Limited scope
Why sabermetrics needs scouts and baseball history (and the other way around)
As I sat here trying to figure out what my post would be about, something that I almost did in my first post (which, by the way, I’m no closer to doing anything with, sadly) came back into mind. Namely, a fundamental question: “What’s a stats guy who has limited historical knowledge about the game doing writing here on a baseball history blog?” Besides the fact that those who started the blog wanted greater coverage of current events, a site more for tales of the past seems an odd place for someone like me who may want to produce my own sabermetric research here.
It comes down to one thing in my mind: Sabermetrics mean squat without qualitative knowledge about baseball. For all the arguing people do with the statistical creations that reveal some additional information about the game, it’s quite easy to trap oneself in equivocating the terms “objective” and “statistical” to the sabermetrics crowd. Yet, and correct me if I’m wrong, The Godfather had a pretty good sense of baseball history when he wrote his Abstracts. He had to prove his metrics against the research and knowledge of the time, which wasn’t this silo of numbers that others are trapped into.
Fast forward to today, and read one of the annuals out there. Is it just me, or are we using the numbers to justify our observations (opinions?) about a player rather than looking at numbers and eyes as two separate yet valid sources of information. Scouts looking with their eyes can help validate what metrics are concocted, and vice versa. All this should be done with an eye on baseball history, knowing what has worked in the past and what hasn’t.
If you were to ask me who performs their research like this today, I’d send my props to the authors of The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. Just go look at the Fan Scouting Reports section, and fill one out if you feel qualified to do so. And then read the blog to see how Tangotiger utilizes the wisdom of the crowd.
Wait, did I just suggest relying on other people in the land where we laud self-made success stories? Oh yeah. It’s what will help sabermetrics stay a vivid and valid part of analyzing and enjoying the game.
19 March 2008 16:48
I agree, but overrelying on your eyes is also a bad thing too, as that would induce “selective thinking.”
19 March 2008 21:26
Andrew,
I totally agree. I feel that is the trap that many professional sportswriters fall into, almost like it’s inbred hubris of the profession. Hopefully you were able to read some of the exchange between Buster Olney and Rich Lederer in their respective blogs this winter, with the former as an explicit example of what you state.
20 March 2008 21:49
Matt,
I have not read any of those, but I will check them out. Keep up the good work on the blog. I enjoy your writing.
21 March 2008 06:15
Thanks for the compliment! Just as a note, the Buster Olney blog requires an Insider subscription to ESPN. Lederer’s blog is Bastball Analysts.
24 March 2008 14:30
I enjoyed Bill James, didn’t always agree with him, but he knew his history. Now the blogs are too full of VORP-spewing BABIP-upchucking nerds who have gone so far off the deep end that base hits, complete games and stolen bases have become the enemy. Sorry, I don’t want a ball club full of robots who are obsessed with drawing a walk.
24 March 2008 19:29
Ron,
There’s this little idea that someone much smarter than me came up with. Perhaps you’ve seen the movie A Beautiful Mind and know about John Forbes Nash and his idea of game theory. The authors of The Book use the last chapter to discuss this in relation to baseball, and they ridicule the notion that one can keep doing the same thing over and over unless the opponent is foolish enough to let it happen over and over. It’s worth a look even if you’ve never heard of the idea before.
In more direct response to your comment however, I think what you see when you read blogs that are “full of VORP-spewing BABIP-upchucking nerds” is the academic discussions of sabermetics occurring the public forum of the blogosphere. One can become so caught up in the argument over the validity of any given metric that the arguer loses focus on what the point of the metric (and the claim against it) is in the first place. Likewise, those who don’t understand what these newer statistics truly measure tend to either misuse or abuse them (the politicians are wonderful at doing this) or dismiss them without consideration and remain stuck in the mud of potentially archaic thinking. And none of these people are ultimately right in their approach, as the scope of thinking is too narrow. Granted, the faults of one’s humanity is a factor here too, as no one has perfect vision.