I had a conversation with one of my friends recently. He's one of those baseball "Stat Geeks" who's ruining baseball for us real fans. The conversation started out by us talking about whether Ryan Theriot is a good player. Ryan is the Cub's starting SS, he was a rookie last year and he plays with heart. He is a fan favorite at Wrigley Field and is affectionately known as "The Riot." I thought that the Cubs should trade paycheck collector and power hitting lead-off hitter Alfonso Soriano, lead-off with Reed Johnson and make sure that The Riot bats second, to spray the ball around the field, bunt and hit-and-run with.
This set my stat geek friend into a fit of stat spitting. Apparently, playing with heart and being nitty-gritty is not good enough. Stat Geek started spewing out stats I've never heard of like OBS, OPS, B2M, ABC, BBD and P.F. Changs. Apparently, moving base runners, standing in against runners trying to break up the double play, and generally playing fundamentally sound baseball is for losers. My friend insisted that the Cubs would continue to be a joke until they sent Theriot and his LSU teamate Mike Fontenot to Double A ball and traded for Brian Roberts.
I don't want Brian Roberts on the Cubs (unless they trade Soriano for him). He'll be another Nomar. I despise the holier than thou attitude of most of today's baseball All-Stars. I like players who play for the love of the game and appreciate the fans and give you intangibles. (When I said the word intangibles to my friend he cracked up and giggled like a school-girl.)
I remember a day when the only stats you needed were batting average, home runs, runs batted in, and for pitchers, wins, losses, and saves. And even those stats just gave a general idea of how a player was performing, not the end-all be all of how good of a person the player is.
The ironic thing about the whole conversation is the fact that my friend is a Cardinals fan. The best player on the Cardinals in a generation only batted .262 lifetime. Ozzie Smith played with heart, was fundamentally sound and gave his team multitudes of intangibles.
How quickly we forget.
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8 comments:
Are you baiting me? Fuck. First of all, I never said that moving runners over and "playing the game the right way" and all that other shit was *bad* - I just think it is overrated. Also, the word 'intangibles' in a baseball sense is code for 'white guy that isn't really that good.' Seriously. How many minorities are ever credited with having intangibles? It's always David Eckstein or Darin Erstad or other white dudes that suck.
Second, I acknowledged that Theriot and Fontenot are better than I thought when I finally got a chance to see their stats. Brian Roberts would still be an upgrade, but you can probably win with Theriot and Fontenot as long as you don't bat them towards thte top of your lineup.
Third, (and finally), I really don't understand how someone could claim to love baseball and then shun statistics that provide good information about the game. The stats that you claim to rely on are so incomplete in the information that they give that they provide very little value.
For example, take batting average - why does a sacrifice fly that scores a run not count towards batting average, but a sacrifice fly that advances a runner without scored counts against the hitter? Why does a sacrifice bunt not count against the hitter but a sac fly that advances a runner (but does not score him) does?
As for RBI - that's one of the most misleading stats around. It is way too dependent on whether your teammates are on base in front of you. Win/Loss records for pitchers are the same way - why should the pitcher be judged negatively if his teammates fail to score any runs? CC Sabathia struck out 8 men in 8 innings and gave up 1 run on 4 hits yesterday, but was credited with a loss because his team couldn't score a run. Does that accurately describe Sabbathia's performance yesterday?
Fuck - now you've got me all riled up on a Monday morning. I'm going to have to find someone to yell at.
Also, Ozzie didn't have intagibles (he's black). He was the best defensive player since Brooks Robinson (and maybe before that).
Ozzie's career batting average is also very misleading. He was a very poor hitter early in his career and only made a living because of his spectacular defense. He became a Hall of Famer because as he got older he became a very valuable offensive player, as well. In 1987 he put up a line of .303/.392/.383 (that's Batting Average, On Base Percentage, and Slugging Percentage for you luddites) and stole 43 bases at an 83% success rate. That's an outstanding year (even if his slugging percentage was below average). He had six or seven seasons similar to that in the middle of his career that, combined with his defense, made him a Hall of Famer. It had nothing to do with moving runners over or intangibles.
Fuck.
Most of those stats are bullshit. When your B2M goes up, your ABC generally goes down proportionately. What they need to do it combine the three. Add your B2M and ABC and divide it by your BBD. We'll call it the ECF. mmmmnnnnn...bait.
Fuck.
You know, the east coast family...
omg I actually pissed you off! Mission Accomplished. I was mostly just fucking with you, Ted.
And thanks Metten for getting my early '90's R&B jokes.
No, I wasn't really pissed - I just enjoy ranting for multiple paragraphs about baseball (which is why I write for two different blogs on the subject).
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