MLB Tonights highlights are easily twice as long.

I think there is some insight there despite the lack of analysis.

Truthfully, there isn’t that much worthwhile analysis on any TV or radio show or website.

yeah, i guess he’s fine, but his air time seems pretty limited (which is why i don’t really seem his as part of the show). kurkjkjkjian, olney et al seem to be a BIG part of the BBTN show.

i’d really like to see Keith Law or someone like that, and not just for a five minute segment every now and then — i want them at the desk.

Well, it’s one thing to make an okay guest for Dan Rather on a cable network most folks don’t even get, quite another to hold your own on a sports show. Like Chuck said, let’s not kid ourselves, this is about entertainment. And it’s not as though Silver has ever been particularly entertaining as a pure writer, either, whether at BP or 538.

In fact, his defensive stats are somewhat light on credibility anyway. He should be putting plus/minus or something up there in lieu of FRAA, which nobody takes seriously.

Use OPS+ seriously if you want me to even consider this absurd appeal to authority.

You think he didn’t have good stuff? Why do you think it was so damn frustrating that he ended up the way he did, pitching in tonight’s Columbus Clippers game? Same deal with Fernando Cabrera. Try again amigo.

Yes, tantalizing stuff, mediocre command. Eventually lost confidence in his fastball and starting throwing it over the heart of plate. I can tell who has good stuff. That was a rotten example anyway.

Your passing acquaintance with a pair of HOFers does not say a goddam thing about “the great majority of ballplayers.”

I never said athletically gifted people are less gifted intellectually. I did say that the ability to do good analysis is not all that common in any part of the population — and I certainly include baseball bloggers in that statement — and among those with the aptitude, very few ever are trained to do it, and to make matters worse, the inclination to do truly rigorous analysis is quite rare.

Furthermore, you think Joe Morgan is a baseball savant, too. Fact is, your track record is to assign great expertise to any HOF ballplayer, so why should we believe anything you write about a Ripken or Clemens being an expert?

Additionally, you are forgetting that, while you can sit here and say that John Kruk is extremely knowledgeable about baseball and that makes him a fine broadcaster all you want, we have all watched BBTN and heard him talk and say some dumb stuff. So we have just as much “personal experience” in this matter as you do. Yeah, we could have different opinions, but he says some dumb stuff.

So my personal experience contradicts Jay’s assertion that "great majority of ballplayers likely have absolutely no aptitude for (baseball) analysis".

No, it doesn’t. Not at all. Your “couple of occasions” with two guys has absolutely no bearing on the profound idiocy that John Kruk spews nightly on BBTN.

Quite simply, John Kruk cannot analyze baseball any better than either of us, our wives or possibly our toasters. He is capable of having a thought, putting it into sound bite form and conveying just enough information to get him on the benchmark for broadcasting excellence, ESPN. Conversely, Nate Silver (or Rob Neyer or any other “nerd” you name) can analyze baseball brilliantly and in ways so nuanced as to forever escape porcine grasp of a former player. What some of the “nerds” fail to be able to do is be fat and jovial enough to come across well on tv.

Playing a sport does not guarantee expertise in it. I play soccer (for better or for worse) and I play it pretty well. That does not mean I am qualified to sit and pontificate on why the 4-4-2 is better than the 3-5-2 or why Petr Cech seems so lost recently. I don’t know those things. So, much like Jay said, I know how to do what I need to do in order to succeed where I am. So no, not all athletes are geniuses in the game they play. Perhaps a little more critical thinking and a little less genuflecting would make that clear.

This has been my experience, as well. Many great athletes can come alive – suddenly become compact, eloquent – when describing what one needs to do to excel at their craft. I do not think, by any means at all, that athletes are accidental kinesthetic geniuses who cannot explain their craft. Just talk to one, for cryin’ out loud.

The ability to communicate what you know is completely different from knowing how to do something.

this sums up my relationship with the keyboard

But then again, being glib and well spoken doesn’t mean you know what the hell you’re talking about.

That statement could also be applied to any segment of the population, though.

Yes, of course it could.

The ability to communicate what you know is completely different from knowing how to do something

Yes, and neither of those things is analysis.

Who missed whose point?

Dorthy would have no shot -none – in today’s market place. She – along with Joe Gordon and Arthur Godfrey – is carry over from radio – back when you could look like Nate Silver and still have a broadcasting career.

And Odradek, haven’t you been paying attention to the bimbettes that all of the sports programs are employing? Everything on TV – especially sports – is all about sex and violence. Why do you think the Cowboys have all those cheerleaders?

Like I said before: you have Pamela Anderson – topless – interviewing Migel Olivo about his bunt defense for 15 minutes and I – along with every other male baseball fan in America – will watch every second of it.

Who said “primary” purpose?

We are, in fact, fools for watching the vast majority of television news, entertainment programs, etc.

step one, cut a hole in the box

Didn’t expect you to be the guy to stick up for the Browns FO, but I appreciate it Chuck.