flop

so miniscule

Just for fun, try learning how to spell.

Just about two months since Posnanski dropped a new name in his series. That's pretty funny, considering the history. Thomas was literally tied with Bagwell in Posnanski's previous try, so you wouldn't think No. 80 would be a real stumper.

Par for the course for Posnanski.

But it's one of the reasons I didn't pay for his site. I find some of his stuff interesting (like this project) and others not so. So although I'm very interested in the Baseball 100, I was wary of essentially paying for that and then going through one—or many—of his dry spells while he writes about his love of television commercials.

According to his post here, his plan was to do two of those posts a week, which would get us through the list in a year. Well, he started on August 18, so we're 37 weeks into the relaunch...and he's done 22 names. Maybe it's going to pick back up again. But it's Posnanski, so I highly doubt it. I think he's going to go through a spurt like he's doing now, then another dry spell, and hopefully if we're lucky it won't take so long he needs to relaunch it again.

I get it, it's his site, his rules. But like I said, it's one of the reasons I hesitated to pay for his new site.

In the original version of this list, I included a bunch of Negro leaguers — I can tell you that four were in my Top 20. I still believe this. But Negro leaguers will now be a major part of my corresponding Shadowball 100…

segregation then, segregation now, segregation forever!
#sigh

segregation then, segregation now, segregation forever!
#sigh

false equivalencies then, false equivalencies now, false equivalencies forever!
#same old same old

Re the Negro Leaguers: in his first 70 or so picks the first time around, Posnanski chose five Negro Leaguers: Bell, Rogan, Leonard, Joe Williams, and Stearnes, and presumably would have added Paige, Gibson, Charleston, and at least one of Lloyd and Dihigo. (Irvin and Campanella counted as major leaguers). As strongly as he seems to be timelining, probably half of these guys would be gone, and I'm guessing that part of the motivation for the Shadowball thing is to discuss more than half-a-dozen Negro League players in the course of the project.

78. Santo

77. Jeter

76. Fergie Jenkins

Posnanski is working on about a three-year pace (the Shadowball thing is even father behind), so I'm going to stop checking in for a while. These are the players he's chosen so far, by position:

SP: Greinke, Santana, Vance, Verlander, Mussina, Niekro, Jenkins
RP: Rivera
c: Fisk, Rodriguez, Carter
1b: Mize, McCovey, Thomas
2b: Gehringer, Whitaker, Sandberg, Frisch
Biggio,
3b: Santo
ss: Utley, Trammell, Ozzie, Jeter
lf: J. Jackson
cf: Beltran
rf: Gwynn

Lots of infielders, lots of recent players.

Posnanski's been cranking them out pretty steadily, down to Juan Marichal at No. 68. This is the full list so far:

100. Greinke, Gehringer, Fisk, Santana, Utley, Vance, Gwynn, 93. (tie) Trammell/Whitaker, Verlander, 91. Joe Jackson
90. Mize, McCovey, Beltran, Mussina, Sandberg, I. Rodriguez, Ozzie, Frisch, Rivera, 81. Thomas
80. Gary Carter, Niekro, Santo, Jeter, Jenkins, L. Walker, B. Robinson, Greenberg, Roberts, 71. Ichiro
70. Ryan, Yount, 68. Marichal

Still just six players who I never saw play live, plus Roberts who was just hanging on in the mid-Sixties.

The first 34 players break down into two plausible teams:

100.-85.:

C: Fisk, I. Rodriguez
1B: McCovey, Mize
IF: Sandberg, Trammell, Whitaker, Utley, Gehringer
OF: Beltran, J. Jackson, Gwynn
SP: Mussina, Verlander, Vance, Santana, Greinke

84.-68.:

C: Carter
1B: Greenberg, Thomas
IF: B. Robinson, Jeter, Santo, Frisch, Ozzie
OF: Ichiro, Yount, L. Walker
SP: Ryan, Roberts, Jenkins, Niekro, Marichal
RP: Rivera

My intuitiion is that the first team is probably a match for the second, if everyone is playing at peak level.

67. Robinson Cano. The first 35 players include 10 infielders who were at their peaks in the expansion era.

Just passed the anniversary of the choice of Greinke at No. 100.

66. Ernie Banks

The overall pace of selections points to a revelation of No. 1 in July, 2021. The pace sustained during 2019 would push that back to December, 2021. The August pace (1) projects to a conclusion in early 2025. Mike Trout might be a reasonable No. 1 by then.

so miniscule


Just for fun, try learning how to spell.

well, actually 'miniscule' is a variant that has been around since the late 19th century, and generally accepted. if i was copy editing, i'd probably want to go with 'minuscule', but if the writer insisted it's okay, i'd leave it to the head of the desk. IIRC, we generally wanted to stick with the first spelling in whatever dictionary we were relying on. i suspect posnanski gets a light edit.

at this point, it seems like the vanity project of all vanity projects.

maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

New plan: after the World Series, Posnanski is going to change the project to a daily. The first 35 articles will be the ones he's already done, but updated. So there won't be any new picks until December. The "Shadowball" part of the project has been abandoned, but he's going to count down the top 20 Negro Leaguers next February.

There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.

Now set to begin around the first of the year, with all content at the Athletic. Posnanski is going back to the top 100 players from any league, and is changing up the ranking formula a bit, so this seems to be v.3.0.

315. Howie Menckel Posted: September 01, 2019 at 10:27 PM (#5876244)
at this point, it seems like the vanity project of all vanity projects.

maybe it just wasn't meant to be.