Salon's Kaufman accuses Kindred of 'ignorance'

Sorry, Waylon, VORP, WARP, DIPS, etc. are, indeed, arbitrary and contrived formulas based on a hypothetical "average" player.
I have tried to read through the explanation of these formulas and in every case there are factors and multipliers used that are totally arbitrary.
Stats like OPS are at least based on fact not fantasy

 

I said disinterested.

Somebody who hasn't forfeited his objectivity. That is crucial here, more crucial with this subject than any else.

Lewis admitted he didn't know enough about baseball prior to his being struck down in Damascus by Billy Beane. Big surprise.

 

King Kauffman, on this issue, is completely full of crap.
Just because somebody cooked up a stat, bogus or otherwise, does not mean every single journalist who covers that sport must bow down to it. To the extent that a team might build itself based on geeky stats, the beat writer for that team/league/sport must be aware of it and have the ability to explain it to his/her readers.
A voter working on a Hall of Fame ballot has no such obligation.
A lot of these stats are merely numerical confirmations of what some of us already can recognize with our own two eyes and years of experience watching the game.
In the sport I cover, there is a stat guy who does a nice job with numbers that no one else has conceived before. But basically those numbers have done nothing more than confirm theories that I've been writing about for years about what makes a successful team or player. His numbers sometimes help shine a light on a particular team that might not be as obviously successful, but it's possible to do the job well without relying on them.

 

This guy begs to differ.

 

Schwarz doesn't know baseball then?

By "disinterested," you mean, "A book exposing these guys for the NERDS!!!! that they are."

I really don't understand the "debate." Ninety-nine percent of the players who are valuable using traditional numbers are valuable using the sabermetric ones, as well. The sabermetric numbers were created as another metric to further compare players' performances. It's nothing new. Branch Rickey was always playing with stats for the same reason - to gain that 1 percent edge to help him defeat the opposition.

 

Yes, I think the phrase "paralysis through over-analysis" was first coined in reference to Branch Rickey.

Here, he's debating DIPS with Red Smith.

 

Ninety-nine percent of the players who are valuable using traditional numbers are valuable using the sabermetric ones, as well. The sabermetric numbers were created as another metric to further compare players' performances.


So sabermetrics is a contrived way to tell me what I already know.

 

That's right.

 

You can calculate an OPS from empirical numbers.
As best I understand it, a VORP depends vitally on what a very arbitrary concept of an average player.
This strikes me as the difference between chemistry and alchemy.

 

Or Art and Science. And I vote for Art every time.

 

I like the concept, but I think you have to apply your own methodology largely. Derek Jeter's "VORP" would depend on who the Yankees would be able to replace him with at shortstop. Hanley Ramirez's would depend on who Florida could replace him with. So they would be different.

Like I said, though, it's a useful enough concept - production in comparison to other players at that position, rather than comparing apples to oranges (i.e. my Chase Utley-to-Ryan Howard example).

 

Useful to you Waylon. Useless to me.
We'll agree to disagree on VORP, WARP, DIPS etc.