Ranking the ESPN.com Baseball Writers
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by user Tmizzle
It's quite possibly the worst night for sports that I've ever seen. None of the three big American sports leagues (the MLB, NFL, and NBA) or the one big Canadian sports league (the NHL) are in operation tonight, and if I want to watch sports, it's either this year's Home Run Derby on ESPN (bad the first time, probably worse the second), the 2007 AAA All-Star Game on ESPN2 (minor league All-Star games are probably more interesting than the major league version), nothing on ESPN Classic (don't know why, but I don't get it as a channel anymore), the U-20 UEFA Cup on CBC (soccer's not as boring to me as other people, but watching teenagers do it is, no matter how talented they are), some kind of All-Star Game from a minor league conference (no, thank you, I get enough SNY commercials when I watch the Mets), or an Orioles-Yankees rerun from April 7th of this year on YES (it's a "Yankee Classic," so that definitely rules out my involvement). I'll probably watch Eight Men Out tonight, as it's sport-related and also a great movie.
But hey, enough about how sad my TV life is. I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I haven't gotten around to it until now. I'm going to rank the writers on ESPN.com's MLB website.
For this list, I'm only going to consider the major writers, so people like Amy Nelson (doesn't write often enough) or Jim Caple (more of a Page 2 sort of guy) need not apply. The candidates for my list are Peter Gammons, Jerry Crasnick, Keith Law, Rob Neyer, Buster Olney, and Jayson Stark.
I'm including all forms of communication: blogs, arti...wait, hang on...what the hell? Timo Perez is batting third for the International All-Stars! I knew he was still in the minors, but wow, I never thought I'd see him on television again. I'm flabbergasted. I'm going to need a minute to collect myself. What was I talking about? Oh, right. Articles count as well as blogs and chats and all that other stuff. Because I'm ranking writers on an Internet site, television appearances don't count toward the rankings.
Oh, one more thing: I'm an ESPN insider, so I'm counting everything on the site, including both insider and non-insider material. Sorry for anybody who doesn't have that access.
ESPN.com Writer Rankings:
1) Buster Olney: Buster earns the top spot from me mainly because of his credibility and his morning blog. His blog is required reading for me when I wake up, and he does a great job of compiling links for people to read when they wake up. He gets extra points for his ESPN the Magazine articles, which are posted on the site and are always insightful and interesting.
2) Rob Neyer: ESPN.com's resident "stat geek," Neyer is my personal favorite to read. His blog entries are always fun, and he conveys his points very persuasively. He gets major points from me for responding to commenters on his blog. As far as I know, he's the only guy at the WWL who regularly converses with fans on the website. He doesn't get the top spot because he doesn't write articles as often as Buster, but other than that, he's great to read.
(Quick side note: That minor league All-Star game on SNY that I mentioned earlier is currently mired in a fog. And I mean an enveloping, all-encompassing fog. I can barely see the players, and I have no idea how the hitters can see the ball. It's among the most ridiculous weather-related phenomena that I've ever seen at a baseball game.)
3) Keith Law: He's the leader in amateur and minor-league analysis. A scout who once worked as a special assistant for the Toronto Blue Jays, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of most players not currently in the major leagues, as well as great information on most major leaguers. He combines this baseball know-how with a variety of other hobbies (He's an avid reader, as well as an amateur music and food critic. His website covers all the stuff he enjoys, minus the baseball.) A lot of his book and food recommendations go right over my head (I'm just a simple boy from Upstate New York, after all), but I love his analysis and he's always a great read.
PS- the above three guys get extra credit for their chats, which are my favorite things to actually read on the website. If I were to rank the chats in order of enjoyability, I'd go: 1) Neyer, 2) Law, and 3) Olney.
4) Peter Gammons: I know he doesn't write that often for the site anymore, and most of his work nowadays is TV-related. His aneurysm cut down his workload a ton, I assume, but he's still Peter Gammons, and he deserves a spot on here anyway. His blog, when actually updated, is always full of great insights and inside information. Gammons gets a spot on here by default, and I decided to put him in the middle of the rankings.
Gammons gets the 4th spot because while I do like both of the last two guys, their stuff is not really must-read material for me. That's what separates them from the guys above them.
5) Jerry Crasnick: He seems to me to be more of a straight shooter than Law or Neyer, but I admire his straight-forward approach to writing. I liked his article today about Ken Griffey Jr., and I like most of the things he writes. His writing does tend to be a little boring sometimes, and that's really the only knock I can put on him.
(I know that Jeter-Griffey interview with Fox was a little cheesy, but did anybody else enjoy it? I personally thought that it was great, and that Junior and Jeter did a good job with it.)
6) Jayson Stark: Let me stress beforehand that I do like reading all of these guys. They're all great writers, and I admire what they're doing. When Stark did his book on the most overrated and underrated players in history, I understood what he meant when he said that being overrated was not necessarily a bad thing. That being said, Stark is my least favorite. For instance, his article today, celebrating Ichiro's inside-the-park home run, went a little bit over the top. All in all, though, Stark is a solid writer.
Just so everybody knows, by the time I've finished this, the All-Star Game on SNY has finaly gone into, and I'm not making this up, a fog delay. I would have preferred fog storm delay, or weird ghost-like weather patterns forming on the field delay. I don't know why, but I feel like people need to know about the fog, it's a threat to national security.
