I do think, especially because it's at the end of the day, it's an entertainment product. I do think we'll see the commissioner trying to make some significant rule changes. Maybe it's to the strike zone. Maybe it's moving the mound back. To get more offense i…”
Houston Astros' ruthless efficiency approach is now standard across MLB
“The Astros were once at the vanguard as far as a valuation slash efficiency based approach to
Team building and running the organization.
They're not really an outlier anymore.
This is how everybody operates.”
MLB faces impending labor strife over perceived economic inequity among players
“I think on a labor front, baseball's in for a really rough time coming ahead, because I think that players are just seeing things as less and less equitable.”
Big League Advance expects over 50 Fund I players to reach MLB
“We're expecting over 50 out of the 77 to get to me.”
Schwimer: JAMBOS football and baseball models backtested better than college basketball
“Obviously we don't have any track record in those sports. This will be our first season for it, but the model back tests at a better rate than our college basketball.”
Schwimer: All Big League Advance players in the majors have paid in full
“We have many, many players in the major leagues. They've all paid on time and in full.”
Reiter: By some metrics, Jeff Luhnow was MLB's top scouting director
“Some say that by some metrics, he was the best scouting director in the seven years he was there of any scouting director, as far as picks he made that turned into big leaguers.”
Reiter: MLB team standings often invert over three-year windows
“Three years down the line, which is actually a long time in baseball terms, it doesn't sound like a long time, but often if you look at the schedule, at the standings from like three years ago, they're almost upside down from where they are today.”
The competitive advantage of pure data analysis in baseball is narrowing
“I think the data advantage is narrowing.
I do.
I mean, you don't hear very much anymore about, oh, this team's onto some new kind of way of analyzing data or discovered some new sorts of data.
Of course, I'm not going to tell you if they are, but it doesn't…”
Major sports leagues recently locked in media rights for 12 years
“For us, a big part of that risk has been taken out of the system for the next seven to 12 years because Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and the NFL, and a couple of the European soccer leagues have all repriced their national and internation…”
The average Big Four sports franchise is valued around $2 billion
“I think the average evaluation for one of the teams in Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, NFL, NHL, I think it's about two billion dollars, 2.2 billion dollars, something like that.”
Steve Cohen is MLB's richest owner by a factor of three
“And who, by the way, is now like the richest owner in baseball by a factor of three”