The BBWAA: arrogantly groupthinking since 1908

[HCYanks]

This story's been going around the baseball blogosphere for a few days, so I thought i'd give it a thread:

BBTF Link

Basically, the BBWAA has started opening its doors to online baseball writers. Terrific, they're doing something that should have been done years ago. But there's one additional nugget of info: 16 of the 18 nominees got in. The two who didn't are Rob Neyer and Keith Law.

Now, the excuse is that Law and Neyer don't attend a minimum number of games during the season. Pretty stupid reasoning, if you ask me. Is there anything you can see high up in a press box that you can't on TV? And it's not like all of the members are doing game stories, which would require being at the stadium pre- and post-game.

You could also speculate that there's unmentioned reasons they weren't accepted. Neyer writes with a pretty open sabermetric bent, while Law's an outsider to journalism who primarily bases his opinions off of scouting. Neither one's prone to writing 20 articles a year about David Eckstein's epic whiteness; guess that wouldn't go over well in the old boys' club.

But there's plenty of room for Jim Caple, whose entire schtick is unfunny humor columns and hating the Yankees. And Jon Heyman, who spits out stupid opinions like clockwork.

Ugh. I wish people stopped giving a crap about these clods' consensus opinions.

[GYBE]

Well I'm no Keith Law fan, but I guess he's just as qualified as some of those guys. Neyer is one of the best though.

[HCYanks]

Oh I have my problems with Law, too. But he's not completely devoid of baseball knowledge, like i'm convinced some of the new and older members are.

[Basketball Jesus]

Strange; I thought Peter Gammons was already a member of the BBWAA. Can you lose membership somehow?

If there's any silver lining in this it's that Tom Verducci, who seems pretty receptive to modern evaluatory methods, was included.

[HCYanks]

Maybe Gammons had to step down when he started working for ESPN full-time.

[34Celtic]

Is there anything you can see high up in a press box that you can't on TV?

Yes, you can see how outfielders break on a fly ball right off the bat, how quick an infielders first step is, how players communicate with each other between pitches, how a player runs the bases.....its a lot easier to tell how well someones entire game is when you can see them in person.

[HCYanks]

You're right, at least to an extent. I guess my biggest issue is that these types of things tend to factor into scouting, not the writing of your average BBWAA member. Hell, they can't even competently discern who is and isn't an elite defender as a group. So I hate that they use it as a criterion to keep someone like Neyer out.

I still think you miss less watching baseball on TV than you do when you're watching certain other sports on TV. Football, for instance.

[34Celtic]

You may be right, but my grandfather is a scout for a ML team so maybe I tend to see it differently.