Sam Fuld: Saber-geek

Pretty cool story.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/sports/baseball/20fuld.html?_r=1

Fuld once interned for Stats, LLC, and was pursuing a masters degree in ... wait for it ... statistics at Stanford.

I love the bit about him shouting out batting averages and such from his little stat book in the family car. He's one of us. The great athletes on my h.s. baseball team didn't do things like that. I did. Most of us probably did. I distinctly remember having to explain to a couple guys, star players on our team, around the batting cage one winter that walks count as earned runs. They swore I was full of shit. Then they went out and mowed guys down that spring while I tracked their pitches.

 

The differences are:

(1) He plays, so he understands the game.

(2) If he was pursuing a master's degree in statistics, then he actually knows how they work.

 

Some seer should try and come up with a kind of WAR stat for managers.

Forget fielding, that is the next frontier.

 

Comment on a Cubs message board in reference to this article:

Any player whose value "goes beyond numbers" is 98% likely to be white, and 99% likely to need a booster seat when going out to eat.

 

I love this argument so very much. So very much. It's always wrong, and, yet, someone always, always uses it.

 

A 30-year-old major league player doesn't understand the game? Beg to differ.

And I guarantee he understands the game better than people who, based on stats, think a batter should take every pitch until he gets one he can "hit hard." That could be the dumbest statement ever about baseball.

 

Some big league players understand the game. Some are just genetic freaks blessed with the ungodly hand-eye coordination needed to hit a profssionally pitched baseball. Either way, it's a specious argument. It's "never played the game" nonsense. As to your other little bit of crazy -- and I have no idea where it comes from, nor do I care -- I am pretty sure waiting for a pitch you can drive is a concept that's been around since Babe Ruth and Ted Williams was a pretty big proponent, as well. It's not a sabremetric concept.

 

If you're arguing that Sam Fuld is a genetic freak, then you are the one being crazy, my friend.

Rail against it all you want, but the statement I mentioned is one of the craziest ones ever made about baseball. Most, if not all, hitters will rarely have the option of consistently taking pitches until they see one they like.

 

Never mind all of the stat geek stuff. There one thing that made me a fan of him when he was playing in AAA:

...he's playing major league baseball...as a Type I diabetic.

I volunteer for the local American Diabetes Assn chapter and we were begging the Iowa Cubs to have Fuld participate in one of our events, when he was with the Cubs.

The I-Cubs GM, who's also a diabetic, said no. I was disappointed, because I was pushing to get him involved before he got called up.

 

If I can pull up a quote from a MLB player, are you going to be forced to agree?

 

No, because I'm sure I could find about a dozen where players discuss hitting philosophies, and none of them remotely discusses taking every pitch until he gets one he can "hit hard."

 

Okay. Let's see them.