Hello, and welcome to another exciting week of Prospectus Idol, where we pit a gaggle of promising contestants against each other in a quest to find our next feature writer here at Baseball Prospectus. I’m Dave Pease, and-say, have you lost weight? You’re looking great this week!
Our remaining contestants were looking great this week as well-or at least they were looking the way they wanted to look. (Hopefully there’s some relationship between the two.) There were fewer constraints than normal on them this week, and we’re hoping you find they took advantage of the format.
This week’s format, from the virtual pen of judge and managing editor Christina Kahrl:
For your next topic, you’re being let of the leash a bit, having put all of you through a programmatic ringer in terms of writing Player Profiles. We want you to show us-and the voting public-what you can do when you’re doing things your way, but with one limitation:
From baseball history from the 19th or 20th centuries, pick a player, team, event, season, or issue on the subject of major league baseball, and do whatever you please with it. If you pick a player as the object of your focus, say to talk about his Hall of Fame case, or to do a Goldmanesque retrospective, do not pick an active player.
As usual, there was a soft 2000 word limit, and contestants were encouraged to include any charts or graphs they needed and to think outside the box.
Speaking of thinking outside a box: I’d like to take a question from last week’s voting intro article by taking a question or comment you have about the contest and answering it in this article. Please do submit anything you’d like to be considered for next week’s article in the comments section. Let’s start it up:
BP, another vote to get all seven of these guys on staff. Sign ’em up!-BurrRutledge
We anticipate working in the future with several of the non-winners of this contest. Things are in progress. We agree, this is a great idea. And Richard, I don’t know, is that really the right way to solve your problem?
Enough with the preliminaries though, right? You’re all here to see, in addition of the ads from our generous and attractive sponsors, the entries to Prospectus Idol: Anything Historical Week. Click here to visit the Prospectus Idol page. The judging panel has been joined by baseball history maven Steven Goldman of “You Could Look it Up.” Be sure to vote by Tuesday, June 22 23, at 8:00 p.m. Pacific, and allow a few minutes for our server’s fluttering clock.
(Just kidding-I just synced the clock.)
Thank you for reading
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*slaps himself in the head*
I'll just use a "Match Case" find, and it's good to hear that there will be opportunities for the non-winners too.
Seriously, it's not like I go about swearing, calling people names, misspelling words left and right and hopefully I don't come across as a complete moron... I try to put time and thought into my comments in an effort to help the writer get better. Yet, I don't even get "disagreed with" that from other votersoften in regards to BP Idol, just a negative feedback flag and forget so I don't even know what I could do differently.
I like participating in this competition but if people think I'm too spammy, offensive or dumb, I can find other things to devote my attention to.
+ this if you want me to keep commenting
- this if you want me to stop commenting
I feel like a bit of a jackass already for acting like the BP Idol chatroom police this evening, so I'll be quiet now. Just my two cents.
Anyway, I don't think you're a jackass and thanks for taking the time to reply. The only way I can change is if I learn about what I'm doing wrong to generate all that negative feedback and I appreciate your thoughts on it.
The NEW thing was in response to Dave Pease writing "And Richard, I don't know, is that really the right way to solve your problem?"
I guess I was trying to get across the idea that my "NEW COMMENT" suggestion was much ado about nothing. In other words, the suggestion was probably a ramble in itself.
What I really meant to do here is encourage people to come up with another idea for finding the new comments in comment threads. If there's anything else anyone has seen on other sites--like, say, a link for each new comment that one could click to head directly to it (kind of a comment 'table of contents')--we could have a look and see if we could implement it here.
But I wanted to make a case for Brian Oakchunas. I have yet to see the perfect article from him yet, but over the last three weeks, his articles have always left me thinking about his topics, much more so than any of the other pieces. He has tackled different areas, challenging topics and walked away with a point-of-view extremely different from anything that could be rendered mainstream. His voice may not yet flow within the writing, but his thinking and overall process have been extremely impressive.
My notation system is such that I'm effectively giving each article a score from 0-3 each week, and then voting for any article that scores 2 or higher. These are my average scores for each of the remaining authors:
2.40 - Brian Cartwright
2.20 - Jeff Funck
1.80 - Tim Kniker
1.40 - Brian Oakchunas
1.40 - Matt Swartz
0.00 - Matthew Knight
The eliminated authors would place 1st, 4th, 8th, and 9th if I were to include them.
Matthew Knight got my vote, but will need to make a much stronger effort to continue doing so if he survives another week. His back-of-the-envelope entries are nice, but lack the punch I seek from BP. I want heavier analysis, and he hasn't done enough in that regards (in my estimation) yet. He can write, and he is very thoughtful, but that won't cut it in the big time.
Brian Cartwright did not get my vote. He knows what he's talking about and he can take the numbers to places I can't fathom, but his big downfall, and it's one I'm becoming more and more convinced he cannot overcome, is his writing style. The numbers are the stars of his show, and the words just connect them. Baseball, in my humble view, works best when the reverse is true. The game is played, we can describe what happened with words, and then use numbers to back that up. He has alot to offer, but it's not enough for me. Not this week.
This is why I miss Dan Fox so much. And Michael Wolverton. And I wish Clay would write more.
I wish I knew. It's not that I dislike Brian C's articles... maybe it's a combination of topic and presentation... I'm just nonchalant about it. Which is weird because I find his commentary concise and insightful.
Ken Funck
Brian Oakchunas
Matthew Knight
Matt Swartz
Brian Carwright
Tim Kniker (worst article of the week, but still by #1 overall)
I ended up voting as I went, which was a bit of a mistake since I ended up voting for everyone and don't want to flip-flop on someone I previously voted for... but not quite a mistake because I like all the writers to one extent or another.
This week's articles weren't quite as strong as last week's and it has been mentioned people spent more time applying modern stats to historical events than talking about history itself. So, I thought I'd fill the gap by yanking a quote from baseball history that I felt fit either the author or their article for the week. The hard part about the ranking is that the top people from last week's rankings (with one exception) didn't do as well while "the pack" had better Week 5 articles... which causes the gap to shrink slightly.
#1 Tim Kniker (= #1<-#1<-#2<-#1<-#3) - "But god-damn, to think you're a .300 hitter and end up at .237 in your last season, then find yourself looking at a lifetime .298 average - it made me want to cry." - Mickey Mantle
This week was Tim's freebie. Ken and Matt have caught up to you though.
#2 Ken Funck - (+ #3<-#3<-#3<-#3<-#1) - "God watches over drunks and third basemen" - Leo Durocher
Loved the article. It brings you into a virtual tie with Matt and the jump to #1 just got narrower.
#3 Matt Swartz - (- #2<-#2<-#1<-#2<-#4) - "People think we make $3 million and $4 million a year. They don't realize that most of us only make $500,000.00." - Pete Incaviglia
Again, great commentary to clarify an article that was unclear to me at times. Didn't really slide as much as Ken made a nice jump and he's still a good leap above Matthew Knight.
#4 Matthew Knight (= #4<-#5<-#5<-#8<-#6) - "The kid doesn't chew tobacco, smoke, drink, curse, or chase broads. I don't see how he can possibly make it." - Richie Ashburn
Very good week, but not great. You've got a lot of potential, and you have improved, but it's a big jump to The Show.
#5 Brian Oakchunas (+ #6<-#7<-#7<-#5<-#10) - "One of the beautiful things about baseball is that every once in a while you come into a situation where you want to, and where you have to, reach down and prove something." - Nolan Ryan
Surprising entry lifts you out of the cellar of a very tight race. However, time is running out quick.
#6 Brian Cartwright (- #5<-#4<-#6<-#4<-#5) - "It ain't the heat, it's the humility." - Yogi Berra
I reread each of Brian Oakchunas's articles and Brian Cartwright's articles. I wish I could apply Cartwright's methodology to Oakchunas's topic choice and writing style. In the end, though I found both authors' articles interesting, I found I enjoyed reading Oakchunas's articles more (except for Cartwright's Sandlot article).
I think Brian would be a great addition to Baseball Prospectus. I think he has some great thoughts and is very active on the boards. But I don't think this BP Idol format plays to his strengths. Worse yet, I'm not sure if all the feedback is helping him improve, or if it is damaging his style and his strengths. From some of his comments, he seems to feel rushed too. I don't want to see him damaged. I'd rather he take a break and get back to properly researching topics he wants to write about then parlays those ideas into a consolation prize of a five to ten page quality, nonrushed essay in the next BP Annual. That's not a bad idea, right?
And I'm actually glad my rankings aren't in line with the voting since I didn't want to be accused of dominating the perception of each author. Also, as I said from the start, the rankings are based on my personal preference alone and not my "feeling" on who everyone likes the most... I also kind of hoped that by putting out a list, it'd set a tone for commentary and critique that didn't degenerate into namecalling.
Though I am curious (and I'm sure I'll never really know) how far I am off on my rankings... all I can really tell is if I have the last ranked person correct or not and I was wrong on Byron for Week 1.
Brian Cartwright is generally my favourite of the contestants, and is only ever surpassed by Ken Funck.
I actually liked Brian O.'s article much better last week, but have to admit this week's stirred up the most interesting controversy.
I'm not as sold on Matt's work as Richard and many others are. He's only had one entry that was a home run in my estimation.
That is a little more than I can say for Brian C. and Matthew, but I will feel badly to see either one of them Xed. Both have been making steady improvements in their writing. Both are very generous with their post article commentary. Knight is the better writer. Cartwright has the more significant content. (And contrary to Richard's opinion, I thought Brian C. had a better article this week than Matthew - and most of the others.)
At this point the commentary has been so divided over Ken's work, that in my only power to keep him safe, I have only voted for Tim and him - passing on the knife to the rest of you.
Ken was my favorite from his Initial Entry but I didn't quite catch the vibe on the rest of his articles for awhile. I can say with confidence that Ken, Matt and Tim have each had at least one article that a lot of people considered a home run and while Matthew, Brian O and Brian C have been good, I don't know if they've produced an article that quite "nailed" it for everybody.
I do agree that, this week, Brian C's article was better written than Matthew's, but Brian C's topic wasn't as interesting to me and once Matthew got going, I really enjoyed it.
Darn shame someone has to go.