From the latest Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter:
“This trade deadline is a reminder of just how smart baseball is now. My fandom was formed at a time when you’d regularly see massive mistakes, whether absurd free-agent contracts or silly trades. Fred McGriff for Dale Murray. Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps. Jeff Bagwell for Larry Andersen.
“When we started Prospectus, we did so with the confidence that the ideas we were espousing were simply better than the ones being used to run baseball teams. Prospectus is still around, its staff producing good work, but the industry has lapped it and every other outsider. In a quarter-century, the people who make baseball decisions have advanced 50 years.
“So you end up with a trade deadline in which everyone acts rationally, following an offseason in which everyone acted rationally. For someone who was raised on George Steinbrenner and Syd Thrift, on Ted Turner and Haywood Sullivan, it’s a remarkable thing to see.”