Most of you have probably been wondering why Jerry Dipoto isn’t in our league.

It’s not because he doesn’t want to be. Who wouldn’t want to be in the EFL?  It isn’t because the league is too complicated for him.  MLB is almost as complicated. It isn’t because he lives so far away. We have two owners who live further away than he does.  It isn’t because he’s too smart for us. We let Brooks into the league.  It isn’t because we don’t like him. I used to like Mark Weinert, and I’m  prepared to like him again the instant he stops grinding my team into dust, but I’ve always been happy he’s in our league.

There are two reasons Jerry Dipoto isn’t in our league. One is he has a podcast, which might be better than these updates, and is certainly less annoying since it comes out only once a week, and I’m a small-minded person.  The other reason is this:

If you inspect those numbers you’ll see why David Hesslink’s baseball playing career is already over.  27 ip, 30 runs allowed. A 1.902 WHIP.  Also there is his fielding record: 15 innings, 5 chances, 2 assists, 3 errors.

What you don’t see here is why Dipoto drafted Hesslink. Hesslink graduated from MIT last year, where he played baseball.  Figuring he wasn’t a prospect as a player, he applied to several teams for an internship.  He turned down an offer from the M’s to go to the Giants. But Dipoto wanted him to join the Mariner front office.  So he drafted Hesslink in the 34th round, the only team to give him a chance to play.  Once the season was over, Hesslink went to work for the Mariners in their analytics department.

According to Dipoto, Hesslink played a crucial role in coming up with the idea of trading for Alex Colome and Denard Span.

As far as I know, none of us has an analytics department. We don’t have internships to offer. We can’t draft  smart people to  farm teams as a way of luring them into doing analysis for us.  Until he is willing to leave all those unfair advantages behind, Dipoto won’t be ready to move up to the EFL.

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