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

What is your point?
The Phillies have been throwing money around for several years.
Their quasi-dynasty was ultimately meaningless.
If you remove the names and reputations and look strictly at recent performance, METRICALLY, you would have little idea what the Phillies are actually trying to accomplish with this roster.

 

This is a team that starts Tony Gwynn Jr.
Raise your hand if you thought he was still even in baseball.

 

Five straight division championships, a World Series win and a runner-up finish are meaningless?

The Dodgers would love to be so wasteful with their money.

 

Come on dude, winning percentage isn't a number that matters....

 

Don't actually make a point or anything.

LongTimeListener:
They were beaten by lesser teams in 10 and 11. So what?

 

So those results invalidate A) those division titles; and B) the prior two World Series years?

 

Sorry, I don't agree.
The Red Sox spent well more than a billion dollars in the last 10 years, but they have three titles to show for it.
People want to blame this on Amaro, but look at a list of guys he has traded.
A lot of duds on there.
Their problem is they have drafted poorly and given out shittastic contracts.
The Astros learned all about how that can torpedo a franchise.
Go back on here sometime and look at the goofs praising the Howard contract. That's some funny reading, boy.

 

The Phillies might not embrace advanced metrics or anything, but for plenty of years they inadvertently were following them anyway. Meaning, going after high ceiling talent in the draft as opposed to guys who projected as lefty specialists, building up the middle (Rollins, Utley), dealing surplus assets (moving on from Thome instead of burying Howard), etc. The Braves also weren't a huge analytical organization, but they were experts at scouting out prospects in Florida, Georgia and the South, and had that as an advantage for a couple years.

If we're talking about Moneyball and what not, one of the books' lessons was about teams exploiting market inefficiencies. Pretty much all good teams do this, even if they don't embrace statistics.

 

The point stands that a great majority of teams that apparently take metrics much more seriously than the Phillies have performed worse than them over a substantial time frame.

 

No team should ignore any sort of information, but there's no evidence advanced statistics offer more than a marginal advantage in assessing players, since they operate in the margins. They can and do help in determining who's maybe the best fifth starter, setup man or fourth outfielder, but above that, they just reaffirm what the old stats say. At the top level, all statistics are irrelevant. Two functioning eyes are all that's needed to see Trout's a superstar, or Cabrera.
3 Octave, I'm a Phillies fan. It's simply wrong to the point of idiocy to say their 2007-2011 seasons were meaningless. No championship is meaningless unless you think sports is meaningless, which is valid philosophically, but hardly belongs in an argument about baseball metrics.

 

They went all in and failed in 10 and 11. Spin it as you wish.
I'm not a Phillies fan, by the way.

 

"Failed" is a harsh way to put it.
Failed to win a championship? Of course, and that's disappointing. After 2008, I thought they'd get at least one more before the window closed.
Failed to be successful? Hardly. They still made the playoffs and lost to the eventual World Series champions three years in a row. That's disappointing, but it's also baseball, and sports in general. One bad week, or one bad game -- or one terrific one by whoever you're playing, like in Game 5 of the 2011 NLCS -- can negate eight months of success.
Believe me, having grown up as a Phillies fan starting at the tail end of their 1970s-early 80s heyday and then endured the shitfest that ensued for the better part of 20 years, I'm more than happy with five straight division titles, two NL titles and one World Series title. That's a hell of a run. I doubt you'll find many Phillies fans who wouldn't consider that a successful stretch, and there's plenty of fans of other franchises who would kill for their teams to endure that kind of "failure."

Now, you want to talk about failure, let's talk about the Mets. That's a team that has repeatedly thrown money at players and failed miserably.