Hack Writing

Kevin Goldstein wrote a piece today on BP Unfiltered shortly after Harden was taken out of the game. He pointed out how Harden’s velocity was lower today, but make the unthinkable mistake of comparing today’s velocity to 2 other starts this year. If you’re going to compare it to 2, why not spend 3 minutes and compare it to all 4 starts? I think it was obvious KG was looking to show that his velocity was down and that he may be injured. I tracked Harden’s velocity for each start he made with the Cubs last year and posted this chart of his velocity. This is important because KG is thinking he’s injured based on the velocity average today of 90.9 mph. Yes, 6 of his 12 starts last year had his velocity less than, equal to, or just slightly higher than today’s 90.9 mph. Had KG taken a look at this (information freely available to every living person on the planet) he’d have known that Harden’s velocity fluctuates more than he thinks it does. Harden’s velocity per start this year is below. 4/10: 92.71 mph 4/15: 92.48 mph 4/21: 89.80 mph 4/26: 92.23 mph 5/1: 90.85 mph What we have is 3 starts in the 92 mph range and 2 in the 90-91 mph range, which is kind of like last year, isn’t it? Furthermore, KG seems to be implying he is injured by showing his velocity was good on 4/10 and 4/15 without apparently knowing that Rich Harden made starts in between those dates and today. In Harden’s last start, the final 3 innings were some of the best heat we’ve seen from Rich Harden. HP covered that right here. He averaged about 94.5 mph the final 3 innings in that game. This was just posted on the Unfiltered part of BP and is free to all people, but the sad part is that the overall quality of that place has fallen to a level quite similar to this piece by KG. It would have taken him almost no time at all to look at those other 2 starts and probably 45 minutes to look at his starts from last season. I guess he just wanted to write something. After all, when someone says Harden may be injured they really can’t go wrong. If he is injured they’ll pat themselves on the back for spotting it even though they came to the conclusion they did based on worthless information. This is junk. BP should be ashamed of the quality of work it is now putting out compared to several years ago. Don’t expect it to get any better either. Nate Silver has mostly stepped down and he has turned over a large part of his responsibility to none other than Kevin Goldstein. Kevin Goldstein is a hack writer. There was no reason for what he posted today to actually be published. It makes KG look bad, but even worse, it makes BP look bad. If I can get this information I assure you that the folks at BP and their interns can get this information far more quickly than I. No excuse for this. Here are the links to all of Harden’s 2009 starts over at Brooks’ Baseball Pfx. April 10th start at Milwaukee: http://brooksbaseball.net/pfx/index.php?month=4&day=10&year=2009&game=gid_2009_04_10_chnmlb_milmlb_1%2F&pitchSel=425848.xml&prevGame=gid_2009_04_10_chnmlb_milmlb_1%2F&prevDate=410 April 15th start vs. Colorado: http://brooksbaseball.net/pfx/index.php?month=4&day=15&year=2009&game=gid_2009_04_15_colmlb_chnmlb_1%2F&pitchSel=425848.xml&prevGame=gid_2009_04_15_colmlb_chnmlb_1%2F&prevDate=415 April 21 start vs. Cincy: http://brooksbaseball.net/pfx/index.php?month=4&day=21&year=2009&game=gid_2009_04_21_cinmlb_chnmlb_1%2F&pitchSel=425848.xml&prevGame=gid_2009_04_21_cinmlb_chnmlb_1%2F&prevDate=421 April 26 start at St. Louis: http://brooksbaseball.net/pfx/index.php?month=4&day=26&year=2009&game=gid_2009_04_26_chnmlb_slnmlb_1%2F&pitchSel=425848.xml&prevGame=gid_2009_04_26_chnmlb_slnmlb_1%2F&prevDate=426 May 1 start vs. Marlins: http://brooksbaseball.net/pfx/index.php?month=5&day=1&year=2009&game=gid_2009_05_01_flomlb_chnmlb_1%2F&pitchSel=425848.xml&prevGame=gid_2009_05_01_flomlb_chnmlb_1%2F&prevDate=51