Only a fool would write for BP.

@ Maury - serious question - what's makes you say that?

What's Steven Goldman up to these days? I enjoyed his work. It seems like he's not as much a presence any more.

The snark and the humor got stale many years ago.

Dissenting just to dissent is as boring as conforming just to conform.

@ Maury - serious question - what's makes you say that?

I write for BP. Apparently, I need to brush up on my comedy chops.

@ Maury - serious question - what's makes you say that?

Nothing in particular.

On #4... I don't see that as the soup de jour there any longer. I'm sure we, on occasion, do so. But, I'd challenge by saying that it's occurring elsewhere with the same frequency, if not more.

@ Maury, gotcha. I bought my copy yesterday. Looking forward to reading.

Apparently, I need to brush up on my comedy chops.

For what it's worth, I chuckled.

The snark and the humor got stale many years ago.

This is crazy talk. Snark and humor never get old. I wish I were better at them. Heck they are the reason I followed BBTF so much and eagerly early on, and click on certain threads.

I half agree with Sugarbear, the humor was a bit stale.

But this latest incarnation is worse. I'd rather stale than tame. The individual player sections seem completely devoid of snark. Not neccesarily a bad thing, and I wouldnt mind that much if it was replaced by insight. Unfortunately not the case.

But my real issue is the team articles are just awful. I could write each one in a half hour without doing any research. This years book is basically just a "they lost this player and this player and signed this player and traded for this player, they still need a SS who can hit and a 5th starter, and they have a decent change at making the playoffs, the end". No analysis, no insight, none of the slightly unique slanted takes on a team's past or future that I came to really appreciate.

I think the article might have nailed it. Are too many writers eyeing front office jobs to leave themselves open to being wrong? Concerned with upseting people they know? You'd think the annonymous nature of each teams intro section would help. It also could just be a dilution of talent through attrition or poaching or whatever. Maybe we were just spoiled.

Been getting every annual since I won one in a predict-the-season contest by Lee Sinins. Jesus christo that was a long time ago. Really hoping this is a one year aberration.

the team essays were basically the only reason I bothered to buy the BP annual the last few years. By gutting those essays, they've eliminated my need to buy the annual. It's kind of sad.

SBB: Dissenting just to dissent is ... boring

Are you... I just... you know... seriously??

The book used to be fairly merciless (and undeniably hilarious) in its criticism of archaic front offices and players hanging around because of “veteran presence” rather than actual baseball skill, but it’s nicer now, more conventional, more team-friendly.

Perhaps there are fewer archaic front offices and worthless veterans?

As to the book, I would rarely read a team essay anyway, but yes, they were usually actual essays that had an interesting angle to them.

I basically leaf through the player comments, as I've always done.

I've been in cryogenic freeze since 2006 to allow time for Loria to sell the Marlins, so I'm technically part of the late, old-school BP staff... what's that? Loria still owns the Marlins? (crawls back in pod, closes the hatch)

I think the article might have nailed it. Are too many writers eyeing front office jobs to leave themselves open to being wrong? Concerned with upseting people they know? You'd think the annonymous nature of each teams intro section would help. It also could just be a dilution of talent through attrition or poaching or whatever. Maybe we were just spoiled.

What's the count of BPro guys currently working in front offices? There's Woolner in Cleveland, Click in Tampa Bay, Goldstein and Fast in Houston (despite neither having any professional playing experience, Fast is pencilled in as the #3 starter and Goldstein will get a crack at short).

I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting.

Been getting every annual since I won one in a predict-the-season contest by Lee Sinins. Jesus christo that was a long time ago. Really hoping this is a one year aberration.

Just ordered my book today, last year was the first year that I didn't get a book, since 1998(?) At $15 it's a great buy, even if the quality drops down to Street & Smith magazine level.

It’s also less Socratic. The intro chapters on each team used to be freewheeling musings on what a baseball organization was, what a team’s philosophy was, what it means to be a member of that organization. Now the team intros have been dramatically shortened, and chopped up into easy-to-digest but less meaty portions that aren’t all that different than a slightly smarter version of an old Street and Smith’s preview magazine.

That is what I loved about Bill James and Baseball Prospectus, is that they would go in all different type of directions when they delved into a subject. They weren't formulatic, you didn't have a default style to any particular section or team. I would hate it, if the team essays were "Here is what they have on offense:" "Here is their pitching:" "Here is their front office/intangibles etc:" for each team.

Oh yeah, Dan Fox in Pittsburgh. Then there's Keith Law and Russell Carleton, who worked for teams in the past.

Does Dan Fox still work for the Pirates?

EDIT: gah, darn, coke I guess.

I have no idea how it took 9 posts for #13 to happen.

every front office in baseball has a copy now.

While they probably do, front offices surely passed BPro long ago and there's nothing in there that they don't know already. Possibly a small bit of analysis they hadn't thought of yet. Certainly no team is going to pay the least bit of serious attention to the essay written about them -- they might read it for laughs. (Hmmm ... that sounds more insulting than I mean it. I simply mean the team obviously knows more about itself than BPro does so there's nothing for them to gain.)

I gave up the annual about a decade ago so I'm not one to ask really but it mainly sounds like they're trying to be more "professional" which, yes, can be very dry but also, when done right, accurate and doesn't make claims they can't support.

I guess I'm just one of the few statheads that never liked BPro all that much. I appreciated that they provided advanced stats freely and relatively easy to search when nobody else was and of course some of their articles were good -- it was certainly valuable. But it was terribly inconsistent and I never felt the writers had any more insight than the folks around here did ... and those writers seemed illing to ignore the numbers when they wanted to.

It was often funny how many of their articles would cite OPS+ constantly and ignore their own EQA and VORP. They'd have articles focusing on how dumb some front office was for passing over or trading away some hitter because he was a good hitter when their own WARP said the guy was so bad on defense that he wasn't particularly valuable. That lack of buy-in by their own writers hurt them I thought -- you don't want uniformity of opinion among your writers but they should at least be agreeing on the basic methodology and then work from there. You can't have an article proclaiming the superiority of your new measure then have your writers not use it 95% of the time.

At this stage, advanced stats are all over the place and the FOs are generating their own. It's quaint that RDP still cites EQA (not that there's anything wrong with that). I can't recall the last time I saw a good piece of BPro analysis linked here -- is that a paywall thing?

And that's fine, there's no need to be on the cutting edge of baseball quant analysis. They've always been writing for fans no matter how much they might have been fueled by thinking their audience was baseball front offices. They just aren't likely to inspire too many budding sabermetricians at this point.

It was often funny how many of their articles would cite OPS+ constantly and ignore their own EQA and VORP. They'd have articles focusing on how dumb some front office was for passing over or trading away some hitter because he was a good hitter when their own WARP said the guy was so bad on defense that he wasn't particularly valuable. That lack of buy-in by their own writers hurt them I thought -- you don't want uniformity of opinion among your writers but they should at least be agreeing on the basic methodology and then work from there. You can't have an article proclaiming the superiority of your new measure then have your writers not use it 95% of the time.

I think this hurt the BP stats, but it was better for their writing. I think it's always better to use stats that everyone knows and knows the scale of. Fangraphs writers use their wOBA and their ERA- and I have no idea (hyperbole for wOBA, literally true for ERA-) what those numbers represent while ERA+ and OPS+ are on a scale that anyone can understand.

At this stage, advanced stats are all over the place and the FOs are generating their own. It's quaint that RDP still cites EQA (not that there's anything wrong with that). I can't recall the last time I saw a good piece of BPro analysis linked here -- is that a paywall thing?

I like EQA, but I don't ever look at it any more. OPS+ does a good enough job for me for now, that the extra precision isn't necessary that often.

I think this hurt the BP stats, but it was better for their writing. I think it's always better to use stats that everyone knows and knows the scale of. Fangraphs writers use their wOBA and their ERA- and I have no idea (hyperbole for wOBA, literally true for ERA-) what those numbers represent while ERA+ and OPS+ are on a scale that anyone can understand.

Agree, but I do think that ERA- should replace ERA+. It's a better stat(one of the few times I'll say that about a fangraph stat, it seems) it might take me half a season to get used to it, but the learning curve would be worth it, for the better scale.

I can't recall the last time I saw a good piece of BPro analysis linked here -- is that a paywall thing?

And that's fine, there's no need to be on the cutting edge of baseball quant analysis.

Possibly - the guys at BPro who do the kind of quant work you'd consider cutting-edge and interesting (Russell Carleton, Max Marchi, etc) tend to be behind the paywall, but often hard-core quant research pieces here aren't linked/are lost, so it could just be that, as well. As a comparable gauge, Tango links to BPro a fair bit (on his blog right now, three of the top seven articles about baseball are BPro pieces), and he's not the type to be taken in by a glossed-over piece intended for less sabermetrically-inclined fans.

I agree with Walt that front offices probably have largely surpassed BP, mainly because FOs can put a hell of a lot more money into player analysis -- working in video and the like, and hiring people specifically for a certain task/effort -- than BP can.

In the late 90s a clueless FO had much to learn from BP. Now with fewer clueless FOs that is not the case.

As for people here being as smart or insightful as the BP writers, sure, but people here don't focus their efforts towards analyzing a particular team or trade the way BP writers do. (Not that I read BP anymore. I liked to read the founders, but they stopped contributing for the most part years ago, and once Sheehan left I was done reading. But I still subscribe to have access to the player comment archives, which I quote here from time to time.)

At this stage, advanced stats are all over the place and the FOs are generating their own. It's quaint that RDP still cites EQA (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Well, people here are citing OPS+ frequently, and certainly EqA is a step up from that. I particular cite it when significant SB value is involved.

Agree, but I do think that ERA- should replace ERA+.

Lowest ERA-'s for any starter? The Big Train, and a skinny kid named Pedro.

Lowest ERA-'s for any starter? The Big Train, and a skinny kid named Pedro.

at 67, but I like the fact that the gap isn't as big between Pedro and others, as I thought that the gap gave a false sense of dominance. The 67(2.93)-70(3.12) difference between him and Roger seems much more closer to reality than the 154 vs 143.

I am glad the snark is mostly gone. It mostly wasn't funny and detracted from their goal.

and those writers seemed illing to ignore the numbers when they wanted to.

I absolutely hated the player comments that totally ignored the BPro stats printed directly above them.

I liked it when it was more entertaining, but then I seldom paid attention to the stat essays; I wanted to read the team essays and player capsules. Yes, it was inconsistent, often at odds with its own stats, but it was witty and sharp. When that started to ebb, I simply stopped buying it.

I liked it when it was more entertaining,

Yeah, entertaining is good. You can quote me on that. I still buy the book, the price is right, but I don't really read it anymore. I'll use it to look up a player I don't know about and that's pretty much it.

I still buy the book, the price is right, but I don't really read it anymore. I'll use it to look up a player I don't know about and that's pretty much it.

Bingo. Its role in my life as well, for about the past 5-10 years. You're watching a game and you want to learn something about a team's 6th reliever or backup middle infielder or something, and it serves as a nice reference manual. I think they've long ago said anything of interest they're ever going to say. It's hard to stay relevant for as long as they have been around.

I wrote team essays for the 2004 and 2006 books, and I spent an ass ton of time on them. More than the player comments, certainly. I have not bought the book in several years, so I do not know what changed. In my own research, I have found many of the team essays (1995-2006) to be interesting historical snapshots when trying to reanalyze the period.

I think a lot of this is just the mainstreaming of sabermetrics in baseball discussion. A lot of newer writers (this isn't BP specific) didn't come up "through the minors" in the same environment that the usenet gang did. And even the latter group is probably milder on average - I know I'm mellower than I was at 30 or 25 or 20.

I also think that there's a general trend towards taking things way too seriously. I know I get some tut-tut disapprovals from some of the more serious, wonky types when I suggest that sportswriting, even using sabermetrics, is entertainment first. But then again, I tend to think of the media job as the goal itself rather than a stepping-stone to a team job. As I see it, the cereal *is* the prize.

ERA- and wRC+ are clearly superior to ERA+ and OPS+. I'm actually kind of pissed that FG took stolen bases out of wRC+ because they takes away the biggest advantage it had over OPS+ (the other major one is the proper weighing of all events by use of linear weights, rather than the arbitrary weights of OPS+ which somehow end up being very close to linear weights) and it now forces you to look at WAR to get SB value (or else you can manually add it in, but that's a pain). BTW I think FanGraphs WAR is clearly superior for hitters than B-R WAR. I know cfb hates it for pitchers, but I find it a useful benchmark along with rWAR (you don't have to buy completely into FIP to find it a useful stat to look at).

As for BP, they are no longer subversive, but then again no one is. The last time seriously groundbreaking research was being done was 2 years ago at the Hardball Times and 1-2 years ago at BP (after they poached Mike Fast and Colin Wyers away from THT, ########). Right now the majority of teams likely have better saber departments (comprised largely of former BP and THT writers of course, as well some other writers for BtB, StatSpeak, etc.), but that's only because they poached all of the good internet analysts!

BP also seems much more scouting centric now, and there also seems to be an improved focus on quality of writing. So basically we're seeing BP and ESPN continue to merge closer together (which isn't a bad thing). But I'm guessing we're not gonna be seeing a lot of groundbreaking research for awhile (unless someone takes off the ground running and doesn't have much interest in working for a team).

i walked away from bpro some time ago and just as i was considering re-engaging i took minor issue with a bpro article and the author apparently mocked me at length on his twitter without engaging me directly

since i am not interested in lining the pockets of that type of nancypants i will continue to get my baseball info from the folks here and elsewhere.

Oh yeah, Dan Fox in Pittsburgh. Then there's Keith Law and Russell Carleton, who worked for teams in the past.

Mike Groopman with the Royals
Jeremy Greenhouse with the Cubs
Chaim Bloom and Dan Turkenkopf with the Rays
Jason Pare with the Indians

I may be forgetting one or two somewhere.

What post 34 said is absolutely true: wRC+ is objectively superior to OPS+ and ERA- is objectively superior to ERA+. I wish people around here would use the Fangraphs stats more, the extensive use of OPS+ and ERA+ on this site seem like they're more due to inertia than anything else.

the extensive use of OPS+ and ERA+ on this site seem like they're more due to inertia than anything else.

Because these stats are plenty good enough.

Because these stats are plenty good enough.

How is saying that those stats are "good enough" and refusing to learn and use newer, better, more useful stats much different from sports writers and announcers who stick with BA/HR/RBI and ERA/Wins because those are "good enough" to those people? So you're using the stats of 5-10 years ago instead of the stats of 20-30 years ago. Is that much better, if you just get stuck there and refuse to adapt when better stats become available?

I think that the "tameness" is an inevitable part of success. It's easy to be snarky about people when you're a semi-anonymous nerd in your you-know-where, but when you have success which leads to you being closer to the industry, in the sense that your readership could include front office personnel, players, agents, and so forth, suddenly the professionalism is dialed up a notch. I think that the current writers are collectively closer to the "baseball people" than the founders were when they started, so there might be a higher level of respect there. To call the Astros a bunch of idiots could well be calling some of your paying subscribers a bunch of idiots, and, yeah, maybe potential employers as well.

Full Disclosure: I work part-time for BP, although I don't write and my personal thoughts may not reflect those of actual authors, like Maury :-)

How is saying that those stats are "good enough" and refusing to learn and use newer, better, more useful stats much different from sports writers and announcers who stick with BA/HR/RBI and ERA/Wins because those are "good enough" to those people? So you're using the stats of 5-10 years ago instead of the stats of 20-30 years ago. Is that much better, if you just get stuck there and refuse to adapt when better stats become available?

The problem with your argument is that going from AVE/HR/RBI ---> EqA or is a much bigger leap than going from EqA ---> wRC+.

EqA gets you damned close. Increasing your precision from there is like upgrading from a $25,000 car to a $26,500 one.

EqA gets you damned close. Increasing your precision from there is like upgrading from a $25,000 car to a $26,500 one.

Your lack of need for a $58,000 car disturbs the market.

Does Dan Fox still work for the Pirates?

Yes.

BPro is really down on the Fielding Bible's defensive stats and the subjective vector approach generally. I trust their fielding stats much more. They've got Aaron Hill at roughly double the number of defensive wins as Darwin Barney, which all the numbers seem to support.

The problem with your argument is that going from AVE/HR/RBI ---> EqA or is a much bigger leap than going from EqA ---> wRC+.

We don't have EqA anymore, we have TAv. It's not just a rebadge anymore, TAv has a different methodology than EqA did. (And if you can tell me ANY gains from going to wRC+, I'd be shocked.)

What post 34 said is absolutely true: wRC+ is objectively superior to OPS+ and ERA- is objectively superior to ERA+. I wish people around here would use the Fangraphs stats more, the extensive use of OPS+ and ERA+ on this site seem like they're more due to inertia than anything else.

Bb-ref blows away fangraphs in speed, ease of sorting etc. If someone wants to use fangraph stats, it's a challenge to get the information. You are right it's somewhat inertia, it's also somewhat because of the attitude of the people over at fangraphs have turned people off of it. WPA is ####### useless, and when you see article after article bringing it up in an MVP discussion, you really can't trust anything else those people have to say about the subject. Factor in their moronic methodology for pitchers war and you have two of their headlining stats that are clearly crap, that it makes you not trust the rest so much.

But ultimately if their stats was easily navigatable and fast, we would probably work around it, even with all the other flaws, but utimately it's just not worth the effort for that little bit of gain in accuracy.

But ultimately if their stats was easily navigatable and fast, we would probably work around it, even with all the other flaws, but utimately it's just not worth the effort for that little bit of gain in accuracy.

It's mostly this for me. I try to put a priority on the search for absolute truth in baseball, but at a certain point my priority on what is easy takes over. Baseball-Reference is a great site to navigate, especially with my crappy internet connection. (Come to think of it so is BTF). Whenever I go to fangraphs to get some pitch f/x data, or any of the other wonderful things they have, I invariably get mildly annoyed before I get what I'm looking for.

We don't have EqA anymore, we have TAv. It's not just a rebadge anymore, TAv has a different methodology than EqA did. (And if you can tell me ANY gains from going to wRC+, I'd be shocked.)

And that points to another problem, I get trying to improve everything as much as you can, but when a stat changes(and eqa in it's day changed formulas year to year) then it's hard to rely on that stat. I understand that sometimes an error in logic can happen in developing a stat and that you have to change it's methodology, if it happens once every few years, that is one thing, the constant changing, means you can't use it as a reference for articles that someone is writing that they expect the reader to come back at a future date. If I'm going to use a stat, I have to feel fairly confident it's 1. going to be around in the future 2. that it's unlikely to change radically.

#28 Christina Kahrl used to be very good at the nastier snark. I know she's moved on. Her best compares well with the best of Szym -- and she has Dan on volume.

Gary Huckabay had an enormous influence on the tone (despite being one of the first founders to move on) and he was very much hit or miss. Dave Pease is still there and I wish he'd write more. An old usenet fave. (Of course it wouldn't be hard to find a snarky piece by Dave, but his signal to noise ratio was high and he has a sense of humor that come through nicely)

Even if TAv were 50% better than OPS+, it would still be hard to use here. People know what an average OPS+ is, what a good OPS+ is, what a great OPS+ is. They know that a 140 OPS+ is only 20% better than average and that if they get that wrong that Walt will fix it. We have a feel based on tens of thousands of player seasons of OPS+ numbers.