Baseball Musings: Victory for Sabermetics?

October 21, 2004

Victory for Sabermetics?

Jeremy Senderowicz writes:

You think anyone will write about how this comeback proves the superiority of sabermetrics? (After all, everyone wrote the reverse about the A's collapse.)

The problem is, the Yankees are nearly as sabermetric as the Red Sox. Just because they don't have Bill James working for them doesn't mean they're not as attuned to the stats as Boston. Over the last decade, the Yankees have built their teams around

Batters who get on base and hit for power

Pitchers who strikeout a lot of batters and don't walk many

Pitcher who give up few HR

That's why the Yankees are always near the top of the Beane Count. You'll notice this year they finished behind the Red Sox, and the big reason why was HR allowed. That's what bit them in this series as well, especially last night.

So it was a big win for sabermetrics to have these two teams play each other. But it's even bigger than that. The Dodgers now have a sabermetric oriented GM, and they won their division. The Rangers are using sabermetrics, and they had a surprisingly good season. The Astros hired a consultant from Yale a couple of years ago. San Diego has a GM from the Sabermetric mold, and he built the team to win as they entered their new ballpark. The only real sabermetric failure was Toronto this year. I think that's a very good track record.

And watching Cleveland and Cincinnati, the people running those clubs know what they are doing as well. And they even have managers who are with the program. I'm looking for a lot of good baseball out of Ohio in the next few years.

Posted by David Pinto at 10:10 AM | Statistics | TrackBack (0)

Comments

And the Twins... well I don't know how the hell they do what they do. Beating their P-man win % for the third straight year.

Posted by: Mimiru at October 21, 2004 10:27 AM

It wasn't in the Beane Count, but one of the biggest failings of the Yankees was their massive dropoff in strikeouts by their pitchers. This also bit them in the ALCS.

Posted by: Dr. Manhattan at October 21, 2004 10:47 AM

Yes, it's interesting that no one writes much about Cashman although it's clear that he is thinking along the same lines as Beane et al.: I think 4 of the top 10 AL batters in walks were Yankees, and Giambi would have been up there if he had been playing.

More interesting, doesn't the spread of sabermetric ideas mean that the market inefficiencies of the past will be competed away soon and there will be no more possibilities for progress? Or are there a host of new sabermetric discoveries to be made?

Posted by: willard at October 21, 2004 10:54 AM

what i wanna know, what i really really wanna know, is if that yale stat geek is explaining to gery and drayton in simple words why WE NEED TO KEEP CARLOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i also hope the team accountant is showing them the increased $$$$ from this team!!!!

Posted by: lisa gray at October 21, 2004 11:12 AM

And as a total aside - I know San Diego had a good season, and for all I know they'll go and win 4 consecutive pennants, but I think Kevin Towers has gotten a pass from the sabermetric community from 1998-2003 because he knows the right people and says the right things. BP has been predicting big things for the Padres since about 2000, and they were horrible until this year. His constraints were no worse than Billy Beane's, and Beane wins 95 games every year.

Posted by: Dr. Manhattan at October 21, 2004 11:20 AM

Some might see the A's as a failure this season, although their main problem was the very un-sabermetric issue of their starting pitchers falling apart (perhaps coincidental with the absence of Rick Peterson).

Posted by: Crank at October 21, 2004 11:25 AM

Uhh...The Cards with Jeff Luhnow and Ron Shandler...

Posted by: Repoz at October 21, 2004 12:17 PM

Of course, the Padres have made it to the World Series more recently than the A's.

Posted by: Adam Villani at October 21, 2004 01:50 PM

"doesn't the spread of sabermetric ideas mean that the market inefficiencies of the past will be competed away soon and there will be no more possibilities for progress? Or are there a host of new sabermetric discoveries to be made?"

Certainly the latter. Sabermetric is not just about the Beane Count. It's objective analysis to find which skills were undervalued. So everybody is talking about OBP now, the smart people is already looking for the next five things that help the team to win. It may not be as simplistic as the Bean count (I hate those alphabet soups at BP), but there's always room for progress.

Posted by: wilson at October 21, 2004 06:30 PM