Roto Riteup May 21, 2017
There are three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and Cody Bellinger home runs. In 100 plate appearances, Bellinger has nine bombs and he’s leading the National League rookies in multiple offensive categories. He is also sitting on a 26.7% home run/fly ball ratio.
.@Cody_Bellinger is the fastest Dodger to nine home runs in franchise history (24 games). ? pic.twitter.com/BxQ06lD3b4
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) May 21, 2017
On the Agenda
- News and Notes
- Luis Robert
- Probable DFS Pitchers
–Welington Castillo could be the designated hitter for Sunday’s matchup against the Blue Jays.
–Julio Teheran is expected to start on Wednesday next week against the Pirates. He and R.A. Dickey switched spots in the rotation.
–Aaron Sanchez is heading to the disabled list once again with a blister on his middle finger. This will be his third stint on the D.L. this season.
–Dallas Keuchel was placed on the disabled list with a pinched nerve in his neck. Doesn’t seem serious, just something that is probably getting on his nerves. (I am so sorry).
Luis Robert
Top Cuban free agent Luis Robert and the Chicago White Sox agreed to a deal Saturday.
There has been a ton of hype around the 19-year-old who will more than likely start his professional American baseball career in low or high Class-A Affiliates of the organization.
Robert has a 6-foot-3, 185-pound frame and is a freak athlete with a lot of power possession. His exit velocity specifically has been noted in a lot of scouting reports. The negative side with him, however, hasn’t been anything we aren’t too surprised with surrounding a young player. He chases after balls and swings at pitches above the strike zone, but he is showing patience with breaking balls which is something he’s specifically working on.
Probable DFS Pitchers
Chris Archer vs. New York Yankees
Chad Kuhl vs. Philadelphia Phillies
Stephen Strasburg @ Atlanta Braves
Zack Godley @ San Diego Padres (Favorite low-price pitcher on the slate)
Yu Darvish @ Detroit Tigers
Great Riteup.
Would you rather have Luis Severino or Michael Pineda the rest of the season
Since it appears no editors are available on weekends, let me help:
As written:
Robert has a 6-foot-3, 185-pound frame and is a freak athlete with a lot of power possession. His exit velocity specifically has been noted in a lot of scouting reports. The negative side with him, however, hasn’t been anything we aren’t too surprised with surrounding a young player. He chases after balls and swings at pitches above the strike zone, but he is showing patience with breaking balls which is something he’s specifically working on.
As edited:
At 6-foot-3, 185-pounds, Robert is a freak athlete with power. Scouts praise his exit velocity. But Robert chases balls, especially above the strike zone, a common problem with young players. (Sources) say he’s working on recognizing breaking balls and showing more patience with them.
I love it when people feel the need to edit a knowledgeable writer on a free website – not sure there’s a bigger d-bag move in the world.
I’m sure it has nothing do with the writer being a woman. Enjoy your Sunday night.
I find it amusing when someone hides behind the anonymity of the internet to attack others.
Fangraphs is not free. It costs money to produce and manage the content on this website. it is a business, not a charitable foundation, and it offsets its costs with advertising and optional membership fees. Good businesses appreciate and benefit from feedback. Perhaps you could offer some and show the courage of your convictions by using your real name.
Are you saying “Ben” isn’t his real name?
A woman? Actually she is a plagiarist.
This kind of response cheapens and trivializes the immense amount of very-much real sexism and misogyny that exists in the world at large, the internet particularly, and w/r/t sports (fantasy and otherwise) even more particularly.
This author’s posts consistently fall far short of the admittedly high bar that Fangraphs has set for its content. The allegation of plagarism aside, the work is simply not up to snuff and that’s abundantly clear to anyone who consistently reads the site. That’s why there’s a strong reaction to it.
I can’t recall the name of the first author-in-residence from a few months back, but her work was brilliant, both from a content and authorship perspective. Without having gone back to look at the comments I feel comfortable guaranteeing that Fangraphs’ readership reacted overwhelmingly positively. And that’s because what the base here is after is insightful, thought-provoking and -ful, well-articulated analysis.
What we’ve been getting with the weekend riteup is none of those things. The reaction from the commentariat is emblematic of nothing more than a disappointment with Fangraphs’ surprising willingness to put out a product that is so far below what we all expect from them.
Well said.
The first author-in-residence at Fangraphs was Kate Preusser, who’s full-time gig is as managing editor of Lookout Landing and who also contributed to the 2017 Hardball Times Annual. Her excellent work at Fangraphs can be found here:
http://www.fangraphs.com/players.aspx?new=y&lastname=Kate%20Preusser
Kate write four articles in March that drew 115 comments. There was a single critical comment of her personally (a bizarre comment about political leanings that weren’t apparent in the article). Every other comment was either positive or neutral about the author, and quite a few people called upon Fangraphs to hire her full-time because the quality of her writing would have been at or near the top among those who write for the site. Other than the bizarre comment about Kate’s politics, the only negativity in the comments to her articles were by readers directing venom at other readers, a phenomenon that is unfortunately a mainstay at any website.
The intent of my original content was not meant to be directed at the author, since as you noted, her struggles on the site have been evident from the start. My comment was instead directed at those who manage the website. It appears to me that no one is copy editing the weekend articles. That’s not a problem for the Sunday Notes written by David Laurila, whose content and writing is consistently among the best on Fangraphs. But the apparent lack of weekend copy editing has caused troubles for Roto Riteup.
I have taken the time to read and listen to other content produced by Jessica. Her Twitter feed is generally lively and fun. Her personality also shows when she’s been a guest on Podcasts. I can understand why Fangraphs, and Eno Sarris in particular, asked her to write for the site. The website is looking for unique voices that differentiate themselves among the cacophony of content about real and fantasy baseball.
But the personality that enlivens her Twitter feed and podcasts is not evident in conventional articles she has written, at least those I have read. She desperately needs a copy editor to help her develop content, research it adequately and write it effectively. Fangraphs is not doing Jesscia favors by not providing her with that support. Either the site should remedy that lacking or find a writer who can swim on the weekends without the life preserver of a copy editor.
To be clear, the “kind of response” to which my post was aimed was Ben’s post which waved off with one hand as sexism any and every critique, as opposed to Jonathan Sher’s.
Maybe you could ask them for a job instead of bashing the girl. It just makes you look like a douche bro.
Just to be clear, the entire Luis Robert paragraph is unabashedly plagiarized almost verbatim from Ben Badler’s report at Baseball America posted on Saturday afternoon.
I commented about a week ago that this author was getting uncomfortably close to plagiarism in her news and notes section. In that case, I can at least understand that there are only so many ways to say (player) injured (body part) and will miss (time). I get that. It should still be sourced, Rotoworld at the very least links to the original source of the information, but I do get it.
In this case, the author completely and undoubtedly plagiarized Ben Badler’s post. A simple Google search with some of the basic keywords in that section all bring up Ben Badler’s post, either directly at Baseball America or quoted and sourced by various news organizations like SI and CBS Chicago.
The reason the paragraph is horribly edited, as noted in another comment, is because the author did the old high school trick of just rearranging the source information and adding some fluff and passing it off as original. Why not just do what any of those other organizations did and quote and source the original information?
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Roto Riteup: “There has been a ton of hype around the 19-year-old who will more than likely start his professional American baseball career in low or high Class-A Affiliates of the organization.”
Baseball America: “Based on his present ability, Robert should be ready for an assignment to low or high Class A, though that has yet to be determined, and several recent Cuban players have started their careers in the Dominican Summer League for tax purposes.”
Roto Riteup: “Robert has a 6-foot-3, 185-pound frame and is a freak athlete with a lot of power possession. His exit velocity specifically has been noted in a lot of scouting reports.”
Baseball America: “At 6-foot-3, Robert has a strong but extremely lean, athletic frame, standing out for his physicality, athleticism, tools and track record of performance, both against his peers and older competition. He’s a righthanded hitter with a good set up, premium bat speed and a fairly sound, compact swing. When Robert connects, he drives the ball with high exit velocity and plus raw power.”
Roto Riteup: “The negative side with him, however, hasn’t been anything we aren’t too surprised with surrounding a young player. He chases after balls and swings at pitches above the strike zone, but he is showing patience with breaking balls which is something he’s specifically working on.”
Baseball America: “While Robert has consistently performed at a high level, one of his biggest risk factor is his tendency to swing-and-miss. Robert isn’t a free-swinger, though at international tournaments and in Cuba, he has shown a vulnerability toward chasing fastballs above the strike zone, swinging through even below-average velocity. He’s also expanded the strike zone against breaking balls off the plate, though at other times he’s been able to lay off those pitches…”
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The irony of course is that this author removed any of the information from Ben Badler’s post that fantasy players might actually find useful about Robert; like what position he plays (OF), what side of the plate he hits from (right), if he steals bases (yes) and what his Serie Nacional stats were (pretty great).
Poor grammar and editing or irrelevant and poorly presented statistics are one thing, flat out plagiarism of a very well respected member of the baseball community is another thing all together. On a website filled with some of the best writers I know, baseball or otherwise, it is shocking to see this allowed on Fangraphs.
This is the other problem with this writers work. Oftentimes it feels like I had already read that at Rotoworld.
I think her 15 minutes should be up now.
I have read this now several times, and honestly, I am not sure she has plagiarized any content. There are only so many ways to do player descriptions. Is it close? Yes, it is. Plagiarized, well that is highly debatable. But, everyone has an opinion. Either way she is young, and still learning the ropes. It is just easier to climb them ropes when you are an attractive young woman surrounded by fantasy industry sorts. Of which, a great bevy of them are overweight and live at home still. Trust me, I am one of those industry fat guys, even though I do not live at home. Ease up a bit here, it seems a tad harsh.
We aren’t talking about biographical information here, we are talking about blatantly copy and pasting entire paragraphs and moving some words around, removing some other words and adding a little fluff to pass it off as original. Though even if we were talking about biographical information, I would note that the ONLY place listing Robert at 6’3″ 185 lbs is Ben Badler at Baseball America. No other source anywhere has the same height and weight listed, just in case there was any doubt where this information came from.
Not only does this author’s Riteup contain verbatim phrasing you won’t find anywhere else on the internet relating to Robert (specifically the references to “exit velocity” and “above the strike zone”) but this author presents it in the exact same order, down to the exact same paragraph breaks.
I didn’t copy and paste those comparisons randomly, they are in order, exactly as found in the original article on Baseball America. Again, to be very clear, the ONLY place on the internet the information contained in this article exists is Ben Badler’s post. Not coincidentally, it is the very first result that comes up when you search Luis Robert on Google. It’s almost like this author Googled Luis Robert and copied the first thing that showed up.
I am totally fine if this author, and the other Roto Riteup authors, don’t source injury information as there really are only so many ways to say a guy hurt his hamstring and will be out two weeks. But not sourcing scouting information that has been taken verbatim from one of the most well respected people in the industry, that is a problem that Fangraphs is going to need to address.
You have a legitimate critique here, but it is not the one you are actually making. Plagiarism is defined as “the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.” The author here is not passing off the information provided by other authors as her own. She very clearly attributes them to “scouting reports.” If, as you say, the information that she is referring to occurs in exactly one other source, then her failing is in not specifying which scouting report she is relying on. That is a legitimate failing, but it is simply sloppy attribution, not full-blown plagiarism. On the other hand, I don’t see any merit to your accusation of stealing “verbatim phrasing.” Terms like “exit velocity” and “above the strike zone” are commonly used terms in baseball analysis. I don’t think there is any reasonable expectation that someone’s use of them represents original work that should be protected.
In the examples you provide, here are the only words that are actually shared for each excerpt:
1. “low or high Class A” (this is what the MiLB levels are called).
2. “6-foot-3” (factual information about the player’s height), “exit velocity” (common term in baseball analysis).
3. “above the strike zone” (common term in baseball analysis), “breaking balls” (common description of pitch type).
Yes, it is clear from your research where this information was drawn from, and the author should explicitly cite that source, but the author does not ever claim to have produced that scouting information herself. Therefore, her error falls just short of actual plagiarism.
Excuse me? In what way is this NOT “taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own”?
This is not a situation where a baseball writer quotes the mythical “rival scout” about a player, we are talking about a nearly verbatim copy of a PUBLISHED report, paragraph breaks and all, from ONE source.
The reason I selected those specific phrases is not because they are common baseball vernacular that anyone can use, but because the info those paragraphs contain can only be found in ONE place. This is not widely reported scouting information like Aroldis Chapman throws hard or Giancarlo Stanton hits for power. No other mentions of any of the information contained in this author’s post can be found anywhere else but one place.
Again, we are not talking about basic factual biographical or statistical information here. We are talking about scouting information that can only be found in one place. Ironically, this author chose to remove any of the factual biographical or statistical information that people might actually find useful like his position, handedness, and Cuban/international statistics, all of which are widely available on the internet.
All this post needed to be is something like: “Cuban outfielder Luis Robert signed with the Chicago White Sox Saturday. The 19 year old right-hander had a .401/.526/.687 line in his most recent Serie Nacional season with 12 HR and 11 SB in 203 plate appearances but struggled against higher level competition during a short stint in the Can-Am League posting just a 5% walk rate with a .716 OPS. While the club has yet to announce where Robert will begin his career, he will likely follow the path of recent Cuban import Lourdes Gurriel who was assigned to High A after signing with the Blue Jays this off-season.”
That’s all it needs to be. That paragraph provides all the relevant information a fantasy player would need and all of that information can be found any number of places in both English and Spanish. Instead, this author specifically, and deliberately, took a nearly verbatim copy from a published professional source and passed it off as original research without citation.
Ultimately, that is the overarching criticism I have of this author in particular. There are no original ideas, thoughts or analysis and the ideas, thoughts and analysis that this author does post are often “borrowed” or simply false.
This wouldn’t pass the most basic high school level plagiarism test, never mind something that is being written by a credentialed journalist, copied from another credentialed journalist. If this author was set on using that specific information, most of which is irrelevant to fantasy players anyway, posting it as a quote with a link to the original source like any other Fangraphs author does is just common sense.
The only sexism on display is that this plagiarism is attracting attention, but when Jeff Sullivan ripped off one of my articles there was no similar outcry.
http://theprocessreport.net/offense-is-a-flat-circle/
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-rays-have-had-one-of-the-most-extreme-lineups-in-history/
Just came here for a Goins grandslam bump