Another week, and another round of BP Idol has been completed. If the first week’s results were surprising, then the second involves what might be a stunning development for those who enjoyed the winning, qualifying entries and then the first-round essays from each of the contestants. But before we get to that, a review of some of the responses to Week Two’s essays on Fantasy Baseball from our judges:
“I love this… Brian’s given something that makes sense on the face and then made it even more useful with solid explanations and examples. This article is precisely the type of thing I was looking for this week.” — Will Carroll on Brian Oakchunas
“There’s always more information that can be valuable, and this is a very good example.” — Kevin Goldstein on Matt Swartz
“What’s wrong with a high-end complicated suggestion for Fantasy content on BP.com? What Tim does here is really take things up a notch and show what is possible by setting the bar a bit higher.” — Christina Kahrl on Tim Kniker
Of course, not all reviews trended so positively, with some judges finding substantive problems in some submissions:
“Just a strange mish-mash of stuff, with equal doses of what might be misstatements or misunderstandings with worthwhile observations.” — Kahrl, on Brittany Ghiroli
“One of the things that each contestant was tasked with this week was something in each article that could help a fantasy team now… I’m not sure his “total score” calculation amounts to a real takeaway.” — Carroll, on Ken Funck
“It’s just a list of guys with very little analysis.” — Goldstein, on Jeff Euston
To recap, the voting process is straightforward enough: subscribers could vote for as many of the essays as they liked. Where last week no single contestant received more than 50 percent from voting subscribers, this week we saw an Idol first, as one contestant cleanly eclipsed that mark and then some: Matt Swartz’s “You Can Beat PECOTA Without a Computer Model.” That achievement sets the bar high, for himself and for the other remaining seven contestants. Equally strong was the electorate’s near-total rejection of two pieces, but in the end, it was Jeff Euston’s piece that finished in last place in the voting, both in numbers and in the percentage of votes.
Jeff, everyone knows or should know about your work at the indispensable Cot’s Baseball Contracts site, it was a privilege to count you among the competitors, and you should know how much everyone–here at BP.com, and hopefully in the analysis community at large–wishes you the best in your work. Again, our thanks for your willingness to participate.
Your remaining contestants
Questions or comments about the contest thus far? Leave them in the comments section, rate the best ones up via the plus/minus buttons, and we’ll review the favorites for inclusion in future BP Idol content.
I'll admit, though I had heard about your website Jeff, I hadn't looked at it until now. It's definitely a valuable, efficiently laid-out resource and makes me feel silly for my previous comment/link to the USAToday webpage.
Great job beating out hundreds of aspiring writers/reporters/sabremetricians to get this far!
I voted strategically this time. Two of the pieces I especially liked (Funck and Kniker) got a lot of negative comments, so I voted only for those two, in case either was in danger of elimination. I'm glad to see them both get through. Sorry to see Jeff eliminated, though. A good writer who seemed to offer a lot. I guess I'll just read him at Cot's.
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Flipping back to week 1, though Byron had a lot of negative comments, he wasn't the only one. Based on the numbers from last week, I guesstimated that there were around 900 votes for Byron and in hindsight, that number might even be as low as 700 votes. So, there are a lot of people voting that are not commenting. Now that each author has a bit of an established body of work, my voting strategy, so to speak, is to assume there's a lot of people voting who are not commenting and so I'll vote for everyone but the few I've ranked the lowest. I won't spend a week voting for everyone though, I'll leave someone off.
I understand the vote, but find it unfortunate as his body of work as a whole was much stronger than his last effort, leading me to believe that he would have been better able to raise his game as we move deeper into the competition. Congrats on making it this far, and good luck with your other endevours.
I agree with you to an extent. I wasn't a fan of Jeff's initial entry as much, but his Week 1 article was much better and he had a thumbs-up vote from me last week. Meanwhile, people who I had ranked lower than him like Tyler and Matthew had improved (or attempted to improve). Finally, responding to reader feedback is very important to a paying subscriber like me who is trying to learn or discuss these concepts.
I agree Matthew and Tyler picked their game up a bit, but Brittany didn't improve at all. Her most recent entry was a mess - far worse than Jeff's which was an easy logical read, if failing to have much analysis and lacked a conclusion. You ranked Jeff all the way below Brittany because she responded to a couple of her comments and Jeff didn't?
But a list isn't writing. It's just a series of words. And columnists need to write. It's a shame, because his two previous articles showed me that he can write. This time he simply didn't.
It is still an article. I don't care what the prose to list ratio is as long as I am informed and entertained. (Admitedly, I have always been a good list fan, if not an avid list maker.)
I know you are smiling, but I don't get your point. I was agreeing with Evan - just expanding on it and disageeing with R.A., but not contratdicting him. I acknowledge lists aren't really writing, but don't think basing an article around a list should disqualify it in this contest.
Then again, my failed BP Idol entry was list based, so I could very well be wrong: http://scoresheetwiz.tripod.com/id174.html
"...I acknowledge lists aren't really writing, but don't think basing an article around a list should disqualify it in this contest."
I would agree. The problem in this case was that it wasn't an "article [based] around a list" but a list with a smidgen of article.
I agree that the information presented was useful, but submitting something so list-y was a dramatic miscalculation on Jeff's part. I am very sad to see him ago, but am not at all surprised his article led to such a low vote this particular week....
She at least attempted to incorporate the feedback she was given and she did write a full-length article where Jeff's article was half of a list and a quarter of citing other authors. I'd said since the beginning that authors responding to readers was important. Jeff has written better articles for this contest so far than Brittany has, but she is trying to learn, she is trying to analyze and she did make some attempt to respond.
On the flipside, her comments back during her week one article weren't all that profound nor did little to encourage discussion, her first piece was 8 months old and might've gone through an MLB.com editor before being submitted here, and her assumptions and analysis about baseball are all out of whack. Unless something drastic happens, she'll get voted off soon. Does it matter to me as much if it's Week 2 or Week 3? She better hope for a great topic since it's make-it-or-break-it week for her... but then again, it should've also been that for Week 1 and Week 2. Even though I ranked her a bit higher than Jeff (which is based solely on her potential, diminishing as it is), I didn't vote for either of them.
So I guess the extra question to ask is why people are voting for her? What strengths does she have that outweigh what Jeff has contributed?
Even though Brittany is doing the worse (in my opinion, of course), the controversy around her is interesting enough that I'm glad she hasn't been eliminated yet.
I suppose Jeff wasn't that much stronger than any of the other weaker half of the candidates that his non-responses to his commentary is reason enough not to weep over his elimination. As a nice parting gift to us, I like his site enough to file it in my Favorites.
"Even though Brittany is doing the worse (in my opinion, of course), the controversy around her is interesting enough that I'm glad she hasn't been eliminated yet."
Its official, BP Idol has successfully copied American Idol.
The only potential problem with that is that if someone is a top person, they may be more inclined to punt one week. I think keeping the other eight in the dark help drives top quality.
Obviously, I mean a tally of how many positive votes vs. total views each author got -- generally, the whole point of any contest or election. Not a listing of who each particulcar reader voted for...
I think all the participants have a really tough job. They have to write about topics that may or may not be in their sweet spot each week and then subject themselves to a comment board that evokes a saying I heard a few weeks ago - "there are a million movie critics for each movie maker". Even BP doesn't ask their writers to address topics outside of their strengths. I think they are demonstrating a lot of guts and would like to tell them that I appreciate it and am enjoying their work. Thanks Jeff and good luck to everyone who remains!
I agree, it is a tough job and we can be a weird audience at times. I hope this contest ends up being a gateway so that multiple writers are hired for BP and for the BP Annual and that the others latch on to prominent sites as well. I bet it'd be great to see a Brian Cartwright essay in the next BP Annual, for example.
No question they all deserve thanks and a pat on the back. Here's one from me.
Are you suggesting which shouldn't be criticizing them? That's no fun. Is it cruel? Perhaps, but I would rather have my writing trashed than to not have made BP Idol at all, which I didn't.
Constructive criticism is a part of the process. I'm just offering some positive reinforcement to the writers. I think my main point which maybe didn't come through is the fact that they have to write about different topics each week - that's a pretty high bar for anyone - professional writers included. In today's society those who are elite at what they do are not usually "generalists". I was acknowledging the difficulty of what they are doing.
It is a high bar... but also, anyone who submitted for the contest knew they would have weekly topics picked out of a hat, word counts, and that their articles would be open to critique/criticism. No one knows exactly what it's like until it happens, of course, but they had a general idea of what could happen.
That being said, since it seems BP writers experience turnover as they go on to work for MLB teams, change their interests, etc... I sincerely hope that more than just the Idol winner is hired on by BP.
I don't know how the other finalists feel, but for me it's been a fun but terrifying experience. The vast majority of the comments are useful, even if they aren't always intended that way! I agree with hotstatrat, it is better to be a finalist and get criticized than not to have made it.
Totally with you there, Matthew. I've appreciated both the positive and the negative comments, and you learn very quickly to understand that you can't please everyone and you shouldn't take bad feedback personally.
Here's the one thing I never thought about until I started writing my Week 1 submission(and I hope this isn't too much navel gazing to discuss here):
When I wrote my initial submission and sent it in, I thougt "Great -- if it's good enough, BP will publish it, and that'll be terrific. If not, no one will ever see it, but I can live with that." But once you're in the competition, you realize that they're now going to publish what you write regardless of its quality. So if it's not as good as you want it to be? Too bad, everybody gets to read it and comment on it. That's the scary part.
Obvious in retrospect, of course, but I hadn't really considered that beforehand -- not that it would have changed my decision to enter.
I appreciate the constructive criticism and have learned from it. Some of the mean stuff seems unnecessary. It might be fun to watch Simon but most of us are better than that. (I've never seen the show, but I hear he's the mean one.) However, yes, I'm just glad to be here. Just my two cents.
I'm hoping that we as judges do a good bit of that, but I'm especially grateful to the readers who have invested the time to do so as well. It's a positive dynamic, one that I think we can all benefit from.
I think your comments are very useful and you've been a great addition to the level of discussion in these articles, Richard. Personally, I know how much work it is to do well every week in this contest and I am thinking less of myself than some of my co-writers, who are clearly talented but have perhaps struggled with some of the topics. While it is great for us all to get feedback, I'd hate to think that the criticism will dishearten anyone about the idea of writing about this game we all love, especially when some are so talented given the things that they cover well.
I'm glad you think so Brian. I'd like to think that regardless of the results of the competition, each finalist wants to get better and wants the feedback. I also hope I help set the tone and format of critique a bit so that things don't degenerate into outright name-calling and insults.
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How about where GM should be building... I find it a symptom of "business as usual" in Washington that they get bailout funds since they are oh so critical to the American workforce and American economy, then a few weeks later shut down all their American factories (but keep the overseas ones open).
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I’d just like to thank all the readers and everyone at BP, especially Christina, Kevin, Will and Dave.
I look forward to watching the contest play out. All the best to the remaining eight!
I'll admit, though I had heard about your website Jeff, I hadn't looked at it until now. It's definitely a valuable, efficiently laid-out resource and makes me feel silly for my previous comment/link to the USAToday webpage.
Great job beating out hundreds of aspiring writers/reporters/sabremetricians to get this far!