Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Hitting a Sore Spot, TBL?

Last night, Rob Neyer responded to questions he's been receiving about his SweetSpot Blog Network and why nine teams still lack representative bloggers. Readers have been asking the top ESPN.com baseball blogger whether they might be able to join and help round out his developing baseball blog collective. Neyer's answer was forthright and honest: "The sad truth is that even if you've got the time to write about your favorite team every day, you probably don't have the analytical skills or the writing chops we're looking for."

This morning, the sports website The Big Lead took aim at Neyer, mocking him for holding high expectations for the quality of content in his network and then launching into a random diatribe about how all the "stat-heads" are going to unjustly get Bert Blyleven into the Hall of Fame.
As for the analytical skills, let’s begin with Bert Blyleven, a pitcher who has failed to get voted into the Hall of Fame 13 years in a row. Blyleven spent 48 seasons in the majors, never finished 1st or 2nd in Cy Young award voting, and his career highlight is a toss-up between this t-shirt and this F-bomb on air. Yet the stat-heads are certain he should voted in (sadly, he probably will next year; then, it becomes the Hall of Very Good). Using your analytical skills, sell Neyer one way or another on Blyleven.
This post struck a nerve with me for a couple of reasons. For one, obviously my blog is a part of Neyer's SweetSpot Network and frankly I'm proud to be a person whose analytical skills and writing chops were deemed worthy of that honor. But moreso, as a Twins fan, I'm annoyed to see another misguided soul hammering away at Blyleven's Hall of Fame case, particularly in a situation like this where it seemingly came completely out of nowhere.

The irony surrounding TBL's post is almost too rich to take. His presented case against Blyleven, who last year was not voted into the Hall of Fame by a subjective voting group, is that for thirteen years that same subjective voting group has not voted him in and that during his career that same subjective voting group did not place him first or second in the Cy Young balloting. Basically, the argument boils down to: "If some people thought this at some point, then it must be true!"

It amuses me that in a post where they seek to ridicule the folks who write about baseball while using statistics and facts to back up their positions, TBL shows exactly why those people are necessary. There's got to be someone to filter out condescending, snide and completely empty analysis like this. Do some of those stat-head bloggers write in that same arrogant tone? Sure, but generalizing that to the entire population of analytical baseball bloggers is as stupid as claiming that every single one of them believes that Blyleven belongs in the Hall (or that no traditional baseball analysts who rely less on stats believe he belongs).

Whether The Big Lead is just trying to ruffle feathers or still holds a grudge against ESPN for flooding their servers a few years ago, I don't know, but Neyer's comments are hardly worthy of such vitriol. Methinks The Big Lead should go back to doing what they do best: reporting all day on sports gossip. Then we can have a talk about journalism standards.

And they can tell some story about how intimidating Jim Rice was.

12 comments:

On the road with.... said...

Good Post Nick,

I haver seen some others deriding Neyer's post today as well. It just seems that he has high expectations, nothing more. As far as the Blyleven argument goes, I have always wondered why so many analytical guys think Blyleven was only "very good", then they site his Cy Young and All star game history.

Peter said...

I really do not understand that article at all. Using the Bert Blyleven HOF argument as an example is totally unproductive. It doesn't add to his point at all, which was a pretty crappy one to begin with.

I was more confused than anything else after reading it. Sort of like.........that's it?

Ed Bast said...

The TBL article was indeed bizarre, but up until the potshots at the end I thought you were going to stay above the fray. As it is, this is so meta it's hilarious. Guy writes an article on bloggers, another guy responds ripping Bert Blyleven, and then you go from bashing TBL for being "condescending" in one paragraph to condescendingly calling them gossip columnists in the next. You can't make this stuff up. Thanks for the chuckle.

Nick N. said...

Guy writes an article on bloggers, another guy responds ripping Bert Blyleven, and then you go from bashing TBL for being "condescending" in one paragraph to condescendingly calling them gossip columnists in the next.

It wasn't meant as condescension. I find it supremely ironic that a site that peddles gossip throughout the day (and really, that's what they do, it's not name-calling) would criticize one of the most intelligent and thoughtful baseball writers out there for holding writing and analysis on the web to high standards.

ressesp said...

Remembering Blyleven, I always thought he was a pretty good but not great pitcher. He'll have to wait until the voters who actually saw him die off in sufficient numbers.

Mike M. said...

Remembering Blyleven, I always thought he was a pretty good but not great pitcher.

Yeah, a pitcher who had 60 career shutouts and is fifth all-time in strikeouts is only pretty good.

Schruender said...

There's nothing wrong with having high expectations when it's going to ultimately be Neyer that gets judged by the performance of the writers.

It would be like a GM saying they wanted a player to be young and talented before signing them to a 7 year contract. It's common sense.

Ressesp said...

I guess you had to be there.

Mike M. said...

I guess you had to be there.

Actually, I was. I am old enough to have seen Blyleven pitch from the beginning of his career, and I know that if he had pitched for better teams like Oakland, the Dodgers or the Yankees, he would already be in the Hall.

ressesp said...

Like Carlton? Blyleven played on two Series champions. I also followed him from the first game against the Senators, and I was excited about his prospects. But he was never one of the top two or three pitchers of his time. This difference of opinion regarding him shows that his performance wasn't compelling to emough people to get him in to the Hall quickly. There are some in the Hall who weren't any better than him but they really don't belong there either.

Nick N. said...

There are some in the Hall who weren't any better than him but they really don't belong there either.

I think this is the key point, though. It's why I bristle at the notion that Blyleven's addition will turn it into the "Hall of Very Good." If anything, that's already happened. (Though the very notion is silly to me.)

The guidelines have been set already by some of the players who have already been let in, and by those guidelines it's clear that Blyleven belongs. If he'd gotten enough run support to win 13 more games in his career he'd already be in and that's not in doubt. It's silly.

Dave said...

The problem I have is that Neyer is not and never has been a competant writer. I read his blog semi-frequently and the posts will usually be two or three words different an hour after posting. When your readers have to routinely point out errors and these errors are routinely admitted shows Neyer is sloppy, doesn't care, or simply is not a good writer. The notion that Neyer has some sort of talent threshold is kind of amusing, as if he read one of his forgotten articles from a few years ago I'm sure he would find the work deficient.

As far as bloggers being condescending, I used to read Gleeman and found that word to describe him best. A lack of condescension is the very reason I read this blog. That and not having to deal with Gleeman's obsession with geek level celebrity hotties when Ruth Adams at Nye's is out of his league...