Bob Ryan: I don't think the "average" fan cares about advanced metrics in MLB

I'm not necessarily standing up for WAR. I just don't think that the baseline thing really undermines it.

 

But all situations are not average. Hitting a double ahead of Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez seems a heck of a lot more likely to lead to a run scored than hitting one ahead of Dexter Fowler and Matt Dominguez (who batted third and fourth for the Astros yesterday).

I stand by my point. OPS does a better job of measuring what it says it measures. Also, arguing that wOBA is better than WAR isn't that good of a selling point. Both have similar issues. When you start trying to figure out value rather than just measure what happened, you get judgements mixed in with your statistics.

 

This isn't an argument against wOBA or sabermetrics. It's an argument against statistics, period.

Again: wOBA, like any other measure, isn't perfect. That doesn't mean it's useless.

 

No, it isn't. It is an argument against statistics that measure what should be instead of what is, which you are simply too stubborn to recognize.

Also, I did not claim that wOBA was useless. Please do not suggest otherwise. Some statistics are more flawed than others. To me, one way to measure those flaws is to consider how much opinion factors into a statistic.

 

The metric system is based off of water.

The setting of the baseline is subjective and that makes it a subjective measure.

 

Choosing the melting point of water, instead of say mercury, hydrogen, gummybears or any of the almost infinite other possibilities is subjective.

 

Yet, the baseline applies to everyone. Think about it for a second.

 

Can you prove that the Red Sox would have lost 39 games over Dusrin Pedroia's career if he was replaced by a baseline player.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-For-Dummies-Deborah-Rumsey/dp/0470911085

 

http://thewalterlippmanncollection.org/Trolls-For-Dummies-Walter-Lippmann/dipshit/

 

so your answer is, as expected, no.