9/19/10

Q&A Weekend - Self-Proclaimed Prognosticators


Anonymous said:  - the Mets blogs and comments I have read this year from fans have overall been awesome as perspective. There has been a lot of baseball knowledge/understanding posted. One thing that drives me nuts is the so-called self-proclaimed prognosticators (like Toby Hyde) who think their evaluations based on stats alone are the gospel. Hyde continues to trash a great prospect like Dillon Gee with all he has accomplished, and then praises a guy like Mark Cohoon in the low minors who can't break 87mph and makes the call that this guy will be in 2011 rotation.

 I'm sure that some Mets bloggers get tired of hearing some media prognosticator make his minor league analysis as if he were the GM. At the same time, spends most of his time praising the higher end prospects and overlooking or finding fault with the results produced by some lower round draft picks who have found a way to be successful.

-I guess to a degree, everyone who writes about the Mets is a self-proclaimed prognosticator.

-I don't tend to read a lot of the other minor league Mets guys. Metro, Tej, Toby, and the rest of them, all write, I'm sure, how they feel. I try to write more about what I see.

-I have found it strange that Hyde technically works for the Mets, here in Savannah, as the media guy for the Savannah Sand Gnats, and also continues to put out a blog that is sometimes critical of both the team and their players. I will tell you this...  he is a great play-by-play announcer.

-I don't think there is any way any of us can do what we do and not come up against people who think we are wrong.  Especially from people who have the ability to leave a comment without identifying themselves.

'Back in the day, we called that gossip.

Great reporters don't write what they think. They write was the truth is, what they see, and sometimes an explanation why things happened the way they did. They then fill in with quotes.

Who, what, where, how, when.

The first lesson in reporting.

1 comment:

Hobie said...

>> Great reporters don't write what they think. They write was the truth is… >>

You are one of the most objective reporters out there, Mack (and I truly appreciate your bias to prognosticating where these guys will pick up their careers next Spring vs. projecting HOF careers or Chicottville).

I doubt, however, that anyone can really separate what he observes from what he thinks. Decisions today in all venues (economics, social engineering, foreign policy, sports…) seem to be baked from a risky mixture of ambiguous information and a spicy overdose of wishful thinking. Maybe this is unavoidable—fact & opinion in solution, not a separable mixture of, say, salt & pepper.