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I LOVE sports radio. So much so that it is what I want to do as a vocation after I graduate from college. I LOVE St. Louis sports. I always have and always will. There is a picture of me in my bassinet in the hospital wearing a Cardinals onesie. I never had a choice, it was forced upon me by my dad and I'm very grateful that this is the case.

It makes sense then, that I should LOVE St. Louis sports radio. This is not the case. It makes me want to kill things.

On KFNS right now, Cusamano and Ramsey are arguing over how to platoon Ankiel and Encarnacion.
Here are the things they are saying that make me want to choke things:
1 - Their promo says they are the radio equivalent of a Seinfeld episode. This is the lamest thing I've ever heard; not to mention, inaccurate.
2 - One says you should play Ankiel all the time. I'm fine with this, we need to see what we have.
3 - One says you should platoon Rick and Juan. I'm not fine with this, because Juan and Rick have identical stats against lefties and righties. The argument for or against isn't what is killing me. It's the way they argue. It's incredibly dumb. One says they should platoon because "that's the old baseball axiom; that you should hit a lefty against a righty" and vice-versa. That's retarded. Look at the individual's performance, don't cite some ridiculous crap that doesn't apply. The other guy says don't platoon because Juan's splits are identical. He would win this argument if he would just look up Ankiel's stats, but for some reason this obvious fact escapes him.
4 - They both downplay obp's importance. They constantly cite batting average and they both love Ankiel in the 2 hole because "he'll see more fastballs in front of Albert." This is B.S. Beyond all the studies that show it to be so, they cite Duncan as an example of why it works. What? Duncan has performed consistently no matter where in the lineup Tony has put him! Are they not paying attention or are they just dumb? Ankiel's terrible obp in front of Albert is a terrible, terrible idea long term.
5 - They think k's are the devil and waaaay worse than a regular out. This is not so. How often do you really see an out move a runner or a batted ball that should be an out, lead to an error. Not that often. Not often enough to cancel out the other wonderful things that high k, high power guys like Adam Dunn bring to the table.

There are other reasons I hate St. Louis sports radio, but if I whined every time it bothered me I would drive you all crazy.

You are too knowledgeable to be in sports radio. Listeners won't know what the heck you are talking about.

Michael wrote:You are too knowledgeable to be in sports radio. Listeners won't know what the heck you are talking about.

This is a good point. As evidence to this, think about the people who call in.

Well baseball is really the only sport where you can go so in-depth with statistical analysis, so I'm more on the average sports radio listeners level with other sports.

I'm not huge into stats anyway. Just common sense.

See, I'm studying Broadcasting as well, but as a host or a listener, I really wouldn't want to talk about or hear about the importance of OBP or the fact that Ks aren't that much worse than any other out. If I heard it, I'd probably change the channel. Statistical analysis on TV or radio would bore me to death. I think these media are much better suited for more subjective analysis and discussion whereas books, magazines, and the Internet are the best way to enumerate the merits of objective numbers.

MrCrowesGarden wrote:See, I'm studying Broadcasting as well, but as a host or a listener, I really wouldn't want to talk about or hear about the importance of OBP or the fact that Ks aren't that much worse than any other out. If I heard it, I'd probably change the channel. Statistical analysis on TV or radio would bore me to death. I think these media are much better suited for more subjective analysis and discussion whereas books, magazines, and the Internet are the best way to enumerate the merits of objective numbers.

What's the difference between citing ba and citing obp as your hitting stat? Trust me, I can have an entertaining argument telling people why they are wrong for not citing stats like obp, etc.

thrill wrote:

MrCrowesGarden wrote:See, I'm studying Broadcasting as well, but as a host or a listener, I really wouldn't want to talk about or hear about the importance of OBP or the fact that Ks aren't that much worse than any other out. If I heard it, I'd probably change the channel. Statistical analysis on TV or radio would bore me to death. I think these media are much better suited for more subjective analysis and discussion whereas books, magazines, and the Internet are the best way to enumerate the merits of objective numbers.

What's the difference between citing ba and citing obp as your hitting stat? Trust me, I can have an entertaining argument telling people why they are wrong for not citing stats like obp, etc.

There isn't one. I don't care if it's BA, OBP, SLG, OPS...stats on the radio all sound pretty heavy-handed to me. I think sports talk radio is meant to be more light-hearted. This isn't to say that you can't have an argument like that from time to time, but if there was a talk show where every day it was weighing the merits and flaws of OBP and the strikeout, I wouldn't listen.

MrCrowesGarden wrote:

thrill wrote:

MrCrowesGarden wrote:See, I'm studying Broadcasting as well, but as a host or a listener, I really wouldn't want to talk about or hear about the importance of OBP or the fact that Ks aren't that much worse than any other out. If I heard it, I'd probably change the channel. Statistical analysis on TV or radio would bore me to death. I think these media are much better suited for more subjective analysis and discussion whereas books, magazines, and the Internet are the best way to enumerate the merits of objective numbers.

What's the difference between citing ba and citing obp as your hitting stat? Trust me, I can have an entertaining argument telling people why they are wrong for not citing stats like obp, etc.

There isn't one. I don't care if it's BA, OBP, SLG, OPS...stats on the radio all sound pretty heavy-handed to me. I think sports talk radio is meant to be more light-hearted. This isn't to say that you can't have an argument like that from time to time, but if there was a talk show where every day it was weighing the merits and flaws of OBP and the strikeout, I wouldn't listen.

Oh undoubtedly. I agree completely. This is why BP radio is podcast and streaming only. Nobody wants to listen to that tedium.

If you liked that, you would have loved Kevin Slaten going off about how much shame and humiliation Scott Spiezio has brought to a once proud franchise yesterday. And how Bill DeWitt fosters an organization of substance abuse. Compelling and rich.

--P--

Popeye_Card wrote:If you liked that, you would have loved Kevin Slaten going off about how much shame and humiliation Scott Spiezio has brought to a once proud franchise yesterday. And how Bill DeWitt fosters an organization of substance abuse. Compelling and rich.

--P--

Luckily I missed that yesterday.