On Velvet Ropes

The newspaper industry in the paper form should be dead within the next 20 years. Guys like Souhan won't have the built-in advantage of the platform of the newspaper so voices that are not on point will fade away into the distance.

I think Souhan is a lazy writer that likes to stir the pot because it drives clicks and eyeballs to his columns. The Strib isn't going to discipline him for anything unless it crosses legal boundaries that open them up to issues because he drives clicks. Since the Strib is also a team sponsor/advertiser (see the permanent signage at the stadium), the team is also unlikely to say much as long as he doesn't outright lie about the team or expose something they want to keep internal. St Peter even retweeted the link to his column yesterday on the scout around the same time the blog response was posted. 

As far as access goes, I think it matters. The writers with access who use it appropriately and regularly give me context and make the players human. I want to know what the beat writers hear and what their impressions are of these people that I've chosen to spend many many hours and dollars watching. I like knowing that Escobar apologized for not being there post game because he took his family to dinner. It has nothing to do with play on the field, but it adds to the fun when he knocks one out and you see the smile on his face. I like reading about their families and off-field interests. They are people and without someone with access sharing these things it's sometimes easy to forget. I also appreciate the in-game insights from someone who really doesn't have a dog in the fight other than to tell the story of the game. There are also times these uninterested third parties drive out stories that matter for us to hear. Reporting on domestic violence, DUIs, etc. Those stories are delicate and I'm far more likely to seek a trained journalist for context and understanding of the impact. The beat writers build the relationships with the team and players to have the trust that when something bad happens in a game or off the field, the writer will handle it professionally and truthfully. You don't get to that point if you have no access. 

For those with some access that Souhan mentioned, I agree that Brandon and Seth are both good resources. Right now I view Brandon as attempting to start a new-media site but with a journalistic approach. I hope it grows and they're able to reach a point to afford to have a true beat-writer follow the team on the road for all the reason mentioned above. Seth, Jeremy, and Cody are unmatched with the prospect coverage, and I've seen Seth many times in March in Fort Myers building the relationships with the players as prospects. I still see Seth as a fan deep down, but that's not a bad thing. Access still matters here, but I don't expect the same type of coverage as a beat writer from Seth.  

So do I discount anyone without access? Absolutely not. But what I glean from a non-traditional or new media source without access to the team is usually different. I've learned a ton about stats and how useless the pitcher win is or that an RBI is a pretty useless stat and clutch hitting isn't really a thing all from reading non-traditional source writers. I've also enjoyed a ton of fan based writing too. And some is a mix of the two (e.g. Steve in Cedar Rapids). 

Instead of pushing Souhan to be a better writer, especially when there may have been a valid point to make, this has turned into a pissing match of access vs. non-access and that's so not the point. As a consumer, I need both. And we need the uninterested third party with access, not just the team version. If we don't have that, we're going to end up with a bunch of marketing stories that no matter how many "This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs." disclaimers are at the end are whitewashed to ensure the team never looks bad and they control the message entirely. 

This is why I don't read Souhan anymore. He has a history of going after the best players on the team. Rather than make legitimate criticisms about a player's game, he insinuates about their bad behavior and treats their injuries as character flaws.

Then, when someone pushes back, he plays the victim and claims that he "never said" the thing he is being criticized about, because he strongly implied it instead of outright saying it (see the City Pages column criticizing his article on Sano's weight). 

Another good example is his dig at Perkins in this article. Perkins was a shutdown closer, one of our best players, until he got hurt. In a one-sentence dig at Perkins, Souhan implies that Perkins' long injury recovery was because he is lazy and doesn't take care of himself. But if anyone criticized Souhan for that, he would reply "I never said that! You can't trust these jealous bloggers to report anything!"

Rather than make legitimate criticisms about a player's game, he insinuates about their bad behavior and treats their injuries as character flaws.

 

I remember when I used to catch him on the radio, his you could really tell who he disliked by the tone of his voice.  Often he would have a legitimate criticism, but for certain people there seemed to be an extra personal animus that did not exactly seem professional.  I think Mauer and Perkins might fall in there, but the prime example was Kevin Slowey.  I remember some really mean girl comments back in the day (some of them might have been early tweets).  I know Slowey was not exactly low maintenance, but Souhan seemed to really go after him at a personal level.

This next statement is pure speculation on my part and has no substantive weight.  I have always wondered how accurate Souhan's assessments were when he talks about thinks like his sources say Slowey is a blight on humanity (he did not actually say that - but I think it was close).  He would make it sound like that was the common consensus, but it is a big organization that is bound to have a number of opinions.  I wondered if he sometimes chooses to talk to the people who he knows will give him the opinion that he wants, or most of the people, esp. players, don't really want to share too much with him, so he might not always get a well rounded view of what people think.

Okay. Had I read Souhan's comment about Perkins as a comment in a thread here at TD, I might have liked it, admiring the witty snarkiness. Or dialogued a bit with the author, to suss out more meaning.

As it is, as a non-Minnesotan who only reads his stuff if it is linked here, I find it as a poor example of journalism. He seems to me less like a journalist, and more like a blog commenter (not writer) who gets paid to have strong opinions; opinions that we are supposed to give extra credence to due to his "access."

Reminds me of a popular off-season thread that went 1500 comments, fueled in part (large part?) by the OP's supposed "access" to inside sources.

As it is, concern over Sano's weight, or that of any other overweight person, in America should not be considered insightful or inflammatory or, for that matter, uncommon. I am blessed with a metabolism that allows me to eat whatever I want without my body providing visual evidence of my health habits.

Maybe if (insert skinny player name)was taking better care of his body by eating more carrots or laying off the coffee he'd be able to see the ball/have less shaky bat control and be able to get a hit.

In a vacuum that's true, but statistics say otherwise.

 

Stats, as in page views? Like as readers we show who we support by who we click?

To that, I would say, I just want the scoop, I don't care who broke it. So if I'm reading Gleeman, I'm not thinking he's got a new hot take, I just want to know what's going on. I don't give him credit for breaking the news, I give him credit for writing well and being entertaining. There are many blogs all writing the same news.

Or did I just misinterpret what you meant?

What's the big deal? Souhan is expressing concern that down the road Sano's weight may hinder his playing ability. I think that is a very valid concern. Playing at 285 isn't the same for a 30 year old as it is for a 24 year old. That's what I got from Souhan's articles.

There's SIGNIFICANT nuance to that, however. Bruce Matthews retired having played in one of the most violent sports there is for nearly 20 years at or above 285 for much of his career and still being considered one of the most athletic at his position.

Baseball is, to be completely blunt, on the dumb side of the understanding of the body and the athlete. For so many years, baseball skills ruled and no one worried too much about how those baseball skills got there outside of a scale, not really ever thinking so much about what actually constituted that number on the scale.

Then, the Oakland Athletics hired a renowned athletic trainer and strength coach who had worked with championship college football teams and basketball teams to be a full-time strength and conditioning coach. It was 1993, and he was the first person who was even half-time in such a role for a major league baseball club. The NFL essentially had strength and conditioning coaching teams by the mid-80s. The NBA had strength and conditioning coaches full time for every team in the league before 1990, and every team had multiple full-time staff in that area before 1995. In 1995, the Colorado Rockies became the first team to employ two people in strength and conditioning at half-time or more.

There is so much that is still being learned about properly training a baseball athlete due simply to how late the highest level of the game was in adapting to proper care of those athletes in strength, conditioning, and nutrition. Notably, since the last of teams finally adopted the idea of strength training (much like analytics, it took over a decade for every team to finally hire a full-time person), the average ballplayer has grown in size significantly, though in one particular team's anonymous team height/weight/measurements their staff took, the average waist of an MLB player remained neutral to actually shrinking as weights increased.

Sano made comments about seeking out ways to ensure his body could handle a full season at third base after his back issues last season. He was quoted often in the offseason about the weight lifting he was doing as part of that work. Many things, from someone experienced in the power lifting realm, were obviously new to him, and he was going to see some pretty dramatic muscle growth. That would be of concern, but his workouts also contained a very healthy dose of flexibility and plyometric work that would allow him to maintain or even improve his athleticism at his new muscularity.

So, Sano quite literally could weigh 270-290 right now and be in better shape than he was at 260. That's 100% feasible. He also could have a very long career playing at 280 pounds on the infield. The number on the scale has minimal bearing on whether he's able to handle third base, it's 100% on the composition of his body as he attempts to handle the position, and Sano has missed almost nothing this year as far as games, outside of a few games early in August when he was plunked on the hand. The durability he's shown while getting very minimal days off from Molitor over the season shows exactly the type of athleticism and recovery his body is able to handle at whatever number is on the scale. That he is unable to immediately return from an injury is not a "told ya" moment for Souhan as much as it is evidence of widely-reported consistent impacts to his shins that had cause repeated trauma to that area. If he's even 80% and the team is able to handle without him now, wouldn't you rather him get closer to 100% and ready for a possible run in October than to come back and have the chance of just getting worse when he takes the next foul ball off the shin?

Let's be clear: Souhan didn't make up these things about Sano or Perkins. There are people within and around the organization saying these things and expressing these concerns. You don't have to be in the clubhouse, or deeply immersed in sources, to hear it. 

 

The issue is with the judgment displayed by how he timed and executed the column (and the Perkins potshot). People (at least those who know what they're talking about) aren't accusing him of lying, which is why his "defense" misses the mark. 

100% accurate. Even in my (extended) rant on the weight number issue, I'm not even saying Souhan is the culprit. My comment was that anyone in the org would report that he's overweight having looked at Sano this season. Still frames from spring to May to now showed minimal, if any, added weight in his waist area. He added weight in his thighs and chest, however, and that could be exactly where that number is coming from, so a good journalist would have sussed that out and gone deeper, not just left it at surface level.

As one poster so generously said due to the rotations of the earth I also cannot remember the exact wording of the article. But I don't remember the word "fat" in it. While I didn't agree with some of John's post, his comments following the post have been respectful and well versed. Some others have taken, shall we say, a more personal approach. When I read Souhans column I never found anything in there worth any sort of emotion, certainly not enough to call for his head. The column seemed factual and it mentioned the fact that a lot of it was based on discussion with Twins "insiders". I don't remember anything racist, or fat shaming about it. There is considerable history which indicates carrying too much weight is not conducive to success or health for baseball players. There is also considerable history that anytime Souhan or Ruesse write a non fawning column about one of our heroes all hell breaks loose. This is what caused the follow up blog, not column. Souhan is correct about Access. John is correct about being able to write about the team intelligently without Souhans level of Access. But in that same vein, there are things Johns more limited Access will not reveal. It's a sliding scale. What is true is that there is room for both, and one can read both TD, and the local fish wrap, and get something or nothing depending on the day, from either one.

 "Since people don’t seem to know who to believe, let me help. Here are the people you should and shouldn’t listen to when it comes to the Twins:"

Wow!   Maybe if he hadn't put himself first on the list I might have a different take but honestly, I couldn't help think that for any political or social issue Trump's advice would be the same.    "Since people don't seem to know who to believe about Russian interference with regards to our elections, let me help.   Donald Trump is the one you should listen to.   Democrats are the ones you should not listen to" 

Seriously, it came across just as narcissistically. 

Here is my list of people I listen to with regards to the Twins.   Riverbrian, Tom Froeming,   the rest of the TD staff, TD posters    I used to have an on line subscription to the Trib  and I was mostly ok with the writers.   It was the posts after the articles that made me look elsewhere.    TD is by far the best source for the Twins.    They will reference articles and stories by all the other media sources as well as give you great stories, game threads and now that we have the recaps I really don't go anywhere else except baseball reference and mlb.com

I'd listen to Sid before I'd listen to Souhan or Reusse.

I'm also something of a Howard Sinker fan.

I did not read the original column nor the follow-up blog until now, and I won't join the outrage or sniping.  I see a lot of hand wringing.  Move on.

I did not read the original column nor the follow-up blog until now, and I won't join the outrage or sniping. I see a lot of hand wringing. Move on.

If you don't hold him accountable he's going to keep writing the same crap. It's more attention than he deserves but it's worth it to our media outlets honest. I'd bet that about 30% of people still support Souhan despite clear evidence of his knee jerk, inflammatory writing.

Stats, as in page views? Like as readers we show who we support by who we click?

To that, I would say, I just want the scoop, I don't care who broke it. So if I'm reading Gleeman, I'm not thinking he's got a new hot take, I just want to know what's going on. I don't give him credit for breaking the news, I give him credit for writing well and being entertaining. There are many blogs all writing the same news.

Or did I just misinterpret what you meant?

You don't care who breaks it, but you aren't going to read multiple people with the same story. So you'll either a. identify a reader you like and read it from them or b. read whoever has it first. You can say you don't care about who has something, but how we browse proves otherwise. 

And Gleeman never breaks news, so I don't know what the point of that part was anyway. 

Let's be clear: Souhan didn't make up these things about Sano or Perkins. There are people within and around the organization saying these things and expressing these concerns. You don't have to be in the clubhouse, or deeply immersed in sources, to hear it. 

Then again, they trusted him with that information -- most likely because they know him and have a working face-to-face relationship with him. It cuts both ways.

John, I've enjoyed your writing for years.  You are the primary reason I'm subscribed to Twins Daily, and it's been a great disappointment that you've mostly given up writing for podcasting (that's still pretty much true, isn't it?).  I'm sure the 'casts are informative and entertaining, but I don't have an hour a week to listen to them.

So I was delighted to see your name on an article again---then surprised to find myself disagreeing with it.  Souhan manifestly did NOT proclaim a Cult of Access, since he pointed out that team broadcasters have a lot of access but will only say what they're allowed to say by the team.

From some of your responses to other people's comments, it seems that 1) you didn't like the way Souhan wrote his original piece on Sano's weight because he didn't identify his sources clearly enough, and 2) you think Souhan (and perhaps other traditional media writers?) "violates ... accountability on a semi-regular basis."  Neither of those points was apparent to me in your article.  I suspect that there's a much more interesting and thoughtful piece lurking somewhere behind the one you wrote.  I hope I'll get the chance to read that one some day.

This is really disappointing.  I like having as many writers and opinions as we can get and this is truly a defensive rant.  

Just to be clear...... are you referring to the Bonnes article rant here as truly defensive, or the Souhan response article as the rant that is truly defensive?  Or both?

The only* people who care about who broke the story are the authors themselves.

So true. With the ego driven twitter, twits are racing to be first, instead of necessarily being right or correct.