potential prospects and trades discussion

According to the urban dictionary, a tool is:

One who lacks the mental capacity to know he is being used. A fool. A cretin. Characterized by low intelligence and/or self-steem [sic].

This doesn’t seem to characterize any of the individuals involved. Are you using the word in an idiosyncratic way?

-He plays on a bankrupt team looking to move all its contracts.
-Said team has 0% chance of making the playoffs.
-Beltran is in a contract year.

I don’t see why not. He has a NTC but he’s in a walk year on a go nowhere team….just like he was in KC when he went to Houston for those couple months. He hasn’t been brought up yet because its May and he’s mashing and they want to get the most value for him.

That said, given he did provide a modicum of thought into the original post (unlike a lot of new posters), I still think the first teardown could have been more like a selective deconstruction. Then you could really tear into him after lunch, when he knows what to expect.

but maybe not a sports blog.

Hell yes, if I did a talk and didn’t have it together, I got reamed and rightfully so. But, no one expects this on a baseball blog where people come for their own enjoyment.

However, discrediting an idea sometimes is necessary when it’s something that’s measurably incorrect, as opposed to merely being an opinion.

One blatant example would be something silly like Phrenology. Is it better to let people believe that they can predict and determine things about people based on the shapes of their skulls, even if that belief leads to medically and/or socially dangerous behavior, or is it better to discredit the idea in order to save society from its’ ill effects, even if it means disrespecting the people who stubbornly cling to the idea?

which you definitely appear not to have based off your posts.

You didn’t like DFA’s piece on the front page, and that’s fine. Don’t read it. Like I said, there is plenty of other kinds of content and no one has to like everything. You said that DFA’s attitude was part of the downfall of the site. Sure. I don’t deny that is removes some of the fun. But you were complaining about an opinion/fluff piece and DFA wasn’t targeting anyone specific or being a jerk in that original post. So if you don’t like it, then yea, avoid it or GTFO.

The situation here is someone else’s post that DFA disagreed with. I’m not discounting his opinions or facts on the matter, I don’t like his attitude that people he believes are wrong should be ‘torn down and rebuilt’ because it worked for him. If he thinks that the content is lacking, he can either contribute to it in a civil manner, or again, GTFO.

But if you want to stay and try to fix it, belittling the people who are trying isn’t the way to go about it.

It’s not a place where the only stuff that can or should be talked about is some sort of deep analysis of things all the time.

People are dumb and believe ESPN and think you need DINGERZ111 and that singles and walks are for sissies.

In fact they (and I) agree with it. They just don’t agree with how you’ve expressed it. It’s not about “protecting the newbies,” per se, as much as it is trying to preserve AN as a place that’s welcoming for people to discuss the A’s. When you (and, IMO, elcroata in his comment) make it a less inviting place by insulting the first thing that someone posts, the people who value AN as a community are gonna have a problem with it.

Fortunately, the OP had enough fortitude to not run away – cool enough.

All this being said, I think the same should be said about the reaction to borgnanophobe’s post yesterday, which felt like a mob mentality, IMO, as poor as the post was and as amusing as the subsequent hamburger-gate was.