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Rob Neyer Leaving ESPN

It’s rare for news about a writer to make more of an impact than the game they cover, but the entire internet baseball community is rightfully up in arms after Neyer’s announcement that he’s leaving ESPN. For many, Neyer bridged the gap between Bill James and the current acceptance of advanced metrics, and his posts were always honest, humorous, and above all, intelligent. After working for fifteen years at ESPN, Neyer set the bar for legitimate internet baseball writing and became an arbiter of taste, helping pave the way for many brilliant baseball writers whether through the SweetSpot Network or by linking to interesting work on his Monday Mendoza, Wednesday Wangdoodle, or Friday Filbert posts. Never one for self-aggrandizing, Neyer even buried his goodbye in the bottom of a post about (who else?) Bo Jackson. 

Plenty has been written about Neyer today, and instead of repeating what others have already said, here are some reactions around the web:

Craig Calcaterra: 

“Five days a week, this voiceless man in red faux flannel would challenge nearly every lazy assumption I had about the game. Telling me things like RBIs weren’t the most valuable measure of a hitter. That strikeouts weren’t the worst thing in the world. That Dante Bichette wasn’t really any good.

Rob didn’t make his pronouncements from on high and expect you to take his word for it. He showed his work. He encouraged you to run the numbers yourself. He wrote in a clear and uncomplicated voice that made even the most complicated concepts seem quite simple, which was extremely important to a mathophobe like me. I read Neyer every day.  He, more than any person or event, rekindled my love for baseball that had gone somewhat dormant in the 1990s.”

Dave Cameron:

“For 15 years, Rob has been something like the face of sabermetrics. He was the most prominent statnerd at the most prominent sports site, and he used that platform to shine a light on interesting work from around the web. I can’t count how many links Rob has sent to FanGraphs, for which we’re greatly appreciative, but he’s also linked to stuff I would have never found otherwise, and created interesting discussions on topics that I don’t think I would come up with on my own.

For many of us, Rob Neyer’s work at ESPN was the gateway into this little world. I’m sure that both Rob and ESPN will do just fine going forward, but this is the end of an era, so to speak, and it’s worth noting that it was one of the most fruitful eras of sports writing in the last couple of decades. The Rob Neyer Family Tree Of Writers is enormous, and I’m proud to be one small branch.”

The Platoon Advantage:

“Look, we have no idea what the first column we read by Rob Neyer actually was.  But it forever changed the way that we looked at baseball, writing, baseball writing, and the world at large.  You’re going to accuse us of hyperbole, but because of Rob Neyer’s work, we became a bigger fans of baseball, better writers, more critical thinkers, and, because of these skills, ultimately better people.  Because Rob helped me learn to think critically, to not accept “truths” at face value, and to have a strong curiousity into how underlying systems worked.”

UPDATE: Will Leitch (h/t SB Nation): 

“Neyer’s not dying, of course: He’ll keep writing, and I’ll keep reading. But, as Jonah Keri put it earlier today, Neyer was a gateway drug, not just to baseball for me, but to ESPN.com, and to long-form, intelligent writing online, and the endless possibilities of what you could do with the Web. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Rob, so for that, I thank him, and you should blame him. Neyer affected tens of thousands of baseball fans. I am just one of them.”

Neyer will undoubtedly go on to do more wonderful things, but Neyer set the bar for baseball coverage at the Worldwide Leader in Sports. His spot will not be an easy position to fill. 

  1. countingthesplashhits reblogged this from brewtildeath and added:
    To be honest, this doesn’t affect me very much. Neyer will still be around, and if I want to read him all I’ll have to...
  2. brewtildeath reblogged this from oldtimefamilybaseball
  3. oldtimefamilybaseball posted this
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