A sneak peek at this Sunday’s New York Times’ article on Ryan Howard.

Times article on Ryan Howard

But check out the tease for the article on the front page of the Times’ website  (emphasis mine) …

PLAY Magazine Preview: Ryan Howard

He hit 58 home runs in his first full season in the majors.  Also, he’s modest and considered to be steroid-free.

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Used to be we assumed everyone was "clean" …. now we like to point out the ones we think are doing it naturally.

Murray Chass, the Hall of Fame baseball columnist for the New York Times, penned a column yesterday in which he took some shots at the development of new statistics for measuring player performance.

Chass column

(excerpt)

"I
receive a daily e-mail message from Baseball Prospectus, an electronic
publication filled with articles and information about statistics,
mostly statistics that only stats mongers can love.

To me, VORP
epitomized the new-age nonsense. For the longest time, I had no idea
what VORP meant and didn’t care enough to go to any great lengths to
find out. I asked some colleagues whose work I respect, and they didn’t
know what it meant either.

Finally, not long ago, I came across
VORP spelled out. It stands for value over replacement player. How
thrilling. How absurd. Value over replacement player. Don’t ask what it
means. I don’t know.

I suppose that if stats mongers want to sit
at their computers and play with these things all day long, that’s
their prerogative. But their attempt to introduce these new-age
statistics into the game threatens to undermine most fans’ enjoyment of
baseball and the human factor therein.

People play baseball. Numbers don’t."

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I just sent a reply to the New York Times, in which I stated that given that baseball is a business, and millions of dollars are being given to players for their performance, any new (better) way of evaluating player performance should be encouraged.  I go on to say that Baseball Prospectus has helped me better understand the valuation of players, and has therefore enhanced my enjoyment of the game.

Hopefully my letter will get published …