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Since this thread seems to be as appropriate spot as any, what did everyone think about Baseball Prospectus calling Mozeliak’s Fowler criticism from last year “implicitly racist” in their book, only to recently issue a half-hearted retraction. They basically changed their stance to saying Mozeliak’s comments remind them of racist comments often made about players who are a minority, but they stopped short of saying Mozeliak was racist due to comments he made in the future walking back his initial comments.
Frankly, I found Baseball Prospectus to be pretty reckless in the accusation made in their book. If you are a respectable and responsible publication, you ought to be 100% sure someone is racist if you are willing to put it in print. On top of that, they basically explained away Fowler’s poor play last year as being due to mismanagement by the Cardinals and freeing Fowler from any culpability. To me, that is just as extreme and wrong as the opinions who place all of the blame on Fowler, sometimes for racist reasons. The truth is the blame should be shared by Fowler and Matheny. Playing a new position and having a toxic relationship with your boss will undoubtedly hurt your numbers defensively and offensively to a degree, but it won’t cause you to hit .180. Being severely depressed might, but Fowler still hit awful under Shildt who he had a much better relationship with. I think the most likely explanation is a combination of depression and a deterioration of skills due to injuries and age.
I saw that comment, too, dac8b9 and also found it terribly inappropriate and inaccurate. I am not defending it in any way, but when I read it, the first thing I thought was that the author obviously does not follow the Cardinals regularly – so why is he writing their section?
At least BA hires a team-knowledgeable writer to author the team sections in their handbook. The BA bosses still make final changes in editing, but they’d never make up inflammatory comments like that.
“I don’t have any personal issues with JL. She seemed professional in her time with us.”
I agree 100%, booyah. She’s covered the Cards very well for years, and I was ungallant at best in my comments. In truth there was really no reason for me to mention the author by name at all. It’s a mindset, not any individual writer, that I just cannot stomach for the life of me. This selling of Fowler we’ve all endured since October when he went public with his finger-pointing at Matheny — that’s the sin. The selling is the sin.
And as they say: hate the sin, love the sinner.
For the love of God will someone inform Dan McLaughlin that it’s MEM fus and not MEM pis. Really irritating!
Monday’s lineup:
1. Harrison Bader (R) CF
2. Jose Martinez (R) LF
3. Paul DeJong (R) SS
4. Marcell Ozuna (R) DH
5. Jedd Gyorko (R) 3B
6. Kolten Wong (L) 2B
7. Tyler O’Neill (R) RF
8. Andrew Knizner (R) C
9. Rangel Ravelo (R) 1BJake Woodford is St. Louis’ starting pitcher.
Baseball Prospectus issued a formal apology to Mo and the Cardinals.
A statement on behalf of the Baseball Prospectus organization. https://t.co/RhRUpoEEX8
— Baseball Prospectus (@baseballpro) February 23, 2019
I know we are desperate for baseball to analyze since we haven’t had any since last September but coming to big conclusions based on two Spring Training games seems a bit extreme. I guess Ramon Urias and Drew Robinson will be MVP candidates.
If I’m not mistaken this time last year we were all convinced that Mikolas was a horrible signing after his first Spring start or two and now everyone is clamoring for him to sign an extension.
Having said that yes it is true that Fowler needs a good Spring. Everyone knows that. Hopefully he does as well.
A lot of words by BP dancing around the key point that THEY are the only ones to suggest a racial issue. There is zero actual reporting to back that up. Further, they did not even title their apology as an apology. They represented Mo’s comments made at the beginning of July as still being “fresh” in the fall, when the section was allegedly written.
They went on and on about writing too many words and then, they did just that. In their 1000-word “statement”, there is no apology until the very last paragraph. And then, they attributed the problem to editing, rather than the writing itself. I agree 100% with dac8b9 calling it “half-hearted”. In fact, that seems generous.
Though I have friends at BP, I lost as much respect of them as a result of their “statement” as I did in the irresponsible words they put in print in the first place.
Sort and sweet, “We screwed up,” should have been the path taken. They could have saved 997 words of nothingness.
Wednesday's probable starters are Dakota Hudson for #stlcards vs, RHP Kyle Wright of Atlanta. No TV, but KMOX and the Cardinals Radio Network will carry it.
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) February 25, 2019
In Monday’s game, the Tigers got to Jake Woodford for two runs in the second. Evan Kruczynski followed. He got into trouble in the third, but worked out of it. Followed with two Ks in the fourth.
Detroit 2 at Cardinals 0 through four innings.
On a single, Ravelo plates Arozarena (who reached on an error) for St. Louis’ first run. 3-1 heading into the eighth.
The Cards scored twice in the ninth. Edman drove in the tying run, but they called it a tie at 3-3 after nine. Cards are 1-1-1 on the spring. Wainwright starting Tuesday.
“…I lost as much respect of them as a result of their ‘statement’ as I did in the irresponsible words they put in print in the first place.
Short and sweet, ‘We screwed up,’ should have been the path taken. They could have saved 997 words of nothingness.”Seconded. Very weak tea from BPro. When you know you’ve done wrong, just say it and be done. Don’t take an hour to do the minute waltz.
It was a garbage apology! I nearly laughed when they finally got to it but shook my head instead. A minute or two of my life I wished I had back. lol
I am enjoying Mile Mikolas crow I’m eating. Gosh was I wrong about that signing.
On Another note I’m already tired hearing Ricky Horton and Danny Mac go on and on about prospects they have probably never seen. And what kind of person purposely searches Twitter for tweets about about themself when they weren’t even tagged?
I may be biased, but I’ve seen Danny Mac on the back fields in the past (I’m not down there yet so I cannot speak to 2019) and he has a copy of TCN’s 2019 Prospect Guide in the booth with him. He (as some other prominent media members) has been a paid subscriber here for a number of years. Dan asks many their opinion of young guys, including me. Bottom line, I believe he does his homework. Ricky has made several mistakes in the early broadcasts that were noticeable to prospect followers. I will leave it at that.
I consider Twitter a necessary evil. Searching for dumb things other people post could be a full-time profession. No reason whatsoever to go there, IMO.
I do admit that once in a while when someone tweets something particularly outrageous to me, I quickly check their most recent comments. More times than not, there is a clear pattern of negative remarks fired in many directions. Then I understand. A lot of angry people are out there.
Note three #stlcards minor leaguers over from STEP Camp for the game – OF Conner Capel, 3B Evan Mendoza and SS Kramer Robertson.
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) February 26, 2019
I thought Mayers’ curveball in yesterday’s game was impressive. Last year when he came up somebody asked him what he attributed his improvement to. His answer was that he stopped using his secondary pitches and just concentrated on his fastball. It’s a different story this year. If he can continue to control that curveball like he did yesterday, he’s going to get a lot of outs with it. I think he’s going to fool some batters with that slowball, also.
Kruczynski will be fun to watch as he continues to develop. I’m anxious to see what Gomber looks like this year.
The bad news about our surplus pitching is that hardly any of them are proven at the major league level, so it might be difficult to get maximum value for them in a trade.
For those trashing BP, I don’t really disagree. They deserve it. However, it is misleading to say they didn’t apologize until the very end of the statement. The word apology is literally in the second sentence.
Again, I’m not defending them just clarifying.
The damage that Baseball Prospectus did with their fake news has already been done. An apology only goes so far.
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