Mike Newman Prospects Chat – 5/24/13
Mike Newman is the Owner/Managing Editor ofROTOscouting, a subscription site focused on baseball scouting, baseball prospects and fantasy baseball. Follow me onTwitter. Likeus on Facebook.Subscribeto my YouTube Channel.
if anyone interested here is a site that does a daily AL East prospect update. http://aleastbound.com/2013/05/24/al-east-prospect-report-may-24-2013/
How would you rank the following Pirates pitchers with the criteria being who you would prefer having in your system: Cole, Taillon, Kingham, Glasnow, Heredia.
Meant to be a question for the chat, but was outside the software.
Mike – Stop complaining/lamenting in your chats that people don’t read your pieces before they ask a question. Not everyone is going to read every piece of your portfolio before they enter the chat room. Be grateful people stop in and chat in the first place. Or you could always go back to Scouting the SAL.
I don’t take what he’s doing to be “complaining” or “lamenting”. He’s simply linking them to a full article that answers their exact question, rather than trying to do the same in ~50 words. If he gets frustrated, I’m sure it’s because often the very links to these articles are found immediately to the right of the actual chat window.
It’s fine to reference and even link to a piece he’s done in the past, but Vlad has it right that he often shows his frustration that people haven’t read everything he’s ever written.
I was going to post something along the same lines as Vlad.
It’s like Mike’s unaware how the Internet, or even just reading, works — people surf a bunch of different sites. I have a hard enough time remembering if I read about a certain prospect at BA, BP, Sickels or here, let alone knowing which exact writer wrote what about what prospect.
It’s kind of fascinating, actually. Does Mike settle down before a chat session thinking, “Maybe this week everyone did their Mike Newman homework before the chat.”?
When I read a Mike Newman piece on, say, Yasiel Puig, it doesn’t go into my mental “Mike Newman” folder. Such a folder doesn’t exist. The information in the piece goes into my mental “Yasiel Puig” folder.
Just to be clear, I don’t get frustrated in the chats. People can read my pieces, or not. I’d prefer it if you did, but it’s not something I really worry about. the frustration is meant in a joking manner to chatters who are regulars.
However, when I write a piece, say, the day before and the exact same question is asked in the chat, it makes me wonder why that person is in the chat to begin with?
Or, if they are interested in what I have to say about a player, then why is 50 words better than my average piece of 6-800?
Do I understand the internet? Yes. Do I wish this chat was used as more of supplement than a primary source of information? Absolutely.
Dead horse flogging time. You *say* you know how the internet works, and then you write:
“However, when I write a piece, say, the day before and the exact same question is asked in the chat, it makes me wonder why that person is in the chat to begin with?”
You seem to be confusing the internet for a classroom — you sound like a teacher who is bitterly “joking” about students asking questions that are answered on the syllabus.
You ask, why is that person-who-asks-Mike-Newman-questions-about-prospects-whom-Mike-Newman-has-at-some-previously-point-in-time-written-about doing in the chat?
Some possible reasons:
1) Because that person is fixated on a prospect, or a team’s prospects, or prospects on his fantasy/simulation team — he jumps into prospect chats to collect and collate information on the prospects he’s interested in;
2) Because that person may not have clicked on Fangraphs the day before, so he is unaware of the most recent entry in the Mike Newman ouvre;
3) Because the person has discovered the site for the first time;
4) Because the person is a distinct embodied human with a consciousness and memory separate from that of Mike Newman’s and is therefore not mentally keeping track of which prospects Mike Newman has recently evaluated in writing.
Those are some possible reasons.
What can you tell me about A’s double-A RHP Zach Neal?
Mike, I probably got that comp from you!
got offered jay bruce and trumbo for my butler and longoria? Any thoughts, does longo injury history play a factor or am i selling to low. Could use outfield help and have encarnacion to replace butler at 1b. Outfield is aoki, rios, and prado
I was going to post the very same comment as Vlad and toothsome. Mike, your response is even more disheartening.
To be clear, your comments do not come off in a joking manner – it comes across as pure scolding. We hear how busy you are in chats time and again (at least twice in this last chat), yet you wonder why someone missed your piece the day before? I guess nobody else is allowed to be busy and we sure as heck better read each of your pieces beforehand for fear of asking a question you’ve already addressed. Fine, refer us to your piece, but no need to be impertinent about it.
You also seem to think people log into a chat to ask that one burning question when in reality 50 words on 50 players can be much more meaningful than 600 on one. How about trying to use your chat as a place to pique my interest in your more in-depth piece?
I used to follow your writings and chats a fair bit (perhaps not reaching “regular” status – do you give embroidered patches or something so you can tell them apart?), but there are plenty of sources that don’t come with the hubris.
Actually, in the realm of Jason Parks and Keith Law, it’s a bit tough to accuse Mike Newman of being the one with the hubris. Enough meta-kvetching, you’ve made your points, which are valid. If you dont like how Mike Newman handles chat questions on free chats, in the long run, you can always drift away…
(one of my pet peeves is how very often commenters complain righteously about the free content on the internet.)