Eleven Warriors

The baseball talk hasn't been all Reds RBuck there have been Indians fans chiming in.  Yesterday I even say a go Pirates, and there were Whitesox and Yankee fans too.  Anyway, obviously not everyone likes baseball, that's why it's here and people don't have to suffer through it on the skull sessions.

LOL, we can leave Sabermetrics to Billy Bean, the nerds, and the fictional character Jonah Hill played in moneyball.  For instance, SI keeps doing power ratings based off of how many wins and losses a team should of had.  They have the Cardinals as the number 3 overall team and Pitt as the number 26 team or something insane like that.  That stats guys can have their power ratings and tell us what should be happening.  I'll stick to real life and what is ACTUALLY happening.

Brewster, I actually have no problem with advanced stats in general.  I don't think it's hogwash or anything like that.  The old big 3 categories are a bit silly in general, but I do think batting average is an important and impressive Stat.  I think you need to be savy on both sides if you are a GM or Scout for that matter.  You need to be able to take a deeper look at the numbers, but you also have to be able to look at a player and be able to evaluate them as well.

That's the humor I find in it all.  The new generation of baseball fans who are big into stats always make comments about the older generation being stuck in their ways and refusing to change their view on baseball.  The stats folks, however, (at least the ones really tied up in the stats) seem to only care about WAR and OPS or OPS+ and all that and don't use just the old eyeball test.  Sometimes that's what you need too.  Basically, they are doing the same thing they always ridicule the old school for doing, getting set in their ways and refusing to acknowledge anyone's ideas but their own.

I've heard some of the stat heads say BA with RISP isn't important.  You can't control how many times you get up with RISP, or a lot of times getting a hit requires some luck, you can hit a ball really hard at someone etc.  It's no coincidence though, that a guy like Joey Votto who hits well over 300 normally, bats well over 400 with RISP.  Why is his average higher in late innings than earlier innings etc?  Because the guy rises to the occasion.  That kind of stuff can't be quantified.

So, yes I absolutely believe sabermatrics and advanced stats are really important, but I also think just good old fashioned scouting where you use the eyeball test on a guy is important too.

Playing those February and March games in B1G country has to suck.  That is a sport where I would say weather would actually impact where a player would go.  I can remember some early season games here in NKY in my highschool years where we had snow flurries coming down while we were playing.  I couldn't imagine playing a game in Wisconsin even in early April. 

Brewster, I agree with you completely.  I think the metrics and advanced stats do a very good job of allowing a team to determine what a player's value is, or can they find that gem of a player who may not be that popular or expensive who can put up good numbers.  I wonder, though, will Moneyball continue to allow smaller market teams to compete or will the agents get just as savy using it and drive the overall price up for guys who at one time weren't viewed to be that good. 

I do like WAR to compare guys of different eras and historic season they have had, but I don't think it is a good measure for what a guy is doing right now. I think Joey Votto's WAR right now is 4.7.  Replace him with just about anyone, as good as he's been so far this year, in this lineup, especially with how bad the offense was in April and May and I don't think they are even a 30 win team.  

I know the season is less than half over and if he continues on this pace the WAR number will go up signficantly, but I just don't like a stat like WAR for for right now.