Rob Neyer expounds on why, only now, sanctimonious sportswriters are invoking the Hall of Fame's ethics clause after sitting idly by, arms folded, for many decades as baseball's legends boozed, drugged, and debauched their way to Cooperstown.
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."
These things are silly but fun. Voltron and Johan star, and that guy with no power/leadership and that unfocused smiley guy make cameos. Some other ex-Mets sprinkled in too.
Right now, the Mets have a first baseman. Fernando Tatis has backed up Delgado all spring, and he's been fantastic. You thought last season's .297/.369/.484 line was a bit of a mirage? I did. Well, this season it's .358/.417/.566. No, I know that's only 60 plate appearances and he's not really that good, but Tatis' career line is .266/.348/.447, which is better than Murphy or anyone else at hand is likely to do, right now.
Good description of Mets starting situation by one of my favorite writers, Rob Neyer. Only thing I disagree with is that Ollie is probably at best the 3rd best option for the Mets, and Sheets would be a great signing. Also, I could see a Niese/Redding combo at #5 being useful.