Who in the heck is Brian Horwitz? Who cares?
almost 2 years ago
APV
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His twitter feed is just a goldmine. I think I’m going to have to make this a regular feature. For the record, this is Brian Horwitz, selected in the minor league phase of this season’s rule 5 draft.
In case you missed them, a few previous nuggets:
Wonder if Ricky Rincon, the reliever the Indians received for Giles from the Pirates, is back in Mexico tending his lemon trees?
Biggest difference between spring training in Florida and Arizona? The pickup trucks have bigger wheels in the desert.
Asked Russell Branyan where he was physically regarding his back. Branyan’s response: “I’m standing right in front of you.”
Hoynes has finally found his medium
Still not sure about hoynes, but I like branyan more.
by Brick. on Mar 12, 2010 9:50 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
As long as he doesn’t quit his day job.
Wait.
Never mind.
"...maybe this year, there's no gorilla" - YoDaddyWags
by woodsmeister on Mar 12, 2010 10:13 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
And here Hoynes makes something of an apology:
Who was that masked man? Outfielder Brian Horwitz, who had a game-tying RBI double in the ninth inning Thursday against Chicago to keep the Indians undefeated, was acquired in the Class AAA phase of the Rule 5 draft in December at the winter meetings.
Horwitz, hitting .286 (2-for-7) this spring with the Tribe, played 21 games in the big leagues with the Giants in 2008. He hit .222 (8-for-36) with two homers and four RBI. Last year at Class AAA Fresno, he hit .290 (61-for-210) with 27 runs, 10 doubles, two triples, four homers and 26 RBI.
He made a trip the Glendale, Ariz., on Thursday as an extra player to replace the starters in the late innings. He’s not on the 40-man roster. Look for him to open the year at Class AAA Columbus.
I don’t have the exact number, but I believe being taken in the minor league phase means that you aren’t one of your club’s Top 70 players. The entire 40-man roster is protected from the draft. After the major league phase is done, the minor league phase starts. The entire Triple-A roster is protected at that point, and of course clubs stuff all their significant prospects onto the Triple-A roster temporarily for this purpose.
Unlike the 40-man roster, where you have to worry about DFA rules and option years, there is no reason not to place a guy on the Triple-A roster for the Rule 5 draft, so every slot gets used up — I know it’s more than the active roster limit of 24, but I’m not sure if it’s as high as 38, which is the reserve limit.
Anyway, suffice it to say that clubs typically have 70 to 75 players protected from the minor league phase, and Brian Horwitz wasn’t one of them. In other words, no offense to Mr. Horwitz, but Hoynsie “did nothing wrong.”
It is not my intention to say Hoynes did anything wrong. I thought the initial tweet was amusing only because I think there are actually a lot of guys that Hoynes should know where he might say the same thing. It does crack me up that he went through the effort of taking down the tweet and writing a followup entry on a guy who, as you point out, is totally non-consequential. I don’t know if I’d say Hoynes did something wrong, but somehow this is just another example of the struggle for relevance of guys like Hoynes.
The struggle for relevance of guys like Hoynes.
I realize it’s open season on Paul Hoynes, but I don’t think it’s fair to say he is struggling for relevance or even should be. Many words are expended here in regard to him.
I disagree. As a professional journalist, Hoynes has two advantages the rest of us don’t have. He has direct access to the people involved in sports and he gets paid to watch, think and write about these things as a full-time job. We might laugh at some of his questions, but Hoynes does an adequate job with the first part of that, getting quotes from players and coaches and such. But he completely fails to put those quotes into some broader context or understanding for fans. Aside from the “woe is us, Cleveland” narrative, there is no value-added in the form of analysis or thoughtfulness in Hoynes’ work. Yet he is still a professional journalist because he still has that direct access. However, the exclusivity of that access in not nearly as solid as it once was. Now MLB has it’s own group of reporters and web-based information services that also have that access. And as most of us would acknowledge, Castrovince does a much better job of providing not just a rundown of quotes stuck into a template sports article framework, but actually providing some degree of insight reflecting the fact that as a job he watches, thinks and writes about the Indians. So yes, I do think Hoynes is struggling for relevance. Otherwise he wouldn’t have a twitter feed (which I actually enjoy, by the way) and be doing so many online video feeds for the Plain Dealer (which I also enjoy).
by APV on Mar 14, 2010 1:07 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Neither of us wants to replay Leitch v. Bissinger, so let me confine my comments to what Hoynes is doing today. That will require me to exclude Castrovince, who does a great job, but in a different (generational) fashion.
Hoynes is a pretty good writer, the best beat writer on the Tribe today. He seems to have an agreeable personality that helps him get lots of quotes. People talk to him.
Quoting significant statistics doth not a good writer make. I’d say Pluto coasts a lot but he gets a pass because he cites OPS. Hoynes’ style is sloppy. Try writing everyday for a newspaper. Do it for 20 or 30 years. Work in an environment where you are constantly reminded your job is in peril. Work in an environment where everyone around you is getting fired (except management), where cost is always a consideration.
He has a good Cleveland sense of humor, and picks up on things (the Branyan quote he was mocked for turned out to be prescient about Branyan’s plateau) others may not.
As Chuck frequently points out, there is a historical basis for the Woe is Us, Cleveland narrative. Hoynes is from Cleveland (or he sure sounds like it). More than anyone here, he’s seen more games, in person, and has spent more time with the smartest baseball minds in the country. Access and confidences are to be respected. Hoynes knows more than he says (read his season-review wrapups to learn things you never knew and he never revealed during the season).
It’s a hard job, and he does a pretty good job. He could work harder but he has a right to be demoralized.
And, please—Tony Lastoria? A man to whom every prospect is a star? Does he know more about baseball than Paul Hoynes?
As another example of the breakdown of journalist’s exclusive access, consider a guy like Tony Lastoria who has a great piece up today on Adam Miller. I’m an occasional critic of some of what Tony does in the context of rankings and roster decisions, but he has, I assume through some seriously hard work on his part, done a great job of getting access to a huge number of people in the Indians developmental system. And he not only gets that direct access, but he puts it together into something that is valuable to readers and fans.
1592 words on Adam Miller. There was good stuff in there, but maybe 400 words. I had to struggle past the sixth paragraph. Not comparable to what Hoynes does at all.
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