Chat with Anthony Witrado

Lavender should be the official BCB questioner.

I would like to know why he doesn’t use an editor before publishing.

Also, how did he make the jump from an illiterate bus boy to Tom H. beotch

Something about Mike Cameron and all those damn strikeouts, or how Manny Parra just doesn’t have the composure to be a true ace. Bonus points for dropping a “credability”, “whatever that is”, etc.

if he ever found that Numba 1 Stunna necklace

What kind of coffee does TH like?

tcyoung

Assuming he likes coffee

what is more impressive: Alcides Escobar’s hose or when he plays with his stick?

What does business casual mean to you?

or do you make them yourself with a bedazzler and glitter?

How did you overcome your lack of any apparent skills to land a prime job like covering the Brewers?

How was riding the short bus to school every day? Is it like 30% the experience of a normal bus?

And did he do it hilariously?

I can’t exactly remember how I worded it, but it was something to the effect of,

“with Suppan’s horrible September and inconsistent spring, how do you think the club justifies starting him v. Lincecum on opening day? Also, you had mention blogs on previous posts. Do you feel more pressure in the accountability department since fans have more public avenues to express their thoughts on subjects and your writings. For example, how do you deal with the backlash received when you wrote the article, "Injured Gwynn not panicking- yet.” and the 2nd sentence of the article you quote him as saying, “I’m starting to panic.” Also, did you ever find that Numba 1 Stunna blinged out necklace you lost? Thanks for doing this.

Hahaha Hyatt start your own blog:

I don’t think he should start opening day, but you never know. You could get the Suppan who will throw six shutout innings. … All of us in the media are held plenty accountable, and now it is for public consumption when we make a mistake in a blog or a chat. These things are meant to be causual and interactive, and when that happens, sometimes mistakes or typos are left in. It’s not a major issue because it’s a web log, almost like a social networking site. But people still feel the need to tell you how much more than you they know. It is unacceptable to make mistakes in the paper, however. But the blogs are a tool for us to get out information as quickly as possible and post interesting stories or thoughts we might have. Fans should always hold their local reporters accountable, but it gets to a point where you stop reading comments because some readers use it as a platform for personal attacks, which isn’t cool. They wouldn’t do that to your face, and I know this first hand because I have run into some of those people who always have the same response: “I didn’t mean for it to come off like that.” As for the Tony Gwynn Jr. story, Tom and I don’t write headlines. We just turn in stories and leave the headline writing to those who get paid for that and they come up with headlines to grab your attention. But like I said, people are going to make mistakes, whether we’re professionals or not. I appreciate being held accountable because it makes us more diligent and aware. However, as people, no one wants to get bashed on their own blog. If people feel like they need to hold us accountable by insulting Tom and I, they should just start their own blog to do it and leave ours to people who care about Brewers baseball.

Already done.

Apparently 7 pm means “done well before 7 pm”.

Witrado is doing a significantly better job than I thought he would with this. He’s not dodging questions, which is nice.

and he moved the question about his gangsta attire to the top of the page, and kept the baseball questions at the bottom. Words cannot describe this guy’s ineptness.

I like how he does the thing where you pick apart the other guy’s argument by listing a spelling error. The funny thing is that there are like 5 in his chat and I’m pretty sure you spell it “Gangsta”.

Well of course that’s the case, all of those people know a lot more about baseball than he does. I was expecting worse than Joe Morgan “analysis,” so yes, my standards are indeed too low.

I guess I just don’t really care what Witrado does. If he can bring news faster than other people, great. If he can’t, I have other sources. The reality is that your average JS reader doesn’t really understand analysis when it comes from someone such as JS, you, or anyone from a sabermetrically inclined blog. That’s why I come here, and not to JSonline.

I tend to forgive some of the grammar/spelling in a chat session. I hold blog entries to another standard, though. They should absolutely have decent grammar, writing style, and spelling. I disagree with Anthony on that. Chat sessions, on the other hand, are more forgivable since he is essentially shooting from the hip. You can’t say that when you’re under pressure to answer a series of questions, and they’re coming quickly, that you would go back and ensure everything was properly written. That’s something that should be reserved for actual posts.

I know I butchered some grammar there, and I don’t really care. If I had been posting a fanshot or fanpost, I would bother to go back and rewrite it.

Our (or my) standards are definitely too low, but I just don’t care. I don’t expect anything because I haven’t gotten anything from AW or TH before, so why should I expect it now?

# Q: Jordan, Appleton – What stats do you like for player evaluation? wOBA and FIP?
# A: Anthony Witrado – For position guys, I like to look at OBS and OBP. I think batting averages can be misleading. If you look closer at that, you have to get into percentage of balls put into play and all of those kinds of stats because average is so dependent on a defender’s range and such factors. Defensively, fielding percentage can also be misleading because of range factor. For pitchers, percentage of hits of balls put into play is a decent stat, but all of these have holes, which is why baseball is such a stat-happy sport. It is tough to evaluate a player strictly on a couple of categories.

Cool, he tried to play the card of knowing more than me even though I mentioned wOBA. Not a terrible attempt. Would’ve been good to see him recognize what wOBA is. I think that’s supposed to be “OPS”, unless he’s making up stats.

Q: Daniel Lavender, Racine, WI – How did you overcome your lack of any apparent skills to land a prime job like covering the Brewers?
A: Anthony Witrado – Payola.

I know everyone’s having fun with this … but c’mon, how cliched is it for bloggers/commenters on team blogs to hate on their beat writers — even if they do suck? I’m not gonna defend Witrado’s spelling and punctuation, but throwing this kind of question at him in a chat just gives BCB a bad name. It’s too predictable and it goes against the description in the title — “intelligent discussion.” I learn way more about the Brewers, statistically speaking, here than I do in the JS, but I also grew up reading the JS and get plenty of info from the JSblog. BCB would be better off if the “intelligent discussion” came without the angst toward the mainstream.

I credit him for printing Lavender’s question. The answer, like most of his stuff, needed work (I mean, Payola is a bribe for radio-station playlists; Nepotism would have been more appropriate) … but in the end Lavender ends up looking like more of a dick than Witrado does.

Comments closed.