The New Analytics Debate

I thought you hated baseball?

 

Analytics will tell you Creed is awesome

 

Yes, but I am aware of its existence.

 

Interesting example. I think I would have gone with Chris Brown or Jay Leno.

 

What does a Gold Glove purport to actually measure? It's about as important to me as MVP awards, which is to say not at all. Players and managers have the same personal biases writers do.

 

And Larry Sanders. And Epke Udoh.

 

Compare the number of passing plays in football now to 30 years ago. I guess analytics are the key there, too. Rick Pitino was preaching 3s over long twos in '86-'87. It's not as if the analytics guys suddenly mined something nobody ever saw before.

 

Come on. Look how great the famous Moneyball draft class went on to become. Hell, Cooperstown will probably have to create a new wing for all of those guys.

 

Craig Biggio consistently beat out Bret Boone for a gold glove because Biggio was a better hitter.

Man, I hated those Houston teams.

 

So, organizations are now defined by standardless rankings put together by an entity that employs guys like Rick Reilly and Bill Simmons. Yep, I'll let ESPN do my thinking for me. Hell, the article that blog references uses the Spurs use of video technology as evidence of their "analytic" bent. They way they define it, I'm not sure what wouldn't be analytics under that kind of standard.

 

Exactly. On both statements

 

Is there a more self-aggrandizing set of people than sportswriters?

 

they cover it like they're covering World War 2, that's for sure

 

But isn't that part of the benefit of sabermetrics. To stop giving awards to people who don't deseve them. To recognize greatness instead of reputation. If decision makers like managers have personal biases then there is a problem and it can influence the way money is spent, lineups are constructed etc. I mean 30 years ago there was this idea that the first two batters in the lineup needed to be good at making contact. Now it's known that on base percentage is far more important. People used think that if you stole more than 50% of your bases you should keep running more and more. Thanks to sabermetrics we know that offense is maximized when that number is closer to 75%. Third base used to be considred a very important defensive position but sabermetrics have shown that it's actually about the least important on the field so you can have Chipper Jones over there (instead of in the OF) and it really won't hurt you much.

These were baseball people who thought these wrong things.

 

Who ever thought getting caught stealing half the time was acceptable?

 

I don't get the Chipper thing. Age old baseball is about defensive strength in the middle. Playing a Chipper out of position is bad and exacerbated the closer he gets to the middle of the field.

 

The key to 3B isn't a glove, or even range, it's all about making the throw corner to corner.

 

At the high school level maybe.

 

Hard to make that throw if you don't have a glove.

 

I played third base in high school until I got hit in the nuts. I moved to outfield, then quit the next year.