Thursday, February 5, 2004

Neyer is Right On

Rob Neyer takes ESPN's Page 2 to task for their Ultimate Standings, which rank the Angels as the #1 franchise in baseball.
Yes, we might say we care about the honesty of our team's owner, and how much the players hustle, and whether or not the manager attends the local Elks Club dinner. But we don't, really. We care about winning, and if I were designing a system I wouldn't pay any attention to what the fans say. I would start by making "Championships" (or "Winning") worth 50 percent of everything, and then let all the other stuff fill in the rest.
Right on Rob, well said. While we all hate to admit it, the Yankees are probably the best franchise in baseball. They should not be sixth behind the Angels, Diamondbacks, Cardinals, Marlins and Royals(!). And there's no way the Red Sox should be 22nd, only one spot ahead of the Expos. It's all quite preposterous.

2 comments:

  1. They dropped the A's from 11th in 2003 to 66th in 2004, yet used essentially the same explanation to support them in 2003 and tear them apart in 2004...

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  2. Rob Neyer isn't right on, he is almost completely wrong. If championships were everything, pro sports would fall apart. Only one team wins the championship every year. If they mattered so much, fans of all 29 other teams wouldn't have any reason to be fans?
    And why should the Red Sox be rated high in championships? They haven't won a championship in my grandparents lifetimes.

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