Random Baseball Musings

[CubInOK]

The Giants' world championship is a victory for John Barr, Dick Tidrow, Bobby Evans, a cadre of sharp-eyed scouts and especially general manager Brian Sabean, who learned his trade in the Yankees' system and surrounds himself with people who don't merely know baseball, but feel it, deep inside. They all played the game, somewhere along the line, and if you throw a binder full of numbers on their desk, they don't quite get the point.

This is just gross.

[Derwood]

The stat-crazed sabermetricians, as they are called, invent specific methods of evaluation without needing to witness the action in person.

 

Literally no sabermetrician has ever said this

[Sammy Sofa]

That's probably the most baffling anti-sabermetric idea, that "stat geeks" seemingly want to find ways to follow/predict baseball without ever watching baseball.

[Cubswin11]

[expletive] whoever wrote that article. I'm not clicking on the link to give his article/site a hit.

[Clem Fandango]

Some of the comments are THE WORST

 

Just watch them play. BAPITs, WHIPs and CHAINs are nice supporting tools. But to judge a player's skill level and potential, watch them play.

 

Oh wait...you mean "Money Ball" is an over rated JOKE? One that has not yet netted 1 pennant but does have a Hollywood movie full of embellishments and D list actors?

[Guest]

[expletive] whoever wrote that article. I'm not clicking on the link to give his article/site a hit.

 

Bruce Jenkins is incredibly old school.

[sneakypower]

i love that there are organizations that still strongly feel this way, and don't really get why you guys are so revolted/offended by fans with these dumb opinions

 

but it's hard to argue that SF isn't scouting really, really well of late

[Sammy Sofa]

But who is arguing against good scouting? It's such an insane, willfully stupid non-existent argument.

[sneakypower]

i guess there were passages in Moneyball that were kind of inflammatory toward scouting, and JP Ricciardi firing most of his scouts ruffled a lot of feathers

[Guest]

i love that there are organizations that still strongly feel this way, and don't really get why you guys are so revolted/offended by fans with these dumb opinions

 

but it's hard to argue that SF isn't scouting really, really well of late

 

people who are defiantly and proudly ignorant really really grind my gears

[Guest]

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/10/30/if-youre-painting-the-giants-as-some-sort-of-anti-moneyball-team-youre-delusional/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=18795

 

A couple of responses.

[Sammy Sofa]

Yeah, "inflammatory" towards bad, outdated scouting. Nowhere is it put forward that scouting as a whole is useless or should be tossed aside.

[Banedon]

I hope a bunch of teams read that and go all anti-stats. Theo needs his next market inefficiency. It'd be nice if teams regressed to allowing Theo to have an old inefficiency back.

[Cubswin11]

Yeah, "inflammatory" towards bad, outdated scouting. Nowhere is it put forward that scouting as a whole is useless or should be tossed aside.

Exactly. That's my biggest issue with guys who write articles like those and guys who buy into it. They all act like it's sabermetrics goal to eliminate scouting. When in fact the organizations that embrace sabermetrics the most place a high value using scouting and sabermetrics insync with each other.

 

And also it can't go without saying enough, if Billy Beane didn't get up on his high horse and go off and write a book and make a movie about how much smarter he his than the rest of baseball the sabermetric community wouldn't be under attack like it is.

[rocket]

nowadays, even teams that rely on scouts more heavily employ number crunchers. and scouts have always been valued in sabermetric heavy teams.

 

can't this argument finally die?

[Sammy Sofa]

Nope, because stat nerds want baseball by robots, for robots.

[Banedon]

Nope, because stat nerds want baseball by robots, for robots.

 

I'm not gonna lie. I do wanna watch robot baseball.

[Derwood]

Nope, because stat nerds want baseball by robots, for robots.

 

I'm not gonna lie. I do wanna watch robot baseball.

 

 

[Sammy Sofa]

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Nope, because stat nerds want baseball by robots, for robots.

 

I'm not gonna lie. I do wanna watch robot baseball.

 

 

I don't wanna watch it that bad.

[Banedon]

Nope, because stat nerds want baseball by robots, for robots.

 

I'm not gonna lie. I do wanna watch robot baseball.

 

 

 

 

Slap hitter. No follow through. Someone didn't scout that robot well enough.

[Guest]

Some of the comments are THE WORST

 

Just watch them play. BAPITs, WHIPs and CHAINs are nice supporting tools. But to judge a player's skill level and potential, watch them play.

 

Oh wait...you mean "Money Ball" is an over rated JOKE? One that has not yet netted 1 pennant but does have a Hollywood movie full of embellishments and D list actors?

D list actors? How many names out there are bigger than Brad Pitt?

[illiniguy]

Some of the comments are THE WORST

 

Just watch them play. BAPITs, WHIPs and CHAINs are nice supporting tools. But to judge a player's skill level and potential, watch them play.

 

Oh wait...you mean "Money Ball" is an over rated JOKE? One that has not yet netted 1 pennant but does have a Hollywood movie full of embellishments and D list actors?

D list actors? How many names out there are bigger than Brad Pitt?

The scout had Al Brooks. I'd say that settles this.

[bcl412]

Since we won't win for awhile I really, really, really want the A's to win one while we are still rebuilding.

[Sammys Boombox]

I went to renew my Royals tickets today and Brian McRae was there. Nobody else was talking to him so I got to talk to him for awhile. I told him that I remembered him catching the last out of my first game at Wrigley and that Steve Trachsel threw a one-hitter that night. He said, "That was 1996 against the Astros, right?" He said he always liked day baseball and that Wrigley was the best place to play. Seemed pretty nice although I think he was tired of sitting there and getting no attention.

 

They also had a Q&A with the Royals GM Dayton Moore.

 

He tried to make it sound like the number of renewals they got today would affect whether or not they got "2 or 3 good starters instead of 1." I read their gate receipts were only $36MM. The number of renewals won't affect a thing on the field.

 

I liked this gem. "We have an awesome sabremetrics group. If you guys saw the numbers I see you'd agree with 99% of our moves." I hate when people talk in absolutes or near absolutes.

 

The fans here hate Luke Hochevar. One asked, "Can you consider yourself a serious playoff contender with Luke Hochevar on your roster?" He said the sabremetrics guys love him, but the scouts hate him. I wanted somebody to follow up with, "So, we'd agree with 99% of your moves if we saw the sabremetrics guys' analysis, but they love Luke Hochevar enough that you signed him number one overall and we all hate him?"

 

This is not a knock on sabremetrics at all. I'm just wishing somebody would have caught that.