No, this isn't an argument about the Hall of Fame chances for Andruw Jones and Jim Edmonds. Rather, this is my goodbye to Beyond the Boxscore.
Though I've only been here for a few months, they've been really fun ones. I want to thank R.J. Anderson and Sky Kalkman for taking a chance on some guy whose only previous contributions to the site were a couple of MS Paints. I also want to thank Dan Turkenkopf, Chris Quick, Harry Pavlidis, and Erik Manning for all their help and coming up with increasingly awesome graphs. Much thanks to Athletics Nation for their numerous ideas in their comments, as well as frontpaging my work and helping me get noticed. And finally, I want to thank all the readers and commenters out there, commenters especially.The site improves greatly when you criticize our work, and though its nice hearing compliments when I write something, criticisms are even better, as they often lead to even more ideas.
Now since these things always end in a bit of sagely advice, here's my go. I think most of you have probably heard the Glengarry Glen Ross bit about the ABC of sales, Always Be Closing. Well I live by the ABQ of life, Always Be Questioning. Never just accept what you hear or bow to conventions, always think about why something is the way it is, and if it can be improved. Remember it was thought for a long time that RBIs and Fielding % were the best measures of offense and defense (and probably still in too many places really), and only after someone questioned these beliefs were we able to see that's not the case. It's similar to a Jamesian approach to baseball, which seems to have worked out pretty well. Always be questioning what you read, what you hear, and even what you yourself do. You'll only be better off for it.
Hey hey, my my.