It was somewhere else on ESPN. I read about it on Baseball Think Factory.Originally Posted by boomboom
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It was somewhere else on ESPN. I read about it on Baseball Think Factory.
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True, but if you are going to predict wins, and you're an expert, there's no reason you can't spend the extra minute doing a little first grade math.
Song of Solomon 5:4
HGM, can you stop whining about everytime a sportswriter makes a mistake. They're people too, they're not perfect.
They probably noticed that all of the wins didn't add up to 2340 (or whatever number it was), but they probably didn't bother to change it because they assumed no one would actually take the time to add up every win in the predictions to check.
Some mistakes are bad and deserve to be pointed out, but others aren't really that horrible.
Example:
Joe Morgan says that Braden Looper still pitches for the Mets- Big Mistake
Joe Morgan says that Braden Looper is still a reliever- Minor Mistake
HoustonGM, in my honest opinion, you shouldn't criticize sportswriters because (to my knowledge) you have never been in their shoes. I can only imagine how rough their lives are. Imagine having to rewrite an article 5 times, because your editor didn't accept it. Imagine writing an intelligent article using complicated SABR stats and having to dumb it down for your regular readers (I bet this happens quite often). Imagine being counted on to write 2 intelligent but simple enough for regular readers, 1-2 pages each, per day.
Imagine doing all of that, and then seeing people criticize you for not having the wins and losses in your predicted standings add up to exactly 2,340. I doubt that that's a good feeling.
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First of all, as I said earlier, perhaps in a different thread I don't feel like checking, if I whined every time a sportswriter made a mistake, there'd be no room left in this forum for anything else.
Secondly, a mistake is one thing. Repeated mistakes with no attempt to correct them is incompetence.
Or, they just decided to assign an arbitrary win total off the top of their head to each team, without putting actual work into it. Which, as I said, is fine, but if that's what you're going to do, don't do it under the title of "expert."They probably noticed that all of the wins didn't add up to 2340 (or whatever number it was), but they probably didn't bother to change it because they assumed no one would actually take the time to add up every win in the predictions to check.
This logic is so incredibly dangerous, and I'm going to say screw Godwin here - You shouldn't criticize Hitler because you've never been in his shoes.HoustonGM, in my honest opinion, you shouldn't criticize sportswriters because (to my knowledge) you have never been in their shoes.
See where such logic goes? Sorry, but it's perfectly fine to point out errors and incompetence in sportswriters because they're employers don't care. Sportswriters can say anything they want, short of offensive remarks, and get away with it, and I think that they should be held to a higher standard than that, at least if they're going to be labeled "experts."
I don't, because mainstream writers rarely use any stats more complicated than batting average.Imagine writing an intelligent article using complicated SABR stats and having to dumb it down for your regular readers (I bet this happens quite often).
I'm sure they really don't care if some dude online points out that they're predicted standings are impossible. If that really hurts their feelings, that's pretty sad.Imagine doing all of that, and then seeing people criticize you for not having the wins and losses in your predicted standings add up to exactly 2,340. I doubt that that's a good feeling.
Again, my issue here isn't that their just simply "journalists." A journalist writing for the local newspaper that wants to have some fun and predict the standings and just throws out some off-the-cuff predictions is one thing. But if you declare yourself an "EXPERT", you should...you know...write with some expertise.
Call it semantics, but it's not as if incompetence in the journalism industry is anything new or rare.
E=I*R
People make the same critisizms of mainstream journalists as metsguy234 is making as well, and their just as wrong for doing so.
Who else is there to watch the journalistic record, if not us?
You insist that there is something a machine cannot do. If you will tell me precisely what it is that a machine cannot do, then I can always make a machine which will do just that! -J. von Neumann
E=I*R
Turning issues into personal attacks is not something that I'm willing to stand by and watch.
Thread closed.
You insist that there is something a machine cannot do. If you will tell me precisely what it is that a machine cannot do, then I can always make a machine which will do just that! -J. von Neumann
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