We will analyze player blurbs from a given evening, knowing that 1-2 writers are usually responsible for all the player write ups posted within an hour of the game results. We will look at:
- Flowery Diction – how sites juice up descriptions of player performance
- Q/Q – Qualitative and quantitative look at how a site’s editorial vision colors the blurb “analysis”
- Double Takes – instances where successive player blurbs contradict each other
- Bob Nightengale Syndrome – The blurb is wrong in a fundamental way
- Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award – Given to the player blurb that promises the most and delivers the least.
The hope is that by season’s end, we’ll all feel more confident about our player evaluations when it comes to the waiver wire. We will read blurbs and not be swayed by excessive superlatives, faulty injury reporting, and micro-hype. I will know that I have done my job when Grey posts, and there isn’t a single question about catchers that he did not address in his post.
- This is the kind of blurb that gets a guys ownership in leagues from 12% to 68% in one calendar day. He previously pitched a nice clean inning. That’s cool. He’s a 29 year old reliever in a closing committee as per his manager. I agree he should be rostered because I own Tanner Scott and Stefan Crichton, and my FOMO is absolutely gushing from my pores. However, the use of the word “sublime” is so very extra. That his 98.9 mph fast ball is sublime, his other pitches that “touched triple digits” aren’t is confusing to me. What is also confusing is that those triple digit-touching pitches happened at one point. Did he throw more than one ball in a single toss? Is he trying to replicate one of Alex Fast’s pitching breakdowns? He isn’t, and this blurb should mention that while he’s gotten saves, he’s still in a committee rather than use words to compare a fastball to an American reggae rock and punk band from Long Beach, California, formed in 1988. Word, wikipedia!
Q/Q – Qualitative and quantitative look at how a site’s editorial vision colors the blurb “analysis”
- This is a perfect slice of blurb for the Qualitative/Quantitative category, especially when it comes to editorial slant. I promised not criticize grammar, but you have to make a conscious decision to type the second sentence without realizing that it’s a dependent clause. I hate it so much. The analysis of this blurb consists of one sentence that repeats the lede, one sentence about his former manager, one independent clause about Jered Walsh, and one more dependent clause that seems to be about Jared Walsh. I’m assuming that the fantasy managers drafting Pujols did so believing that his only skills were hitting homers and lugging around Krang in his hollowed out stomach. Either way, you could have written anything about his projections, his playing time, anything about Pujols other than the fact that he hit a home run. A blurb is not meant to repeat a fact gleaned from a box score. Should anyone pick him up? AL-only leagues? Is there anything here besides an ex-lover’s lament?
Bob Nightengale Syndrome
Adam Wainwright took the loss on Saturday after allowing six runs on seven hits and a walk over just 2 2/3 innings vs the Reds.
Analysis: Wainwright is rightyfully on the hook for all six runs that crossed the plate on his watch, but it was hardly a dominating performance by the Reds offense. All six runs came in the third inning that was kicked off by a leadoff walk to Tyler Naquin followed by a two-run homer to Tucker Barnhart. What happened after that was almost hard to watch with six of the next seven hitters reaching base via a single. Three of which carried an exit velocity of 61.2, 54.5, and 65.2 miles per hour. Two of the base hits were cleanly fielded by Paul DeJong and Nolan Arenado who were unable to make an out due to how softly they were struck. Wainwright cruised through the first two innings before being taken out with two outs in the third inning, causing the veteran to start the season with a 20.25 ERA. The box score is far scarier than reality and the veteran right-hander will look to bounce back next week at home vs the Brewers.
Source: RotoEdgeWorldBettorsDelight.com (nbcsports.com/edge/baseball)
- Sometimes I explain away bad pitcher performances in my head, saying my pitcher got dinked or dunked by some scrippy team. In my heart, I know that the context means something, but results are results. This blurb tries to contextualize Wainwright’s performance the way I try to explain the plot of Cube Zero to someone who has only seen three minutes of Cube 2: Hyper Cube, and isn’t asking to understand the Cube movies at all. They just wanted to change the channel. We have low exit velocities. We have a lot of singles. We have a mention of great defenders not getting outs. My personal favorite is the bit where Wainwright, “Cruised through the first two innings.” I feel as if a proper cruising for a starter in baseball is in the 3-4 inning range. Two innings does not a cruise make. It would be a semantics thing if the blurber wasn’t trying to sell you on Wainwright, which they absolutely are. He’s barely usable in an NL-only league, even if he’s Tom Hanks in The Green Mile, cursed to pitch forever. He is TOM no tHANKS.
Double Takes – Instances where successive player blurbs contradict each other
RotoEdgeWorld has a cornucopia of Double Takes, so I promise to take my detective’s eyeball to other places of fantasy business next week. That was a gross way of putting that. Anyway, Jared Walsh.
Jared Walsh reached base in both of his plate appearances on Sunday in the Angels’ Cactus League opener against the Giants
Analysis: Walsh drew a first-inning walk then singled to lead off the third inning against Zack Littell. The 27-year-old first baseman hit for plenty of power in the minor leagues, but made big strides in his ability to make contact last season. Walsh posted a .293/.324/.646 slash line with nine home runs in only 108 plate appearances in 2020. He’s a sleeper at the first base position across all leagues and could provide big value should he maintain his gains and earn an everyday role.
Source: RotoEdgeWorldBettorsDelight.com (nbcsports.com/edge/baseball): Feb 28, 2021
Followed by yesterday’s blurb, more than a month later:
Jared Walsh is absent from the Angels lineup for the second consecutive game on Friday.
So much for the idea that Walsh will be the Angels everyday first baseman. Though this one could have been anticipated with left-hander Dallas Keuchel on the hill for the White Sox. Maybe you can write off Opening Day too, as Albert Pujols should have received a customary start at first base given the nostalgia and what-not. With right-handers on top for each of the next four games, we should get an idea as to how much Joe Maddon really plans to play Walsh this season. If he’s in the lineup for anything less than three of those games, then there’s reason for concern.
Source: RotoEdgeWorldBettorsDelight.com (nbcsports.com/edge/baseball)
- As with the above-mentioned Pujols blurb, there is an editorial slant that is pro-Jared Walsh. This is to be expected to an extent, though if you look at Rotowire, their breakdowns aren’t openly cynical. They give you the stat breakdown, provide analysis, and move on. What strikes me about Walsh in particular is that I can’t find an instance of Walsh ever getting a shot at everyday at bats for the Angels. He plays for Joe Maddon! Jared Walsh is more likely to pitch in a game than get everyday at bats at a position. Joe Maddon looks at a player and sees a real, honest to god swiss army knife. It took him several years to realize he couldn’t dig into Ben Zobrist’s hip to pull out a nail file. Jared Walsh was never going to get those AB’s, but the latter blurb attempts to massage the first blurb into a prognostication. To go from “he could be great with an everyday job” to “So much for the idea that Walsh will be the Angels everyday first baseman,” posits that RotoEdge ever told you to buy into Walsh into the first place. They did not do this. Leave the raw, battery acid-fried cynicism to our own cognitive distortions, please.
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award – Given to the player blurb that promises the most and delivers the least.
Raisel Iglesias is not available on Saturday against the White Sox.
Analysis: Iglesias worked in the first two games of the year, so the Angels are giving him the night off. He should be available for Sunday’s Finale.
Source: RotoEdgeWorld
- It’s always worth mentioning when a closer needs a night off. You can grab the handcuff if they’re wandering around on waivers and try to get lucky. However, this was posted at midnight. On Saturday. The very purpose of this blurb is excite the reader for a potential save vulture. Alas, it only serves to drive the reader to their calendar to see if the blurb has wasted their time. Having read the tweet, and then checked their calendar, this blurb has taken a full minute of excitement out of a reader’s already short life. It is a treatise on the power of hope, brevity, and confusion. Congratulations!
This wraps up the second installment of “Avoiding the Blurbstomp.” Player news feeds are my grubs, and I am a beautiful baby bear, pawing my claw into a log and pulling out juicy morsels. See you next week!
