Comments on: The challenge of writing for a newspaper audience

By: New York Yankees: The Importance of Acquiring Cliff Lee | New York Yankees

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 02:16:37 +0000

[...] 13. Nov, 2010 0 Comments (New) Yankee Stadium, Jul 2009 – 14 Image by Ed Yourdon Wikipedia tells us that the newly-constructed Yankee Stadium cost roughly .5 billion, and it first opened for a pre-season exhibition game on April 3, 2009. I wasn’t there for that inaugural event, but I recently had a chance to see the new stadium as part of a tour that the Yankees provide several times a day during the season. The new stadium is right across the street from the old one, which now seems rather forlorn. I "watched" my first baseball game at the old Yankee stadium as a teenager, in the summer of 1956; I use quotation marks with "watched" because it was the summer before I finally admitted that I needed to wear glasses, and I couldn’t see anything on the ball field. (It was only years later that I admitted to my dad that that had been the reason for my lack of enthusiasm at the stadium, which had obviously disappointed him.) Anyway, we joined a group of other Yankees fans and tourists — some very young, and some very old — at Gate 6 of the new stadium, and were first taken to a room full of signed baseballs and World Series trophies. Then we marched along long, mysterious hallways, up and down various inner-sanctum stairs, and finally emerged at the edge of center field, for a view back toward home plate. From there, we headed to the "dugout" near first base, milled about for a few minutes taking photos, and then headed back to Gate 6, where we were given a souvenir and sent on our way … Note: this photo was published in an Oct 30, 2009 blog titled "Yankee Stadium, la casa más grande del béisbol." It was also published in a Nov 25, 2009 blog titled "The Economics of a Sports Recession." And it was included, along with several other photos, as an illustration in an undated (May 2010) Askmen video about New York City (about 19 seconds into the video). New York Yankees: The importance of the acquisition of Cliff Lee I had a terrible dream last night. It was the opening day, and the Yankees were visiting the American League champions, the Texas Rangers on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. Much to my dismay, Cliff Lee was doing the start of the Rangers. He had a front row seat with Nolan Ryan on my left and Kristen Lee on my right. Every time Lee struck out a batter, his wife spat on me, and Ryan gives me … Read more on Bleacher Report Extra, Extra Flickr user idle Gothamist Type in Twitter Follow us on Facebook and such. From the Gothamist Newsmap: A pedestrian struck on 116th Street, a fourth alarm at Olympia Boulevard, Staten Island, and a person shot on Lexington Avenue. Typical: The MTA may be forced to hire a contractor of the city wrong. If Andy Pettitte squares of another season, will only be for the Yankees. Is this a … Read more on Gothamist As Rangers try to woo Lee, mother of the word ARLINGTON – The Rangers are not blind, deaf or dumb as to what is happening with free agent pitcher Cliff Lee. /> Know Yankees general manager Brian Cashman was in Arkansas this week on a recruiting visit, meeting with Lee, his wife, Kristen, and his agent, Darek Braunecker. Read more on CBS Sports The challenge of writing for a daily public Marc Carige is the Yankees beat writer for the Newark Star-Ledger. My favorite is easy going * great guy Yankees, partly because he does a great job, in part because it is a good guy, funny and partly because we can say that he takes his job very seriously and thinks a lot about his art. That thought is on display today … Read more on NBC Sports: HardballTalk [...]

By: Chris Fiorentino

Chris Fiorentino — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 17:38:36 +0000

Just as Craig said there are a *ton* of people who look at Wins and Fielding %, I will tell you that there are a *ton* of people who read me WAR and use it as the Gospel. Even a minute difference is used to downplay everything else. Maybe they are not meant to be that way, and maybe stat guys like you use them as a guide. But that isn’t my experience most of the time.

By: Kevin S.

Kevin S. — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:56:27 +0000

Actually, if you’ve ever read any kind of Fangraphs analysis, they repeatedly stress that minute differences in WAR are not significant. The Book does the same thing. When Keith Law does analysis of major league players, he uses WAR as a framework, but then de-emphasizes players whose WAR are driven by large defensive components, because those numbers, while the best we have, are known to be imperfect. Your own Bill Baer has a fantastic handle on how to use WAR – whenever I’ve been linked to a piece of his, I’ve found myself nodding the whole way. Most people who know their way around WAR aren’t going to declare one player better than another based on a .4 difference.

By: Rob Abruzzese

Rob Abruzzese — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 14:39:48 +0000

Ah. I have to nitpick just a little bit. You left Chad Jennings out of your list of great beat writers. He may be one of the newer guys, but he’s certainly one of the better ones. Sorry, I’m done I just wanted to throw that in there.

By: Chris Fiorentino

Chris Fiorentino — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 14:31:08 +0000

“There are *tons* of people who still think FP and wins are everything and even worse.”

Then there are *tons* of people who are pretty stupid. It’s one thing to debate the merits of WAR, xFIP, and wOBA. It’s quite another to debate whether CC was the best pitcher in the AL because he had the most wins. That’s just being a moron.

By: Craig Calcaterra

Craig Calcaterra — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 14:05:33 +0000

Chris, even though you call yourself a non-stat person, the fact that you read baseball blogs and consume baseball online puts you way ahead of a lot of newspaper readers in your sophistication. There are *tons* of people who still think FP and wins are everything and even worse. They’re the people who get all of their info from newspapers or TV. And there are many times more of them than there are of people like us.

That’s who Carig is referring to and who he needs to address.

By: Chris Fiorentino

Chris Fiorentino — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 14:01:35 +0000

You took the two biggest jokes in stats and used them to make the case that sabremetrics need to be used more when writing about baseball. Even a non-stat person like myself knows that range and run support are more important than fielding % and Wins. Where I draw the line is when somebody has a WAR of .4 higher than somebody else, a stat-person will say there’s no question who had the better year. Or if someone’s OPS+ is 10 points higher, they had the better offensive year.

By: Kevin S.

Kevin S. — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:53:05 +0000

Have you read any of Fiorentino's comments? He actively engages in abetting ignorance.

By: Craig Calcaterra

Craig Calcaterra — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:47:45 +0000

I don’t think anyone needs to know those stats or really any advanced metrics by name or acronym. But I do think that the concepts behind them are important. Baseball fans, I think, have to know that a fielder not getting to a playable ball is a bad thing, even if it’s not reflected in his error count. They have to know that a pitcher can be effective, even if he doesn’t get a win (or, conversely, that he can be ineffective even if he gets a win).

I don’t care if they know the stat. But they should know the concept, and the writers should move the ball forward in that regard. Otherwise we’re just abetting ignorance.

By: Chris Fiorentino

Chris Fiorentino — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:44:40 +0000

I’ll never understand this incessant need to “mov[e] the ball forward in terms of statistics and analysis.” Why? Has baseball really been THAT bad the last 100 years that EVERYONE has to know what UZR and xFIP means?

By: Craig Calcaterra

Craig Calcaterra — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:34:47 +0000

I don’t have a personal problem with Madden. As far as the columnists go he’s better than most in New York. But yes, I take issue with him from time to time, as I take issue with just about everyone. That’s the nature of opinions.

By: stackers1

stackers1 — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:26:46 +0000

You’ve ripped on Bill Madden too. He’s always been my favorite NY baseball writer, giving fair & honest analysis on the Yankees, Mets & MLB as a whole. And the HOF recently agreed with me. Before the internet, I would cherish the Sunday Daily News because there was always a Madden article on baseball – even in the dead of winter. I can’t get through a paragraph of a Mike Lupica article without puking though.