Prospectus Idol

mmmm, I'd subscribe to baseball player profile prospectus in an instant.

Btw, kudos to the BP staff for the additional technical updates!

As I noted in my individual comments, the topic this week was vast, yet limited the authors in a way. All 7 put in quality pieces, but nobody really went away from the structure of Marc Normandin's profiles. Everything really looked about the same. My voting is based more on the authors previous work than their work this week just because I can't distinguish anything to separate out their work this week.

Thanks for the improvements, Dave.

This should be interesting. In general, I don't really like Player Profile articles. Statistics can't say much about a single individual with a lot of confidence, so they just turn into a human interest story. And I just don't care.

We'll see if the idols can do better.

The Week 4 BP Idol Hit List!

Ok, so, player profiles... I could probably write up 2000 words of praise about each finalist so far... that's how much I've enjoyed everyone. Instead (and to save space), I decided to replace the weekly quote with a name of a major league baseball player who each finalist's performance reminds me of. No, there's no Pujols, but it's a definite All-Star team of finalists. As a disclaimer, this was a very tough week with a lot of very good articles and it's a shame someone has to be ranked last. I gave thumbs up for the top five.


#1 Tim Kniker (= #1<-#2<-#1<-#3) - David Wright

There are people who are slightly more original, there are others who drill into the stats deeper, and there are others who might even be better writers, but Kniker's been consistently great in a lot of categories. Kind of like David Wright, it's the sum of his overall talent that puts him at the top of the list.


#2 Matt Swartz (= #2<-#1<-#2<-#4) - Hanley Ramirez

Often brilliant, but sometimes brilliantly flawed, he missed for me slightly this week. However, when he gets a hold of one, he knocks it way out of the park. Even when he strikes out, he's still a pleasure to read and keeps an engaging discussion going. A bit more consistency in his defense could kick him back to #1.


#3 Ken Funck (= #3<-#3<-#3<-#1) - Ichiro Suzuki

Like Ichiro, I'm never quite sure how he ends up being so unorthodox and yet so good. The irony is even with his quirky writing, he has simple, unique insights. He's nipping again at Matt's heels.


#4 Matthew Knight (+ #5<-#5<-#8<-#6) - Alfonso Soriano

To paraphrase the BP 2009 Annual, Alfonso Soriano is often a spectacle without being spectacular. Matthew's come a long way and is close to actually being spectacular. One great week could vault him into the top three, but merely good won't cut it.


#5 Brian Cartwright (- #4<-#6<-#4<-#5) - J.D. Drew

Everyone sees his talent but he's not always available/accessible. Everyone sees what he could do, and he has been good, but the consensus is he hasn't been "great". In his career, J.D. Drew has been very good without being a superstar. Though Cartwright's effort has been there, his future is now.


#6 Brian Oakchunas (+ #7<-#7<-#5<-#10) - Placido Polanco

It's close between him and Tyler. While Tyler drills deeper into topics, Brian's shown a broader topic choice and thus has a bit more potential. I wouldn't complain if either one was on my roster.


#7 Tyler Hissey (- #6<-#7<-#10<-#8) - Akinori Iwamura

Tyler knows his skills, knows his job and does it well. What you see is what you get with Tyler, and what you get is very good. However, it comes down to the difference between a star and a superstar. With his history of doing player profiles in this competition, I was hoping the practice would produce something great. Instead, it was merely very good.

BP, another vote to get all seven of these guys on staff. Sign 'em up!