And we wonder why SABR types are so snarky ...

[NAHSTE]

Whoa, I realized the Atlanta table setters were sucking but I didn't realize it was this bad. Despite batting 3rd in every game this season, Justin Upton has had just 12 at bats with runners in scoring position.

 

[Villain]

The average Slateman post>this thread.

Please, oh wise baseball mathematician genius, tell us how we are all wrong.

 

[NAHSTE]

Whoa, I realized the Atlanta table setters were sucking but I didn't realize it was this bad. Despite batting 3rd in every game this season, Justin Upton has had just 12 at bats with runners in scoring position.

Last night during the broadcast they said it was 17. Anyway, it was less than half the RISP opportunities Miggy Cabrera has seen batting 3rd for his team.

(Cabrera is a fucking monster though. Just a devourer of souls at the plate. Good thing there are lots of other numbers which can be used to illustrate this fact.)

 

[dell71]

As far as I'm concerned W2B is clearly winning this thread but still wanted to add my $0.02.

I grew up on counting stats and have evolved in my thinking to incorporate plenty of the new-fangled metrics when evaluating players. People on both sides agree that it takes a plethora of stats to tell the story. Part of the disconnect with some (not all) hard-core SABR guys is in trying to whittle everything down to only what a particular player can be deemed responsible for they're eliminating part of the story. Don't worry, guys that are strictly old-school are just as guilty. By ignoring the metrics they're pretending that new ways of thinking are ruining the sanctity of the sport even though the way we evaluate players has been constantly changing since the 1800s.

 

[Senser81]

As far as I'm concerned W2B is clearly winning this thread but still wanted to add my $0.02.

LOL at this. With so many people chiming in to help with W2B's argument, I'd say that W2B has the advantage of posting with "runners on base", whereas Glenbino is stroking solo HR after solo HR. They are equal, IMO.

 

[Glenbino]

LOL at this. With so many people chiming in to help with W2B's argument, I'd say that W2B has the advantage of posting with "runners on base", whereas Glenbino is stroking solo HR after solo HR. They are equal, IMO.

:golfclap:

 

[dell71]

LOL at this. With so many people chiming in to help with W2B's argument, I'd say that W2B has the advantage of posting with "runners on base", whereas Glenbino is stroking solo HR after solo HR. They are equal, IMO.

 

[Glenbino]

Two batters, same team.

Batter A goes 2-4, with 2 solo HR's, and 2 K's with the bases loaded. The HR's came with the score 10-3 & 11-3. The K's come when his team is trailing.

Batter B goes 2-4, with 2 grand slams, and 2 K's with the bases empty. The first home run came with the team down 3-0, and the second home run came with the score 4-3. The K's come when the game is already well in hand.

People like glen and dorks like Keith Law call this game equal. Normal people know that player B had a far superior game.

Except to boil all this context down to one stat kind of defeats the purpose of your argument.. I mean I can make the exact same argument in an opposing way.

Player A's solo bomb comes in the bottom of the 9th of game 162 of the season with the game tied and a win sends his team to the playoffs.

Player B's grand slam come in mid-July and his team loses 12-8 anyway because the bullpen blew the lead in the 7th.

Now whose HR is more valuable? Octogenarians and people who get their sports news from USA Today would have you believe it's player B.

 

[Senser81]

Except to boil all this context down to one stat kind of defeats the purpose of your argument.. I mean I can make the exact same argument in an opposing way.

Player A's solo bomb comes in the bottom of the 9th of game 162 of the season with the game tied and a win sends his team to the playoffs.

Player B's grand slam come in mid-July and his team loses 12-8 anyway because the bullpen blew the lead in the 7th.

Now whose HR is more valuable? Octogenarians and people who get their sports news from USA Today would have you believe it's player B.

At this stage of the argument, I think this is the equivalent to Glenbino hitting a solo bomb in the bottom of the 9th.

 

[NAHSTE]

This is a good read, it's mainly about WAR and RBI but it hits on a lot of big picture notions about the sabr movement that w2b has stated in here:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=20569

Here's the final paragraph:

So the enemy isn’t them. The enemy is us. We are the ones establishing what sabermetrics will be for this generation and the next, and we seem to be increasingly doing it by abandoning our principles in pursuit of popularity. Each day, new questions are piling up about our purported ability to measure fielding, and we show less and less of an interest in answering them. And in the process, we’re committing some of the same sins we’re so quick to point out in others.

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

It got a little math-y and drifted from the point, but this is basically what i've been trying to say.

We seem to be in an era of 'we have all the answers, we're right about this, and I will belittle you if you disagree'. This is bad. The WAR formula (both of them!), for example, has changed multiple times and will probably always be fluid. As outlined in the article, we are a loong way from reliable fielding numbers, and are basically guessing at this point via trial & error.

I also agree that there are Hawk Harrelson's who have proven pointless to debate.

 

[NAHSTE]

It got a little math-y and drifted from the point, but this is basically what i've been trying to say.

We seem to be in an era of 'we have all the answers, we're right about this, and I will belittle you if you disagree'. This is bad. The WAR formula (both of them!), for example, has changed multiple times and will probably always be fluid. As outlined in the article, we are a loong way from reliable fielding numbers, and are basically guessing at this point via trial & error.

I also agree that there are Hawk Harrelson's who have proven pointless to debate.

I think a lot of what it comes down to is America in general is full of people who are terrible at presenting their argument and expressing their veiwpoints in a logical way. Terrible arguments on both sides muddy the conversation and force everyone to dumb it down. It's the same in politics, obviously, where you have just terrible reductive simplified arguments about really complex shit, and people tend to skew extreme.

 

[Jayrock]

Except to boil all this context down to one stat kind of defeats the purpose of your argument.. I mean I can make the exact same argument in an opposing way.

Player A's solo bomb comes in the bottom of the 9th of game 162 of the season with the game tied and a win sends his team to the playoffs.

Player B's grand slam come in mid-July and his team loses 12-8 anyway because the bullpen blew the lead in the 7th.

Now whose HR is more valuable? Octogenarians and people who get their sports news from USA Today would have you believe it's player B.

Am I reading this wrong or did this post just agree with everything w2b has said

 

[Senser81]

I think a lot of what it comes down to is America in general is full of people who are terrible at presenting their argument and expressing their veiwpoints in a logical way. Terrible arguments on both sides muddy the conversation and force everyone to dumb it down. It's the same in politics, obviously, where you have just terrible reductive simplified arguments about really complex shit, and people tend to skew extreme.

I think Hawk Harrelson's are on both sides of the debate. The point to be made has already been established, and then its the backwards process of producing evidence/equations to "prove" this pre-conceived notion. Its not really science, it just another form of "argumentation". When I see something odd being professed/witnessed/testimonialized by the SABR community at-large, my first thought is to immediately question the mathematical equations, not to say "Wow, thats interesting...I never thought of it that way". My skepticism is based on the SABR community's inability to explain itself.

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

Another big problem, is that the "public faces" of SABR, guys like Keith Law & Joe Sheehan, are abrasive assholes. Nobody is going to see things your way when you are talking down to them or chastising them for being (supposedly) vapid.

Bill James wrote with a certain charm. Those who came after are nerd bullies, which is the worst kind of bully, really. Who the fuck wants to be talked down to by a cave troll hot pocket eating dickface like Joe f'n Sheehan?

Also, completely dismissing certain statistics, a Keith Law staple, loses people. Telling people the RBI is completely worthless with zero value is not only inaccurate (let's not do this again, I swear i'm not baiting anybody), but also akin to forcibly throwing somebody into a freezing pool before they've had a chance to dip their toes. There is a reason you have to leave a fish in the bag to adjust to the temperature of your aquarium as opposed to just dumping him in. When somebody is taught their entire life that the RBI is the ultimate statistic that measures a batter's worth, you aren't going to win them over be calling them stupid and dealing in absolutes like "it means absolutely nothing, do you even know what wRC+ is??".

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

I think SABR types are so tired of explaining what something like RBI really is, that the natural inclination is to completely dismiss certain stats as an easier way to make their point. We are seeing this creep in for things like OPS & WHIP now. I saw Law chastising somebody on twitter for citing OPS, calling it "seriously flawed". That's inaccurate. Very few stats are "seriously flawed", but lots of stats are "seriously misapplied". People misapply pitcher W's & RBI all the time. Doesn't make those stats completely worthless, even if they don't hold a ton of use or nearly the amount of use people thought they did for many decades. Just because somebody incorrectly uses RBI as a comparison stat doesn't mean the stat doesn't tell us the same thing it always told us. It's a basic counting number, nothing more. When combined with other numbers, it's usefulness varies. Completely dismissing it is just as bad as misusing it in my opinion.

 

[FirstTimer]

Another big problem, is that the "public faces" of SABR, guys like Keith Law & Joe Sheehan, are abrasive assholes. Nobody is going to see things your way when you are talking down to them or chastising them for being (supposedly) vapid.

Bill James wrote with a certain charm. Those who came after are nerd bullies, which is the worst kind of bully, really. Who the fuck wants to be talked down to by a cave troll hot pocket eating dickface like Joe f'n Sheehan?

Also, completely dismissing certain statistics, a Keith Law staple, loses people. Telling people the RBI is completely worthless with zero value is not only inaccurate (let's not do this again, I swear i'm not baiting anybody), but also akin to forcibly throwing somebody into a freezing pool before they've had a chance to dip their toes. There is a reason you have to leave a fish in the bag to adjust to the temperature of your aquarium as opposed to just dumping him in. When somebody is taught their entire life that the RBI is the ultimate statistic that measures a batter's worth, you aren't going to win them over be calling them stupid and dealing in absolutes like "it means absolutely nothing, do you even know what wRC+ is??".

*cough*

http://www.virtualsportsnetwork.com...all-Analysis-101-Top-5-Things-that-need-to-go

 

[Senser81]

Bill James wrote with a certain charm. Those who came after are nerd bullies, which is the worst kind of bully, really. Who the fuck wants to be talked down to by a cave troll hot pocket eating dickface like Joe f'n Sheehan?

Personality aside, I think James was good at tying things/stats into the big picture and was always seemingly trying to get the "right" answer. The Sheehans operate/write as if they are in a vaccuum (Rick Reuschel - HOF pitcher) and are always seemingly trying to prove their answer is "right".

Very few stats are "seriously flawed", but lots of stats are "seriously misapplied". People misapply pitcher W's & RBI all the time. Doesn't make those stats completely worthless, even if they don't hold a ton of use or nearly the amount of use people thought they did for many decades. Just because somebody incorrectly uses RBI as a comparison stat doesn't mean the stat doesn't tell us the same thing it always told us. It's a basic counting number, nothing more. When combined with other numbers, it's usefulness varies. Completely dismissing it is just as bad as misusing it in my opinion.

Good point. People, even SABR people, want a "number" that basically measures "everything", so then they can definitively say "Nomar Garciaparra is a 4 and Derek Jeter is a 6, so Jeter is better than Garciaparra". They get upset when Pitcher wins and batter RBI don't measure 5 different things at once...they don't understand that those stats measure exactly what it says they measure...the problem always lies in the application/interpretation of such stats.

 

[Senser81]

*cough*

http://www.virtualsportsnetwork.com...all-Analysis-101-Top-5-Things-that-need-to-go

What happened to Lefty's posts? Its like he was permanently erased from the site. Boo!

I want to see more anti-batting average hypotheticals such as "I will dispense with the long-winded diatribe about why batting average is inferior and instead pose a simple question: who is more valuable to a baseball team, a player that has a batting average of .310 over the season with 2 home runs, 12 doubles and 35 walks, or a player that hits .250 while clubbing 55 HRs, 60 doubles and walks 140 times?"

 

[Glenbino]

Am I reading this wrong or did this post just agree with everything w2b has said

You're reading it wrong..

And FWIW I don't defend WAR or UZR like they are an end all either, in fact I don't think I've even mentioned either stat once in this thread.

I just think that stats like RBI have more to do with the accomplishments of someone else on the team than they do with the players who they are given to.

I see it as a team stat, yet it's recognized on the individual level.