The state of California is holding up the development deal between the Angels and Anaheim over the amount of affordable housing in the development plan. There may be things to dislike in the plan, like the low cost of the land offered to Arte Moreno, owner of the Angels. Building more housing should not be one of them.
Over the years I’ve seen a common thread through the economic blogs I read that building more housing makes housing more affordable. It doesn’t matter what gets built; getting supply to meet or exceed demand does the trick.
Baseball owners and GMs used to be disconnected from reality. Many thought that players in their early 30s were in their primes. They thought wins and batting average were important. They disregarded park effects. So they spent a lot of money on free agents who did not always produce. Eventually, they brought in people who understood the reality of the game, and now the players are upset the owners reduced their cost through this understanding. I hope one day the politicians of California learn this lesson.
One of the fallacies of “Batting Average Doesn’t Matter”, is that BA is created by getting hits. HRs are hits, but so are singles, double and triples. The de-emphasis on BA in lieu of SLG/OB/OPS has given us what we now have in the ” Three True Outcomes ” game that so many decry. How many runners are left in scoring position because contact is not made in today’s game? Someone will have the RISP LOB numbers and can compare that to previous eras(I do not know the answer). It doesn’t seem that team scoring is up much from the 70s and 80s. Can BA be over rated? Most certainly, and it was. Can it also be undervalued? Most certainly, and I think it currently is. You can’t get a hit unless contact is made…