Week Three of Prospectus Idol was about the game away from the blinding lights of the majors, and our contestants either wrote an article about baseball below the big leagues that connected with the voters, or they were in danger of being sent down themselves.
As usual, the judges had lots to say about the entries. The good:
“This one has all the math chops, but is structured in such a way that while I can follow along, I can also ignore things like “population bands” and ratios and still come away learning a lot.” — Will Carroll, on Tim Kniker
“I’m also surprised by this one — very good storytelling and then bringing all back to the hardcore analysis you know so well. Very nicely done.” — Kevin Goldstein, on Brian Cartwright
“As a tandem of player profiles go, this was more than solid, in that he employed advanced metrics, updated us on a pair of prospects everyone’s heard about before the season and might wonder about now, and he made a point of getting an industry type to say something.” — Christina Kahrl, on Tyler Hissey
…and the not-so-good:
“I’m left with so many unanswered questions, none of which Matthew intended to raise with this piece, but many of which he raised at the end.” — Carroll, on Matthew Knight
“I’m still not sure what to make of this one. I don’t really get a compelling argument other than it’s not fair.” — Goldstein, on Brian Oakchunas
“It should have been either more of a story, punctuated with the questions and answers and returning to the team and the league and the challenges, or just a straight Q&A.” — Kahrl, on Ken Funck
The voters this week were decisive, and Brittany Ghiroli’s article on Pirate transactions and minor-leaguers wasn’t enough for them. Brittany, thank you for participating, and we see some bright things indeed in your future.
The contest is proving that it can be a difficult task to come up with a quality piece week after week after week. Some of the writers nail it each time out; some show signs of withering. The good news is that with each survival a writer has a new chance to really step it up and rise above the rest - take a breath then take advantage of the opportunity !
It is starting to get much tougher already. The round 3 articles were much better written -- and, for me, on more engaging topics -- than those in the first two rounds. I voted for five of the eight, and considered voting for two of the three that I didn't vote for.
Brittany is a really polished writer, but I think the topics so far, not to mention BP's basic approach to baseball, just didn't fit her strengths. I think hers was pretty clearly the weakest entry in a really strong round.
I debate about how I should vote. Should I vote for every article except the one I like the least (this week it was Brittany's) or should I just vote for the articles I like and would pay to read. I have been doing the latter, but I hate to have to make that decision.
Er, let them play for the bragging rights and make the $1000 contract a bonus.
With more writers, BP will have more content and might attract people from places they have posted before. Granted a place like ESPN is a bigger site and generally has 50 or so new stories a day. BP, on a good day, has five new pieces... would there be more subscribers if the daily content doubled? More pizza feeds, book promotions and other events?
If I was mapping things out, I'd pair some finalists with current BP authors so that their strengths can compliment each other. This would also free up some of the established authors to do more of their own research as well.
I imagine someone like Oakchunas would be a good fantasy contributor and could pair with Marc Normadin, Hissey would also help with fantasy analysis, as well as do sine great at player profiles and perhaps assist Christina with transaction analysis. Knight would make a great companion for Shawn Hoffman-style pieces.
I don't think Funck can be put in any kind of box and his uniqueness might bring in some newer readers. Cartwright can take his time for some real good sabremetrics research, perhaps helping to enhance and refine PECOTA. Tim and Matt have shown so far that they can write quality work that interests a lot of readers and can engage in discussion on their boards as well.
Maybe this contest can feed into some kind of BP writer apprenticeship type program or something...
I'd possibly hire all of the remaining writers, but by the time we get to the final five we'll certainly being voting away writers with the capability to contribute significantly. Whether BP retains seven, five, three or one of the remaining contestants, I'll be happy to see my subscriber dollars going to pay for those articles or Unfiltered pieces.
As an aside, I'd pay an extra ten dollars a year to see the remaining seven all brought on board...and, if you could, maybe that subscriber who used to post such long article comments under the pseudonym "Oleoay," too.
I disagree about the quality of the round. While I voted for everyone but the obvious one in the 3rd round, I thought the 3rd round was the weakest. But the issue for me was that the people who were doing poorly in week 1 and 2 (except one) did much better in week 3. And the people whose articles I enjoyed best in week 1 and 2, for the most part, had poor week 3 articles. So I thought that in weeks 1 and 2 we had some fantastic articles and some horrible articles. Whereas in week 3 we mostly had OK articles missing both the highs and the lows from the early weeks.
I'm not going to put down the whole thing, but for those interesed, the Week 4 Topic is to write a Player Profile of roughly 2000 words. The required elements of the profile are:
Background/History
Player Evaluation
Scouting Information
Future Projections
Btw looks like you can cycle back to previous Idol rounds easier and there's an indication if new comments have been posted since you've last read the article. Good job BP-techs.
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Good job, contestants. I didn't think the topic would appeal to me, but I ended up giving a "thumbs up" vote to 6 out of the 8 articles.