Talk:Guillermo Mota/GA1

GA Review

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

Reviewer: — KV5 • Talk • 01:44, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

This article has potential, but it does have some issues that need to be addressed before it would be worthy of the +. I'll be providing comments in tranches, because I doubt I'll have time to go over the whole article in one sitting.

First tranche of comments

Article-wide

• The article needs to be audited for MOS:NUM compliance. All numbers above nine should be written in numerals (10 and up) unless they are comparable quantities (see WP:ORDINAL).  Done
• Check dablinks and deadlinks.  Done
• All images need alternative text (two are currently without). On the line of images, the Dodgers picture is the best-quality image and therefore must be the infobox image. Compared to the current lead image, the Mota image illustrates the article best.

Are you sure the Dodgers picture should be the infobox image because it is the best quality image? The Giants image is definitely not as good, but it is a more recent photo, and you can tell what Mota looks like from it. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 10:44, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

You can tell his general outline, but there's no clear view of his face, for one. The Dodgers image seems to be the only one that shows him pitching, in motion, with his face showing (relatively) clearly. So yes, I'm sure. If a high-quality recent more image is found, that would obviously take precedence, but of the images on Commons, the Dodgers one is clearly superior. — KV5 • Talk • 10:59, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

OK. Images fixed. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 11:32, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

• Avoid baseball jargon such as "going 6–3"; these things need to be explicitly illustrated (i.e., a 6–3 record). If they cannot be avoided, or if they are used to reduce repetition, you should link to the Glossary of baseball.  Done
• Another article-wide comment added June 3: references need to be consistently formatted. If you link one source, you have to link them all each time. Also: MLB.com is not a publisher, it is a work, as are all websites and newspapers (especially newspapers). On MLB's website, the work should be "teamname dot MLB dot com" (examples: Redsox.MLB.com; Phillies.MLB.com), and the publisher is "Major League Baseball". For Baseball-Reference, it needs to be "Baseball-Reference.com", and the publisher is "Sports Reference LLC". For Retrosheet, you can either fill in "Retrosheet.com" for the work, "Retrosheet, Inc" as the publisher, or both.  Done

Lead

• Suggest adding player's official height and weight in the lead (with {{convert}} templates).  Done
• The second paragraph is huge. Break it up.  Done
• The lead is overlinked; each team should only be linked at first appearance in the lead.  Done
• "Rule V" should be Rule 5, as per the article  Done
• You say forms of "struggle" twice in quick succession; change one  Done
• The lead has "He... he... he... he...." over and over again. Re-word some of those sentences or replace some pronouns with "Mota" to reduce the repetitiveness. You also don't need the second "he" in many of the sentences that are structured "He... but he". You can just remove the second (example: He became the setup man to closer Éric Gagné in 2004, but was traded to the Florida Marlins midseason. There are more; that's just one instance.  Done
• Link infielder, closer, designated for assignment, free agent, spring training  Done
• The third paragraph should be subsumed into another paragraph of the lead (if it needs to be in there at all); one sentence isn't acceptable for a paragraph. Pitch names should also be linked.  Done
• In the infobox: "Win-Loss" needs to be "Win–loss" - win and loss are not proper nouns, and it is an en-dash just like when it is the numbers (in other words, 12–10 is the same as win–loss).  Done
• In the infobox: "2010-present" needs an en-dash  Done

Early years and minor league

• "in San Pedro de Macorís, located in the Dominican Republic."  Done
• "Jose Joaquin Perez" - are there any diacritics needed here?

This name came from Mota's MLB.com bio. There were no diacritics there, but there also are no diacritics on MLB.com, so I'll let you decide what to do there. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 15:46, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Hm, an interesting conundrum. I might bring it up at WT:MLB once I've had a chance to think about it and do a little research of my own. — KV5 • Talk • 10:59, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

• "two years of playing baseball"  Done
• "in 1993, as a third baseman." - remove comma  Done
• "He batted .249" - you should make batting average explicit on first use; afterward, saying "he batted..." is fine.  Done
• "Next season, he spent most of the season" - twice season; change one to year (pref. the second)  Done
• "he batted just .245" - there are a lot of these unneeded modifiers in the article that need to be removed.  Done
• "In 1995" - comma after  Done
• Since you use the ERA abbreviation throughout the article, after "earned run average" you need to add (ERA) to make that explicit.  Done
• "batted just .243" - again, modifier  Done
• "Rule V draft" - Rule 5 again  Done
• "he went 5–10" - this is probably the most egregious poor use of jargon; "he went so-and-so" isn't professional-style writing, even if professional sportswriters do it, and there are many instances  Done

1999

• "Mota made his major league debut with them the same day"  Done
• Link inning  Done
• All instances of fractional innings written as decimals need to be changed. It's not two-and-two-tenths innings; it's 2+2⁄3 innings. Baseball readers know this, but uninitiated readers will read the former and not understand two-tenths of an inning.  Done
• Instead of linking walkoff, link the whole phrase Walk-off home run.  Done
• "He got" - you have two straight sentences starting with the same phrase; there are better ways to say this. Consider "He earned", "He captured", "He procured"... there are other options, these are just a few suggestions.  Done
• "ERA on the season" - should be for the season in both instances (or re-write one sentence to reduce repetitiveness)  Done

These are the first group; I will return when I have some more time to review further. — KV5 • Talk • 01:44, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Second tranche of comments

2000-2001

• "Despite his great rookie season" - in whose opinion? Using modifiers like "great" isn't neutral, unless you can cite it to a reliable source and quote it directly.  Done
• More doubled "He... and he" structures here  Done
• "After he had a 12.60 ERA" - better would be After amassing a 12.60 ERA or something similar  Done
• You say "to Ottawa" several times in quick succession. You could replace one or more with "to the Lynx", "to the minor leagues", etc.  Done
• "before he was again returned to Ottawa" - there are two of these  Done
• "improved greatly in September" - according to whom?  Done
• "one third" - should be 1⁄3 or one-third, your choice  Done
• "a 16.62 ERA over his next six games moved his ERA up to 4.00" - a non-baseball reader isn't going to understand this. Something more like "xxx' earned runs over his next six games raised his ERA to 4.00 would be better.  Done
• "He settled down after that, though" - very informal language for an encyclopedia  Done
• "after that 12 game stretch" - 12-game is a compound adjective  Done
• "he had a 22.50 ERA over his next four games that brought his ERA up to 4.29" - as above  Done
• Link disabled list  Done

Dodgers

• "He... but he" or "He... and he" are frequent in this section  Done
• "twelve-inning" - 12-inning  Done
• "He went" jargons again  Done
• "15.2 consecutive scoreless" - innings again  Done
• "off of Joe Roa" - against Joe Roa would be better, "off of" is informal  Done
• "After Paul Quantrill became a free agent" - you've already mentioned and linked Quantrill, so you can remove his first name  Done
• "did not give up a run" - did not allow a run would be better  Done
• "five game winning streak" - five-game  Done
• "final save of his 84 straight converted save chances" - perhaps a link to Save (baseball)#Most consecutive somewhere in here?  Done
• Link closer at its first appearance in the article prose (I just now noticed it wasn't linked)  Done
• You need the (NL) abbreviation after the first appearance of National League  Done

Marlins

• "fifth best average" - fifth-best average  Done
• "who had been filling in for Mota as the closer, remained the closer" - repetitive; you could probably strike "as the closer" without affecting the meaning  Done
• "but a 16.20 ERA through his next seven games raised his ERA to 7.27" - as above  Done
• "he improved after that" - according to who?  Done
• "7–6 victory over St. Louis" - ok, so who is St. Louis, if I'm not a baseball reader? The whole article will need to be audited to ensure that team names appear in full and linked at first occurrence.

The Cardinals are linked at their first occurrence, back in the 1999 section. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 14:57, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

OK. — KV5 • Talk • 17:05, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

• The source does not call the Beckett trade "important". It just discusses the details of the trade.  Done

I'll continue at a later time. — KV5 • Talk • 11:38, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Third tranche of comments

Boston and Cleveland

• The "Boston" section is too short to stand alone. Combine Boston and Cleveland into a single section.  Done
• Link player to be named later  Done
• Once the sections are combined, you won't need to say "because Mota failed to pass a physical" twice  Done
• Perhaps a note in this section that relates to this being his only stint in the American League to date?  Done

Mets

• Ref 55 is a statistics-only source and does not say that Mota "improved"  Done
• National League East should be NL East due to the prior use of abbreviation  Done
• "and blew a 4–1 lead" - what's blowing a lead (for non-baseballers)?  Done
• "Mota then pitched two"  Done
• I know that MOS:NUM says numbers under 10 are words (and I mentioned that earlier), but game names are an exception in the baseball world, as nearly all reliable sources refer to them with numerals, so change to Game 2, Game 3, etc.  Done
• "$5 million two-year contract" - should be two-year, $5 million contract  Done
• "as he had a 7.71 ERA in them" - poor wording; better would be something simpler like collecting a 7.71 ERA  Done
• "as he had a 1.89 ERA in them" - same thing, but don't repeat the same identical wording  Done
• "During the streak" - what streak?  Done

Brewers

• "Mota got off to a great start in 2008" - says who? Not the pure statistical reference  Done
• "Éric Gagné" - remove first name  Done
• Ref 75 doesn't mention the All-Star break; use a numeric date instead  Done
• "in the final 1.1 innings" - as above  Done

Dodgers

• Why do the Dodgers suddenly have a year when the previous several sections don't? You lose the chronological sense of reference. Is it just because he had two stints with them? If so, this could be better dealt with by removing the year from the first section and renaming the second.  Done
• "However, he improved dramatically after that, as he had a 0.26 ERA over his next 29 games" - source doesn't say any of that, unless I'm missing something  Done
• "seventeen straight games" - 17  Done
• "he then had a"  Done
• "his lowest ERA since 2004" - you don't need to repeat "ERA" here  Done

Giants

• "an invite" - formality; invitation, not "invite"  Done
• "fourteenth and fifteenth... fifteenth" - all should be numeric  Done
• "Iliotibial band syndrome" - this isn't a proper noun, decapitalize  Done
• "National League West Division" - as above, NL West  Done

Piazza

• "catcher for the New York Mets" - either the Mets or New York, the former preferred due to ambiguity  Done
• "Mota again hit Piazza"  Done
• "and both Mota and Piazza" or change to and both players  Done
• "Piazza still searched the clubhouse before leaving too"  Done
• "and fined, Mota $1,500" - change comma to unspaced em-dash  Done

Pitching style

• The reference, whose reliability for scouting I question (TSN is great for stats, but whose scouts are those?), says that the change-up is a circle change-up, so that should be changed here and in the lead. Fangraphs also shows that he has, at times, used a splitter and curveball in the past, which you should also reference.  Done

Reference section

• All New York Times references need to have their titles put in title case, not all caps, per MOS:CAP.  Done

This should be enough to get started for now. After these three groups of comments are complete, please ping my talk page so that I can re-review the article in full. Thanks, and happy editing. — KV5 • Talk • 19:05, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Further comments

• • Links in the ref section need to be fixed. The MLB website page needs to be linked instead of Major League Baseball (pipelink all the team subsites to MLB.com) and link Baseball-Reference.com.

Shouldn't Major League Baseball be linked, because a page exists for it? Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 12:37, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Both can be linked, but since the website has its own article, that is preferred so that all formats remain alike. You have already linked the organization in the article anyway. This ensures that everything is connected. — KV5 • Talk • 21:59, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

OK. Done. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 12:38, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

• "However, he began pitching better in September." - pure statistical references do not verify commentary of this nature  Done
• Your heavy reliance on reference #1 is a problem. First, it's an official league source (see WP:PRIMARYSOURCE). Second, most of the information is not directly contained on that page; it's contained in a popout Javascript window and it's buried. It has to be more clear where the information came from and how readers can get to and verify it. If I wasn't familiar with MLB.com, I wouldn't have known where to look.  Done
• Mota did not lead NL pitchers in innings pitched in 2003 (not even close, in fact). Figure out what's wrong.  Done
• "normal closer" - what do you mean by "normal"? Surely there is a better word  Done
• "he got his first save as a Marlin in an 11–5 victory over Arizona" - how did he get a save in a six-run victory? Odd enough that it bears explaining.  Done
• "However, he began pitching better after that." - commentary not verified by pure statistics  Done
• Section header with a slash not preferred; see MOS:SLASH for better usages  Done
• "He struggled in his first 16 games, collecting a 7.71 ERA in them.[69] However, he improved over his next 15 games, amassing a 1.89 ERA in them.[69]" - very similar sentences back-to-back; reword  Done
• The section on Piazza doesn't need to have the references duplicated so many times. If a reference verifies three sentences, it can be placed at the end of the third, not the end of the first, second, and third. You only need to duplicate a reference if another reference comes in between.  Done
• I question the reliability of TSN as a scouting source. Is there a better reference?

Probably, but I used TSN on Jeremy Affeldt's article, and that passed a GA review. I don't think replacing this is necessary for this to be a good article. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 11:55, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

• Get the periods/full stops out of the image captions; none of these are full sentences. See WP:CAPTION for more info.  Done

Once these last few things are resolved, this should be good to go. — KV5 • Talk • 23:52, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Only other thing I can see is that Retrosheet and Fangraphs need to be linked in the references. — KV5 • Talk • 19:01, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I think this article now qualifies as a good article; thus, I'll pass it. Cheers. — KV5 • Talk • 12:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

San Francisco Giants

He still belong to San Francisco Giants?--Inefable001 (talk) 22:34, 3 February 2012 (UTC)