Talk:Chris Davis (baseball)/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: CutOffTies (talk · contribs) 11:53, 9 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Initial Comments

Hello, I will be reviewing this article.

0 dab links , good.
The links look good except this one is not loading [1]

It loads on my computer; however, I have added an MLB.com one in case others are experiencing the same trouble.

The lead needs to be trimmed to follow the guidelines of establishing context and summarizing the subject's notability . Statistics should be kept to a minimum unless they are put in content. Listing his 2013 53 home runs and saying it led the majors and set an Orioles record is good. The other stats with the Rangers and 2012 is excessive information for the lead.

Overall, I think there are too many stats. Please either put the stats in context or summarize performance as opposed to just listing statistics.

Related, I feel that the coverage is not broad enough. You mention something about his slump in 2014 - I know there have been several articles about this in both local and national sources. The analysis and Davis' response to this should be given more coverage.

Again, his 2013 year was quite a breakout year but there is simply just listing of what he accomplished. There needs to be more about the press coverage of his feats. What did his teammates and manager say? What about when he replied to a question on Twitter asking if he took steroids? That got a lot of coverage.

I think the article is a pretty good summary but you need to add some more content to make it seem more than what you can get by looking at baseball-reference.com. It is too dry currently.

I'll give you some time for that. I will eventually do a review section by section and then after your response I will perform the assessment --CutOffTies (talk) 08:51, 10 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Great improvements. I will review the sections in the next day or two. --CutOffTies (talk) 23:35, 11 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sections

I'm going to comment by section to help you clean up the article before the assessment. If any of my comments require clarification, please let me know. Please confirm when you are done with my suggestions (regardless of whether or not you implement them).

Lead

Why does it say "He bats left-handed but throws right-handed." Aren't there several players like that? Consider changing "but" to "and"

I prefer concise leads that summarize why the subject is notable so users can quickly get a high level summary of the subject. I'd like to hear your thoughts on why things such as height/weight, his hometown, and the junior college info and year by year details are included. Compare this to good article Ryan Hanigan. I'm not saying you necessarily need to change anything but am interested in your view. Nice job minimizing the stats.

Well, as for the height and weight, hometown, and junior college, most sources include this information. All of the statistical sites do. In addition, you will often find that information in encyclopedias if applicable to the subject (for instance, we don't list Galileo's junior college because he didn't have one). I like to do a much briefer version of year-by-year stats because different years are different, sometimes quite dramatically, especially in Davis's case. I feel this is still a summary.

In relation to the guidelines for the lead, your explanation does not provide reasons as to why you are including so many details. Complying with the lead guidelines is 1b of the good article criteria.

Perhaps I am including more details than you think necessary, but I am still summarizing. Mentioning each season of Davis's is not detailed. I always mention every season a player has had (unless, perhaps, their career is 14 or more years), and no one has complained about it yet. As for the height and weight, the lead is the most logical place for it, and it should be in there if we're going to have the article about him being overweight. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 02:50, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"tendency to strike out left the Rangers disappointed in him" : Isn't this a bit dramatic? "disappointed" sounds like something a team would feel if he had off the field problems or something

He was the starting 1B for 92 games in 2009. I wouldn't say that is most of 2009.

"led all of baseball" - isn't more appropriate to say led the league?

"career year" sounds a bit jargony. an adjective like excellent seems more straightforward.

The last paragraph is good.

High school and college

Consider combining these sentences, "Davis graduated from Longview High School in 2004. At Longview, he played shortstop on the school's varsity baseball team and pitched as well". Right now there's a bunch of brief sentences

The sequence seems a bit out of place. It says he goes to Navarro, then something about being drafted by the Angels, then I assume his performance his first year at Navarro. His performance should go before being drafted by LAA

Going back to my initial comments, this is a dry listing of he did that, he did that and he then he did that. Is there anything interesting you can find about his time in HS/college?

Minor league career

Why are you including other stat leaders he tied with or ahead of him? I wouldn't expect that for most of his leading stats in the majors, much less low level minors unless it was a future HOF player or some extraordinary stat.

I always wonder, when I see that someone finished second or tied with someone else, who the other player was. Besides, this helps to put achievements in perspective. The fact that Davis's home run total in the Northwest League trailed someone like Adam Witter keeps the reader from thinking this is a special achievement that assures stardom. When tying players such as Cano, that implies a mark that is more special.

That is not a convincing reason to include those details. I don't think it puts it in perspective and it is too much detail that is straying from the subject. In this case, since it is the Minors and includes players who didn't even make the majors (ex. Manelik Pimentel), it seems like more of a reason to trim it out. Note that not including "unnecessary detail" is part of 3b of the good article criteria

Is there anything about why he switched from SS to other positions?

I believe defensively; though not in the minor league section, this article now reflects his defensive excellence at first base.

Just by listing fielding percentage? Have you researched articles around that time to find secondary sources besides stats?

The 35 game hit streak needs a reference.

Where in the reference does it assert that he had a 35 game hit streak? Have you searched for this in an actual article rather than linking to stats? It is always preferable to not link to stats as a reference.

If you click bio and scroll to the appropriate season, you will find it. It is a bio, not just stats. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 02:50, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Again, lots of stats with little context

I didn't want to do too much analysis of his minor league career; however, I hope Davis's quote about his '08 time with Round Rock helps this out.Sul

The quote is good though I don't understand why you don't want to "do too much analysis" but list lots of stats.

"He was named to the All-Star Futures Game but was unable to play in it due to what happened on June 26" - Please spell things out and don't make the readers have to read the next paragraph to figure it out.

"Callup" is better but just spell it out completely instead of using jargon.

I read something recently that he was overweight in the minors until he changed his diet. It should not be difficult to find if you do some research. Things like that make an article a lot more interesting and fulfill #3 of the good article criteria, broad in coverage.

2008

First Ranger in first two starts - good.

Crush having to do with Bull Durham is not in the ref.

There is nothing about his fielding.

"He struck out 88 times, or in 30% of his at bats" No need for "or".. consider changing to "which was" or something like that.

2009

What were expectations going into the season?

Ron Washington quote is good.

"optioned to the minors" is sort of jargony. How about sent back down?

Why was he sent back down? Besides the strikeouts there's nothing but accomplishments listed so you need to put this in context. What was his response? What did the Rangers say??

I can't find Davis's response. However, the strikeouts were the reason he was sent down. I also added a quote by Washington.

Quote is good.

You say with the Redhawks but readers may be confused who the Redhawks are unless they go back to the 2008 section

The same with Blalock. After a brief mention in 2008, Blalock reappears with no explanation.

When I first started contributing to articles on Wikipedia, most editors told me not to link or explain a player twice, which is why I did not with the RedHawks or with Blalock. I don't think the RedHawks are necessary anyway, but I could explain Blalock if you really want.

I didn't say anything about linking. Just a couple words to put in context (or not mentioning name/team at all) would suffice.

The quick strikeout pace is good

Again, lots of stats but no real evaluation of how his season went beyond that.

2010

" A roster spot and spot" please reword

Stats stats stats. No context.

I'm going to stop for now. I should have the rest finished soon, but feel free to respond to what I've already listed. --CutOffTies (talk) 07:17, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your responses. I added some final comments for the section through 2010 which may be easier to follow with diff. CutOffTies (talk) 00:08, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

2011

The Daniels quote is good

”That brought”- unnecessary

For the trade, can you find anything about why the Orioles were interested in him and their reaction to getting him?

Nice job with the Phil Bradley K stat

2012

The coverage of his pitching is pretty good. Did Davis have anything to say about this?

You say nothing about his move to RF late in the season and in the postseason after Markakis got hurt. The first sentence about his playing multiple positions is good but surely there is an article that has this rather than having the mlb stat reference.

I'm baffled that you have a total of one article from the Baltimore Sun. Please do some more research.

2013

Pretty good summary. Again some articles from the Sun and other places (The New York Times did a feature on him early in the season) can add more colour

2014

Alright, though there should be more about analysis of his slump (as I said before, several national articles about this) and especially now, a little bit about how his team is still performing well.

Personal

Very good summary and appropriate length.

Overall

Take some time and I’ll come back with an assessment in a week or so. If you need more time, let me know. Again, I suggest focusing on going beyond stats. If you spend significant time reading through a variety of sources you should find some good content to add.

Checklist

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS):
Prose is well-written and concise and meets guidelines of the manual of style. In the review process, the nominator's explanations for their choice of content to include in the lead does not reflect familiarity with guidelines to the lead, but there are no blatant violations.
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
Information is properly sourced
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
The article does a good job of summarizing basic baseball accomplishments of the subject. I question the nominator's choice of sources as most simply back up statistics or are bland references from mlb.com. There are several in-depth profiles of subject from newspapers and magazines that the author of an encyclopedia article should have read and incorporated in the article as part of serious research and effort expected in a good article. However, there is enough done to satisfy "broad" coverage.

There are some minor details included that I feel are unnecessary and lose focus. Nominator's explanation is not convincing, but they are minor enough to overlook.
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
Solid tone throughout, no pov. Well referenced.
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
Article is very stable - almost no vandalism and no edit wars that I can see.
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Images are good
Overall:
Pass/Fail: Pass

Congratulations. -- -- --CutOffTies (talk) 04:13, 28 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]