In case you haven't heard by now, we can finally reveal some super exciting news: Rob Neyer has joined the SBNation family, and here's his first post. Rob's coming over from ESPN, where he'd been for the majority of my time on this planet, and as evidenced by the fact that he was atop Google Hot Topics earlier this morning, he's kind of a big deal.
You'll be able to find Rob's writing on the main MLB page, and I look forward to working with him to make that page more of a destination. I was a little uncertain at first, since I'm not real wild about strangers, but it turns out Rob lives just a few blocks away from me and he's recently bought me lunch a handful of times, so now I'm totally on board. Buy me a lunch and I'm putty in your fingers.
Some of you might remember that, about four years ago, Rob asserted that Michael Young was the best position player in the AL West, and I flipped out in response. 21-year-old me decided the best course of action was to label Rob a has-been, and I'm pretty sure 21-year-old me believed it. But 21-year-old me believed a lot of things, and now that post just looms there awkwardly in the historical record. From the first time I met Rob in person a few weeks back, when we knew we'd be working together:
Me: Hey Rob, so in the interest of full disclosure, about four years ago you said that Michael Young was the best player in the AL West and I said that you'd lost it.
Me: I'm pretty sure I called you irrelevant.
Rob: That was you?
Me:
Rob:
But Rob knows how to let shit like that roll right off his back - he followed that up by buying my breakfast - and we've both learned a lot in the years since. I've learned not to be a complete idiot all the time, and Rob's learned that maybe he overrated Michael Young after all. (Victory!)
So anyway, Rob's going to make this company an awful lot better, and if you weren't already reading him before, now's the time to start. This is a really, really good day.