Sammy Sofa

Nobody is acting like that. No, you're "anti" that because the book sounds like something you agree with. Stop with the act that you wait to cast judgment on anything until you've been exposed to the entire thing. You can know a movie sucks from a horrible trailer, you can know you won't like an album after hearing a single or two and you can know a book is going to be awful based on the hilariously dumb press releases hyping up what it's about and explaining what it's about. Based on the exceedingly stupid descriptions and hype coming from the authors and the publisher, yes. Their own claims of what the book is trying to are far more absurd and grandiose than what you keep trying to whittle it down to. Yeah, they're just trying to point out the flaws of sabermetrics (which anyone who follows it are familiar with to begin with BECAUSE THEY UNDERSTAND SABERMETRICS) while talking about how it's "doomed." Yes, it's called common sense. The best sabermetric experts and books and sites repeatedly point out the limitations. This book will reveal nothing that people versed in sabermetrics don't already know, and will more often just make up things or flat out get them wrong. Yes, I know this. Because the authors' own hype is just riddled with stupidity.

Like does something like this... IMHO, the only way he's getting to .390+ OBP is if he hit .330+... I don't think he going to get like 70+ BBs consistently (might do it once or twice)... John Sickels projects him to be in the 50s consistently and a couple of 60s, which sounds about right for Castro. From looking at that crystal ball projection, Castro looks like a good bet for 55 BBs:85 Ks in his prime. I like to see the Ks to come down a little, but I'm not gonna argue with a 55:85 rate for a SS who hits .300 or so. Power deficiency??? If you mean by HRs, then ok, but he's not gonna be that bad in HRs (compared to other SS). He'll be in the double digits and hopefully a couple of 20+ HRs season. I don't know if it's just me, but IMO, Castro is going to consistently hit a LOT of doubles. If he can consistently hit 35+ doubles with like 3-5+ triples, then I could care less if he hits only 12 HRs as his doubles/triples makes up for it. It's like with Fukudome in 2009, he had only 11 HRs, but he had 38 doubles and 5 triples. That was good for a IsoP of .162, which is pretty good if you ask me. Castro last year had a IsoP of .108... If he can get his IsoP up to at least .120+ (Jeter career IsoP is .139 and top 2 seasons were .179/.203) and have a few .140+ seasons, then that's very good to great for a SS. ...just drive you insane?

Yes, "again with the stupid bird" because the authors themselves made the stupid bird stupidity a key selling point. I don't know why you're acting like the bird isn't a big deal for the authors given how they've presented it. Do we need to quote it for you again? It's [expletive] hysterical how the anti-sabermetrics crowd are trying to paint the people who see this book for being fundamentally flawed (and yes, we can tell that without reading the book. It's already been quoted ad nauseum how the authors' own summaries expose this) as being "sheep." How the hell does THAT work? And I'm baffled as to why the three anti-sabermetrics posters we've seen in this thread so far (and yeah, that's what you are if you're defending this garbage so adamantly) are even here. That kind of analysis is basically why this site exists in this first place.

And I love how this guy is acting he never judges anything before he has a chance to watch/read/listen/etc. fully. At least he came pretty close to copping to that he's only doing this because he's the book's target audience.

Hey, it's not our fault you can't read your own posts.

They're defending themselves somehow.

You're truly the bunt-loving fella you seem to desperately want to to be seen as if you honestly cannot see how they're emphasizing the bird story (and similar "crazy events") because they think it exposes a major flaw with sabermetrics. According to them things like the bird incident "defeat the best-laid plans of sabermetricians."

How do you know all of these things and you haven't even read the book? MASTER OF LIES.

This part cracks me up: Yes, the nerds are so busy getting off on numbers that somehow nobody noticed that a [expletive] baseball hit a bird. And they do realize that so many more "odd and great" occurrences than ever before have been realized and we now look out for BECAUSE of sabermetrics, right? We're not missing [expletive] like balls hitting birds or people stealing home or hitting a ton of home runs because of Moneyball. What the [expletive] is being "obscured" because of sabermetrics?

If they have made that claim, I haven't seen it. What I've seen is, "the authors acknowledge some merit to the Moneyball approach but, drawing on tales from baseball’s rich history, also identify major flaws". I surely hope nobody here would dispute that sabermetrics has flaws. "Major" is obviously a subjective term. You're trying to paint the authors of being far too reasonable. You're also assuming that they understand Moneyball. They don't. I really don't give a [expletive] what they concede has "merit" because they clearly don't understand it in the first place.

Yes, "major flaws" derived from watching a single season of one team. And one of their key points is how a ball hit a bird. THEY ARE EMPHASIZING THESE THINGS THEMSELVES.

I'd also like to see examples of people claiming that sabermetric analysis is perfect and doesn't have any limitations.

I'm not defending this fictional nerd who is only a fan of stats, but I'm curious as to what critical information regarding a player/team/league someone with a computer and an internet connection couldn't find.

Please note that every "problem" he just listed is made up (and he came THIS close to ye olde "mom's basement") and just highlights how if the book is a "response" to Moneyball (as its own authors publisher and author are explicitly claiming) then it completely misunderstands almost every single critical theory and point presented.

Heh, just what I was hoping for. Thanks, Buzz.

Tell us what you think the book is about. Tell us why you think everything linked and quoted about this book is made up. Tell us why you post such stupid, stupid things.

Hey, who knows? Maybe there's a whole chapter about #4 hitters bunting and how that's super awesome.

It's not "vaguely anti-sabermetric;" it's obviously anti-sabermetric. It's railing sabermetrics through the hoary old cliche of "stat geeks" and how they don't understand the REAL GAME, MAN.

I'm not supporting anything. I'm laughing at all of the colossal leaps to judgement going on here. Heck one person intimated that this book seeks to disprove sabermetrics because one time, a bird got hit with a baseball. Seriously? That's what you expect this book is about? It's clearly one of the things the book is about, unless, again, you think the stuff we're quoting are just lies. Seriously, if you want to pretend that there's some amazing insight waiting to be discovered in the pages of this book, have fun with that. You're not going to find it, and this book is obviously just regurgitation the same anti-saber crap that we've seen countless times over. Please point to one thing in the links and quotes that indicate you think there's anything of value in this book.

That's what makes this book even more ridiculous. There seems to be this perception that those that want more attention being paid to "new" stats somehow have no emotional connection or affection for the game. It's this childish, moronic "us vs. them" mentality that meatballs thrive on.

How do you know if it misses the book's point?

The point that the people who can think critically were making is that the premise and central thesis of the book is completely stupid, and completely deserves to be mocked and ridiculed. Unless you've read it, or at a minimum seen more than just one review of it, then you don't know what the premise and central thesis of the book is. Yeah, actually we do. What, you think the promotional blurbs and press release are just elaborate diversionary tactics to hide the real twist of what the book is about?

Because it's obvious this book is going to be made up mostly of stupid meatball garbage just from the press release alone, so it would be a waste of time for anyone with any intelligence to read it. You can find endless variations of the same reactionary anti-sabrermetric crap on blogs and message board and sports media sites all over the internet. If you want to be one those guys, great, have fun. It should be exceedingly obvious you're in a tiny, tiny minority here, and it's refuge from that type of nonsense that was one of the main reasons this place was created and took off, so don't play the poor, put upon martyr when you support books like this.

By this you mean the lone dissenting voice has been sufficiently mocked and shouted down. It's been a while since we've had a groupthink meme post. I, for one, welcome it back. Just so it can be shouted down. And mocked. [expletive] yeah. That's what made NSBB great in the first place. The book is the epitome of Cubs.com garbage.