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Around SBN: The Gift Of The 2003 Tigers

I know this place has turned into Rob Neyer Avenue today, but this was just too good to ignore. The above link is to a screengrab I took of Wikipedia's page on Rob Neyer this evening. It appears that someone got real angry about Neyer's Top 100 Players of the Aughts list and changed his wikipedia entry accordingly. The screengrab is a little hard to read, so here's the text:

"In late 2009 Neyer compiled what he thought to be the top 100 baseball players of the decade list. Aside from the notable omissions of Tim Lincecum, Justin Morneau, and Ryan Howard, Neyer also saw it fit to include some other "bad" players and blame it on the statistical way that he calculated the rankings.

Scott Rolen, at number 11 in the decade, was only the beginning of the travesty. Neyer also saw fit to include such notables as Jorge Posada, Bobby Abreu, and Jason Giambi in his top 20. Adding to the anarchy, J.D. Drew was put at 22, 2 spots higher than the most dominant closer of the decade and possibly in history Mariano Rivera. Johnny Damon and Mike Cameron also crack the top 40, and don't forget about Adrian Beltre (owner of 1 good season) and Placido Polanco (owner of 0 good seasons) to round out the top 50. Add in Brian Giles, Corey Koskie, Jarrod Washburn, Brad Radke, and at this point Neyer probably was just pulling names out of a hat. Neyer did not seem to understand that a large number of innings pitched or at bats did not translate to a good player. Sometimes bad is just bad, and you can't go ahead and rank bad people above good people simply because of how much they played in the decade.

There was widespread critical panic with regards to Neyer's list, not the least of which was at ESPN. Most found his claims to be so outrageous that a widespread manhunt ensued for Neyer's computer in order to strike the data from all human accounts. This search led by renegade sports fans failed, and this list found its way to the ESPN website, thus depriving ESPN of all credibility and losing them millions in revenue.

Thanks a lot, Rob."

about 2 years ago Hobodan_tiny Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright 30 comments 0 recs  | 

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i love Neyer

not platonically?

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Dec 18, 2009 3:14 AM EST up reply actions  

So should we rule you out as a suspect?

"He's definitely mixing it into his repertoire. That's French for 'repertoire' " - Keith Hernandez

by Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright on Dec 18, 2009 9:22 AM EST up reply actions  

I think the guy is less than worthless

Virtually everything he does is parroting someone else like Dave Cameron. I’d actually give him some credit for putting the list out there, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a near identical list exists somewhere.

by ol Pete on Dec 18, 2009 10:15 AM EST reply actions  

I would agree

except that ESPN is a much, much bigger site than Fangraphs. If a less talented guy (Neyer) than Cameron is what it takes to get the saber opinion out there, then so be it.

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Dec 18, 2009 10:41 AM EST up reply actions  

He said that he used the top 100 by WAR off baseballprojection

And then made some adjustments. So yeah, a pretty identical list probably exists out there.

"For $11.4 million you can actually get a good player. But of course this is one of the things foolish organizations do: They complain that they can't afford good players after spending millions of dollars on not-good players." --Rob Neyer

by boom_roasted on Dec 18, 2009 11:23 AM EST up reply actions  

I guess that fits

with the notion that evaluating athletic performance can best be done by statistical evaluation. Adjustments are probably appropriate for sophisticated observers.

by ol Pete on Dec 18, 2009 4:26 PM EST up reply actions  

I somewhat agree

But Neyer has done a ton of original work and been writing for ESPN.com basically since it got off the ground. And he’s the only baseball writer there that attempts to make any connection with blogs so I approve of him promoting the work of guys like Cameron to a large audience.

by James Kannengieser on Dec 18, 2009 11:35 AM EST up reply actions  

I really like Neyer's books

I think he is one of the more entertaining, accessible writers from the nerdy end of the spectrum. I.e. the correct end.

by deadspy3 on Dec 18, 2009 3:19 PM EST up reply actions  

Rob Neyer came before Dave Cameron

And it’s a lot easier to make a list like that for FanGraphs vs. ESPN.

I think the guy is less than worthless

Neyer has contributed more to the Sabermetric community – through his work with Bill James and his ability to convey ideas to less Sabermetrically minded people – than most people.

by vivaelpujols on Dec 18, 2009 8:23 PM EST up reply actions  

this

I think he’s gotten really lazy and doesn’t write much that’s worth a damn anymore, but you shouldn’t ignore what he’s done for years.

"[The Giants] beat us down. We were beat by a grown-man team, a team we want to be like one day. They came in here and took it to us. Out-manned us, out-gunned us. ... It wasn't even close." - Raheem Morris, 9/27/09

by cjmulrain on Dec 19, 2009 2:15 AM EST up reply actions  

Congratulations.

"He's definitely mixing it into his repertoire. That's French for 'repertoire' " - Keith Hernandez

by Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright on Dec 18, 2009 12:46 PM EST up reply actions  

flagged

"We're investigating the investigative procedure of the investigation of Tony Bernazard"---Omar Minaya (he really didn't say it but he would"

by firejerrynow on Dec 18, 2009 1:23 PM EST up reply actions  

As are you?

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Dec 18, 2009 4:00 PM EST up reply actions  

Well...

… if you’ve said it BEFORE, then this blind assertion MUST be true.

by LeiterMilnerFasterStronger on Dec 18, 2009 4:22 PM EST up reply actions  

Your comments just start with one rec

"I see the job in bigger terms. Paperwork, that’s false hustle... Know what I’m sayin’?"

by Evan_S on Dec 18, 2009 11:56 PM EST up reply actions  

The NERVE of Neyer to put Brian Giles in his top-50!

by True Blue4 on Dec 18, 2009 1:03 PM EST reply actions  

Those are some good players that the mystery editor is bashing

Posada is probably the best-hitting catcher of the decade (bearing in mind of course that the time window being looked at is structured so as to only have a few good seasons from Piazza at one end and Mauer at the other), Abreu has always been tremendously underappreciated, Rolen had a very good bat and was maybe the best-fielding 3B of the era. And yes, the number of innings a player plays certainly do have an impact on his value.

I can’t believe I just argued with an anonymous Wikipedia troll.

by JoshNY on Dec 18, 2009 1:23 PM EST reply actions  

Ha

I did think some of the list. I know he is going by the decade, but cameron over utley? Utley outwarred him since 2002 39.7 to 29.8. Even adding wars for 2000 and 2001 for cameron likely would keep Utley ahead (and he only has about 5 years of full season wars) since cameron never even had a 5 WAR season.

In Utley’s last 5 years every season he has had a much higher WAR than cameron ever had.

by wobatus on Dec 18, 2009 2:29 PM EST reply actions  

Using the WAR figures from baseballprojection.com, as Neyer did

Cameron is 35.7 from 2000-2009 (an extra 3.9 in 2000 and 6.4 in 2001) compared to Utley’s 34.6 from 2003-2009. I guess under the criteria Neyer went with, Cameron wins. Not saying I agree with his methodology for ranking the decade’s best players, but there you go. I just thought it was funny that someone would go to the effort of adding a screed against Neyer’s list to his Wikipedia bio based on the outcomes. Easily offended type, I suppose.

"He's definitely mixing it into his repertoire. That's French for 'repertoire' " - Keith Hernandez

by Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright on Dec 18, 2009 2:46 PM EST up reply actions  

It was funny

to see that someone went throught the trouble. I really like Neyer and it is funny why some people that don’t like his style continue to read him and post comments. Oh well.

If all Rob did was go by total WAR figures from baseballprojection.com for the decade then that would be something else besides his top 100, but I suppose in certain cases he made judgment calls or used other criteria. I didn’t look too closely. cameron right ahead of Utley kinda grabbed my attention. I suppose a case can be made. Just that they are so close, except cameron’s total is from 10 pretty good years, and utleys are all crammed into 5 all-time best 2B quality mvp type, post-season heroic laden years.

by wobatus on Dec 18, 2009 2:58 PM EST up reply actions  

He did say he made adjustments for certain players

Mariano Rivera, for one.

"He's definitely mixing it into his repertoire. That's French for 'repertoire' " - Keith Hernandez

by Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright on Dec 18, 2009 3:13 PM EST up reply actions  

meant to say

i did think some of the list was odd.

by wobatus on Dec 18, 2009 2:30 PM EST reply actions  

I really like that he kept off Howard.

Not sure if it’s the right call, but anything to denigrate an overrated Phillies player is alright by me.

by dtro on Dec 18, 2009 3:57 PM EST reply actions  

Obviously there are some issues with the way this list was compiled

But I feel that people are having trouble realizing just how long ago 2000 was.

www.twitter.com/willDavidian

by All Shook Down on Dec 19, 2009 2:45 PM EST reply actions  

I just like the fact that you have a Cricinfo tab open

Also, I just can’t believe someone had enough of a problem with the list to write all that

by Joamiq on Dec 22, 2009 12:22 PM EST reply actions  

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