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72 Comments on “Straw Hats and Calculators”

1. 1: Straw Hats and Calculators | whohasthebiggest.com said at 11:30 pm on March 8th, 2009:

   [...] post: Straw Hats and Calculators Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_submit_it() in [...]

2. 
   2: McKingford said at 11:56 pm on March 8th, 2009:

   Ken Tremendous – that *is* you…

   ~

   Really, how much of a quality at-bat is a .215 hitter going to give me?

   Rob Deer, baby! (master of the 3 true outcomes)

3. 
   3: Devon Young said at 11:58 pm on March 8th, 2009:

   I like how Larkin makes it sound like anyone using stats to help value a player’s skill level, can’t tell you why…yet he can’t tell us why. Sounds like he just doesn’t get it.

   Reynolds would like to do what? He’d like to “go back in my career and throw out all the times I had to get the man over, take at-bats, take two strikes, OK, now you can go ahead and swing”?

   So if I’m following his logic here… that would remove

   1. all times he knocked a runner in (since that would be included in getting a man over)

   2. all times he got on base for free (since walks would be included in “take at-bats”)

   ….hmmm, sounds like all productive at-bats are thrown out here. Even from a non-stat point of view, I can’t think of one major leaguer who stayed in the majors for at least 2 years without getting productive at-bats. So I guess he’s saying that he wishes he’d never been a successful player and never made it to the major leagues? Huh?

   And I think Casey’s just so new at this, he was trying to look like he belonged or maybe the producers told him what they wanted him to say and he was just tryin to be a commentator and didn’t know how yet and took bad advice.

   Overall, that conversation wasn’t just annoying but it was irritating to see that on the MLB network. I mean com’on, shouldn’t that network be supporting the idea of how cool stats are and how they can be useful?

4. 
   4: Tracey said at 11:59 pm on March 8th, 2009:

   I dressed as The Man with the Yellow Hat for Halloween.. my son was Curious George.

   As a news producer, I can’t imagine how tough it is to produce decent content at one of the ESPN-style networks… multiple ex-players or coaches, all supposed to deliver opinions but not particularly skilled at putting their special knowledge and experience into words. Watching Bob Knight on College Game Day makes me cringe every time.

   Those guys would probably agree that there’s room for both calculators and straw hats, but their job is to be provocative, to have strong opinions. Gray isn’t encouraged in that black and white world.

5. 
   5: Old Man Duggan said at 12:14 am on March 9th, 2009:

   Wait. What’s On-Base Percentage? Is that like Batting Average?

6. 
   6: Andy L said at 1:05 am on March 9th, 2009:

   Thanks for this, Joe. This had just sparked a loud rant from me to my girlfriend. Glad you decided to write about it to add some things to my rant when I repeat it tomorrow to my buddies.

   Part of it is just that players (and all three of these guys are former players) could NEVER admit how much of their productivity is based on chance, and regression to the mean, and all those other statty concepts. When that hit falls just outside the reach of the diving center fielder, they want it to be because they were all full of clutchiness, not because of their God-given talent plus random chance (and a whole bunch of other variables). It’s ME, Hug Me Harold Reynolds! I played with my heart and my grit and my cojones. That can’t be reflected in/predicted with numbers because I didn’t think of it that way!

   Et cetera.

7. 
   7: Jesse said at 1:28 am on March 9th, 2009:

   Hi Joe

   Great blog post. I was thinking many of the same things you did. Harold’s monologue bordered on Billy Madisonesque, and I felt like giving him the ‘at no point in time did you actually come close to forming a coherent thought. We are all dumber now for having listened to you. May God have mercy on your soul.’

   Anyway – If I’m grasping what you’re saying about scouts near the end of the post, I think you’ve got subjective and objective confused. I think that most of what a scout does with the 80-20 scale would be considered subjective, but using objective evidence to support it, if you get what I’m saying. Or perhaps you meant what you said and I know less about scouting than I think I do.

   Regardless, I appreciate the content immensely. I think I check this page about 20 times a day, sometimes even after I just read your post. You certainly don’t have to give us all the free content that you do, and I just want to say that I greatly appreciate it.

   Jesse

8. 
   8: Bob Biscigliano said at 1:41 am on March 9th, 2009:

   I think one word sums that clip up altogether: Amateur. I think the ending summed it all up, or served as the ‘cherry on top’ as they went off the air with all three of them talking over one another and Matt Vasgersian leaving viewers with a barely audible teaser into the next segment. I think MLB Network may have been scrounging for a last minute piece and stumbled upon this idea. It was pretty lousy.

   I think Tracy makes a valid point, though. Should we really expect profound wisdom from these athletes who are placed on air straight from the playing fields? I guess we might be expecting too much out of them.

   Always great posts out of you, Mr. P.

9. 
   9: Ryan JL said at 1:46 am on March 9th, 2009:

   That “straw hat” question literally made me convulse in a fit and fall out of my chair onto the floor.

   Thank you, MLB.com

10. 
    10: Nathan said at 3:14 am on March 9th, 2009:

    “I would love to go back in my career and throw out all the times I had to get the man over, take at-bats, take two strikes, OK, now you can go ahead and swing… ”

    OK, Harold, do that. Tell us how many times that happened to you…

    Ha! Tricked you! By counting up all that things and giving us a total, you just made a stat! NNEEEERRRRRRDDDDDD!!!!!! Get out of your mother’s basement, Harold!

11. 
    11: Graphite said at 5:29 am on March 9th, 2009:

    As has been said about a few jockeys down this way, “A genius on horseback — it’s when he’s on the ground he needs a bit of help.”

12. 
    12: T.B. said at 5:47 am on March 9th, 2009:

    I’ve spilled so many pixels about how crap like this angers me. I’m not going to justify this with a full rant of my own, but I do have to say that what pisses me off the most about all the ex-ballplayers going on anti-stats rants is the sheer arrogance.

    These guys were doing nothing more than espousing the gospel of St. Joe Morgan, who says that if you haven’t played the game in the major leagues, there is NO WAY YOU CAN POSSIBLY COMPREHEND WHAT BASEBALL IS. It is such a slap in the face to people who have been obsessed with baseball since they were sentient. A slap in the face to people who paid these ex-players’ salaries, the people who idolized them and made them famous. After all the fans give to the game, all the players can do is slap them in the face, because of some ridiculous clubhouse machismo.

    And trust me, as a fanatical Reds fan who died a little inside in 1999, the barbs from Larkin and Casey hurt the most.

13. 
    13: Oddibe Kerfeld said at 7:26 am on March 9th, 2009:

    Check out this funny video of Tweety Bird walking around the Texas Capitol the other day. Ha.

    http://www.realpolitix.com

14. 
    14: Dan V. said at 7:26 am on March 9th, 2009:

    These guys don’t like stats because, at the end of the day, they know these new fangled stats will keep their buddies from getting jobs even if they’re not that great but “have heart.” But then again there’s enough stat-adverse people at the top of some ballclubs that they may not have to worry about it.

15. 
    15: Ian said at 7:33 am on March 9th, 2009:

    Who cares? I’m a Twins fan who loves win-shares but I guess I lean toward the Bloomquist player over the Dunn player (to paraphrase an earlier Joe post). But if somebody enjoys baseball more b/c by following baseball online, why would I care? Enjoy it however you want and let others enjoy it how they want. I imagine Casey, Reynolds and Larkin do tend to know more about how a baseball team works then Neyer or James (both have said as much) but they aren’t infallable.

    The only thing that bothers me about stat-people is the over reliance (by some) on rate stats without taking into account how much the player actually played or pitched. That drives me absolutely crazy.

16. 
    16: Mike said at 7:36 am on March 9th, 2009:

    I tend to think the attitude is about laziness and being intellectual frightened. To competently argue that a stat is insufficient, a critic needs to break down the formula and grasp its failings. That’s one of four ways you can go, and it’s probably the hardest. The second would be to grasp the formula and decide it’s good. This also takes some mental work, as well as a willingness to go against the insider point of view. The third way to go is to say the stats are inferior, and just make up a reason without knowing what the stat measures, and what it might undervalue.

    These guys should go the fourth way: Admit to themselves that they’re unable or unwilling to break down the formula, but concede that it has at least some value, rather than dismissing it out of hand. I mean, that’s what I do, so obviously it’s not that hard.

17. 
    17: Mikey said at 7:48 am on March 9th, 2009:

    Bottom line: in any business where people are making a very comfortable living based on their subjective opinions (see also Hollywood, publishing) those people are going to fight until the last dog dies to keep objective analysis from making their opinions irrelevant.

    To give MLB Network a little credit, this is the first case I know of where a national sports network has actually tried to explain what PECOTA is. And Matty Gas at least raised the point that a scout can only see a finite number of games.

    I would offer these guys a friendly challenge to try to do their jobs on MLBN for one week without using any stats. No reading the box scores, no referencing the league leaders. Just talk about what you see. I don’t think it can be done, at least not without looking like a fool.

18. 
    18: Jamie said at 7:53 am on March 9th, 2009:

    I think the reason ballplayers get so defensive in regard to statistics is largely due to fear. These guys are very competitive people with healthy egos. Those are necessary traits in a good ballplayer, but they can sometimes get in the way of objectivity. Add to that the bizarre “baseball fraternity” mindset that requires ballplayers to defend each others’ honor, and advanced statistics become perceived as a threat. Maybe the stats are going to show that they weren’t as good as they thought they were (I’m sure Harold Reynolds thinks he just missed a HOF career, if only he didn’t have to take those first strikes or move the runner over so much), or that their friends and teammates weren’t as good as they thought they were. So they dismiss them out of hand, before they can learn something they don’t want to know. Of course, every one of them knows exactly how many home runs they hit and what their career batting average was, and I’m sure Larkin would be quick to defend Reynolds’ .258 avg.as a “very productive” .258, for reasons he cannot articulate.

19. 
    19: Bill said at 7:53 am on March 9th, 2009:

    Ian – those people in your last paragraph aren’t really stat people. All the stats like Win Shares, VORP, etc. are designed with the understanding that it’s important to actually be on the field. And the stat guys aren’t usually the ones pushing for closers or DHes to be MVPs, for instance.

    Just when I’m starting to like Harold Reynolds, a little, they push him in way over his head and he drowns himself. Great as Joe’s deconstruction was, it still doesn’t quite do justice to just how terrible Harold’s take on this was. “I hate stats. Stats suck! Here are some stats.”

20. 
    20: Royalfan said at 8:05 am on March 9th, 2009:

    I guess the thing I don’t get with the scenario presented on the video is why is it an either/or proposition? I would think most successful teams would use every available resource including old fashioned scouting opinion and newer styled numbers and stats. Certainly the Red Sox have shown utilizing both can be a big advantage. Hopefully Curious George has not turned into another ‘Travis’ as he has grown old.

21. 
    21: Eric said at 8:12 am on March 9th, 2009:

    The part that bothers me is this…”statheads” typically don’t go out of their way to discount scouts entirely, but the converse seems to prove true.

    If I have a statistical database and I see someone who hit 50 home runs in college…it sounds impressive, but then the computer can say “wait, he’s hitting in a park that inflates statistics by 50%” (ballpark factors, etc). A scout would basically do the same thing – he would say “oh, college X’s ballpark is 240 feet to dead center, don’t be too impressed”. Same results. Doesn’t mean you don’t scout the person, it just means that you have to look past the numbers…and oddly enough, “statheads” have to look past the numbers to see the true meaning.

    Let me use a football analogy. When a good wide receiver is at Michigan, the talking heads on TV say “well, he’s got talent, but who was the last great Michigan wide receiver? This school has a history of producing guys who do nothing in the pros.” However, if a stathead said “my projections say he’s not going to do anything because left handed pitchers see a 30% drop off in their strike out rate in this park”, I bet that people would ridicule it.

    Think of it from a budgetary standpoint and a talent standpoint. There are only so many scouts that are good, correct? I mean, there have to be good scouts and bad scouts. Plus, to scout hundreds of kids, it has to cost a lot of money. I can’t see how having a computer do some projections could hurt, especially with a 40+ round draft. You can’t possibly hire enough talented scouts to be that prepared. When it comes to the 40th round, do they really have multiple scouting reports on every person that is still available?

    Let me draw an abortion analogy. There are two sides to the issue – “pro-life” or “pro-choice”. People who are pro-choice don’t discount the other side’s argument – hey, if you want to choose life, that’s fine by us! Just like statheads – use scouts, by all means, they measure things like mechanics that we can’t get otherwise. On the other hand, it seems like most pro-life people don’t respect the other side of the argument – by definition, they are anti-abortion, so pro-choice goes against everything in their being. Same thing with the scouts – when asked about statheads, you rarely hear “well, they bring some important information that helps me out a lot” – you hear “oh, those geeks in their mom’s basements”.

22. 
    22: josh said at 8:16 am on March 9th, 2009:

    I absolutely despise all the talk from “insiders” and “analysts” who talk about concepts like heart, clutch, momentum, and having “it”.

    Why must the Harold Reynoldses and, even worse, the Mark Schlereths of the world insist that every result in sports is based on something intangible?

    Why can’t we just concede that someone may simply be better?

    Why can’t one coach’s strategy just be superior?

23. 
    23: Bellylard said at 8:18 am on March 9th, 2009:

    It’s probably because Harold just hates that caught stealing statistic. There some self-delusion going on with Casey, there had to be scouts saying he was too slow and hadn’t developed the power necessary to offset it to be a big leaguer.

24. 
    24: Eric J said at 8:35 am on March 9th, 2009:

    It’s just a standard logical fallacy that people resort to when their argument is hopeless. Kids, learn from this. Don’t use the Straw Hat Man argument.

25. 
    25: Andrew @ EC said at 8:36 am on March 9th, 2009:

    In another bit of sympathy to MLB.com, they’re running a series of (hour-long!) previews of each team called “30 Clubs in 30 Days,” and each preview features the team’s projected Pythagorean win totals from Baseball Prospectus.

    Yes, there’s a ton of institutional luddism in baseball. And maybe those projections are only included because it’s hard to find an hour’s worth of stuff to say about, say, the Baltimore Orioles. But seriously: you can see Harold Reynolds talk about Pythagenport! Isn’t that progress for the reality-based community?

26. 
    26: Tampa Mike said at 8:42 am on March 9th, 2009:

    I will agree that some people take stats WAY too far, but I would say it is the vast minority. Stats tell you a lot, but not the whole picture. Stats are extremly important in understanding baseball and building a team. Baseball lends itself to stats because it draws on a very large sample size. Harold, take out those hitting senerios and it’s not going to change much. When players have 500-600+ at bats in a year, the 20 they have to take strikes on don’t really affect much.

    Players don’t seem to get it (with Banny being an exception) and think that stats only degrade their accomplishments. I don’t really care what the players think about stats because they will always be a part of baseball.

27. 
    27: Olentangy said at 8:44 am on March 9th, 2009:

    A lot of people don’t like or understand math, period. When it gets past their comfort level, they shut down and automatically become defensive. Since math is applicable to anything that involves movement or physical action, it is a given if you find the right functions you can analyze ANYTHING better by using mathematics, and it scares the people who don’t understand it. They truly don’t have an understanding of the power of mathematics and discount the use of it it out of hand.

28. 
    28: The Oriole Way said at 8:48 am on March 9th, 2009:

    This should be required reading for everyone in the baseball media, and especially for any former player seeking to become a television announcer.

29. 
    29: Mark W. said at 9:01 am on March 9th, 2009:

    I’ve got DISH satellite service at the house…They don’t yet carry MLB Network. I like major league baseball quite a bit…Should I consider going to DirecTV, paying more for their service BTW, just so I can get MLB Network? Otherwise my wife and I are happy with DISH. Comments…???

30. 
    30: KHAZAD said at 9:09 am on March 9th, 2009:

    Please don’t expect former players to embrace stats. They have to look at intangibles to think that they (and their teammates) are better than the #’s that they put up.

    Barry Larkin won an MVP award that was largely based upon intangibles, grit and leadership.

    Harold Reynolds won 3 consecutive Gold Gloves in spite of fielding numbers that were in favor of others.

    Sean Casey completely changed his body (with or without enhancements) chasing in vain the power numbers that first basemen are “supposed” to have.

31. 
    31: Jay said at 9:10 am on March 9th, 2009:

    The Bill James forest and trees analogy remains the gold standard for capturing the ex-ballplayer, ex-sportswriter, old-time scout bias/fear/misunderstanding of statistical analysis and its utility in helping to understand the game.

    The confusion that Reynolds/Larkin/Casey have is a general misapprehension of the role that statistical analysis plays — statistics help to understand the game they play, not an end unto itself.

32. 
    32: Curtis said at 9:20 am on March 9th, 2009:

    I love the 30 clubs in 30 days shows. An absolute must TiVO for every fantasy baseball junkie like myself. It gives you a good chance to get a good refresher on who has moved, what the rotation looks like, and what the everyday order is going to be, and so on.

    But what the heck is up with the batting stance guy? That has to be one of the weirdest segments of all time. I mean, this guy has a pretty decent website. It is good for a laugh every now and again. But to spend five minutes of every episode just throwing out names and watching this guy imitate his stance is just weird.

33. 
    33: Curtis said at 9:23 am on March 9th, 2009:

    Mark, once the season starts, the only thing you will want is to watch games, not watching people talk about games. MLB netword adds value during spring training, but I don’t see it doing much that you can’t get from baseball tonight once the season gets rolling. I think you’d need a bigger incentive to make the leap.

34. 
    34: Justin said at 9:41 am on March 9th, 2009:

    That whole segment was just emblematic of the provincialism displayed by most ballplayers and old-school followers of the game. There’s a tendency to lash out at what they don’t understand, simply because it runs counter to what they’ve believed and espoused for so long.

    For many old, stuck-in-their-ways media types, it threatens to render them obsolete. Once it becomes obvious that having your number two hitter try to lay one down with a runner on second instead of having him swing away isn’t necessarily a good percentage move, it invalidates their beliefs.

    For ex-players, it threatens to invalidate their careers. I found it interesting that two of the three players questioned were probably better celebrated for something other than the things that stats look to celebrate.

    Reynolds, as has been pointed out, may have stolen 30 bases a year, but stats will show that’s a bad gamble when you’re getting caught 15 to 20 times. Casey, meanwhile, was more recognized as “the mayor” than for his solid numbers. Larkin – far and away the best player of the bunch – was also the one who seemed to acknowledge that stats have value, but he appeared to get swept up in the old boys club mob mentality.

    As other commenters have mentioned, the choice that Vasgersian offered is an often-utilized false dichotomy. NO ONE would argue that scouts should be done away with. A team that looks at just stats and doesn’t actually watch the players is shooting itself in the foot. More importantly, as Joe pointed out, the people at Baseball Prospectus and others at the forefront DO watch baseball. They probably watch more intently and have more passion for the game than many of the casual fans who decry the proliferation of stats. Why else would they go to such great lengths to try to understand the game as much as they do?

35. 
    35: Sara K said at 9:45 am on March 9th, 2009:

    In the last Posterisk, if the point you are making is that scouts do, in large, deal in statistics, then I think you have “objective” and “subjective” backwards.

36. 
    36: Brent said at 9:45 am on March 9th, 2009:

    Hmm, what Reynolds, Larkin and Casey fail to realize (or if they are just disingenius, fail to bring up), is that the things that they are talking about, the “intangibles”, the “heart”, DO show up in statistics.

    Baseball is driven by stats because everything you do on the field can be recorded by statistics. Move a runner up, we can document that. Bat well in the “clutch”, we can document it. Make a lot of plays in the field, we can document it. If you are a “gamer”, then your counting stats will go up, because you don’t miss a bunch of games for little injuries. And the stats people have been working hard for the past 20 years to, in fact, give credit through statistics for those little plays. Every year, more information about all the “little things” in baseball is available.

    It is funny that the conservative elements in baseball, which often include the former players, want to rely on the older stats to evaluate a player, because those did not quantify all the “intangible” things a player could do.

    I think the problem lies in the fact that when it wasn’t possible to quantify those things, they seemed bigger than they actually are. Now we know that those things matter, but not as much as getting on base (or a better way to put it, not making outs) or keeping people off base (or recording outs).

37. 
    37: Spud said at 9:56 am on March 9th, 2009:

    Maybe it’s a weeklong series on MLB Network. “Tonight: Why Clutch Hitting Doesn’t Exist.”

    Hey, I can dream.

38. 
    38: Mikey said at 10:11 am on March 9th, 2009:

    “The Bill James forest and trees analogy remains the gold standard”

    What is the analogy?

39. 
    39: Steve B said at 10:31 am on March 9th, 2009:

    Regarding Dish Network Vs. DirecTV and the MLB Network. I hate ESPN so much that I was ecstatic when I saw that thanks to MLB Network, I don’t have to watch anything on ESPN this summer except for the games they broadcast. I don’t know what MLB Network will be like in the summer, when the games themselves are going on, but I hope it’s similar to what they do now. They show Ken Burns’ Baseball and other shows that weren’t produced in house. There’s a lot of promise for the network, so I’d say switch.

40. 
    40: Rutbag said at 10:48 am on March 9th, 2009:

    I think one of the reasons that so many players are so dismissive of statistics is because statistics actually don’t have any bearing on their understanding of the game. We tend to look at stats and see them as the identifiers of what makes a player good:

    “I can tell that player is good because his batting average is x and his OPS+ is y.”

    The player meanwhile, is thinking:

    “I can tell I am good because I can get in the pitcher’s head, wait for him to throw my pitch, and pound the ball off the right field wall at will.”

    The result of what the player thinks makes him good is what the stat-head think makes the player good. Being aware of stats does not, for the most part, help make a player better. Simply knowing that “taking walks is good” is adequate for a player. He knows the importance of getting on base without knowing the stat “On Base Percentage”. The pitcher knows that a hitter can’t hit a curveball in a certain location without knowing the guy’s specific batting average on such a pitch.

    So, when you ask players about stats, they don’t see them as having anything to do with understanding the game because it has nothing to do with *their* understanding of *how to play* the game. That isn’t universally true, of course. Better statistical understanding can lead to better decision making and some players are almost certainly aware of that. It’s just not essential.

    For fans/stat-heads/etc., however, understanding and appreciation of the game can be greatly deepened by stats. While I may have more enthusiasm for a diving line drive catch than a player’s defensive efficiency, the latter can give me more insight into a player’s value or a team’s construction and leads to a much more nuanced understanding of the whole game.

    This is all a long-winded way of saying I understand the players’ perspective and think it makes sense for someone in that context but I would also enjoy being able to watch baseball on ESPN with the sound turned up. Statistics are important to the fan’s understanding of the game and someone who dismisses them because of a presumed higher level of understanding of the game should not be a baseball analyst.

    On the other hand, I would love to hear Manny Ramirez as an analyst. It is almost unfathomable what “insight” he would lend to the game but I’m pretty sure it would be entertaining.

41. 
    41: Jay said at 11:10 am on March 9th, 2009:

    Mikey,

    If you look in James’ 1984 Baseball Abstract you’ll find an essay that really crystalizes the different ways to observe and study the game and the dichotomy and perspectives provided by the baseball “insider” (like ex-players) and “outsiders” (students of the game). A good summary of that particular essay can be found here: http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2004/11/abstracts_from_19.php

42. 
    42: Motherscratcher said at 11:15 am on March 9th, 2009:

    Isn’t it crazy how lucky Mickey Mantle, Rickey Henderson, Griffey Jr, Pete Rose, and all of those other great players were that they never had to move the runner over or hit with 2 strikes. Just think, they could have ended up with…say…Herold Reynolds stats if they weren’t so lucky. Not that stats mean anything anyway.

43. 
    43: Bellweather Johnson said at 11:15 am on March 9th, 2009:

    Just know, if you see the following in the next JoeChat:

    “Joe,

    Do you think the Yankees can be consistent offensively this season without A-Rod in the lineup?

    -Joseph Poz; Nantz, KY”

    ..that just a little JoeBait…coming from both ends. I’m on to you Fremp.

44. 
    44: Steve said at 11:20 am on March 9th, 2009:

    I don’t think we should be shocked that former players don’t understand complex statistical analysis. For THEM the game IS touch and feel, and it SHOULD be. These guys, like many fans, are not highly educated, and after all one can graduate from college without ever having to take a statistics course.

    I mean, when I read specs on a piece of audio or video equipment I’m buying, they make no sense. All I care about is how it sounds or looks (touch and feel) and maybe one very simple stat (wattage or something that may or not be all that important). But I would never claim that the people developing the product don’t need to know science, or that all those numbers are totally irrelevant. I like to read user reviews of these products, but also a review by some expert who actually understands everything that goes into the technology.

    Former players are simply not the best analysts in this case, and Reynolds in particular embarrasses himself.

45. 
    45: Jeff said at 12:10 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    I can only hope that if I am ever laid off for performance based reasons, and my boss points to my poor statistics as reasoning for his decision, I can tell him that he’s looking too much into stats and being in the legal profession is much more “touch-and-feel” than just billable hours.

46. 
    46: David in NYC said at 12:44 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    Graphite #11 –

    Thank you, thank you, thank you!

    That quote is just perfect for all sorts of things. In the context of this blog, it summarizes Joe Morgan (among many, many others) in one sentence.

47. 
    47: Andrew @ EC said at 12:53 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    Without exception, the largest complainers about “numbers” are inevitably the guys who rely the most on numbers — they just prefer their numbers (batting average, pitching wins, RBI, and so on) to your numbers.

    What’s weird (to me, anyway) is that there doesn’t seem to be a method to their madness. Old-school sportswriters are perfectly comfortable talking about Quarterback Rating, for example, which is (a) impossible to calculate and (b) makes no sense — but those same guys start cracking calculus and blogging-in-your-mother’s-basement jokes if you mention OPS. (God help you if you cite EqA.)

    All statistics are complicated; that’s why math class is tough. If I tell you that Jones was batting .300 coming into today’s game, and he got one hit in four plate appearances, you have no idea what his batting average is. It could have gone up or gone down based on the number of plate appearances that count as official at-bats (and how dumb is that, that a time a player spends at bat might not be an “at-bat”??). It could have gone up or gone down a little or a lot based on the number of previous at-bats Jones had.

    And that’s batting average, the most basic of the basic, the way that all good American boys learn how to do fractions. If batting average makes no sense, why rail against EqA and Win Shares? Why not just use the best statistics and use those, even if the average fan can’t figure it out in his head? I mean, isn’t that the job of the analyst in the first place — to tell us the things we might not know on our own?

    (Rant over. Sorry.)

48. 
    48: David in NYC said at 1:00 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    EricJ #24 –

    Touché!

    Mark W #29 –

    I wouldn’t switch just to get MLB Network, but if that’s what you have to do to get the Extra Innings package (as I do with Time Warner in NYC, because MLB owns it), do it. Extra Innings is the out-of-town games (local teams blacked out) every day, all season, and nearly all the games. In fact, Extra Innings may be the only thing I have ever seen advertised that *understates* their product. The ads say something like “8 to 10 extra games every day”; I would say that’s a bare minimum. There was at least one day last year when Extra Innings was showing 16 games! (The extra game was the 2nd game of a double-header.)

    And, no, I do not work for MLB Network, Extra Innings, or any of their affiliates or advertisers. Just thought I should make that clear.

49. 
    49: Josh in DC said at 2:38 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    Wonderful irony that Joe, correctly, said that it’s not interested it listen to an argument where everyone agrees.

    And then, I read the comments.

50. 
    50: JimRI said at 2:39 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    What was annoying is that there are a few legit caveats that they basically ignored. What PECOTA(and other mathematical prediction systems) do is:
    1)Fit players to a career path(peak around age 30, gradual decline in the late thirties, etc. )
    2)Predicts regression to the mean after a career year. There can also be some context like park effects.

    PECOTA pretty much totally fails for young guys, although that is to be expected; they haven’t done enough to distinguish between a career year a legit improvement. Such systems tell you some very valuable things, like when a player is likely to decline(as predicted by similar players), and the gradual improvements through experiance and gradual regression from aging. But they don’t have a way to deal with things such as injuries, or actual legit improvements(rare later in life, but possible,frex: David Wells).

51. 
    51: Gate said at 2:48 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    Did anyone else get the feeling that the PECOTA segment was done as a joke by some sabermetrically inclined producer/writer/director at MLB network? I know that if I worked there, nothing would make my day more than baiting 3 former athletes into saying things like, “I don’t care if you’re a 215 hitter if you’r giving me quality at bats” or HR getting so excited that he breaks the world record for incomprehensibility packed into 30 seconds.

    I can just imagine watching that offstage and just laughing my head off…after I set the over/under for how many times they’d mention heart in a 3 minute conversation.

52. 
    52: DJ said at 4:08 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    My personal theory is that many of the coaches and other personnel tend not to have been the kind of players who have big statistics (the backup catcher, utility infielder, etc.) and so they end up instilling certain values in players as they develop that lean more towards the intangable then the tangible.

    In addition, as the statistical side of the sport becomes more developed, there is likely a fear among players who find their value based in more traditional numbers (Casey’s batting average, Reynolds’ stolen bases in this example) that their contributions will become overlooked as things change.

    However, what they don’t realize is that they cannot stop things from changing. As people age, especially the more traditional members of the media, the proceeding generations are becoming more and more statistically savvy. By showing their desperation to avoid being left behind, all their vitriol towards the subject does is increase the rate of irrelavance among that group.

53. 
    53: devil_fingers said at 5:18 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    Dayton Moore is one amazing man… running the Royals _and_ also producing a show for the MLB Network.

    Impressive. Maybe he was too busy putting together this blue ribbon panel to realize that Kyle Farnsworth has sucked for quite a while now.

54. 
    54: Richard Aronson said at 5:54 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    Home runs is a statistic. Batting average is a statistic. Earned Run Average is not only a statistic, it can be too complicated to calculate without paper once the inning count starts getting up there.

    What the former baseball players don’t recognize is that every stat head in the world uses the best statistics available. In Harold Reynolds case, we might compare him defensively to other second basemen (he was pretty good); we would look at his speed; we might look at his GIDP and OBP. But if all we looked at was Home Runs, which is as simple a statistic there is, Reynolds looks pretty lousy. And if we didn’t look at statistics at all, we might be fooled into thinking Reynolds was better than Grich or Whitaker.

    What us stat geeks are looking for is more accurate statistics. Batting average is a pretty good statistic. But I think everybody would take Babe Ruth over Tony Gwynn in a heartbeat, even though they have somewhat similar career batting averages four points apart) and we’d take Stan Musial over Gwynn even though Gwynn hit 7 points higher (sticking to outfielders). What we want to find are the statistics that correlate best to our team scoring and preventing runs. Because from a team point of view, nothing else matters. It’s better to have a team that leads the league in runs scored and is dead last in batting average and homers than to have a team that leads the league in BA and homers but is last in runs scored.

    So yes, I like the old statistics. In a vacuum, I’ll take a guy batting .300 over the guy batting .250, and I’ll take the guy with 30 dingers over the guy with 20, if home runs is the only stat I’m shown. But I’d rather have OPS than BA, and I’d rather have OPS+ than OPS, because it’s a more accurate predictor. That doesn’t mean we don’t also count extra credit (somewhere) for a guy who excels at taking two strikes to let a guy try and steal, and then advances the runner without hitting into many double plays. We don’t ignore Reynolds’ defensive talents. But we also don’t ignore Reynolds’ lack of power as compared to Sandberg or Grich or Kent.

    But I’ll give at least Larkin and Reynolds this much. The one thing that baseball stats don’t do well is gauge value of extraordinarily good fielders at important positions. Good fielding average hitting middle infielders win MVPs, so the collective unconscious of all the baseball voters says, “Yes, Maury Wills deserves the MVP even though Willie Mays played on the league champion (okay, they were tied) and Mays hit 49 homers and stole 18 bases getting caught only twice and fielded in center field like Willie Mays and had an OPS+ of 165 in 1962 and scored 130 runs and drove in 141. I mean, Mays scored as many runs as the best leadoff hitter in baseball that year and also drove in 93 more runs than the best leadoff hitter in baseball, but Wills was picked as the MVP. As a stat guy, does this make sense? Not really. But the great middle infielders to get credit, and I can’t wait for statistics that quantify the difference between good fielder and MVP fielder.

    The real MVP was probably Don Drysdale, who won the CYA while pitching over 300 innings. And it’s hard to argue that Wills deserved the MVP over Tommy Davis, who batted .346 with 27 homers, 230 hits, 153 RBI, and batted what Wills OBP’ed. But then you get into Davis and RBI/BA over Mays GG/HR. So they gave it to the most unique talent that year. Then in 1964 imagine Drysdale throwing 321 innings with a WHIP under 1, an ERA more than a run under the league average, and getting ZERO CYA consideration because there was just one award for both leagues that season. You know, I look at 1964 and begin to think that maybe Drysdale deserved his HOF membership after all. But I digress.
    
    Someday we’ll have stats good enough so we can *really* argue the hidden benefits of the big base stealers on pitcher concentration and getting into the bullpen early, and great gloves versus average gloves and shortstops versus sluggers. Until then, let me tell all the non-stat-heads out there: all we really want is to be able to feel confident when we say Player A is better than Player B. That’s all we want our better statistics to give us, a better understanding of this game we love. Loving stats more does not make us love baseball less.

55. 
    55: Will said at 7:09 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    I’ll remember this day for the rest of my life…

    If only 95% of the scouts, who all know the game so well, could/would appear in print without being anonymous. I can’t wait in eight months to read someone’s cherry-picked examples of PECOTA’s failings, while all the garbage scout’s opinions from this sprng will just disappear like they always do.

56. 
    56: Jeff said at 7:23 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    OPS+? What is this, 2007? Grow up and use wOBA or EqA.

57. 
    57: Bingo Long said at 9:06 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    At least Kruk wasn’t on.

58. 
    58: ASF said at 9:24 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    A few years ago I wrote a sociological analysis of the “Moneyball debate” for a grad class. In my analysis, it seems that several broader macro-level social forces are at work here, some of which are touched on by the above posts.

    First, a long history of general anti-intellectualism in certain segments of America and sports in particular, as has been well documented. But more than that, the controversy highlights the rise of a new professional class of workers in baseball, separate from those who play/have played the game for a living.

    In several facets, this mirrors changes in early industrial capitalism that gave us middle management and the divide between “managers” and “workers.” To oversimplify, one of the main factors then was the separation of physical “doing/manufacturing work” from mental “planning/organizing/analysis work,” which had both previously been performed by the same tradesmen in preindustrial society. The notion that the two domains require different areas of expertise, and that the latter might be deemed more valuable than the former (as happened in earlier eras with the privileging of education), carried a huge threat then as it does now.

    This new professional class had/has different backgrounds, values, evaluative criteria, etc. as has been mentioned in previous posts, and encounters the derision of the previously privileged group. In a sociological context, this is nothing new – it’s the baseball equivalent of a move toward Max Weber’s concept of bureaucratic rationality, positivity/objectivity over subjectivity/tradition/etc.

    Also, at some level I think this controversy taps into some fundamental egalitarianism or morality play in American culture. I think Joe Sheehan has written some about this. It’s no coincidence that there is a push to validate some set of “hidden” skills that don’t result in attention, adulation, large salaries, etc. The glorification of superstars for gaudy HR totals, for example, has its counterweight in an “insider” movement arguing that those who “really know the truth” elevate the relative status of those diminished elsewhere, thus having a leveling effect. Again, this has been discussed somewhat in relation to the particular players involved, but I think it’s part of a larger cultural dynamic. Just my two cents.

59. 
    59: Tom Cavileer said at 9:33 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    Why would Sean Casey be open to the ideas of the folks at Baseball Prospectus? Year after year, they tried to get him fired from his well-paid position with the Reds:

    “He’s a good player who will end up overrated – and probably overpaid – thanks to high batting averages. Trading him is a good idea.” – BP 2001

    “He just didn’t have as good a year as anyone could have projected. The Reds aren’t in a position to give him a big multiyear contract if he’s working his way down to being Hal Morris” – BP 2002

    “Six home runs from your starting first baseman in the year 2002? …you’ll know the organization is serious about winning when they move his hefty contract and reinvest it at a position where good help is harder to find” – BP 2003

    “Casey doesn’t do nearly enough on the field to separate himself from the pack of average first basemen… a millstone on the Reds’ payroll” – BP 2004

    Even after his career year in 2005:

    “… it’ll be interesting to see if the Reds offer another Larkin-like boondoggle deal in the name of misguided loyalty. PECOTA expects a drop-off to ‘01-’03 levels.”

    Now, wouldn’t you be a bit resentful if some fellows, with no experience in your field, sent your boss memos like this every year, arguing that you were overpaid and easily replaced? Even if – especially if – you knew there was some truth to what they are saying?

    Would this be you:

    “Gosh, you know, the boys up in Accounting were right. Their stats showed that management could hire someone in India 75% as productive as me for 25% of the cost!”

    Or this?

    “Those (bleeping) pencil-pushers didn’t know the first thing about my job…”

60. 
    60: Justyo said at 10:20 pm on March 9th, 2009:

    “Many baseball people will constantly refer to a large group of mythical baseball creatures who have lousy stats but are actually great baseball players, and I’m not saying these people do not exist, I’m just saying that I have not seen them.”

    Love it! But I’ve been wracking my brain thinking out loud…

    Mark Belanger?
    Cecil Cooper?
    Butch Hobson?
    Wally Backman?
    Ken Singleton?
    Rick Burleson?

61. 
    61: Clutch said at 3:59 am on March 10th, 2009:

    Technically speaking, the reading on the scout’s rader gun is not a statistic. Neither is measuring the time it takes for a player to get from first to third, or Home Runs, Or RsBI, or Stolen Bases. These, either measurements or counting, are data.

    Diving one set of data (hits) by a second set of relevant data to a rate formula (at bats) is a statistic.

    Otherwise, spot on.

62. 
    62: Clutch said at 4:02 am on March 10th, 2009:

    Well don’t I feel stupid.

    Measuring speed is done in miles per hour, which is already in itself a statistic of distance / time.

    Please lambast me, Barry Larkin.

63. 
    63: Kevin said at 5:44 am on March 10th, 2009:

    Honestly, most baseball analysts are former major league players. Most former major league players are high school educated people who may be a little wary and intimidated by advanced statistics. They’ve never had to make a decision to choose one player over another. They just evaluated guys that were around by how good of a “teammate” they were.

64. 
    64: David in NYC said at 10:36 am on March 10th, 2009:

    Justyo #60 –

    You forgot two of the more obvious ones:

    David Eckstein
    Derek Jeter (source of Poz-word “jeterate”)

    Jeter may not have *lousy* stats objectively, but compared to the adulation he receives from an uncritical media, they sure are lousy. Based on what you read, one might expect his stats to be somewhere between Babe Ruth’s and God’s.

    And PLEASE do not get me started about his “Gold-Glove-caliber” fielding.

65. 65: Lost Time Is Not Found Again: March 10, 2009 | MOUTHPIECE Blog // A Chicago-Addled Sports Blog said at 11:16 am on March 10th, 2009:

    [...] I guess at the end of the day, I wonder: What is the fight about? Why can I not enjoy baseball and baseball stats at the same time? Is it really that hard? Does it really wreck my understanding or appreciation of the game to know that Jose Guillen’s lousy on-base percentage kills a ballclub or to put a little bit of stock in the PECOTA projections? Does it really hurt a team to give due consideration to the advanced numbers that get better every day and the subjective views of smart baseball people? I don’t know. I don’t think so.” – Joe Posnanski [...]

66. 
    66: 3rd Period Points said at 11:30 am on March 10th, 2009:

    I just want to be able to watch a sports-related broadcast without wanting to kick someone in the junk.

    Just last week, while watching college basketball, I heard this nugget of wisdom from Jimmy Dykes, and I’m paraphrasing here:

    “Team A came into this game looking for a fight; they’re throwing haymakers right out of the gate. Team B came to wrestle. And in a fight, a puncher will beat a wrestler every time.”

    At that point, I did not want to kick Jimmy in the junk. I wanted to apply a rear-naked choke and squeeze the breath out of him.

67. 
    67: Jeff said at 12:34 pm on March 10th, 2009:

    Similarly, before one of the WBC games, I heard Kruk offer the following gem (and I am admittedly paraphrasing here) when asked what a team needed in order to win the WBC: “Pitching. And you gotta score runs!”

68. 
    68: DB Cooper said at 9:18 pm on March 10th, 2009:

    We’re still talking about this? This essentially became a one-sided war around 2006. The statheads won the war. The luddites are still fighting battles.

    The only problem is that televised baseball is still chock-full of ex-ballplayers and the Womens Auxilliary (see Michael Lewis’s classic post-Moneyball takedown of Tracy Ringolsby in SI).

    That’s the reason I watch very little baseball anymore. (I’m a stat-friendly Reds fan, who’s had to listen to Marty Brennaman and Jeff Brantley rip Adam Dunn to shreds).

69. 
    69: Clutch said at 11:02 am on March 11th, 2009:

    Michael Lewis (and by proxy Billy Beane) actually wanted to do two things: alienate the existing baseball hierarchy and mislead them. They did both.

    The truly objective stat gurus are not tied to any particular club. That rules out Beane and whatever mathematician is working for him this week. It rules out Bill James and Paul DePodesta, and Clay Davenport to some degree. Those guys don’t want objectivity and reason in baseball, because right now, stupidity makes their job easier to do.

70. 70: bigPumaLinks, March 13 edition « Waiting For Berkman said at 9:45 am on March 13th, 2009:

    [...] Joe Posnanski, the MLB Network sums up the PECOTA prediction system, ends up talking too much. [...]

71. 
    71: phil said at 8:10 pm on March 15th, 2009:

    #50 david wells did not really improve significantly later in his career.

    #54 defensive metrics still lag far behind offensive metrics, but they are getting there. check out uzr (available for free at fangraphs) and plus/minus (you will have to subscribe to billjamesonline for anything but the top and bottom ten at each position every year). stats like james’s wins shares and fangraph’s win values incorporate both defense and offense to attempt to give you a view of a player’s overall worth.

72. 72: MLB Network’s Reality Show Sounds Swell | MOUTHPIECE Blog // A Chicago-Addled Sports Blog said at 9:38 am on June 10th, 2009:

    [...] Besides the occasional Matt Vasgersian slip, MLB Network debuted at the beginning of the year to rave reviews. If you love baseball, you will love MLB Network … it’s no more complex than that. (Though, they might be wise to embrace VORP sometime this century.) [...]

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