Today, pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training for the Washington Nationals. Instead of linking you to an obligatory “those are the greatest four words” (apparently not considering “tests came back negative” or “s/he’s not pressing charges”) column, take a look at this take, which manages to have it both ways in terms of insight and sentimentality.
January and February are all about Top 10/20/50/100 lists in the Prospect World (believe it or not, I didn’t post about every one I came across). Yesterday, I came across an interesting analysis about the correlation between Success and Failure Rates of Top MLB Prospects. There’s a lot to look at but kudos has to go to Scott McKinney for putting in the time to do this. My favorite conclusion, BTW:
The success rate of prospects (both position player and pitchers) is nearly flat and relatively undifferentiated for players ranked 41-100, and especially those ranked 61-100
Why do I like that so much? Because it supports my belief that any idiot can pick the Top 50, but the real test is beyond the cream of the crop.
My last pick for something to read comes from a blog in New York. As lawyer-turned-blogger Craig Calcaterra puts it: “There’s so much stuff written about the Yankees, but much of it is either insane hype or unwarranted pessimism.” This blog, he goes on to say, is one of the few that doesn’t veer in either direction.
It’s the latter part of that quote that I can relate to, because it reminds me of something that I was told about complaints back when I was a graduate teaching fellow in J-school: It’s a reverse Bell curve, the A-minuses campaigning for A’s or F’s campaigning for a D-minus. Reading this column, I’m starting to wonder if that theory may also apply about the fans of teams as they approach 100 wins or 100 losses.