CBS Sportsline Is Lazy

CBS Sportsline has put up their list of top 25 rookies to watch as part of their fantasy preview. For each rookie, they have a major league comp. As Defensive Indifference points out, they are not very good at this:

2. [Comparing] Brandon Wood and Troy Tulowitzki: This may be the worst of the bunch. Brandon Wood is a classic hacker in the Adam Dunn mold—he strikes out an ungodly amount, but makes up for it with excellent power and a good walk rate. While he has played shortstop in the past, he spent most of last season as a third basemen in AAA. Either way, he is not exactly noted for his defense. Tulowitzki, on the other hand, is a defensive specialist who has solid power but does not strike out nearly as much as Wood. Comparing Wood to Tulowitzki is like comparing Ryan Braun to David Wright—they may play the same position and both have good bats, but they have completely different playing styles and skill sets.

What do both of these guys have in common? Race, of course. As it turns out, this is true of pretty much the entire list. Here's my count:

Both White: 17
Both Hispanic: 2
Both Japanese: 1
Both Black: 1

That leaves four more. They have no comp for Aaron Laffey. As a comp for Fukudome, they use Damon (half-Asian?) a second time. And check out the write-up:

"Scouts called the Cubs' offseason import a cross between Hideki Matsui (except, not as powerful) and Ichiro Suzuki (except, not as speedy). Somewhere in between those two might lead you to think he will be the next Tsuyoshi Shinjo, an ex-Mets/Giants import. "

"Somewhere in between those two" would pretty much describe every hitter in the history of organized baseball. And to reference Shinjo, with his career .299 OBP, when describing Fukudome, who is expected to get on base almost 40% of the time, is absurd.

The only black/white comparison is Price and Kazmir who, not coincidentally, are on the same team. And I'm not exactly sure what Andre Ethier's background is, but they certainly didn't contrast Carlos Gonzalez with a white guy.

This is such lazy writing. People do this all the time, and it really is just counterproductive. Kuroda is similar to Matsuzaka? What a crazy coincidence! Nevermind that in Kuroda's final year in Japan he averaged 6.1 K/9 to Matsuzaka's 8.5, or 0.9 BB/9 to Daisuke's 1.4; let's mention "Dice-K" four times in our paragraph write-up of the new Japanese guy!

This is truly the kind of analysis that helps you win your fantasy league. Thanks, Sportsline.