Photo: Lisa Olney Buster OlneyIf you care about baseball, you should care about Buster Olney. He is the ESPN baseball reporter who seems to know everything about everything, on the field and in the general managers’ offices, and presents it with a calm authority.
I got to know Buster a bit when I was an editor at The Times Magazine and he was the paper’s Yankees beat writer. His articles never failed to include one detail, perhaps about a player’s preparation or an executive’s unorthodox thinking, that turned a daily game report into a memorable piece of reading. He says he fell in love with baseball and writing while growing up on his parents’ farm in Vermont. To escape “the tractors and twice-daily milkings,” he began what became an 18-year career writing for newspapers, including six years at The Times, where he also covered the Mets and the New York Football Giants.
He now writes for ESPN The Magazine, ESPN.com, provides baseball analysis on a variety of ESPN shows, and yes, he’s got a blog. He’s also the author of The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty.
Major League Baseball holds its All-Star Game tonight, so at this pause in the season, we thought it’d be a good time to ask Buster to field your baseball questions. Please leave them in the comments below and, as with all our Q&A’s, we’ll post the answers in short course. Living in New York, as I do, it is easy to become convinced there are only two teams in the league, the Yankees and the Mets. Oh yeah, there’s apparently a team in Boston too. It will be interesting to see how New York-centric your questions are, or aren’t.
Addendum: Olney answers your questions here.
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Considering they play in the toughest division, do you see the Orioles ever being relevant again?
Considering the stat-intensive nature of the game, what role has data mining had in how managers approach the game? Why don’t we see managers engaged in dashboarding specific situational stats in the dugout rather than keeping them in their head or scribbled on a piece of paper? It seems like technology has really been implemented quite well for investigating pitchers’ deliveries and batters’ swings but not necessarily for managerial decisionmaking.
I would be interested to know what your thoughts are on the new style of stadiums which are sprouting up all throughout the league. I have lived my whole life in Washington, DC and been to the National’s stadium several times. While it is a beautiful place, and our previous stadium was somewhat of an embarrassment, I can’t shake the feeling that the new stadium lacks the personality and intrigue of the older ballparks.
Is it just me? Am I uncomfortable with change and new places or do other people also think the newer stadiums are sterile and all the same.
My question is, do you believe that these new “high tech” stadiums with fancy food and comfortable seats and more space are the future of baseball? I understand progress but I personally would be very sad if I never got the chance to take my kids to a stadium that was completely unique, a stadium that had mystery. Do you think this is a phase or are we done with ballparks that have quirks and surprises?
If you were to design a Roy Halliday-to-the-Dodgers trade that was good for both sides (i.e., gives LA the ace they need for the playoffs but doesn’t destroy their young nucleus; helps Toronto for the future), what would it be?
Big fan of yours, Buster… read the blog on ESPN.com several times a week. My question is, do you feel that with some of the drug-related stigma around power hitters, and the recent selection of Dustin Pedroia as MVP, that baseball is heading back towards an emphasis on the basics, including speed and defense, and hopefully in the direction of five-tool players rather than guys who rely on the long ball?
Also, do you feel that the game has really been cleaned up with the new rules, or are guys simply being more creative in covering up their cheating?
Oh and just one more… any thoughts on how the upcoming Sportvision camera system will affect stat-keeping and scouting? Thanks!
Buster,
Give me five guys (Two pitchers) who I should consider picking up for my AL/NL fantasy league who might still be available on waivers, or are undervalued.
Thanks.
In your 18 years of covering baseball, how have you seen your interaction between the players change? Have they become more reluctant to engage with you in the recent years because of the negative publicity steroids has brought baseball?
What do you think of Halladay for A-Rod?