Chad Finn takes a look back at those Zangerific Scouting Reports books from the 80’s.
Anyway, that explanation before I stumble into another too-early digression: Those snippets are from The Scouting Report: 1984, an annual that had a five-or-so-year run among baseball junkies in the middle of that decade.
...The inside-baseball candor, which felt like eavesdropping on a b.s. session among sharp-witted, Copehagen-stained old scouts, was enhanced by the one-paragraph commentary on each player from one among broadcasters Dave Campbell and Denny Matthews and legends Brooks Robinson and Duke Snider. It was intoxicating: Who knew Jerry Remy and Glenn Hoffman were “The Squeeze Men” on the Red Sox? Actually, based on what Margo Adams revealed a few years later, that designation should have gone to Wade Boggs. Speaking of outdated attempts at comedy …
If [Graig] Nettles ran the 100-yard dash against Lou Piniella, nobody would win … [The A’s] would like to see him stop smoking and put on a few more pounds, but [Chris] Codiroli rather fancies himself as is ... [Ned] Yost seems to be a follower, not a leader … [Bob Horner] is signed to a big contract and is expected to win the Triple Crown before the contract expires ... Bill Scherrer doesn’t look like an athlete. His teammates call him “Cig” because he smokes a few from time to time but mostly because he is built like one of those long, slender 10mm jobs ... You might say Jose Cruz has been very, very good to baseball ... The Astros have a nice problem. So does [Frank] DiPino, a bachelor who is often told by the ladies he looks like John Travolta … [Frank] LaCorte has changed uniform numbers, shaved off mustaches, even burned his uniform in attempts to fight off evil demons.
...I love these Scouting Report books. Not in the way I treasure an old Abstract or look forward to learning from the Baseball Prospectus annual—I don’t value the Scouting Report for input, but I love them, for all of their flaws, for their attempts at insight, but mostly for how they are a reminder of the knowledge we’ve gained. They’re earnest, a semi-accurate, jargon-laden, win-loving, RBI-fixated baseball time capsule of an era that existed a half-decade before Mike Trout was born. They were what we had, dammit, a charmingly misguided attempt at thorough analysis. Just like my just 14-year-old self who devoured them en route to something better, they had no idea what they didn’t know.
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1. Benji Posted: November 27, 2012 at 08:31 AM (#4310403)lordy lordy I remember that joke
1984 was the first time I bought a Bill James Abstract.
To say it was an eye opener at the time was an understatement
I would buy that book now honestly, it sounds neat. I'd love to hear scouty thoughts on current players.
His new thing is that baseball statisticians only like stats because it makes them feel superior to people who don't understand them.
Just because there is room for both, does not mean one at its worse is no better than tabloid journalism... what insight is gained by saying Horner will win the tripple crown. Yea, he was a good to great player when not injured, but he was never going to come close to winning the tripple crown. He hit HRs in the top 5, but he was on a Braves team that rarely scored, and his avg was only top 10 once.
That being said, i can see how this treatment would put off the fans who thinks its useful information. Oh well.
What insight is lost? Where's the harm?
That's your standard?
Seems...low.
Seems...low.
It's not my standard; it's two questions. The answer to one of them is that there's precisely zero harm in publishing a "scouty" observation that someone, somewhere expects Bob Horner to win a Triple Crown.(*) And a lot of good -- that's an interesting thing to know.
(*) And if that's the case, then why do people publish 1,500 words on how much smarter they are than baseball watchers in 1984?
In a word: yes.
And they had two guys named Rick ready to take Phil Niekro's place.
Horner, though, was a fat lazy slob, and never came close after that. But that certainly doesn't make it wrong for people to have expected him to win a Triple Crown. There's certainly value in learning what was expected of players, even if they never fulfilled those expectations.
The insight that is lost is
1) This is 1-2 years after it was even remotely plausible that Horner could be a tripple crown winner.
2) It ignores his already fairly serious injury risks
but yea, those are minor.
In general I don't think there is any harm. I used to think that comments without much thought that appealed to uninformed romanticism were harmful as they reinforced non critical thinking... but I now think that some people will always be non-critical thinkers, and they need an outlet that they can appreciate. Its not for me from an analysis POV, but the colorful language can be beautiful .
Yeah, I think there's a kind of Bill Simmons-ish sports writing that is just uncritically talking about sports. Not all conversations about sports need to be highly serious and informed. It's sports. They're kind of ridiculous to begin with. Some people get really into the theory behind player value quantification and whatnot (ie, this website), and that's great, but every conversation doesn't need to be about that.
However it's frustrating in any subject area when someone not only doesn't seem to get basic concepts that you have spent tons of time thinking about, but they aren't interested in really learning them. At least in baseball the stakes are a lot lower than what I deal with in biomedical research, where there are lots of half-assed opinions about things that really are dangerous.
As to the other BS in the thread....just wow....attempts to start conversation are always good. Blatant, unsolicited attempts to use specific words that one knows will incite particular responses and behavior is often the behavior of a sociopath. Just sayin'.
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