February 10, 2004
Sabermetrics vs. Sports Writers
David Damiani at The American Enterprise Online gives a spirited defense of sabermetrics: (and gives Aaron Gleeman a great plug!).
Sabermetrics are a threat to many of baseball’s long-standing party lines, such as issuing paeans to those who “manufacture” runs (giving up outs to advance runners); dismissing “one-dimensional” players who walk frequently and hit for power; focusing on errors rather than range in judging fielders; and emphasizing wins and saves as the best measures of pitching performance. As a result, the sabermetric teams and their leaders--all successful on the field in recent years--are open to an endless barrage of media criticism.
Damiani recognizes what is driving the sabermetric revolution:
Most importantly, though, sabermetrics is a largely fan-driven phenomenon. It arose from something of an underground baseball culture that challenged traditional ways of thinking, and with precious little media support outside of a handful of columnists, launching a rebellion against general managers’ and media members’ shortsighted analysis. Through websites like Gleeman’s, the inimitable baseballprimer.com, and dozens of other discussion boards and weblogs, the sabermetric movement applies indirect groundswells of pressure against both mismanaged teams and media hegemony.
What’s more, the fact that fans are leading the way in a revolution of baseball thought directly challenges many Fourth Estate elitists’ perception of fans as idiots. Doling out simplistic explanations of teams’ performance, pontificating about alleged fan misbehavior or willing-executioner support of athlete transgressions, and challenging fans to name more than five players on a team are the modi operandi of far too many sportswriters. The idea of thinking fans so befuddles them that they take opportunities to stereotype sabermetricians--not just Beane, but the fans themselves, as antisocial eggheads who threaten baseball’s mystique.
Sabermetrics is much more accepted now than 25 years ago, when the first Bill James Abstracts started to appear. Each succeeding generation of sports writers will be more in tune with OBP and Slugging percentage than their predecessors.
That's the nature of these types of revolutions; eventually, the convinced outlive the disbelievers.
Posted by David Pinto at
12:17 PM
|
Statistics
|
TrackBack (0)
There is definitely a place in baseball for sabermetrics. We need to remember, however, that it needs to be balanced with observation and analysis. As someone who has been playing baseball for thirty years, and was a four-year starter in college, I have seen many players who may not have posted the best numbers, but somehow always found a way to help their team win.
A similar example comes with scouts. I have become increasingly frustrated over the years with how many scouts only seem to care about a player's speed in the 60-yard dash, his reading on the radar gun, or his size. While these are all important aspects in evaluation (like sabermetrics), they should not be the only determinant in judging a player's worth or potential. We must weigh many factors in evaluating a player, which will forever render evaluation an inexact science.
In one regard, though, sabermetrics is perfect, and that is in how it has brought so many people closer to the game. It will forever be an important tool in judging players, and in stirring arguments among fans.
