There’s a danger to saying of someone whose performance you don’t like, “Anyone would be better than [so-and-so].” For me, the temptation is most prominently to fill in the [so-and-so] with “Rob Manfred.” I recognize, in my head, that there are plenty of people who would be worse at the job of Major League Baseball Commissioner than even Rob Manfred is. I do not recognize it in my gut.
That said, it seems safe to view Theo Epstein’s taking of a job with the commissioner’s office as a “consultant regarding on-field matters” as an unquestionably good thing. Epstein has made a career out of listening to data and looking at problems honestly. Remember the Nomar Garciaparra trade in 2004?
One of the big issues with Manfred is how poorly-thought-out so much of what he does seems to be. We’ll see if he listens to Epstein, and Epstein may still recommend rule changes some of us don’t like, but the fact is that the commissioner’s office has brought in one of the smartest, most intellectually sound minds in the baseball world to help it in an area where there’s been concern Manfred will take sweeping actions that, again, aren’t really thought through. We’ll see how good it is. But it can’t be a bad thing.
