Jason Whitlock's column. Anyone else disagree?

Re: Jason Whitlock is dumb

Go play a game of touch football, or merely watch one, and come back and tell me if it was fun because of the stats. Or, do this with any game.

Some people can suck the enjoyment out of anything if they try hard enough, even by debating who is sucking the fun out of it worse, and why.

 

Re: Jason Whitlock is dumb

We had to keep stats on our 8-year-olds in the baseball league.

Even worse, we had to input them into a website.

Even worse, the stats were used for All-Star consideration.

Worst of all: OPS was one of the stats.

 

Re: Jason Whitlock is dumb

It probably would have been better to just let the coaches pick their friends' kids, like the good old days.

I still have a baseball from when I was 12 with all my stats hand written onto the ball by the coach. I figured up my batting average every day after I got home, like a lot of kids did. I knew it up to the minute.

That was more than 20 years ago.

 

Re: Jason Whitlock is dumb

Dick, you are particularly argumentative today. I think most people would realize that keeping OPS for 8-year-olds is just a little bit weird. Was just trying to have a little levity based on JD's post.

 

Re: Jason Whitlock is dumb

Weirder than keeping batting average?

 

Re: Jason Whitlock is dumb

For the record, I think that keeping any stats and having an All-Star team for 8-year-olds is ridiculous.

 

Re: Jason Whitlock is dumb

I'm sorry, but thinking advanced baseball stats are the equivalent of discovering the light bulb or the polio vaccine is really nuts.

 

Re: Jason Whitlock is dumb

Which, of course, nobody thinks.

 

Re: Jason Whitlock is dumb

I'm not going back and quoting the germaine posts you made.

 

Re: Jason Whitlock is dumb

The goddamn Germans got nothin' to do with it.

 

Re: Jason Whitlock is dumb

You know that I don't think that sabermetrics aren't "equivalent" to discovering a vaccine for polio. You understand just fine the point I was making.

 

Re: Jason Whitlock is dumb

I am in a softball league which uses a stat service to record and post stats online. The service tracks dozens of leagues.

Along with the basics, it has a stat called Offensive Potency Ratio. I have no idea how it is calculated. They use it to rate the players across the entire league. Three of our players ended up in the top 30 for the year. If I were to pick the three based on just playing with the guys, one for sure I would not have put as our three best, as in, that's the guy I want up with two outs and the winning run on second.

I suppose it is their sabermetric spin on our softball stats. They do include OPS on there. Not sure the true value of the stats, since errors are recorded as often as the Pirates have a winning season. Everything's a hit. I do not think about the stats while I am playing, but I enjoy looking at them afterwards. And since there's several years recorded on the site, it's fun to look back and see how I did each year.