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He's absolutely right, and he's never given a damn whether players or organizations like what he says or not. Some players over the years have been really angry at him, because he's buried them in their books. But he says what he thinks is the truth.
Other writers and organizational people will of course attack him, because they want to be seen as defending the players. Journalists want access to those same players. GM's and managers have to interact with those players. And the guys replying in the article either are MLB players or were MLB players, so they're not going to side with James either.
James was one of the first proponents of the idea of a replacement player, too. He hit on this sort of thing all the time in the 80's. That there's nothing intrinsically special about any major leaguer and there was no reason why an organization should stick with a below average Major League player when it could find a AAA player who was likely just as good. Before he showed up, many people thought that losing a single player to FA would cause as much as a 10-15 game swing in the standings.
If ALL of the players disappeared, people would still remain fans of baseball and eventually we would watch whatever product is out there. If one team lost all if its players, it would be back in the hunt in a couple of years.
Look at the Marlins in the late 90's, when they got rid of all of their WS winning players and built a new team from scratch. Replaceable. There's a few teams like that in MLB history.
I've been a fan of James for nearly 30 years - he's a good writer as well as an insightful baseball guy IMO. I'd love for him to become the commissioner (of course that will never happen).
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