No time to wade through this Bill Simmons/Michael Schur mess…not with a slice of “Moonmen On The Moon, Man” cake waiting!
Schur: I’m going glass-half-full again: The team would have a great offense if I hit ninth. Ellsbury-Pedroia-Youkilis-Gonzalez-Ortiz-Salty-Crawford-Sweeney/Ross-Iglesias is a great lineup, and gets greater if Crawford comes anywhere close to his 2008-10 averages. Also, the team would have a very, very good defense if you played short. Those same eight position players feature above-average defense at basically every position, so they can afford to swap Aviles in for a little extra offense if they need to.
Simmons: Man, I hope you’re right. Having a crappy shortstop is like having a crappy goalie, point guard, field goal kicker or closer. It just haunts you day after day after day.
Schur: Well, remember, Pokey Reese played 96 games in 2004, sported a 46 OPS+, and the team won the World Series. It’s a sign of how spoiled we are that a roughly league-average SS hitting ninth makes everyone freak out. (Me included.) Scutaro was a solid player, but he’s 36. Baseball Prospectus has him as being worth about a win and a half next year, and there’s a decent chance Aviles/Iglesias can match that.
Simmons: Believe me, I’m fine with Iglesias hitting .205 and being a vacuum at short. I really am. (I love when we have vacuums at short. I still miss Alex Gonzalez.) But you’re much more optimistic about Crawford’s 2012 potential than I am. The Ortiz/Crawford combo scares the daylights out of me. We’re playing with house money with Ortiz at this point — for all we know, he might be older than us.
Schur: Ortiz? Come on. He doesn’t look a day over 48.
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1. Guapo Posted: March 27, 2012 at 10:50 AM (#4090051)This is perhaps the most Grantlandish sentence ever written. (I still chuckled.)
"He's taken off his shoes and one of his socks....I actually think he's crying."
Yeah, either that or Danny Glover falling into the archeology dig.
I read the whole thing and I think all the good and bad about Bill Simmons shine through. As Nate notes he says a lot of things that are not terribly accurate so it is hard to take him too seriously. On the other hand, I think Simmons accurately captures the perception and feeling of the great majority of Red Sox fans at this point in time. I can see most my friends/family reading this exchange and saying "yeah, that Bill Simmons really gets it. I agree with him 100%."
My favorite scene in the whole movie is when Chas says to Royal, "It's been a rough year, dad," and his voice breaks. This is Anderson's genius, I think. He has the ability to turn what looks like a caricature into a character with emotional depth on the turn of a phrase or an action. He did it in Bottle Rocket with Dignan. As he's walking into the prison he looks back at his friends. He has just shown unconcern and bravado with them, talking about having "CRS disease." But when he looks back, it's the look of a child who knows he has done something bad and is unable to bear the punishment he knows is coming.
Of course, there are many quotable lines from Royal Tenenbaums, and around our house they can be heard almost daily:
"Pagoda, where's my javelina?" [I say this nearly every day when I'm looking for something.]
"Grazie mille." Just said that last night to my wife.
This whole exchange (we say this more than we should):
"The black man ask her to marry him."
"No ####. What did she say."
"She tink about it."
I need to re-watch Bottle Rocket. Haven't seen it since it originally came out on video.
I know Schur said that the line that prompted this, but this seems like a decent summation of Bill Simmons' appeal to Sox fans. He's often talking completely out of his ass, but he's a good bellwether for the emotional state of a lot of (not necessarily moronic but not necessarily informed) Red Sox fans.
Ehh... Simmons knows plenty more about baseball than a fair share of other commentators. His problems are:
a) He's become stat saavy and I don't think he likes it. He's mentioned that it detracts from his basic enjoyment of the game (things like xFIP take the fun out!) On a related note, I think the Steroid Era also impacted his view of baseball by removing some of the mystique. His eyes are wide open to doping across sports, but for some reason (and I think this is the true of alot of people) he held baseball to a higher standard.
b) You can tell that he's a little out of love with the Red Sox, and that impacts his entire view of the league. The same has happened to some extent with the Celtics, but he's got the Clippers to keep him excited. If Simmons would just fall for, say, the Angels (Trout + Bourjos are young, unestablished, ultra-exciting players) then I think he'd become more passionate about baseball. Right now, he's mostly motivated by fantasy, and that's a different animal than following a team in the standings. It shows.
but based on the Red Sox fans I know, 6/Jose nails it:
EDIT: This is to say, amongst the Red Sox fans I know in the greater NYC area, the 04/07 honeymoon is over and the Red Sox are getting a little less cute to their fanbase.
Abe Alvarez was the only pitcher on their staff that was acquired by the draft. You have to get down to Nixon, Nomar and Youk before you hit a hitter who they drafted.
I'm kind of shocked the idea is getting as much discussion as it is. I chaulk it up to 1) he's awesome to watch in the field, (not so much at the plate) 2) Aviles and Punto are highly uninspiring, and 3) media outlets need something to talk about.
I think the biggest reason it was talked about was the trading away of Scutaro and Lowrie.
Dear Sally,
Are you going to summer camp this year?
Billy
Dear Billy,
Yes, I am going to camp. I'm going to be there the first week of August.
Are you going?
Sally
Dear Sally,
Yes, I will be at camp the same week. Meet me behind the big
tree after lunch on the first day.
Billy
Dear Billy,
OK, I will see you behind the big tree.
Sally
So, I leaned over and said to the 15-year old, as he sat texting on his phone "That's what we actually used to have to do". Hard to believe how fast things have changed.
Back in my day, we scratched it on a penny and waited for it to circulate to the intended.
I don't know about great but Bill Simmons has made a hell of a lot of money doing this so it's worthwhile in that respect.
I don't see it being that obviously terrible. As ellsbury says the alternatives are not exactly dazzling so the bar is pretty low. If his glove is as good as it's supposed to be then the bar for him being a positive player is probably about a 60-65 OPS+. There are all sorts of reasons to think he can't reach even that minimum standard but there is an equally real chance that the shortstop on the 2012 Red Sox capable of creating the most value is Jose Iglesias.
The only time Simmons doesn't write something that a few literate guys at the bar couldn't do is when he's bragging about how he's friends with Jimmy Kimmel, describing exact details of 80s movies, or showing off just how thin-skinned he is. I get the appeal, but only to a small portion of the population - sterotypical Bostonians - say the Ward family from The Fighter. Otherwise, all I can say is really? I mean, really, people, this is what you want?
Have you not heard of the Kardashians? Paris Hilton? Hell, Entertainment Tonight?
Couldn't disagree with this more. Virtually every single one of my college friends still reads Simmons. They are not all sabr-inclined inclined (and it's certainly not for lack of intelligence or ability to grasp the concepts), but they are smart, passionate fans nonetheless. I think it's odd how much sports writer hatred there is on this site. It borders on a weird form of animal farm-esque group think where only certain ideas can be discussed without ridicule. Selfishly, I wish we discussed the ideas more instead of ridiculing the source. There was plenty of stuff that could've been talked about here. Projections for Carl Crawford, Andrew Bailey staying healthy, Daniel Bard's usage to name a few. I'm just disappointed we chose to spend a lot of our time bemoaning--with at least a tiny whiff of jealousy--the success of a sports writer whose knowledge of baseball isn't up to the standards of this site.
I've heard that a lot(not just about Simmons, but other stat guys, and anti-stat guys) and I think it's hogwash. Not that I think it's hogwash that it might have took the fun out of it for Simmons. I think it's hogwash in that it shouldn't take the fun out of it. Those are evaluation tools, and should never even enter a fans mind during a game. If you like the game going into learning about stats, there is no reason for stats to take the fun out of the game. Baseball was built on stats, and for 100 years or longer it never took the fun out of the game, just because the better tools are getting recognized shouldn't have any bearing on that.
The game is fun to watch, it's fun to second guess, it's fun to enjoy the hot stove league. It's just fun 24/7/365. Before getting stat savvy a fan would second guess a manager for intentionally walking or not walking someone. Guess what, with the stats to back you up, you still do the same thing.
I mean, I'd rather have Pedroia every day of the week at 2B, for sure... I just miss everything Bellhorn represented for that era of the Red Sox.
Apparently.
I don't think Simmons is "the biggest sportswriter in the game today" but he is obviously immensely popular. You may not like him but it's pretty clear he is appealing to an awful lot of people beyond just the groups you list.
All the other Grantland writers who just copy his style are 1000x worse.
I see those differently though. Those are some fantasy lifestyles that Joe and Jane will never get to live. And look, some funny ****, that never could have been pre-planned, happens to them along the way. But they overcome, or better yet, have a nervous breakdown. Everyone loves a good train crash anyway. No one reads Simmons because they're secretly hoping that his latent racism shows up while talking to Obama.
...followed by people inflating the prestige and power of those same sportswriters by elevating the importance of their awards and HOF voting.
Well the favorite writers on this site tend to be guys that pretty much sum up our feelings, right? We all tend to like writers we agree with.
I'll give Simmons credit, I think he does challenge his readers now and again. But his role is really more entertainment than analysis. I don't really get why his columns always seem to generate such backlash here. Its clear Simmons doesn't take himself that seriously, why do some BTFers?
I'm not saying you need to be sabr-inclined, just that you would want to challenge your boundaries, at least a little. (EDIT: Royals - maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not seeing where he challenges his readers. And, maybe it's just me then, but I don't like to read the writer who is going to tell me what I already knew or describe how I already feel.) Simmons caters to the guy who's right, because, well, he just knows that he is (Hey! recent college graduates fit in here!) And I'm not bemoaning his success, I'm just saying I don't get it. And jealous? Yeah, I'll admit that I'd like to make as much as he does, supposedly on the low end of the seven figure range, just to make a podcast with my buddies, email Schur a few times, and call it a week. But I don't see how that invalidates my criticism or confusion.
I believe Simmons has acknowledged that the stats can refute his desired narrative, so he prefers to ignore them, as he is a big 'intangibles' guy. He does recognize their importance in understanding the game, they just don't fit with his style. I will take that attitude from a writer any day as opposed to the combative pieces that come out bashing advanced stats while the writer happily spews 'old-school' stats all day long.
Simmons writing may be full of schtick (he does come up with fantastic articles now and then) but he does not resort to hit pieces or tear-down articles. He may hate the Yankees and bash them whenever he can or get frustrated with latest Celtics trade but you can tell the respect is there. Unlike certain other writers who call players complete idiots for having the audacity to injure themselves.
Well, yes. I derive an inordinate amount of pleasure seeing Red Sox fans tearing their hair out about what is, at its core, a remarkably successful team over the last 10 years. I spent most of 2004 reading SoSH and chuckling at the constant sturm and drang over the team, which did not let up for one instant up to the World Series. Every little thing was a complete and total disaster.
Simmons gives me that pure unalloyed schadenfreude, pithily phrased and tied up in a nice package. Delicious.
That's the thing though. I feel like the writers who escape the wrath of this site are really the ones who echo what we already believe. Any writer who is not a disciple of this way of thinking gets ridiculed for these shortcomings rather than finding something worthwhile to discuss from the article.
And I'm not bemoaning his success, I'm just saying I don't get it. And jealous? Yeah, I'll admit that I'd like to make as much as he does, supposedly on the low end of the seven figure range, just to make a podcast with my buddies, email Schur a few times, and call it a week. But I don't see how that invalidates my criticism or confusion."
I think you're not giving him enough credit. It's clear he puts a lot of time to these "email exchanges". His podcasts are carefully researched (you can tell by the questions he asks) and I thought his 30-for-30 was incredibly well conceived and in many cases, well executed. Some of his heavier NBA columns bore me (just not that huge a fan), but all-in-all, I find him to be smart, self-aware, and not a condescending curmudgeon or a self-important ass. I think that's basically a victory given what's out there.
It's not that he just channels Joe Fan but that he does so with some "style" that makes it entertaining for some. Joe Fan is saying "Crawford sucks", Simmons is saying "Crawford couldn't score with Lindsay Lohan on a crack binge." See Simmons is funny. :-)
Seriously, Dave Barry doesn't say anything anybody doesn't already know, reduces life to simple-isms and re-runs the same schtick week after week ... and it works for a lot people. Simmons is just a Dave Barry of sports.
As to a long email exchange -- it's with Schur, a "major celebrity" for a certain crowd.
In short, Simmons and Schur's target audience is the folks who think it's cool to memorize lines from Wes Anderson films but are actually just Joe Fans when it comes to baseball. It's preciously ironic or ironically precious or something.
Clearly true cool is listening to Henry Threadgill and being well above it all when it comes to writers like Simmons. :-)
That's an incredibly optimistic valuation of his defense, and even if it pans out, we're still talking about a guy who put up a .235/.285/.269 batting line last year at AAA. He has no component offensive skills on which to build.
The Red Sox don't need a high-upside shortstop. They need a low-variance one, to minimize the chance of him sucking badly enough to blow up their season.
He once wrote a piece seriously discussing whether Roger Clemens is the anti-Christ.
For that matter, Alex Rodriguez, Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Patrick Ewing and a thousand other indisputably great athletes would disagree.
Simmons' hit pieces aren't as crude as what you'll see out of Shaugnessey, Pearlman, Whitlock or Mariotti. There's a lot of long-distance psychoanalysis, a lot of sentences like, "Anyone who watches the [team] play with [player he hates] can see how much they hate him." But one of my main issues with Simmons has been the extent to which he just doesn't seem to like athletes. There just seems to be no joy at the human greatness of sports. I struggle to see how someone can write about Dwight Howard and never convey any sense of wonder, can utterly fail to chronicle for the reader the magnitude of what Howard can do on the court. That's of less interest to Simmons than a long, rambling argument that Howard's nice-guy persona is just an excuse to avoid taking the "alpha dog" role on a contender.
Really? I always thought Simmons was one of the few writers who did have that joy at sports. I don't read him much anymore so maybe that has changed.
Oh, please. He also coined the phrase "sports hate".
"If you're not familiar with the term, "sports hate" is an underrated part of fandom. Everyone has guys they don't like, and more importantly, guys they enjoy not liking. The reasons are unique to us. There doesn't have to be anything rational about it. Sports hate can be triggered by one incident, one slight, one game gone wrong, anything. "
Totally disagree.
That's an incredibly optimistic valuation of his defense, and even if it pans out, we're still talking about a guy who put up a .235/.285/.269 batting line last year at AAA. He has no component offensive skills on which to build.
I don't think so. All off-season I've been using Jack Wilson as my baseline. The last two years for Wilson (according to BBRef) have been;
2010 - .249/.282/.316 - 68 OPS+ - 1.3 WAR (0.4 oWAR/0.9dWAR)
2011 - .243/.274/.285 - 59 OPS+ - 0.9 WAR (0.5 oWAR/0.4dWAR)
I think that's a reasonable comp. No bat, above average glove, not any base stealing credit to speak of. I don't feel like that's an outrageous forecast of Iglesias' defense.
Wilt Chamberlain is #1.
Couldn't be more wrong. He's the anti-CHB. Simmons LOVES sports and LOVES athletes, and it comes through in his writing. Does this mean he loves all athletes? No. But we have our fair share of whipping boys on this site too, and I don't think it means we hate baseball.
I think the appropriate comparison here is actually Tony Pena, Jr. circa 2008. Though even that undersells it a bit - Pena was a much better hitter at AAA in 2006 than Iglesias was last year.
Yeah, he tosses in the dig at the end (and don't ignore the fact that the exact same thing can be said about Jordan), but how is this anything other than respectful to Bryant?
No, he once wrote a piece playfully discussing whether Clemens was the anti-Christ. And it was funny and entertaining (and informative, to someone like me who doesn't follow the Red Sox) as hell.
I don't think he's an #######, Roger, I just think he's kind of a son of a #####.
To me, it seems like the writers who face the wrath of the site are the ones who seem to go out of their way to bait the sabr-crowd. Yeah, you'll take a few shots if you only use batting average or wins to judge an individual player's value, but you don't have to be a disciple to say something that gets positive feedback here. And I think a better example can be seen by using the sabr-crowd. Bill James is still challenging what we think is correct. Some writers at fangraphs tell us that the average team is paying $4.5 million for 1 fWAR and thus Joe 2.0 WAR's new $7 million/year contract is a good deal. There's a difference.
And I don't see a lot of work done on the email exchanges. Something pops in his head, and here's the new road we're going to go down. I'll admit to listening to few of his podcasts, but I don't see the work you do. Yes, he researches (just look at his book) but I don't think he gets anything that most writers couldn't get out of the same interactions. Also, he's just so awful to listen to. And, he may be smart, but what comes out is the lowest form of analysis and sounds like sports talk radio. Like 17 said. And no, he's not Mariotti, but his thin-skinnedness sure comes off as a self-important ass to me.
Okay, fair enough. I just thought the "antiChrist" thing was obvious hyperbole. It's true, though, it was a pretty negative piece, although it doesn't come off as unfair, just a heartfelt Boston fan's anguish.
Here's the column
(By the way, when I typed "Is Clemens" into google, it auto-completed "the antiChrist."
I think of a "hit" piece a little differently than you perhaps. So I won't argue semantics. One thing I appreciate, however, is that since he doesn't associate with most athletes, he's not caught up in a game of slamming someone because they don't give a good quote, or because ownership wants them too. He might have said Clemens was the sports anti-Christ. But after 1999, watching Clemens take his game to another level with the Jays and then win a World Series with the Yankees, didn't a lot of people feel the same way? He comes at it from the perspective of a fan, warts and all.
I'll close with this (and I don't want go off the reservation as a Simmons apologist). His column in 2003 after Aaron Boone was one of his best. My college roommate (huge Sox fan) read it and simply said, "wow, he simply nailed it." Articulating those complex emotions of being a sports fan is a skill. Maybe it's a skill that isn't as interesting to some as to others, but it's a skill nonetheless.
This is an important part. And yeah, he articules the emotions well, but I don't see how they are complex. Turn on your local sports radio station, and you'll here these emotions frequently. I'll give him credit for articulating them with a college education, but I don't think its that special a skill.
I generally like his mailbags, but I agree that they turn bad when it's too much re-feed of his own style and, as you say, rhetorical devices. It's no good when he picks an email that says "I'm a Bulls fan, and Luol Deng is like this girl you date, but... blah blah tortured and played-out analogy blah blah..."
Agree to disagree I suppose.
Yup, I definitely see all of that in this column -
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090122
The hit piece he puts on this dog is simply despicable.
I agree with all of that. You don't need to know xfip while watching a game. If you think it ruins the game for you, then don't pay attention to it. But there is also fun in watching it in action. Let's say you have an ace level pitcher going and he looks like he's on, and he allows a seeing eye single, it just reminds you why xFip is accurate. You can even play games where you count the plus minus on well hit balls turned into outs, and weak balls that become hits etc. It can add a layer of appreciation to the game if you are willing to embrace it. Not just dips, but anything out there. Watch a game and remember the mantra "there really is no major difference between getting on by a single or by a walk" and again pay attention to how often it actually makes a difference?
We'll start with WTF is Patriots day? Don't we have enough holidays to not add more, especially another patriotic holiday. I love Independence Day(or fourth of July if you prefer---not talking about the movie either) but is there a reason to have another patriotic holiday?
I wonder, if the Red Sox make the playoffs, does Simmons remember
I do love Simmons comment on the Francona firing, calling it the Manny Ramirez scholarship, while Simmons blasted the Boston press.
Have to agree with the criticism of Simmons revisionistic history on how the Championship teams were built he says building the team with under 29 elite players was how Theo built the first champions....Just looked at bb-ref and the only under 29 year player they had on the starting roster was a 28 year old David Ortiz, Gabe Kapler and his 77 ops+, and Youklis with 72 games played. The rotation had Arroyo at 27, and nobody in the pen under 28 with more than 29 ip.
Yeah but if that piece was about Pedro you'd be applauding it! (J/K)
Boston also has another patriotic holiday: Evacuation Day, which "coincidentally" is the same day as St. Patrick's day, in addition to Patriots Day, which just happens to be celebrated on the day the Boston Marathon is run. The Sox play a morning game every year on Patriots day.
That's the one where the cops freak out and remotely detonate a harmless LED board, right?
The Simmons-Poz comparison might get at something, actually. I mean, Simmons's persona is the Regular Guy Writ Large for, you know, coastal elites; Poz is the exact same thing for midwestern Joes. Who you prefer will depend on your relationship to that dichotomy*, no?
*yeah, it's a dumb dichotomy.
I think he has admitted that he doesn't write as much about baseball as he used to because baseball fans are more savvy about statistics now and they will call him on his mistakes.
Isn't the biggest thing we like about Poz is that he is a lot more knowledgeable about baseball?
the good news is that it's a tough place to hit and will translate almost at par. The other piece of good news is that it was something of a disappointment. ZiPS for instance expects a tad more this year.
The bad news is that we're talking a 59 OPS+ with a slightly optimistic take on his minor league career. With Jim Scranton. Fred Manrique and Eddie Zosky as his top comps.
Simmons has come around a bit on Bryant (as well as on ARod and Peyton Manning) for a simple reason: ringzzzzz. Prior to 2009, though, he was as nasty about Bryant as anyone.
One thing that is very clear about Simmons is that male-bonding is a big deal to him. That comes through in both irritating ways (the sexism, the frat-boy schtick) and in more substantive ones (stuff he says about his dad, descriptions of jocks he loves, like Bill Russell) and other ways (using Joe House on his pods). So, superstar jocks who are not "one of the guys" types who play on teams that are rivals of Boston (Chamberlain, Kareem, Kobe, Manning, ARod) even if they are vastly different personalities, as those guys all were/are, will take some serious crap from him. But if you win some ringzz (particularly a lot of them, like Kobe and Kareem) Simmons will give you some respect even if he doesn't like you.
So the "evacuation" refers to one's stomach?
Agree. Simmons is an NBA fan and a water cooler sports fan beyond that, at best. His MLB banter is always forced, he actually insults your intelligence.
Any excuse to talk Threadgill is OK by me. This piece, written by the father of Nas, is one of my favorites.
Michael Schur co-created Parks & Recreation. I'll happily read him fret about one of the wealthiest teams in baseball.
And was one of the guys over at Fire Joe Morgan (aka Ken Tremendous).
"Talent" and "Bill Barnwell" - I'm not sure that computes.
I totally agree. This is why Simmons is so popular, yet also very polarizing. He definitely has a voice(*) that appeals to men of all ages. However, he's also kind of a dick about things; you don't have to be sexist to bond with other guys, especially with sports as the primary focus.
(*) I think voice gets forgotten about too frequently when we discuss writing. A good voice - or style, if you prefer - is something that will keep me reading someone's articles, while a bad one will cause me to just not care. We're all human.
This.
Sometimes a fun read though.
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