Thanks for posting that. MLB seems a little clueless although the cable companies are despicable also.
I tend to think MLB is fairly cunning in all of this. The current cable model is insanely lucrative to them.
They are collectively making in the 2-3 billion dollar range on local TV contracts. Any model that counted on baseball fans voluntarily paying for their networks, or advertising revenue from making it free to all would not generate even 1/10th of that, and would not pay production costs to even bother showing the games for a third of the teams.
They need navigate the tricky waters of not competing against cable/sat companies which will still be their golden goose for a few years, and having their games available on platforms that younger people watch so they don't lose them forever. At the same time they are also trying to figure out how to monetize the streaming future to replace at least some of that declining revenue.
MLBs has shown to be very forward thinking in this regard, both with their very profitable MLBAM venture and in holding on to the trump card of all streaming rights. It will be interesting to see how they play that trump card. The Fox RSN auction combined with all streaming rights expiring this off season could make for some interesting developments and give a good look to what MLB plans to do with these rights.