Future Baseball Legends

[MuresanForMVP]

[ QUOTE ]
I think a lot of you missed hte point of this article. Not everything in baseball is some sabermetric dominated ZOMG he has the best VORP and PECOTA deal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well that's what this forum is, so are you surprised?

[EMc]

People just reading off sabermetric numbers remind me of the guys that call 21/10/3 over 500 hands a solid read.

That rant aside, I thought this was a good article. I liked the Eckstein part, they made a good point. Rivera piece was also well written.

[HajiShirazu]

Worst part about this is that from the Jeter comments the guy seems to have some actual sabermetric baseball knowledge but still can't resist the taste of the "omg he's a gritty clutch team player role model does it all gamer" cool-aid.

[mbillie1]

At the risk of drawing the scorn and mockery of most of this forum... what is PECOTA, sabermetrics, etc?

[mo42nyy]

I agree that people "being clutch" etc is often overrated especially when you look at the long haul of someones entire career. Andy Pettite is a great example of an overrated clutchness factor.
However at the same time to try and break a game completely down to pure numbers is impossible. I understand that many of these are adjusted stats etc. which are a more accurate
measure of a players ability than traditional stats, but it isn't a game played on a computer.
There is such a thing as intangibles. Some players are going to be more "clutch" than others (not by the amount many people make it out to be) 2 players with the exact same number in every single conceiveable stat can perform differently in different types of situation. Watch Tom Gordon in any big spot and tell me thats wrong/

[Rubeskies]

Sigh.

I hope you guys don't have children. Little Timmy, when I was your age, I watched [insert underrated player here] have a WARP3 of 132423-42394234 and a VORP of +6,000,000 ZOMG. He ruled [insert overrated player's name here] world because he only had a VORP of -2,21123.23.2342. PWNED!

My god, the kid would never want to play t-ball.

[Jack of Arcades]

[ QUOTE ]
I think a lot of you missed hte point of this article. Not everything in baseball is some sabermetric dominated ZOMG he has the best VORP and PECOTA deal.

[/ QUOTE ]

What does this post say about you? You're the first post to even mention sabermetrics. People object to David Eckstein being included in a list of "future baseball legends" and you automatically assume that people are objecting because sabermetricz ZOMG VORP PECOTA?

Maybe it's because David Eckstein is not a great player.

Maybe it's because the justification given was that he's "gritty and gutty."

Maybe it's because the idea of David Eckstein ever being remembered as a legend is so utterly laughable. In 10 years, David Eckstein = Mark Lemke.

[Jack of Arcades]

The article is terrible, not only because the players he picked have no business being on the list, but because of how he picked them.

Eric Neel is not an idiot, he's just a sportswriter. He picked these players with no consideration for their ability, but based on how easy it is to write stories about them.

Of course the problem is that lazy sportswriters are the ones who latch onto these qualities and propagate these storylines. Every week we get the same articles - Jeter is clutch, A-Rod isn't. Manny is stupid. Ichiro is cool, mysterious, and can do whatever he wants on the baseball field. David Eckstein is gritty.

Eric Neel does an admiral job of predicting the story lines of lazy sportswriters of the future - the cool factor of Hunter Pence, the funkiness of Jered Weaver and Cole Hamels, and the, uh, body type of Pricne Fielder. But is this anything more than a self-fulfilling prophecy? It's sportswriters who ultimately spread these stories and influence the public's perception of a player.

[delta k]

doug mientkeiwetz for keeping the ball after the sox won the world series- a legend!

[Rubeskies]

[ QUOTE ]
The article is terrible, not only because the players he picked have no business being on the list, but because of how he picked them.

Eric Neel is not an idiot, he's just a sportswriter. He picked these players with no consideration for their ability, but based on how easy it is to write stories about them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well isn't that the point of the article? That certain players have a persona that makes them more memorable than their ability? I don't think he is saying that guys with better story lines have more ability. He is saying that guys with better story lines are the ones that will be remembered OVER players with better ability for precisely that reason. We are a culture of myth, superstition and legend and the players that get stories told about them are the ones that are carried on in our cultural consciousness. For example, Johan might be the most dominant pitcher of today, but there aren't many things about him that make him memorable (as the article said). So who will we talk about down the line?


[ QUOTE ]
Eric Neel does an admiral job of predicting the story lines of lazy sportswriters of the future - the cool factor of Hunter Pence, the funkiness of Jered Weaver and Cole Hamels, and the, uh, body type of Pricne Fielder. But is this anything more than a self-fulfilling prophecy? It's sportswriters who ultimately spread these stories and influence the public's perception of a player.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree completely but doesn't that make the article even more interesting and postmodern? Talking about who we'll make legends of is, in itself, contributing to their legend. Whether intended or not, I felt that was a cool aspect of the article.