This image, current as of 12:46pm ET on Tuesday, confirms what has long been brewing — namely, that workers of the Baseball Think Factory have organized a strike and will produce no new content for the site until ruthless boss Dan Szymborski meets their demands.

The Investigative Reporting Investigation Team will report details as they become available.

UPDATE: As of 12:53pm ET, the site appears to be running smoothly once again. Strong-arm tactics on the union’s part? Dirty dealings from Szymborski? We may never know.

I’ll submit that — with the exception of the present site, obviously — that the SB Nation network features some of the better baseball writing one can find anywhere. I’ve definitely expressed publicly my feelings for — and made feel awkward in probably a sexual way — writers like Lookout Landing’s Jeff Sullivan, Viva El Birdos’ Dan Moore, and Gaslamp Ball’s jbox. There are, like, six other names I could add to that list of authors who’ve made me feel jealous for something they’ve written

Now, turns out, Rob Neyer is bringing his talents to this particular team, as well — and he (i.e. Neyer) appears determined to make good writing his priority.

From his introductory salvo as SB Nation’s National Baseball Editor:

I’ve got a lot of passions, and generally I won’t bore you with them. But the passion I indulge almost every day of my life is good writing. I crave it, and when I find it, I treasure it. I surround myself with books full of good writing, and I can’t get through the day without scribbling down a brilliant sentence or delightful word in a thick journal that’s always close at hand.

Also, it’s my business. I’m one of the lucky few who gets paid to indulge his first love.

Where the good writing comes from, though, is irrelevant. All that matters is the writing.

You’re paid to write? I know lots of professional writers who either never learned to write well, or have forgotten. You work for a famous website or newspaper? The big boys don’t have a monopoly on good writing, let alone facts.

There are a lot of things to love about SB Nation, which is why I’m here. But among them is that they — excuse me, we — don’t see us as us and you as them. We’ve got bloggers who most professional writers probably consider them … but we know better. We know that some of our writers are every bit as talented and knowledgeable as anyone you’ll find working for newspapers or the Big Boy websites. We also know that today’s readers are tomorrow’s writers, and that often the only difference is opportunity (one fantastic thing about the Web is that opportunity is everywhere).

Nobody’s got a monopoly on good writing, or the facts. If you can come up with one or the other or (ideally) both, you’re in the club. That’s one of the First Principles.

Friend of the blog and all-around ubermensch Rob Neyer is leaving his SweetSpot blog and ESPN, entirely.

From his most recent (and last) post for same:

A Quick Programming Note …

Fifteen years ago, I moved to Seattle to work for a company called Starwave. The company did a lot of things, but I was hired — and this might surprise you — mostly to edit fantasy-related content for a website called ESPNet.SportsZone.com; a few years later, we became the ESPN.com that everyone knows and loves so well.

Frankly, it’s a minor miracle that I’ve been here ever since. I was the new guy, didn’t know how I was supposed to behave, and somewhat routinely ran afoul of my bosses and their bosses. I owe a great deal to their good graces, and I’m sorry I can’t thank everyone who’s allowed me to do what I love for so long. I will toss extra hosannas to Geoff Reiss, David Schoenfield, and David Kull, for reasons they know only too well. Collectively, they’re No. 2 on the all-time list.

You’re No. 1.

Whether you’ve been reading my ramblings since 1996 or just since last week, you have my profound, impossible-to-express-in-words gratitude. There is not a working writer on Earth who’s more grateful than I for his readers. Without you, I would have nothing.

Today, I hand off this space to whoever’s next. I don’t know yet who is next, but I’m highly confident that this blog and the SweetSpot Network will soon be in excellent hands.

Meanwhile, I’ll be around. The kids tell me it’s all about search these days. You won’t have to search real hard to find me, if you want.

Happy trails, until we meet again.

Perhaps I, personally, will include some thoughts on Neyer’s departure in this space laters on today.

In the meantime, don’t hesitate to include your own Neyer-related stories in the comments.

Our exercise in plagiarism continues today, as we enjoy together some choice passages from the 1995 edition of the Bill James Player Ratings Book.

The reader will notice that, in what follows, I’ve employed two changes from past versions of this same stealing-type post. First, the phrase “notable quotable” has replaced “notable thing.” This is because (a) I’ve opted for more direct quotes in this edition and also (b) my grandparents gifted me Reader’s Digest for Christmas every year of my life from, like, age 6 to age 15.

Second, while the highlights of the 1993 and ’94 editions included only five notable things, this edition includes 10! Using math, we find that this post is five better than previous ones.

Regard:

Player: Bobby Bonilla, New York (NL)
Notable Quotable: “Surrounded by good players, he’d look like a great player. Surrounded by New York Mets, he looks like a good New York Met.” Zen koan, that is.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a picture of Pirate second baseman Neil Walker from the online edition of Pittsburgh’s organizational top-10 list from BA’s 2006 prospect handbook.

The notable thing about the photo — in case, for some reason, you’re not using your eyes to look at it — is the look of pure disgust on Walker’s face. Is he about to perform a revenge killing? Has he just performed a revenge killing? These are the things one is forced to wonder.

The plot is further thickened when paired with this passage from Walker’s profile in same prospect handbook (bold mine):

Walker was the first Pittsburgh-area player ever selected in the first round by the Pirates after hitting .657-13-42 in his senior season at Pine-Richland High, and his charismatic nature has enabled him to handle the attention with aplomb.

“Who is Neil Walker?” is surely something you’re now thinking. Unless, of course, you are Neil Walker, in which case you’re probably en route to performing some kind of revenge killing.

Top of the Order, edited by Sean Manning, is an anthology full of 25 brief paeans — each written by a notable author — to said authors’ favorite baseball players.

As is almost the rule for an anthology, the quality of the work is uneven. That said, Steve Almond — author of Candyfreak and Not That You Asked — delivers this pretty excellent definition of stardom while discussing Rickey Henderson.

Blockquotation (bold mine):

[Henderson] went two for four in his debut, with a stolen base. I listened to that game on my trusty Panasonic radio. I saw him for the first time a few days later, during one of Oakland’s rare televised contests. I was instantly and violently transfixed. It wasn’t just the crazy stance or the preening manner or the freakish marriage of bulk and speed, but the powerful sense that you had to watch Rickey, because if you didn’t you were going to miss something unprecedented.

This is the first and final signifier of stardom: that your presence on the field suggests possibility. Because possibility — some new miracle carved from air, some abrupt confrontation between grace and peril — is the reason we watch sports. Michael Jordan had it. Wayne Gretzky. Barry Sanders. The British football Paul Gascoigne. And Rickey — the stuff came off him like sparks.

As the most Jamaican of NotGraphs contributors has already noted here, SB Nation author Jon Bois’ founded this week the very official Baseball Player Name Hall Of Fame. I believe I’m saying what the reader is thinking when I say that Bois’ effort is one that deserves to be filed under “Community Service.” Chicken Wolf, Mysterious Walker, Ugly Dickshot, Wonderful Terrific Monds III, Greg Legg: these are very clearly names that must be preserved for our children’s children’s children.

Were I to offer one criticism of Bois’ work, though, it’s that it shows no regard for any of the more colorful names from baseball’s future. Obviously, we can’t entirely know what will be; however, that said, the Investigative Reporting Investigation Team here at NotGraphs does have some sources which transcend not only geography but also time.

Will these be the most interesting names? I can’t say for sure. But they certainly provide delicious, delicious food for thought.

Humbert Humbert Berkowitz
Humbert Humbert is the future son of Daniel Berkowitz and Lisa Olstein — two will-be-someday undergraduates of Brandeis University who first meet in a Nabokov seminar. It’s in commemoration of this that they name their first son Humbert Humbert after the protagonist in Nabokov’s Lolita.

Berkowitz, while not particularly distinguished during his playing career, does indeed go on to become a wicked ahtsy pedophile.

Clownpenis Dot Fart
This is the last name left in the future.

Barry Moises Alomar-Alou-Bonds-Boone, Jr.
It was, of course, only a matter of time before baseball’s four great families joined in union. In a medical first, Barry Moises Alomar-Alou-Bonds-Boone is born, very literally, with a bat in his hand

He goes on to post a 183 wRC+ as a six-year-old and a career WAR of 1722, breaking the record of 1383 set by his father, Barry Moises Alomar-Alou-Bonds-Boone.

Tremendous Cistulli
This is the name of my own unborn son, who, I can assure you, will become a baseballing great — whether he wants to or not.

Bob Smith
For reasons I’m not at liberty to explain, this is actually the most rare name in the year 2074.

Readers of FanGraphs will likely have seen either the handle vivaelpujols or the name Nick Steiner or both around these saber internets. Steiner has contributed/still contributes to The Hardball Times and Viva El Birdos and has been generally involved in the sabermetric community.

This past Tuesday, he started a Twitter account. To say that his submissions have been of the single-minded variety would be an understatement.

For example, consider this tweet:

That’s a pretty reasonable debut — informative, baseball-related — except for here’s his second and third tweets, as well:

Huh.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a video, authored my YouTube user ieeebear, of the last 27 outs recorded by the San Francisco Giants in their World Series-clinching Game Five victory over the Texas Rangers.

Here’s a brief scouting report of same video:

Strengths
• Watching the above, one realizes how infrequently one’s able to watch Major League play of any stripe outside one of the major providers of said content — i.e. MLB.com, ESPN, FOX, or a local sporting network. This is a pleasure in itself.

Read the rest of this entry »

I get asked all the time — via email, phone, mysterious scented letter — I get asked, “Carson, what does it take to become part of FanGraphs?”

“Generally excellent prose” and “comfort with advanced metrics” are two obvious answers to that question. “The ability to pwn SQL at will” is a third.

What you might not anticipate, however, is the serious physical demands one must meet in order to be considered for Team FanGraphs.

To give prospective writers an idea of what I mean, I’ve embedded here an actual video of San Diego Padre Will Venable’s actual tryout for FanGraphs.

To qualify for consideration, candidates must complete this course in under a minute. That a professional athlete is elated by a time of 1 minute and 2 seconds gives you an idea of how rigorous it all really is.

For some perspective, though, consider that Dave Allen finished this entire challenge in just 37 seconds. Albert Lyu, for his part, actually just shot that guy with the stopwatch right in the foot — which gesture we thought displayed the requisite pluck.

So, no, don’t stop believin’ — not you, Will Venable, and not you, cherished reader. Just know, please, that we’re not effing around over here.

H/T: jbox of Gaslamp Ball.