Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Bullshit. Here's where stats fetishism rears its ugly head. Carly Simon was every bit as good a singer as Joni Mitchell was. Both could sit around with their friends in the living room and sing beautifully. But put them on a stage in front of thousands, and Mitchell owns the stage while Simon can barely choke out her words because of stagefright. There is a human element here when the chips are down.

 

Oh really? And that's why almost all managers use one set closer? Utter fail.

It is not trolling to point out the gaping holes in your argument. Now let's see if you can respond without the weak attempts at a personal attack. And really, you question another poster's intelligence and it isn't meant as an insult? What's next? A statistical presentation to try to convince us that the solar system revolves around the Earth rather than the Sun?

Honestly, if I thought you had any integrity, I would be offended. But given the discussion we had on that recent journalism thread, I know better.

Your argument for Rivera over Santana that one season lends more value to pitching in key situations, yet you want to argue that there is no inherent value in being a proven performer in such situations. That is a load of crap and even you should be able to figure that out.

 

I agree with just about everything OOP has had to say in this discussion of the value of and mental make-up of closers.

 

Seriously, guys, Rick isn't saying anything controversial or revolutionary. Of course there's a human element. Of course managers give pitchers roles to fill, because human beings like and respond to routine.

Everyone is just having a silly, reflexive Plaschke-esque "STATS!!! ROBOTS!!! LAPTOPS!!!" reaction.

And managers aren't necessarily required to understand this stuff. But GM's goddamned well better in 2010.

BTW, Buster Olney had a column in ESPN: The Magazine this week precisely about the growing value of this type of analysis to supplement scouting (applied it to defense mostly, which is the new wave). He mentioned the Yankees - yes, the $200 million Yankees - as a "Moneyball team."

This ship has seriously sailed.

 

Indeed, the Yankees put the MONEY in Moneyball.

 

Yeah, as if it really took any sabermetrics to figure out that Sabathia and Teixeira would be darned good guys to have on the club.

 

Just like Jason Giambi and Randy Johnson were slam dunks, too?

 

Since when wouldn't Jason Giambi, with power and great OBP, be a saberhead's dream? And any pitcher can have their arm go poof at any second. Are you saying that Randy Johnson sucked in some calculator-borne way throughout his career and baseball's great minds were just fooled?

 

I was merely saying that money not well spent doesn't necessarily buy titles.

But whatever. CALCULATORS!!! NERDS!!! SPREAD SHEETS!!!

How the two sides still don't understand how compatible they are is beyond me.

 

Randy Johnson was 41 with a bad back whne he came to New York. Just a stupid signing.

As dools said, Juicin' Giambi was a sabermaturbators dream because he walked a lot and hit for power ... then he got off the roids and went in the dumper.

 

At the right price he was. At the wrong price, no.

The point of "Moneyball" that so many people don't understand isn't that on-base percentage is the key to baseball and the meaning of life. It is largely about inefficiencies in the free agent marketplace and exploiting them on a budget. Michael Lewis is a business writer. Don't forget that.