Bill James Commends SoSG Karros, Orel, DeShields; Overall SoSG Talent Only "Mediocre"

And here comes another Bill James press release, this time breaking down Los Angeles Dodgers blogs. Though SoSG Karros, Orel, and DeShields got high marks, the overall team ranked only 13th among Los Angeles Dodgers blog organizations:

In the inaugural year of his very newly-developed "Young Blogger Talent Inventory," groundbreaking baseball analyst Bill James named Sons of Steve Garvey Eric Karros 2nd, SoSG Orel 4th, and SoSG Delino DeShields 5th on his list of the top 25 Los Angeles Dodgers bloggers under 30 years old. In the Bill James Handbook 2009, to be published on November 1, 2008, James also judges the Sons of Steve Garvey blog to have the thirteenth-best overall young blogging talent, up eight places from last year.

2008 was a really great year for the Dodgers, but not really a great year for young Dodger bloggers," James says in his new book (did we mention it comes out on November 1, 2008?). "Some young blogger columnists took a step forward, others took a step backward. But the only really huge talent to emerge in 2008 was SoSG Eric Karros of Sons of Steve Garvey."

SoSG Eric Karros put up some amazing second year blogging stats of 45.4 words per paragraph and a 2.35 Earned Babe Picture Average through the last two seasons. With a VORB (Value Over Replacement Blogger) of 84.7, SoSG Karros had a breakout season in 2008, evidenced most prominently by the honing of his "fifth tool," puzzle craftmanship.

SoSG Orel, who ranked fourth overall, had an amazing streak of 45 consecutive Game Threads in the middle of the season, including the memorable 35th consecutive Game Thread in which SoSG stopped the Game Thread after the fifth inning (when the Game Thread became official) and SoSG Orel took a lap around the blogposts, slapping hands with commenters all around. The huge "35" banner unfurled on the SoSG staff headquarters, with fireworks illuminating the accomplishment.

SoSG Delino DeShields, the fifth-ranked young blogging talent, kept up a torrid season amassing 54 XTYV (extra tangential youtube videos), despite being pulled out of everyday play mid-season with a condition which caused intense sleeplessness, and moved him to the 30-day disabled list mid-season. DeShields' return to the SoSG lineup not only spiked traffic back up to record highs, but also led to $2M in incremental site revenue through sales of souvenir knee braces.

James points out that evaluating the best young talent is a transitory task: "Virtually everyone who is on this list now will drop off within two years. In baseball blogging, you get over being 'young' really quickly. Embedding pictures, formatting tables, making your own youtube videos; it isn't that difficult once you get the hang of it, so long as you know how to type complete sentences."

James lists the Sons of Steve Garvey as the #13 blogging team in all of Los Angeles Dodgers blogging, below a number of other Dodger blogs. "Sons of Steve Garvey has very impressive young blogging talent, but their issue is depth. That, and the fact that they aren't all that funny."