There R Giants #8: Mason Black

In which I wax philosophical

Photo Credit: Gary Breedlove | Eugene Emeralds

Top 50 time is here! So far we’ve looked at:

• Just Missed

• #50-46

  • 50: Victor Bericoto

  • 49: Chris Wright

  • 48: Sean Roby

  • 47: P.J. Hilson

  • 46: Alexander Suarez

• #41-45

  • 45: Mikell Manzano

  • 44: Diego Velasquez

  • 43: Carson Ragsdale

  • 42: William Kempner

  • 41: Seth Lonsway

• #36-40

  • 40: Shane Matheny

  • 39: Sean Hjelle

  • 38: Brett Auerbach

  • 37: Ricardo Genovés

  • 36: Hunter Bishop

• #31-35

  • 35: Nick Zwack

  • 34: Erik Miller

  • 33: Spencer Miles

  • 32: Manuel Mercedes

  • 31: Trevor McDonald

• #26-30

  • 30: Ryan Reckley

  • 29: Gerelmi Maldonado

  • 28: Will Bednar

  • 27: Ryan Murphy

  • 26: Will Wilson

• #21-25

  • 25: Nick Swiney

  • 24: Jose Cruz

  • 23: R.J. Dabovich

  • 22: Adrian Sugastey

  • 21: Patrick Bailey

• #16-20

  • 20: Tristan Beck

  • 19: Randy Rodriguez

  • 18: Jairo Pomares

  • 17: Carson Seymour

  • 16: Landen Roupp

• #11-15

  • 15: Tyler Fitzgerald

  • 14: Heliot Ramos

  • 13: Keaton Winn

  • 12: Eric Silva

  • 11: Cole Waites

• #10: Reggie Crawford

• #9: Carson Whisenhunt

In the dead of baseball winter, The Athletic ran a truly delightful article — the history of some crazy folks in the early days of the world wide web who obsessively sought each other out on early message boards to talk esoteric (i.e., “nerd”) baseball notions. Ultimately, many of those obsessive nerds came together to create the website, Baseball Prospectus, almost single-handedly invent baseball projection systems, push a bunch of crazy, stat-driven ideas about how baseball teams should be run, and — plot twist of all plot twists — eventually start populating the inner workings of baseball front offices with former Prospectus’ employees who were thus able to put their revolution into action. The amount of former Prospectus’ writers working with teams these days is truly staggering. The article was called “The SNL of Sabermetrics,” (after the late night sketch comedy Saturday Night Live’s legacy of seeding the entertainment industry with talent) and it truly is a fun and inspired read that I highly recommend.

So why am I heading down this particular worm hole in an article that is putatively devoted to my #8 prospect: Mason Black? Because that piece had a throwaway sort of line in it that has been knocking around in my head ever since, and Black might be just the person to illustrate why that throwaway line fascinates me so.