Why do so many bloggers hate Plaschke?

[WaylonJennings]

Scroll down to March 21:

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008_03_01_archive.html

This is but the latest. It seems I see a lot of them that make fun of his writing style, etc.

Is he big into being an anti-sabermetric curmudgeon? Kind of the anti-Posnaksi?

Or is it really his cadence that sets people off?

 

[Small Town Guy]

I think he wrote several columns ripping the old Dodgers G.M., the Beane protege, which probably didn't endear him.

 

[WaylonJennings]

Right, I remember he used to call him "Laptop Boy."

 

[Ace]

That was a pretty bad column, and I like Plaschke.

 

[JayFarrar]

They don't much care for Furman (or Furry-man) Bisher.
Plaschke is generally a good read. I don't think that this was his strongest effort and light years behind that column he did a few years back on the Dodgers BLOGger in Texas, who had muscular dystrophy and tapped out her posts with a mouth pointer since she couldn't use her hands.
That was a spectacular piece of work.
As to why some bloggers don't like him, Plaschke has what they want. Six (maybe seven) figure salary, book deals, national TV and a large following.

 

[SF_Express]

I have to admit: I like Plaschke, too. And I thought the blog post was pretty entertaining.

 

[PHINJ]

On a baseball/saber site that I visit regularly, Plaschke is probably the most despised writer among the MSM. That is saying quite a bit since saber-types don't like any regular beat writers or columnists other than JoePo. I got into a losing battle on the board once defending Plaschke; there was not a single member who was willing to concede that he has an ounce of writing talent. In fact, most of them didn't believe I was being serious when I talked about what a good and respected columnist he is.

 

[hockeybeat]

Shocking that Poin hasn't chimed in on this thread.

 

[WaylonJennings]

One thing I don't get is how they always gripe about one-sentence paragraphs. I mean, a column is supposed to be a quick, pain-free read. If Plaschke or any other newspaper columnist wanted to write magazine-style, I'm sure he would have no problem with it.

 

[PHINJ]

No one respects the media and everyone thinks he/she can write, especially bloggers.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/la_times11/

 

[PHINJ]

Yeah, that's the site.

 

[Double Down]

Look, I like Bill Plaschke a lot, but the guy who writes FJM is dead on about this. Plaschke's writing style is rarely the issue; it's his weird reasoning and analysis when it comes to ****ty players like Juan Pierre.

This paragraph about Johnny Damon illustrates that perfectly.

"Johnny Damon never had much of an arm, we moved him to left field, it worked out fine," says Torre. "You can offset that kind of arm with your aggressive play. You can get good jumps, get to balls that other guys can't."

Johnny Damon is on the downslide. Johnny Damon is 34 years old. Johnny Damon was never a big power hitter. Johnny Damon has like fifty-nine different injuries. Last year Johnny Damon out-OPSed Juan Pierre by 62 points. It was Johnny's worst season in seven years.

I also very much enjoyed these paragraphs:

Contrary to the winter hopes of many Dodgers fans, Torre's lineups have indicated that Pierre will be the starting left fielder ahead of Andre Ethier.

It makes sense.

Sure it makes sense. Andre Ethier is a major-league caliber player who gets on base, hits for some power, plays good defense, has a decent throwing arm, and is currently 25 years old. Juan Pierre is a professional longshoreman who has convinced a baseball team to pay him tens of millions of dollars despite the fact that he cannot get on base, cannot hit for power, runs borderline-insane routes in the outfield, and has an arm so feeble he struggles to open jars of kalamata olive tapenade.

What's the issue here?

While unfairly taking the fall for a team that crumbled around him.

What exactly is unfair about saying a player burned through a ton of at bats and didn't help the team? You know what's unfair? Andre Ethier, a better player in every aspect of the game except baserunning, is being denied playing time because of a bad contract. These are Ethier's prime baseball years. He's not going to be playing as much baseball as he should. He will never get these years back. He is not a kid anymore. He's played in 279 major league games, and he's played well in those games.

Juan Pierre hit zero home runs last year. Mythical fairy creature David Eckstein hit three, for Chrissakes, and he swings a three-inch bat carved out of a candy cane.

Some players actually do things that are hard to quantify. Some players are just crappy. When you think back and try to pick out the worst contracts over the last 20 years of baseball, the Dodgers have two: Driefort and Pierre, guys they combined to pay more than $100 million. And unlike Texas with A-Rod, Colorado with Hampton, the Orioles with Albert Belle, the Dodgers will pay every cent of those deals. Other than Chan Ho Park's $65 million deal with Texas, it's hard to think of a worse deal. And you could argue that Pierre's is worse because he hurts the Dodgers every day by making outs, whereas pitchers like Pavano and Park were injured so much, their drain was only financial, not statistical. It's just bizzare than Bill doesn't see this. Pierre has a worse career slugging percentage than Nefi Perez.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

It's more of that old-school baseball "What I see with my own two eyes is the only thing that's important" scouting mentality that Plaschke writes with.

DePodesta was run out of town by Plaschke and the other local old-school seamheads, whose loudest rallying cry was "He traded LoDuca, the heart and soul!!!! He traded Guillermo Mota, which led to Gagne having to be overworked!!!!!!!"

And gee, those dudes haven't said, "Oh, whoops" in the wake of all we know now.

Pierre was a disaster contract for a team that became married to such disasters since Fox bought the team. But guys like Plaschke feel like they had something to do with Ned Colletti becoming GM, so they praised him in his first offseason for signing vets to short-term deals with the idea of making way for the youngsters in a timely manner. Now they stick with Colletti even as the Pierre signing prevents guys like Ethier - who got some Rookie of the Year talk not so long ago - from taking the field.

Meanwhile, Oakland has no money, but somehow has remained a contender using the system that the columnists ran DePodesta out of town for espousing.

I understand that DePodesta may not have ended up a successful GM. But count me among those who sees Plaschke, a hell of a columnist, as one who unfairly ran the kid out of town.

 

[Gold]

I'm not a Plaschke fan. For a while, it seemed like a "Tragedy of the Month" story. Then there was a column about Hideo Nomo during the period when California was into its' anti-immigrant periods, whom Plaschke kind of demanded that he learn English. Nomo was there to pitch, not use the King's English. As noted by someone above, he accepts some ridiculous points.

Even conceding writing ability, I think he just writes a lot of things which are just silly.

I don't think DePodesta did a good job as Dodgers' GM, but I don't think Plaschke or any other LA writer has that sort of influence.

 

[SportsDude]

Since those on this thread seem more into the sabermetric scene than I, how do they feel about Paul Daughtery? I think he's showed as much, if maybe more, vitriol for sabermetrics than Plaschke.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

Maybe not now, Gold.

But in McCourt's first couple years as Dodger owner? The man doesn't know what he's doing at this point but he really didn't know then.

I think the media clearly influenced him.

 

[Tom Petty]

sabermetrics simply is a fine way for ****ing dorks who don't understand the game to feel better about themselves.

simple logic dictates that the validity of your answer is terrifically weakened by increasing the variables you add to your equation.

please, someone tell me if fat bill and the pocket protector boys have found a way to defy logic.

 

[spaceman]

sabermetrics simply is a fine way for ****ing dorks who don't understand the game to feel better about themselves.

Thank you, sir.

 

[PHINJ]

sabermetrics simply is a fine way for ****ing dorks who don't understand the game to feel better about themselves.

simple logic dictates that the validity of your answer is terrifically weakened by increasing the variables you add to your equation.

please, someone tell me if fat bill and the pocket protector boys have found a way to defy logic.

Well he helped turn the Red Sox into two-time world champions, which is pretty close.