Baseball Prospectus

[sterlingice]

I know there are some other BP readers on here and I was wondering if this was just in my mind or if others were seeing it.

Pretty much every day I read the BP Notebook where they take 2 or 3 teams and write little statistical nuggets about them. Great pieces typically, but lately they've become inundated with fluff. An occassional Simpsons or Seinfeld reference can be effective but the Prospectus Notebook articles are starting to sound like the Bill Simmons articles, as discussed in the other thread. And not in the "he's a pretty good writer" sort of way but in the "all of my 'content' now consists of inside jokes and mindless banter" sort of way. Give me back my pure baseball

SI

[Easy Mac]

they need to cover up how wrong they are, so they add fluff... how else to explain their dodger's writeup.

[st.cronin]

I will not be renewing my subscription. For a long time now, Will Carroll has been the only reason to go there.

[John Galt]

I still like BP although I agree the jokes often detract from the substance. The study columns, however, are probably more serious than they have ever been. I thought Silver's column today on player development by position was very interesting.

I'm not sure I understand Easy Mac's comment at all.

[Easy Mac]

Did you read the latest book? They basically predicted the Dodgers to dominate baseball. Just a continuation of their sabremetrics explains all.

[John Galt]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

Did you read the latest book? They basically predicted the Dodgers to dominate baseball. Just a continuation of their sabremetrics explains all.

I'm still confused. I didn't think the Dodgers would be as good as some BP writers did. Mostly, I thought the pitching was too thin (I thought the Lowe signing was bad), but the offense would be as good as can be expected in their stadium. The Dodgers may still do well over the next few years. Why is the Dodgers success one way or another a litmus test for BP or sabermatics in general? The Dodgers are still very much a hybrid organization in terms of personel choices and the Lowe signing supports that. I guess I don't understand why the Dodgers prediction means BP isn't a good site with lots of good info.

[dixieflatline]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Pretty much every day I read the BP Notebook where they take 2 or 3 teams and write little statistical nuggets about them. Great pieces typically, but lately they've become inundated with fluff.

When were they ever great pieces? I thought the free material pretty much were fluff from they day they moved to a pay site. Their pay material looks decent and they have some very useful free stats but the notebooks are pretty much a joke IMO. If they want to draw more people to their pay service they should really think about upgrading their free stuff.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by dixieflatline

When were they ever great pieces? I thought the free material pretty much were fluff from they day they moved to a pay site. Their pay material looks decent and they have some very useful free stats but the notebooks are pretty much a joke IMO. If they want to draw more people to their pay service they should really think about upgrading their free stuff.

Well, ok, not great, but fun little tidbits. Still better than the "indepth" baseball coverage on espn or some other major site. They aren't really meant to be comprehensive but just fun little trivia, near as I can tell, and it did that well.

SI

[JasonC23]

I've been 100% satisfied with my subscription to Baseball Prospectus. To me, it's just the right blend of serious statistical analysis and oddly placed jokes.

I think part of the reason the notebook is seeming less and less statistically inclined lately is because we're near the end of the season, and with some of the teams, there's no much left to write about. (Granted, they should still find something interesting to say, but I think it gets harder.)

[dixieflatline]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Well, ok, not great, but fun little tidbits. Still better than the "indepth" baseball coverage on espn or some other major site. They aren't really meant to be comprehensive but just fun little trivia, near as I can tell, and it did that well.

I'll admit I am pretty much only keeping up with my favorite team and the teams in the division but two notebooks ago they basically cut and pasted 1/2 the article from the local paper which was cut and pasted into an ESPN article two days earlier. The last notebook was just a "if you haven't been looking at the free stats on the site here they are". That said it appears that they have a bunch of different authors doing this so it's possible that other teams coverage is better that what I am seeing.

When they had the free trial period I did read a decent portion of the pay stuff and I thought it was decent but I wonder how many would be buy the pay stuff from reading the free stuff?