Scouting Report project

Hope everyone has a great Labor Day Weekend, and you will no doubt have plenty to blog about as the races heat up while the temps start to cool off. Here’s something that might be worth blogging about as well. Tom "Tangotiger" is one of the most well-known and respected sabermetricians out there, so we thought it would be great if we could give some attention to his very worthy Scouting Report project. Our friend and BAM colleague Cory Schwartz posted about it on the Fantasy 411 blog, and you might want to pitch in and maybe blog about it and link to it from your MLBlog. Here’s what Tom sent us, for your consideration, and happy blogging…

Request for link to: http://www.tangotiger.net/mlb
"The 2007 Scouting Report by the Fans for the Fans"

For the fifth year in a row, I am once again asking for hardcore baseball fans to participate in the annual Scouting Report project, in which fans evaluate the fielding characteristics of players on their team.

So far, I have solicited fans through various team blogs, and have received enthusiastic responses.  For example, the results of 2006 can be found here.

Fans take this project seriously, as I have encountered less than 2% ballots which can be considered "junk".  (I have my own algorithm that determines the reasonableness of a ballot.)  One of the criticisms that I have encountered is that the sample would be biased, given that the fans were directed by one or two of their team blogs.  While I would contend that blogs do not engender groupthink, that’s really just my personal opinion.

The hope is that I can link to a mainstream audience, through MLB.com or MLBlogs.com, so as to reach fans that may be of a different mindset.  All results will be published at the end of the season, for all to see.  I’ll have the data segregated between the two sources of fans (my current crop, and one through an MLB site).  I will also be able to test how much junk ballots I’ve received to determine how seriously the mainstream fan takes this project.

Tom