Stat-friendly and stat-unfriendly baseball writers

OK, I think we've beat the dead Guat Xan-horse into the ground enough. 8)

Now that I finally understand his question, I can take a stab at answering it.

Please keep in mind that there are tens of thousands of sabermetrically inclined baseball fans with all kinds of different personalities. We all watch in different ways. The way I watch a game is probably different from the way Dick Whitman watches a game which is different from the way LTL watches a game which is different from the way Moddy watches a game.

But we all love baseball and we all use our "baseball brains" to watch most games, I'm guessing. We are who we are. So sure, I might throw something at the TV when my sabermetric sensibilities get offended — because Fredi Gonzalez calls for an inexplicable sac bunt with a runner on first and one out in the 7th inning. And yeah, I confess that I love to switch my MLB.tv over to a midweek Royals-A's game because I know they're in a high-leverage situation right now. (By the way, being a sports fan in the 21st century rules.)

Does this mean I'm not enjoying the game for the game? Of course not. That's all part of what makes it fun for me.

To put it another way: Could Rick Majerus watch a basketball game at any level without thinking about how to tinker with a team's defense? I'm sure he could. But I bet he also probably got a lot more enjoyment letting his wonderful basketball mind wander during the course of a game, even when he wasn't coaching. That's one of the many, many reasons why basketball was so much fun to him. Why would he want to turn that off?

 

I'm glad you admit it.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Numbers can be construed to make anyone look good or bad. The bottom line is talent. Can they play or not?

 

Your banal declaration is duly noted.

 

Drip's Posts Above Replacement is -15.

 

Banal Declaration is Drip's middle name. Well, part of it. Drip Banal Declaration Newsy Buttsecks Jack Ass Ringbox McDrip.

Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo is impressed.

 

One of my favorite "new" stats, though, is +/- for basketball.

The stat I would love to see, and I don't even know if it exists, would be a fielding measure showing how many feet a player can cover in a half second, one second, two seconds and three seconds from the striking of the ball. I know reaction time and reading of the bated ball are important, but if there was something that said...

Jim Edmonds - in three seconds can cover 103 feet with a 90% catch rate of balls between 93 and 103 feet. Maximum range is 107 feet.

Devon White - in three seconds can cover 119 feet with a 90% catch rate of balls between 109 and 119 feet. Maximum range is 125 feet.

That is what I would love to see, and, no, I have no idea what the hell "range factor" means.

 

More like Anal Declaration, amiright?

 

And somehow, front offices seem to be able to figure out which numbers work to accurately evaluate and predict player performance that contributes to winning games and which don't. Remarkable. They must be witches or something.

 

I am a sabermetrically-inclined guy. I don't get into every statistic, but I can intelligently explain what ERA+, BABIP and WAR represent.

When I go to a baseball game, I can totally shut that part of my brain off and just enjoy being there. I get to no more than 3 baseball games a year (I live 6 hours from the nearest MLB team). So when I go, I just want to enjoy watching the game. Seeing how hard and fast the ball comes off Ryan Braun's bat, how green the grass looks and enjoying the tense atmosphere of a ninth-inning rally -- that's what I focus on. If during that ninth inning rally, Nyjer Morgan bloops a hit behind second base, I am not recalculating his BABIP in my head. I irrationally like and dislike watching certain players for reasons known only to me. I enjoy everything about being at the game.

But I don't want Doug Melvin to watch the game that way or to evaluate players with his gut. If a free agent outfielder is coming off a career year where his BABIP was incredibly high, I want Melvin to use that stat in coming to the conclusion that the career year was a fluke. On the other hand, if he is evaluating a reliever who got hit hard last year, but had a very good K/BB ratio, I want him to see that the reliever is possibly a good buy-low pickup. I want Melvin to use advanced stats and scouts and ruthlessly analyze players, treating them like stocks.

I want awards voters not to use their gut or simply look to "counting" stats in arriving at their conclusions. I don't want a pitcher who wins 20 games with a mediocre ERA+ to be declared Cy Young over a pitcher with 14 wins who leads the league in ERA+, WAR and K/BB. I don't want awards voters to treat the Triple Crown as a per se reason to give a player the MVP award when another player has been a superior all-around threat. That's not to say that there aren't valid tie-breakers for how well a team played or well they played in September, but those should be the last things we look to, not the first. I don't want beat writers and national writers to watch the game the same way I do.

 

This is the way I feel, and why it hacks me off when John Kruk is considered the voice of reason on ESPN's Winter Meetings "Baseball Tonight," why networks don't think using a SABR-oriented guy in the booth would be welcome (C'mon, Keith Law on the broadcast of a Rangers-Rockies game? PLEASE!!!!!), or baseball writers who vote without considering more advanced stats. Baseball has ALWAYS been a stat-driven sport, so why not embrace BETTER stats as they come along? It's as closed-minded as MLB is on instant replay.

 

Wow, what a winding walk down the garden path to basically decry the gross injustice foisted upon Trout. :

But you do bring up something I've always thought, that sabermetricians probably get their greatest baseball thrill from playing general manager. Not their only thrill, buckdub, but their main thrill.