Why do so many bloggers hate Plaschke?

And yet, apparently, lots of people need sabermetrics, or some sort of statistical analysis, to tell them that batting a below-average on-base guy in the leadoff spot is a terrifically foolish idea. This is the case even AFTER Juan Pierre has led the league in outs three years in a row.

 

Bill James, for one, doesn't believe everything can be quantified. And many SABR types, including myself, look down on the stat extremists who take the human element out of the game. But James isn't one of them.

 

He gets on base less than a third of the time; when he does hit, it's usually a single; and he's 25 percent worse, offensively, than the average major-league player. I like you, Peaches, but this isn't an argument you can win, at least not with Pierre as your evidence.

 

when he's not getting on base besides that, yeah, it does.

outs = not good.

 

So are you one of those that would actually shape your team based on win shares? If so, you're way over the top. And in the end, that faction often ends up eating its own; there was an NYT story about a year ago in which a saber guy trashed OPS in favor of a system that combines some new-age stuff with conventional stats like batting average.

And Buck, I always appreciate your reasonableness about the true value of numbers.

 

I'm guessing he was at the top of the league in outs because he bats more often (being at the top of the order).

But I haven't had the past basic seamanship (re., math) in, oh, 15 years.

Hey, I just like Juan Pierre.

 

Of course, saber people don't consider how a base stealer can open holes for other hitters, make a pitcher work from the stretch, and distract the pitcher. I will acknowledge that Pierre does have on-base problems, but he's not worthless.

 

That might necessitate actually watching baseball.

 

Clearly, Juan Pierre and Omar Moreno have/had been overvalued by conventional baseball watchers. But those who trash base-stealer extraordinaire Lou Brock and want to take his Hall of Fame slot from him because he didn't have a Hattebergian OPS are appalling.

 

I think it's a pretty efficient way of identifying flukes in past performance, and then using that to project future performance. Ron Shandler does a good job of explaining it in "Baseball Forecaster" - the stats we see, batting average, OBP, RBIs, etc., are essentially the results. He wants to dig beneath to understand the foundation of that - how often a guy makes contact, what kind of batting eye he has, etc. Most of the time, that stuff is pretty aligned. Sometimes, a guy will outperform or underperform what the "component" stats say he should (Brian Bannister is an example of a guy who supposedly overperformed last year, for example, and actually has recognized it and is trying to figure out how to compensate). It's good information for GMs to know. It's also good for Billy Beane or Theo Epstein to know that a guy has more break on his curveball this spring than last with the new grip he's been working on.

I don't find either philosophy offensive or at odds - it's a way of checking accepted opinion against the facts. That's what everyone from business owners to journalists are supposed to do anyway.

There have been a lot of sabermetric success stories. Like Jeff Luhnow restocking the Cardinals farm system for example.

There's no reason for guys like Plaschke to get bent out of shape about it. It's just an odd crusade to embark on. Conversely, the sabermetric crowd haven't exactly done a great job selling themselves.

Schwarz's book is a great, great, great look at the whole phenomenon.

The more rational saber people don't discount things like being a pest on the base paths. They're simply looking to provide another way of looking at things - a check against our unreliable eyeball judgments.

 

Who are those people, dools? I'd like to meet them. And you realize you just inadvertently compared Juan Pierre to a Hall of Famer, right?

 

Yes, he does bat a lot.

And his on-base percentage ranked 334th in MLB last season.

To put that in perspective, Micah Owings ranked 244th and Dontrelle Willis was 248th. Two pitchers with better on-base percentages than a leadoff hitter.

Pierre is an extraordinarily well-paid pinch runner. He should never have a bat in his hands.