AaronGleeman.com

Yesterday's thrashing of Bill Plaschke's recent column in the Los Angeles Times appears to be one of the most popular entries in the history of this blog. When I write something critical of others like that, I am always scared that I've gone too far, been too negative. But the response I got yesterday from emailers, friends and other bloggers assured me that I was right on the mark in this case.

Anyway, for an article about Paul DePodesta becoming the new Dodgers GM that is about 1,000 times better than Plaschke's hack-job, I suggest everyone check out Rob Neyer's take on the whole thing from earlier this week on ESPN.com.

I've been a big fan of Rob's for years now (he and Baseball Prospectus are the two biggest reasons for me being the type of baseball fan I am) and I think that column was among his finest yet. Heck, it was so good that I felt the need to email Rob to say just how much I enjoyed it, which is something I almost never do with anyone.

Here's the link:

Moneyball goes Hollywood (by Rob Neyer)

The Plaschke

There were all kinds of interesting responses to my ripping of Plaschke, both in emails and on other websites. Far too many to reprint here. This one, from the Rooftop Report ("A look at politics, gossip, and sports through the eyes of a Cubs fan") is one of my favorites:

Getting his ass handed to him

Well Aaron Gleeman just ripped Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times a new asshole. After reading Plaschke's most recent article on Paul DePodesta, I can't blame him.

[...]

His article seems to miss on every journalistic point possible; save grammar. It is not funny, it is factually inaccurate, it is very misleading, and it's only interesting factor is how open it is to criticism.

Not funny? Check. Factually inaccurate? Check. Misleading? Check. Extremely open to criticism? Check.

I don't know about you, but I smell Pulitzer for Mr. Plaschke!

I would also like to point out that I got tons emails from people living in California who all said essentially the same thing. "Bill Plaschke is a joke" or "Bill Plaschke is horrible" or "I stopped reading Plaschke two years ago."

I find it funny that no one seems to like reading one of the most well-known sports columnists in the country, although perhaps that just means the people reading this blog (and thus sending me emails) are smarter than the average newspaper reader? Hey, I'm willing to buy into that theory if you are!

Welcome to The Jungle

The cool thing about having a website is that you never quite know when you're going to get a big surge of new visitors. On a whim, someone with a more popular website could decide to link to your website and suddenly you've got tons and tons of new people stopping by, unannounced.

That happened to this site yesterday. Aaron's Baseball Blog was the "Yahoo! Picks" website of the day.

Here's a link to the Yahoo! Picks page, which includes a picture of the blog and a nice review of it.

Here's a quote:

Baseball diehards would be well-served to slide safely into this comprehensive site every day of the upcoming season. Dissecting baseball news and offering opinion, this prolific college student turns out prose that goes into extra innings. A Minnesota Twins fan through and through, he nevertheless offers cogent thoughts on players and teams from all over the major leagues.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool and I certainly appreciate the mass of new readers Yahoo! graciously sent my way. They were all treated to a nice scathing entry about Bill Plaschke, which is probably a fine introduction to Aaron's Baseball Blog.

500K for a Pinto

A hearty congratulations to David Pinto! His blog, Baseball Musings, reached 500,000 total visitors yesterday afternoon.

As I have said here before, David is literally the guy who caused me to start this blog. I was reading Baseball Musings on August 1, 2002, when I saw this entry from David about how much fun blogging was and about how he hoped some of his readers would start up blogs of their own.

So later that day I did. And now...well, now you're stuck with me.

Incidentally, it appears as though this blog will top 400,000 total visitors at some point this week. Not that it's a competition or anything. Although, I will say that David got a five-month head-start on me! Just remember the tortoise and the hare...

Rotoworld

As many of you have noticed, my first two columns for Rotoworld.com are available for mass consumption.

Spring Training Position Battles: Outfield (by Aaron Gleeman)

Spring Training Position Battles: Infield (by Aaron Gleeman)

Make sure to go check them out, but not until you're done reading all you want to read on this blog, of course. There will be a new Rotoworld.com column written by me every week through the end of the 2004 season.

On a related note, thanks to everyone who emailed me last week saying they picked up Rotoworld's magazine at a local bookstore/newsstand. Some of you even said you were actually excited to see my name in the magazine, which I think is pretty cool. I, for one, was thrilled to see my name on a printed byline for the first time (not including my high school newspaper) and my family members seemed fairly impressed too.

Operation Tickle Ass: Phase Two

A while back I hinted at three announcements I had coming related to my writing. The first announcement, which I made here about two weeks ago, was that I would be writing the weekly column for Rotoworld.com this season and also that I had written a bunch of stuff for their aforementioned magazine.

I am now ready to spill the beans on the second announcement.

(Drumroll please...)

I am proud to announce that I will be writing not one, but two weekly columns for InsiderBaseball.com this upcoming season.

I wrote weekly prospect reports for InsiderBaseball.com last season and I will once again be doing that this year. In addition to that, I'll be penning a weekly column on various player news around baseball.

Like my work with Rotoworld, my writing at InsiderBaseball.com will have a slight fantasy baseball slant, but it'll be the same type of writing you've been getting here for the past 18 months or so.

Unfortunately, InsiderBaseball.com is a subscription-based website, which means to read all of my work there, you'll have to pay for it. It is well worth the money if you're a serious fantasy baseball player or just a big-time baseball junkie in general.

I heard Enrique Wilson had a couple write-in votes

ESPN.com recently ran a poll where they asked a series of questions related to Alex Rodriguez being traded to the Yankees. As of me writing this, 109,230 people had responded to the poll. I found the results of two questions particularly interesting.

Who is the better defensive shortstop?

 

72.3%     Alex Rodriguez

 

27.7%     Derek Jeter

This is a surprising result, but definitely nice to see. I would say maybe all this talk guys like me are doing about Derek Jeter's horrible defense is actually making a difference, but I'm guessing the poll results have a lot more to do with Alex Rodriguez winning back-to-back Gold Gloves.

Either way, at least we know 72.3% of the people in this sample are not completely insane. And then there's this...

Who should the Yankees move to third base?

 

62.3%     Alex Rodriguez

 

37.7%     Derek Jeter

So 72.3% of the people think ARod is a better defensive shortstop than Jeter, yet just 37.7% of them think ARod is the one who should be playing shortstop for the Yankees.

This is interesting to me, because from a purely on-field standpoint, the responses make absolutely zero sense.