Newberg Report Q&A

between the eyes.

It’s just mind-bending how so much poor analysis can really be packed into one place. In one way it’s too good to be true because it can be funny as hell, but after you’re done laughing you realize that the fact that such a poor caliber of work exists is kind of horrifying and slightly offending because half-assed sites like yours are what the MSM points too when it criticizes the credibility of bloggers and the internet.

Perhaps the worst part however, is despite the fact that while you say you’re willing to accept negative attention over no attention at all and gleefully incite and participate in flamewars, you still expect to be taken seriously and fly off the handle when people refuse to do so.

This is something I had to learn the hard way when I joined LSB myself: unless you’re some kind of professional scout or established brainiac, you can’t assume you know something everyone else doesn’t and you can’t earn any respect if you’re not willing to defer to what the professionals and talking heads have to say. I pretty much came here with the same attitude you’ve got only to find out may baseball knowledge was pea-sized compared to most of the other people’s here. The ensuing arguments still reflect poorly in some people’s opinions of me today (although I like to think that I’ve moved past that for the most part thanks to the fact that LSB eventually wore me down and taught me what it knew).

My advice to you, if you’re really interested in improving your work and becoming a respected amateur minor league blog would be to: (A, look closely at and draw from the work of guys like Jason Parks, Scott Lucas and Mike Hindman. Those guys already are what you want to be. (B, learn more about stats that can help draw you a wider picture of a players performance like BABIP, FIP, K and BB rates, ERA+ and tRA, et cetera. And (C, if you’re really serious about providing data about minor leaguers, get subscriptions either Baseball America or Baseball Prospectus (or both) and work off what their scouting reports and experts have to say when formulating your own blurbs about these players.

But if all you want to do is get on the internet and spout your own unsubstantiated opinions about prospects and expect people to take them seriously when you’re incapable of backing them up with any kind of accepted rationale or analysis, then you’re never going to be taken seriously by anyone.

that’s a funny way to spell amused.