davearm2

The bolded is a fascinating concept. Maybe I just don't get it. Perhaps there's some mission statement somewhere that reads, "NSBB: a place for Cub fans to discuss baseball, run smack, and act like [expletive]." Seriously. Perhaps I'm missing the point of this place, and the atmosphere I'm railing against is actually completely by design. It would explain a lot.

Don't make the mistake of commingling unpopular and contrarian with uninformed. Those are two very different things. Frankly that's at the root of the problem. Too many folks see an opinion they disagree with, and instantly leap to the conclusion that the person speaking it is uninformed, or stupid, or an idiot or whatever. Next they attack the poster and not the post, and just like that a perfectly good thread is in the gutter. Meanwhile the moderators look the other way, or join in the belittling. With all due respect, the solution is not for the contrarians to grow thicker skin and take the abuse. That's pure crap. The solution is for the board to be more effectively moderated, and the NSBB community to be more civil and tolerant. Getting rid of that Meph person was a good start. That guy was clearly very bright, but *so* disruptive. Even with him gone this place is still so perpetually hostile it's sad.

FWIW, the Orioles have: Roberts Markakis Mark Reynolds Vlad Guerrero So two guys that weren't even there last year, and another that was hurt most of the year.

I wouldn't be so quick to leap to that conclusion. Plenty of really big dudes in the NFL are fast too. Burgess' body reminds me a little of Emmitt Smith -- kinda short and squat with thick legs and a little belly.

My theory is it's because you and a select few other prominent posters here get off insulting people and trying to impress your NSBB clique with your relentless snide attacks on anyone not in the clique. It's quite sad and pathetic, actually. Since you asked.

And another thing. Very rarely do these discussions boil down to who is right and who is wrong. It'd be more accurate to characterize it as a lone Democrat speaking to a roomful of Republicans, or a management stiff at a Teamster's rally. Both sides have valid, yet very different views, and neither would rightly be considered right or wrong. It's not nearly that black and white. Intelligent, reasonable minds can disagree on all matter of issues, and baseball is certainly no exception.

Even if you are right (and of course I disagree), that still doesn't justify the sort of nasty insulting responses and personal attacks being described. If some folks were half as bright as they think they are, then they wouldn't have to rely on this gradeschool garbage to get a convincing point across. Disagree with me and my points all day long, but have the maturity to do it with civility.

One would hope you wield a position of skepticism when considering the writing of any author, national or otherwise. Furthermore, assuming the authors present a more intelligent argument than that of our very own NSBB residents simply on the basis that they have published a book is, yes, unequivocally silly. Also, if you are going to decry name calling I suggest you refrain from doing so yourself. People joking off the cuff about a synopsis to a book on a private message board is not ridiculous. Taking their jokes and comments too seriously is ridiculous. Again, if you are going to decry bullying, I suggest you refrain from belittling others. Yes, perhaps. However, most around here already understand that statistics aren't the end all be all of the sport. We grew up loving the sport because of the players, because humans aren't always predictable and are capable of extraordinary efforts. Understanding the statistics and science behind the sport serves to foster a greater appreciation for those 'magical' moments. Jokes are fun. Being too serious is not. Also: internet. You should probably stop doing that yourself, then. You realize that you disagreed, repeatedly questioned others' intelligence and called them names, right? Such hypocrisy is the sole reason I bothered to write this reply. Your hypocrisy aside, I find these sort of sentiments increasingly tired. Yes, there are some who could try to be a bit more civil, but this is the internet. Things said here should hold no sway over you. Bullying and insults are only as effective as the victim allows them to be. Either kindly disagree or take their criticism as possible things you could work on. Complaining about "bullies and jerks" only serves to make you appear a victim. I am sure that splicing these quotes together took a fair amount of time. Thank you for pointing out my failings in my frustrated rants. I appreciate your excuses for the lack of civility from other posters here. However, I will disagree with your assertion that what people say here should not have an effect on someone else. Cyber-bullying is a very real and concerning issue that many youths struggle with. Texting has also affected this. No matter if it is typed somewhat anonymously or said in person insults, name calling, criticisms and off color comments are not something that can just be waved away simply because it was done on the internet. What I find out of sorts is that you are singling me out as a problem here because I called out several posters for having bad form. Perhaps a different approach may be more effective but I suggest that instead of taking the time to splice my quotes and complain about them, you should have spliced the multiple people here who acted inappropriate in response. Since you haven't I take this to mean that you are implying that their actions are acceptable and mine are not. If that is the case, we will never see eye to eye. There are some regular posters here who get joy from putting others down. It is clear in this thread and getting joy from hurting others is never something that should be acceptable. You missed the point altogether. Simply put, you are taking the comments on a Chicago Cubs baseball forum far too seriously. Of course cyber-bullying is real, but the occurrences here hardly constitute as such. Never did I mean to imply you were the problem, rather you were letting the problem be a problem. So what if someone here calls you a name or criticizes you? Why allow them to wield such influence over your sensibilities? They only have the power to bully you if you grant them that power, which is especially true over the internet. It comes down to this: There are no such things as insults, just those that feel insulted. I'll ignore the veiled insults this time and grant you reprieve from me 'splicing together' (or in actuality just breaking down) your quotes and detailing how you are doing much of the same antics that you bemoan. And with that I'll drop the subject, though you are welcome to have the last word on it. This is wrong on so many levels, although frankly "there are no such things as insults, just those that feel insulted" was really quite an impressive bit of illogic. What you fail to realize is that the namecalling and bullying and toughguy schtick that runs so rampant around here makes the board worse for everyone. It's not just the guy getting called a name that's impacted. It's everyone who's here hoping and trying to have a civilized discussion. I'll venture to guess that most here would rather be talking baseball than comparing [expletive] sizes. Yet that's what so many threads devolve into.

Name a single good sabermetrics book you've read. Point out anyone here who says that sabermetrics are infallible. Any good sabermetric book worth the paper it's printed on points out the limitations and variables of evaluating players; they're not claimed to be perfect predictive systems in the first place, hence why the key goals of this book, as stated by the authors, are so glaringly wrong and misguided. They don't seem to understand either Moneyball or sabermetrics. What in the information released so far has you convinced that they do? Why are so ready to believe that they are going to provide insight into the limitations of sabermetrics (which, again, the good sabermetric books and sites have already done) based on the faulty approach they're taking in the first place? People who really know sabermetrics (the ones authoring books on the subject, for example) understand the limitations. That's not the target audience. The target audience is the broad swath of more casual fans that have had some exposure to sabermetrics and think they get it, yet will toss out conclusions such as, "well just look at his BABIP, obviously he was unlucky" and think that's sound reasoning.

Seriously. We grumble about Soriano's contract, but Young's is godawful as well (albeit with one fewer years remaining). Outside of Arlington he's probably about league average as a SS or 2B, and below average as a 3B.

That's certainly not the takeaway I had from reading the synopsis. But then unlike some here, I didn't come away thinking this was a book was about baseballs hitting birds either.

One more quick example. For years and years, the WARP values baseballprospectus puts out on its PECOTA cards have been the foundation for countless "Player A is better than Player B" type debates. Yet nobody who doesn't actually work for baseballprospectus knows how WARP is actually computed! Nevertheless the supposedly enlightened saber-savvy fans quote these numbers as gospel. That's not thinking critically and taking a full measure of the strengths and limitations of the metrics. In fact by keeping its algorithm for computing WARP secret, BP makes it virtually impossible to do so.

Rob I respect your opinion and we can usually have a civilized discussion even when we disagree. If you haven't picked up on it already, I'm mostly just pushing back against the mindset (clearly prevalent in this thread) that anything that is at all anti-sabermetric must automatically be a worthless pile of trash. I'm explicitly not trying to defend the book or its premise, primarily since I haven't even read it. I just think some of the pro-saber folks in here are coming off like pompous arrogant fools with their reflexive rush to judgement. Hey, I respect you enough to assume you knew the premise was indefensible. I wont deny for a moment that there may be a few tasty morsels of corn in the dung heap that is this book. It'd be quite impressive if they managed to write up an entire book and not make a couple good points. But ultimately, the rush to judgement in this case has to be considered warranted. If they cannot even write a synopsis that isn't riddled with illogical conclusions like sabermetrics not working for the Red Sox, the odds this book is anything but a trainwreck are nearly insignificant... tasty corn morsels or no. The premise is not indefensible. A book detailing the weaknesses and limitations of sabermetrics is completely defensible. Heck that's a book that a huge number of posters here needs to read. Let me ask you this, just to use one example. How many times have we read on here that Carlos Pena is bound to rebound, just look at how low his BABIP was last year. The folks spouting this supposed saber-savvy insight are often completely oblivious to the fact that BABIP was actually an effect, not a cause. The cause was that Pena hit fewer line drives, fewer fly balls, and a lot more ground balls. If those trends don't improve, then Pena's BABIP probably won't either, nor will any of the more traditional metrics. But too many folks see that BABIP and think Pena was simply unlucky. Hey let's be clear, I'm not the person to write it. But there's definitely a book to be written here, exposing this and many other misuses of, and misunderstandings about sabermetrics.

Rob I respect your opinion and we can usually have a civilized discussion even when we disagree. If you haven't picked up on it already, I'm mostly just pushing back against the mindset (clearly prevalent in this thread) that anything that is at all anti-sabermetric must automatically be a worthless pile of trash. I'm explicitly not trying to defend the book or its premise, primarily since I haven't even read it. I just think some of the pro-saber folks in here are coming off like pompous arrogant fools with their reflexive rush to judgement.

I'm not anti-sabermetrics. I'm anti-acting like it's heresy to question sabermetrics. I'm anti-leaping to conclusions based solely on preconceived notions. Basically all you know is that this book purports to expose the flaws and shortcomings of sabermetrics. And based on that limited information alone, you condemn and mock it. But yet at the same time, you are at least sensible enough to acknowledge that sabermetrics isn't perfect... i.e. it has flaws and shortcomings.

Again, this is insane. The book is about how sabermetrics are foiled because of random events like pigeon [expletive]. That's [expletive] stupid. You don't throw out 80 years of data and scrap player evaluations because of random events. I'd bet an enormous sum of money that the authors are not advocating throwing out 80 years of data or scrapping player evaluations. And again with the stupid bird.

Haha priceless. Yes, *I'm* the one assuming things here.

Which is precisely why I haven't defended the book. It quite possibly could be a big huge pile of nonsensical baloney.

I asked a question above. From your response I am left to conclude that, yes, you do think this book is about the time a bird got hit with a baseball, and how and monumental and enlightening that moment was.

You cannot truly be this dumb. Clearly the conclusions reached in the book go beyond watching a single season of one team. And the whole bird thing is obviously just a colorful anecdote, and not some "key point". Seriously, you're embarrassing yourself now.

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.

I haven't read the book, but what I'm getting is that it's about looking at the game with a broader perspective than sabermetrics offers. There's undoubtedly a growing populous that thinks everything you would ever need to know about a player/team/league etc can be looked up and analyzed on your laptop, and I suspect this book takes issue with that general perspective, and exposes its shortcomings. Now if you think I'm sypathetic to that viewpoint, you'd be right. I think that there's great value in sabermetrics, but that its limitations have largely come to be obscured and/or ignored. Does that makes me some old fuddy-duddy "baseball purist" idiot whack job, or just a baseball fan with a different perspective? Your call.

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

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? Even if unintentional, it still propagates ignorance. So this book, which you've never read, propagates ignorance. That is quite possibly the most hilarious example of unintended irony ever.

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. Oh groupthink is alive and well here at NSBB, and on full display in this thread. Is the group "people with a brain"? I'm comfortable being in that group. No it's not. In fact the whole problem is you're *not* using your brain. Instead you're engaging in the mindless, reflexive groupthink that says, "anything even vaguely anti-sabermetric must automatically be a big huge pile of rubbish that deserves unbridled scorn".