Good Links of January, February and March 2018

Some of the best baseball writing happens during the offseason. On the eve of Opening Day 2018, here are some of my favorite pieces of the new year:

There's no justifiable reason we don't see women umpiring in MLB or the affiliated minor leagues. Britni de la Cretaz reminds us of the day four women broke the umpiring gender barrier.

Speaking of women in baseball, Sheryl Ring explores the legality of baseball's evident lack of scouting women players.

Speaking of women and baseball, I was embarrassed that I'd never heard of Sherri Nichols, sabermetrician from the BBS days of advanced baseball analysis. Thankfully, Ben Lindbergh is here to teach me (and you).

This past offseason, and seemingly all of a sudden, front offices figured out it's more efficient to pay young players a little bit rather than paying older players a lot. Grant Brisbee gives us the rundown of how we got to where we are, and how that contributed to what Travis Sawchik found was the slowest offseason ever.

In other offseason baseball economics news, MLB successfully lobbied Congress to exempt minor league players from fair wage protections. Maury Brown writes about the legal and economic structures that all but guaranteed this outcome.

While there's been a bit of hullabaloo about MLB players getting a smaller share of the pie than in the past, Ben Lindbergh (again) says some reports have been exaggerated.

Sabermetrics is slowly, fitfully and finally beginning to properly value the contributions of baseball's most complicated position: the catcher. Ben Lindbergh (again again) investigates the truths and myths surrounding the effect that catchers have on the game.

Travis Sawchik (again) pitched a crazy idea: why not wait until the second inning and bring in Billy Hamilton as a pinch runner? Tom Tango says it's not such a crazy idea.

Holds and blown saves are odd; Shane Tourtellotte shows us just how odd.

The indispensable Baseball Reference has added another five years worth of box scores and play-by-play data to its database.

Late addition: Josh Norris tells the story of how Brian Cashman rebuilt the Yankees.