Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

Why do so many seemingly knowledgeable people hate on Joe Morgan as an analyst? I think he does a admirable job. He is intelligent, interesting, and he has a wealth of baseball smarts. I enjoy his stories of his playing days, and his take on the modern game. He was very hard on Manny and all the substance abusers tonight. And rightly so in my opinion. Also his partner is a huge Strat-O-Matic fan and player. Who knows he may even play with some of us here.

It's probably the way he says it.

Like a pompass ***.

He is a decent analyst but very biased. tremendous yankee hater. got into trouble when he disparaged Yanks 98 team at expense of 76 reds. picked every red over every yank except for ss

I agree with you rmilter. Joe Morgan and Jon Miller are my favorite duo calling the game.

I don't hate Morgan as much as some people do, but he does often come across as smug and that can be annoying. That said, I think he's got a decent sense of humor, which goes a long way with me, speaks bluntly and knows the game. There are far, far, far worse announcers.

tws

I agree with you rmilter. I like Morgan. I like to hear him talk about hitting. Would like to see the Pirates hire him as a batting coach, but he is probably smart enough to know they are beyond help. :evil:

The guy that I hate to see on TV the most is Rick Sutcliffe. He needs to take off those rose colored glasses and tell it like it is. To him there are no bad players. Either they all are headed to the HOF or their current teams just need to give them more time to produce.

I viewed his comments about the Manny situation completely opposite. While he did agree that Manny's "outing" and others who cheated is a black eye for baseball, he nevertheless sugar-coated it (as he's always done) and then had the audacity to compare Manny's situation with Jeremy Mayfield of NASCAR. All Jeremy Mayfield ever done, well, he's done nothing. He's not considered a good driver and he hasn't been on a winning team in years. He is barely hanging on in the sport. To compare Manny and Jeremy is ridiculous. To ask why Mayfield's suspension isn't garnering as much headlines is completely ridiculous. Has NASCAR ever had a "steroid era"?

Furthermore, he plays favorites and it shows in his opinions and on-air comments. If you listen every week I don't think you can deny he has his clique, and good for the player in it, bad for the player not in it.

All that said, I think he's a good commentator and does offer good insights on most occasions. He definitely knows the game and yes, he has a good sense of humor. Conversely, he fumbles over pronunciations, has mediocre grammar skills, and Jon resues him from many situations that would normally put himself in a very bad light.

I'd like to completely agree with LMB on Sutcliff. This guy simply gets on my every last nerve with all the glowing banter on every player.

I cannot stand Joe Morgan as an analyst. He will make an "observation", actually, more like state an opinion, then will not back down even if a replay or statistics show the exact opposite of what he's stated.

For instance, it's common for him to say a pitcher either made a mistake and left a ball over the plate, or the opposite, a pitch was way off the plate, and the batter shouldn't have swung. Then they'll replay with the "K-Zone" and even though the proof of something different is right there, he won't acknowledge it.

As far as his sense of humor...does he even have one? The guy's a humorless robot. Jon Miller will say something in jest, and Joe will take it seriously and go into one of his ridiculously long winded dialogues responding to it.

I've often heard him misrepresent facts as well. He was an amazing superstar as a player. As an analyst, he's pompous, arrogant, stubborn, humorless, and boring (IMO).

Sorry for the rant, but this guy drives me up a wall with his ascenine comments week in and week out.

I can't stand Joe as an announcer. As mentioned above, he loves to beat a point to death, even if proven wrong. He has genuine contempt for people who study baseball statistics and use them to objectively evaluate baseball talent. He loves to talk endlessly about certain favorite veterans being "clutch" and having all these nebulous qualities that make them "winners". Oh, and only he and a select few are able to pick up on these "winning qualities"... Things like OPS, OBP, Runs Created formulas, etc. are the creations for point-headed pencil pushers that "real baseball men" who can really evaluate talent don't need. yeeesh

Too bad, because he was one _great_ player and was amazing at pretty much every aspect of the game. As great as he was, I think he is actually underrated as a ballplayer. He was really that great.

I'm OK with Jon Miller. He actually wrote a pretty good book, too. Well worth the read.

When Joe first started out broadcasting with Bob Uecker and Bob Costas (and sometimes Jim Palmer) he talked a lot less and was much more effective.