Changes at SI

[Orange Hat Bobcat]

In regard to the discussion about the spate of recent errors, Verducci wrote in the cover story last week that Bryce Harper turned in a 5.0 WAR, the highest single-season WAR ever by a teenager. Well, yeah, of course he did ... among position players, though that statement was never made in the story. Just mentioned Mel Ott. Not sure how Verducci forgot about Dwight Gooden, a player he covered for years at Newsday, who topped Harper by any measure (5.2 on Baseball Reference, 8.6 on Fangraphs) during his 1984 rookie season, when he was 19.

How did nobody catch that during the reporting, writing or editing process?

In fairness, that's hardly among baseball's milestone numbers, like 73 hr or 4,256 hits. No red flags are going to go off about doc gooden's teenage WAR.

You're right, Fop, it's not a recognized milestone number. It's also not an error that would have been made 20, 10, even five years ago — and, lack of red flags or not, it's still wrong.