Jackson: Creeping coachism in baseball

From SABR member Frank Jackson at The Hardball Times on June 23, 2017:

I wouldn’t call it a hiring freeze, but the number of full-time major league players has been fixed at 750 since 1998, the last year of expansion. The September call-ups (let’s call them temps or part-timers) expand the field temporarily, but comes the next Opening Day, the number reverts to 750, 25 players per team, as the rules dictate. Apparently, though, MLB rules are silent on the number of coaches.

In days of old, they were called coachers, not coaches. They are one and the same, unlike coasters which are not identical to coasts.

Whatever we choose to call them, let’s examine the coaching staff of the Texas Rangers, not because the personnel are so unusual, but because they are the team with which I am the most familiar. The evolution of their coaching staff is fairly typical of major league teams.

Read the full article here: http://www.hardballtimes.com/creeping-coachism/



Originally published: June 23, 2017. Last Updated: June 23, 2017.