Bryce Harper has best-selling jersey of 2019 - HardballTalk

Players may think Bryce Harper is “the most overrated” guy in baseball, but fans don’t think that way. At least the ones in Philly whose great enthusiasm for their new outfielder has pushed his jersey sales to the top of the charts. That’s according to Major League Baseball which just released the top-selling jerseys in baseball since the first of the year, with Harper in the number one position.

Following Harper is Aaron Judge, who had the top-selling jersey in 2018. Then comes Mookie Betts, Mike Trout and, somewhat surprisingly to me anyway, Yadier Molina. After all of these years you’d figure that every Cards fan who wanted a Molina jersey had gotten one already, but I guess the classics never go out of style. Have to figure Paul Goldschmidt is gonna surge up from number 11 and pass him this season, but who knows?

Here’s the whole top-20:

1. Bryce Harper, Philadelphia Phillies

2. Aaron Judge, New York Yankees

3. Mookie Betts, Boston Red Sox

4. Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels

5. Yadier Molina, St. Louis Cardinals

6. Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers

7. Javier Báez, Chicago Cubs

8. Christian Yelich, Milwaukee Brewers

9. Anthony Rizzo, Chicago Cubs

10. Ronald Acuña Jr., Atlanta Braves

11. Paul Goldschmidt, St. Louis Cardinals

12. Manny Machado, San Diego Padres

13. Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle Mariners

14. Cody Bellinger, Los Angeles Dodgers

15. Kris Bryant, Chicago Cubs

16. Jose Altuve, Houston Astros

17. Alex Bregman, Houston Astros

18. Andrew Benintendi, Boston Red Sox

19. Giancarlo Stanton, New York Yankees

20. Freddie Freeman, Atlanta Braves

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Even Drellich of The Athletic reports that the Boston Red Sox are cutting the pay of team employees. Those cuts, which began to be communicated last night, apply to all employees making $50,000 or more. They are tiered cuts, with people making $50-99,000 seeing salary cut by 20%, those making $100k-$499,000 seeing $25% cuts and those making $500,000 or more getting 30% cuts.

Drellich reported that a Red Sox employee told him that “people are livid” over the fact that those making $100K are being treated the same way as those making $500K. And, yes, that does seem to be a pretty wide spread for similar pay cuts. One would think that a team with as many analytically-oriented people on staff could perhaps break things down a bit more granularly.

Notable in all of this that the same folks who own the Red Sox — Fenway Sports Group — own Liverpool FC of the English Premier League, and that just last month Liverpool’s pay cut/employee furlough policies proved so unpopular that they led to a backlash and a subsequent reversal by the club. That came after intense criticism from Liverpool fan groups and local politicians. Sox owner John Henry must be confident that no such backlash will happen in Boston.

As we noted yesterday, The Kansas City Royals, who are not as financially successful as the Boston Red Sox, have not furloughed employees or cut pay as a result of baseball’s shutdown in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps someone in Boston could call the Royals and ask them how they managed that.

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