Twitter Snobbery

A few of us were talking on Twitter the other day about Twitter snobbery. Some baseball writers have thousands of followers and yet follow hardly anyone. One of these Twitter buds was particularly tweaked about it. That, naturally, piqued this writer's curiosity enough to investigate the matter. You expect a bit of this snobbery to crop up among celebrities and ball players. Ozzie Guillen, the former White Sox manager now ensconced in Miami has hundreds of thousand followers and yet follows only one person (Olney?) That's to be expected. Alyssa Milano is an exception. She has over a million followers but follows over a thousand people. But what about baseball writers?

All of us, if we are smart, use Twitter to announce our posts. That is one great use of Twitter that we all do. But at best, Twitter is a community. It's about people with like interests interacting. Many of us see it that way anyway. And a lot of the heavy hitters among baseball writers see it that way too. The legendary Peter Gammons has over a hundred thousand followers and follows over six hundred people. That's acceptable. Why? Because having a large number of follows (people you follow) can make for a confusing timeline. Your host and Fan has 475 followers (thank you) and follows 705. That's sort of unusual as most people have fewers follows than followers. And even with 705 follows, the time line can get jumbled in a hurry.

So what is acceptable for a sports writer not to be a snob? An arbitrary number has to be contrived. Three hundred follows seems to be the number that makes sense to this observer. If you follow three hundred other baseball people, you care about the opinions of others and you show an interest in how others think about baseball and the news created by it. But are we being fair here?

Is it fair to call a writer a snob if he/she doesn't follow anyone? Perhaps their view of Twitter is simply to announce to their fans what they have written lately. Perhaps they view Twitter as a real time way to announce what they know...a form of reporting they have always done in the print medium. Perhaps we can cut them some slack here. But the heart of the matter is that if a big time writer follows no one, then we can assume that they perceive themselves to be an island in no need of peers. Again, perhaps unfair. But that is the perception given a lack of follows. 

Out of curiosity, the Fan did a study of some of the heavy hitters in the industry. The list isn't all-inclucive but it gives you a general idea. So here is the result of that research. What follows (pun intended) is a list of perceived big time writers and analysts and how many follows they have relative to how many follow them. They are listed in no particular order. While viewing the list, remember our 300 follows snob threshold:

• Adam Ruben (ESPN): 19,533 followers, 209 follows
• Jordan Bastian (MLB.com): 10,834, 4,065
• Scott Miller (CBSsports.com): 5,442, 238
• Jon Heyman (SI): 115,103, 483
• D. Knobler (CBSsports.com): 14,833, 707
• Tango Tiger (Inside the book): 2,193, 6
• Jay Jaffe (Baseball Prospectus): 4,674, 302
• Darren Rovell (CNBC): 148,306, 1,479
• Tony Lastoria (STOHD): 2,381, 97
• Duk (Yahoo): 9,549, 561
• Buster Olney (ESPN): 318,222, 325
• Craig Calcaterra (NBCsports): 9,239, 331
• Maury Brown: 8,683, 2266
• Jonah Keri (Grantland): 17,688, 543
• Jeff Sullivan: 6,668, 52
• Keith Law (ESPN): 361,612, 281
• Ken Davidoff (Newsday): 17,678, 1,122
• Ken Rosenthal (Foxsports): 146,712, 105
• Karl Ravech (ESPN): 34,070, 81
• Matthew Leach (MLB.com): 13,918, 454
• Pete Bott (New York Daily News): 3,550, 195
• Jason Parks (Baseball Prospectus): 4,356, 190
• Mark Feinsand (New York Daily News): 19,630, 1,472
• Bob Klapisch: 9,814, 85
• Jane Lee (MLB.com): 8,258, 102
• Heidi Whatney (NESN): 39,155, 132
• Brittany Ghiroli (MLB.com): 8,982, 144
• Troy Renck (Denver Post): 13,827, 6,597
• Marty Caswell: 6,388, 112
• Shi Davidi (Sportsnet): 10,315, 550
• Jeff Passan (Yahoo): 17,908, 16
• Dave Brown (Yahoo): 3,925, 2,079
• Ramy Jazayerli (Grantland): 7,948, 110
• Alden Gonzalez (MLB.com): 2,749, 119
• Mike Fast (Baseball Prospectus): 2,335, 72
• Larry Stone (Seattle Times): 8,322, 307
• Christina Kahrl (ESPN): 4,190, 502
• Todd Zolecki (MLB.com): 27,542, 296
• Tim Brown (Yahoo): 14,830, 153
• Jerry Craznick (ESPN): 43,317, 763
• Aaron Gleeman (NBCsports): 9,550, 250
• Joe Sheehan: 13,639, 86
• Kevin Goldstein (BP and ESPN): 15,271, 1,111
• David Cameron (Fangraphs): 9,016, 70
• Susan Slusser: 8,936, 72
• Joel Sherman (NY Post): 29,960, 141
• Peter Gammons (NESN): 107,277, 647
• Jason Beck (MLB.com): 9,019, 232
• Jon Morosi (Foxsports.com): 26,128, 752
• Joe Posnanski (SI): 50,263, 78
• Rob Neyer (SB Nation): 33,820, 567
• Bill Simmons (Grantland): 1,544,980, 98

Make your own conclusions, but that's the list.