Joe Magrane flirts with being an old fogey by talking about the differences in the game when he played 30 years and today. His complaints aren’t the usual, “today’s players don’t know the fundamentals,” however. He wants to see limited shifts and more balls put in play, something that brings agreement from a large swath of people.

Magrane offers his opinion on the young people coming into the front office that I thought was quite insightful:

“Some of these young guys so badly wanted to get under the tent of MLB and have that shirt that says Phillies on it or whatever that they’re willing to be on the Dean’s List to work for $45,000 a year just to crunch data. I actually kind of commend them. Maybe they have a love for baseball greater than I had.

“I’m not complaining. I’m just trying to understand it. We’ve got people who could be in NASA and they’re working on lefthanded and righthanded splits, daytime and nighttime.”

StLToday.com

Many people own talent to crunch numbers, while very few jobs exist in sports to use that talent. The payoff comes down the road, where the people who prove excellent at the job wind up a general manager and make quite lucrative salaries. It’s not that different from a young person who wants to be a professional baseball player. These people see toiling in the minors for years as worth it to earn two or three years of the major league minimum, and maybe a free agent contract some day. It’s all how one balances risk and reward.