Today I am blaming Bill Dwyre for writing one of the most inexcusably inaccurate, willfully ignorant, petulantly anti-journalistic columns I have ever read about the game of baseball. Though trivial in the scheme of things, the piece is so excrutiating it’s worth talking about in some detail. I want to live in a world where no journalist, let alone “Journalist Bill” from my hometown paper (and former employer), thinks it’s OK to approach and execute such an exercise in self-satisfied know-nothingism.
The witlessness is advertised in the headline—“Angels’ Jerry Dipoto speaks to the SABR rattlers: Analytics can break player performance down to statistical categories, but the general manager still champions the the human aspect of the game.”
Look past the bad pun in the main hed, and imagine a sports-journalism mindset that comes up with the phrase “Analytics can break player performance down to statistical categories.” Wait—you’re telling me that baseball has statistics? In categories? What ever will those wacky pencil-pushers think up next!
...Moneyball (which Dwyre mocks as “a pretty good movie”) appeared on bookshelves a decade ago. The “stats vs. scouts” debate has been beaten into the ground year after year since then, as young analytical general managers have found success in Tampa and Boston (which hired—shudder—Bill James), while faring less well in Los Angeles (where Dwyre’s newspaper chose to mock the overmatched ex-Billy Beane deputy Paul DePodesta as—I’m not making this up—“Google Boy”).
As for evidence of what real fans are into, just look around you. This site and community, which I’ve been a part of since before the SB Nation days, is the largest and most concentrated gathering of serious Angels fans online. It is hardly a SABRtastic outlet—traditional whipping boys have included Rob Neyer and Baseball Prospectus, among others—but over the years it has reflected and participated in the exponential growth of interest in baseball analysis nationwide. And almost none of these grade-A consumers of journalism about Angels baseball gives a flying fig about the Los Angeles Times.
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1. Dale Sams Posted: March 09, 2013 at 10:33 AM (#4384890)Pretty much the only thing that makes HH less than a complete pile of garbage by the side of the road is the fact that Matt Welch occasionally writes an article like this there.
So where should Angels fans go to read related commentary that's "less than a complete pile of garabage by the side of the road?"
I reject the compliment! HH has all kinds of great stuff on it -- crazy-ass movie recreations, middle-aged punk rock burnout references, the best Angels prospects rundowns anywhere, super-useful daily press digests, and the odd video interview with Cheech Marin. There's plenty of intelligent conversation about analytics stuff, too. And, you know, other stuff.
Angels fans can read?
I have never been to your site, but if Esoteric thinks it is a piece of garbage, you must be doing something right.
Metsblog.com is ok, but not sure that's what you're looking for....
2.) Halos Heaven is widely reviled around the baseball blog community primarily because of the horrid behavior of its proprietor, the so-called "Rev. Halofan." As SoSH U said above, he is pretty much the "Fred Phelps of the baseball blogging clergy." To name just one example, when that Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart was killed by a drunk driver awhile back, RevHalofan found the home address of the guy's MOTHER and posted it to the site, exhorting people to show up there and scream at her and intimidate her. Why? Just because, you see.
Take the Rev out of the equation, and I'm sure it would be a fine place.
Good lord.
Battersbox.ca for the Blue Jays is absolutely great for info on Jays prospects and thoughtful conversation.
There's also a general tone of wide-eyed optimism there, that while I rarely agree with, I find refreshing. I haven't visited this off-season so I don't know how the upcoming season is being viewed.
Red Sox: Here. Or "Over The Monster". "Surviving Grady" is fun in an unabashed screw-the-Yanks-homerism manner. I've never gotten into "Sons of Sam Horn".
As an Expos fan, short of the very very occasional de-facto tribute page (as the only other recourse was to embrace zombie baseball and go the natinals(sic) route) I haven't really gone out and discovered some of the better team-specific blogs. I used to enjoy Miller Park Drunk a few years ago, but nowadays since it's gone and joined some sort of sports blogging network (and it seems to be on its second or third one at that) the content seems to be watered down insomcuhas there seems to be a lot more effort being put into putting out a greater # of articles. I remember the site being endearingly enjoyable circa 2008, back when the grassroots campaign against Remetee-brand clothing was a thing, but now the whole endeavor wreaks of people committed to putting out a bunch of articles in order to have the additional content rake in the advertising $$$. C'est la vie.
Also, I'd like to second the request up top for more suggestions/lists of quality team-specific blogs because I definitely could use some reading material for the season. As you can tell, I'm currently in a position where it takes me way too long to say absolutely nothing of consequence =D
But, inside all of that he is a good guy, very smart and passionate about the Halos. He has created a great blog where there are MANY great contributors, including Matt, but also some wonderful guys specializing in various parts of the game. Since the SBN reboot I go there much less, but HH has lots of good content that outweighs any irritation with Rev.
My 2 cents.
I think someone new should have the keys (and re-titling privileges) to the "It's Mets ... Just Mets" area or sub-forum or whatever you call it. We are not as hijacky as we were 5 years ago but there's still more than enough interest to get an article a week up or so, where we can debate minutiae in comparative privacy.
Yes, please. I'd be interested in ones with a minor league bent as well (Sox Prospects, Reds Minor Leagues, etc...)
I see Weissman still has his blog but the posts are few and far between.
And I've been posting here since most of you so get off my lawn.
Usually a badge of honor denotes an honorable action.
And sometimes it denotes that you've been slapped around by the King.
Geoff Young has a blog called Son of a Duck. Actually, he and pretty much every other non-SBN Padres blogger have their own combined site where they all have their own sections of it. All the non-Gleeman Twins bloggers adopted a similar approach a few years ago, too.
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