At first glance, the Texas Rangers seemed to be offering a real opportunity to a young person with an interest in baseball analytics.

The Texas Rangers Innovation Call-up Scholarship would pay $5000 to a college student with an interest in baseball. Baseball front offices are known as a world where long, unpaid or poorly paid internships are common. These practices can make it difficult for young people who don’t come from affluent backgrounds to break in. How lovely, it seemed, that the Rangers wanted to do their part to support the next generation of baseball minds.

But on further study, this Rangers “scholarship” seems less appealing. The $5,000 isn’t awarded to a young person with promise just to do the right thing. No,

The Rangers are challenging students to create original formulas or statistics to provide previously immeasurable projections, indicators of future success, measurement of risk, or player valuation.

Applicants are asked to submit

An original formula, model or statistic which satisfies the following: Contains an original mathematical model or innovative statistic for tangible use in a baseball operations context Includes methodology, sources of information, givens, variables definitions, and conclusions including proof of how it may be useful to a baseball operations department

In other words, you come up with some innovative piece of baseball analysis, you send it to the Rangers. The Rangers, then, get to keep all these submissions! It becomes their property!

Here’s the fine print:

All applications, including the Original Formula, submitted to the Rangers in connection with this scholarship application (each, a “Submission”), along with all copyright, trademark, patent, and other property rights associated therewith, become the property of the Rangers

But don’t worry about handing your intellectual property to the Rangers because, well, one lucky applicant will “win” and have $5,000 sent to his or her college to offset expenses. No doubt the Rangers will then be able to take a tax deduction for this money because it is a “scholarship.”

It is great to see professional baseball teams valuing and encouraging a younger generation of baseball analysts.

I hope most teams, however, find a less exploitative way to do this.

And please. Rangers, if you insist on moving ahead with this scheme, don’t call it a “scholarship.”