From The Desk… Peter Alonso, Minority Ownership, Jairo Capellan, 100 photos, HOF

Good morning.

MiLB.com ‘fan favorite – Peter Alonso –

Ranked seventh in his own system a year ago, the University of Florida product delivered a Minor League-leading 36 homers and 119 RBIs in 132 games split between Double-A Binghamton and Triple-A Las Vegas. Alonso's 68 extra-base hits were third-most in the Minors, and he ended his season -- and the 51s' tenure at Las Vegas' Cashman Field -- with a no-doubt walk-off blast. The 2016 second-round pick was both the Mets' Minor League Player of the Year and their Defensive Player of the Month for July. About the only thing Alonso didn't do well on his way to being ranked as the Minors' No. 58 overall prospect was steal bases -- he was caught in all three of his 2018 attempts.

Despite his fine campaign, the Mets opted to send Alonso to the Arizona Fall League rather than give him a September big-league callup. In his first 13 games with Scottsdale, he's batting .320/.397/.640 with a league-leading four home runs. Look for him to bring his power bat to Queens early next season.

Baseball’s Minority  Management Problem –

         

     Two explanations are offered by men around major league baseball for this desultory trend. As Ivy League men predominate in front offices, they are said to seek managerial candidates conversant in the analytic revolution that has overrun baseball in the past decade.

Another theory, a cousin to the first, is that these bright and vastly white front-office men seek managerial empty vessels into which they can pour their statistics and equations. The columnist Ken Rosenthal, now with The Athletic, wrote a thoughtful article critiquing this trend a few years back. To hire a baseball lifer, a man who has spent years getting the experience he was told was needed to become a managerial candidate, is to risk he might think an independent thought.

Reds minor league player killed , 2 teammates injured in Dominican Republic crash –

A 19-year-old Cincinnati Reds minor league pitcher was killed and two of his teammates were injured in a vehicle accident in the Dominican Republic Saturday, according to our partners at WCPO.

Jairo Capellan was killed in the morning crash. Pitcher Raul Hernandez, 19, is in “critical but stable” condition and outfielder Emilio Garcia, 19, is “receiving treatment but is alert and conscious,” according to an update from the Reds Sunday.

Exploring Baseball's Cultural Heritage in 100 Photos  -

          

  The first celebrated photographs taken in the United States—among them portraits of former President John Quincy Adams and President James Polk—were shot in the 1840s, which was right about the time that the first organized baseball games, staged in front of audiences and guided by essentially the same rules that guide the game today, were being played. In the years and decades that followed, both photography and baseball blossomed in popularity. Sports Illustrated’s The Story of Baseball in 100 Photographs explores baseball’s cultural heritage and its path to becoming the country’s national pastime through evocative, extraordinary photos, from the days of Babe Ruth to the thrilling championships of today.

10 named to Today's Game Era  ballot for Hall –

        

    The Today's Game Era ballot for the National Baseball Hall of Fame was revealed Monday, comprised of a combination of 10 players, managers and an owner who will receive consideration to be enshrined in baseball's most historic and distinguished place in history.

          Harold Baines, Albert Belle, Joe Carter, Will Clark, Orel Hershiser, Davey Johnson, Charlie Manuel, Lou Piniella, Lee Smith and George Steinbrenner are those receiving consideration for the class of 2019. Baines, Belle, Carter, Clark, Hershiser and Smith are included for their contributions as players, while Johnson, Manuel and Piniella are included for their roles as managers. Steinbrenner, who is the only candidate that is no longer living, is nominated for his role as former Yankees owner.