Stat-friendly and stat-unfriendly baseball writers

[sprtswrtr10]

Not that I'm trying to be peacemaker here, but is it really a case of yay or nay. For instance, nobody reveres the history and romance of the game more than Posnanski; he simply doesn't keep that reference in a vacuum.

Further, those who reject sabermetrics — I mean truly reject them as though they don't tell us anything — are no different than a flat-earther. And while I don't keep up with it well enough, is your list of sabermetric naysayers truly made up of rejectionists? I mean, they're not all Joe Morgan are they?

I don't know. This has bothered me for a long time.

I would say that any sabermetrician who believes baseball can be reduced to a strat-o-matic game, or that human competition can be reduced entirely to metrics is an idiot. Also, anybody who rejects something out of hand that not only makes statistical sense in the present, but has served able to prove the past is also an idiot.

Is the divide that stark?
Maybe we should have more than two categories.

 

[SoCalDude]

We're striving for good writing. It's not good writing if you present a statistical acronym that 90 percent of your readers won't understand, then have to spend the next two paragraphs explaining what that is and then explaining why you think it's relevant to this situation.
We're writing for readers, not for each other.

 

[JC]

We're striving for good writing. It's not good writing if you present a statistical acronym that 90 percent of your readers won't understand, then have to spend the next two paragraphs explaining what that is and then explaining why you think it's relevant to this situation.
We're writing for readers, not for each other.

That's not really giving your readers to much credit in this day and age.

 

[Versatile]

I think the best mass-audience baseball writing applies modern analysis without bogging readers down with numbers they don't grasp or care about. Most of these things can be simplified out, and in most stories for a mass audience, exact numbers are unnecessary.

Basically, understand the concepts and apply them to your analysis, but there's no reason to specifically point out that you're doing it. Like it or not, you will lose readers with one mention of BABIP or WAR.

 

[3OctaveFart]

We're writing for readers, not for each other.

Tell that to the longform crowd.

 

[dooley_womack1]

I think you could go all your career without once mentioning WAR and still be a good baseball writer. Also, good baseball writers, in dealing with pitching over the years, have fairly often dealt with WHIP without calling it that, or, regarding batters, have balanced stolen bases against not getting on base much, or whether a batter who hits mostly singles have strengths to counter that fact.

If it all comes down to sabermetrics with you as a writer, you're not a balanced writer, and chances are you're missing giving readers about players that they may want to know. I read Kepner's stuff regularly, and he gracefully intersperses newer stats into his narratives.

 

[buckweaver]

I think the best mass-audience baseball writing applies modern analysis without bogging readers down with numbers they don't grasp or care about. Most of these things can be simplified out, and in most stories for a mass audience, exact numbers are unnecessary.

Basically, understand the concepts and apply them to your analysis, but there's no reason to specifically point out that you're doing it. Like it or not, you will lose readers with one mention of BABIP or WAR.

Rob Neyer is one of the best at that. He has strongly advocated against using obscure statistical acronyms in writing, and when he does happen to do it himself, he tries to explain what he's talking about in plain English first.

 

[Songbird]

I've wondered if the SABR diehards watch baseball for the fun of it anymore or if every miniscule detail about the game has become stat-oriented to them. Or were they always wired to be stat-obsessive?

 

[buckweaver]

I've wondered if the SABR diehards watch baseball for the fun of it anymore or if every little thing about the game now is stat-oriented. Or were they always wired to be stat-obsessive?

Sigh.

As I have said repeatedly, the "SABR diehards" watch more baseball and enjoy more baseball than anyone I have ever met in my entire life.

And yes, the stats are part of what makes baseball fun to us.

 

[JC]

I've wondered if the SABR diehards watch baseball for the fun of it anymore or if every miniscule detail about the game has become stat-oriented to them. Or were they always wired to be stat-obsessive?

I think this is a huge misconception. I imagine they watch a heck a of a lot more baseball than the average person. If they didn't enjoy the game I can't see how they could or why they would do it.

Edit: Buck beat me to it

 

[Songbird]

I've wondered if the SABR diehards watch baseball for the fun of it anymore or if every little thing about the game now is stat-oriented. Or were they always wired to be stat-obsessive?

Sigh.

As I have said repeatedly, the "SABR diehards" watch more baseball and enjoy more baseball than anyone I have ever met in my entire life.

And yes, the stats are part of what makes baseball fun to us.

Why are you sighing? It's a legitimate question.

When Johnny Lukewarm hits into a double play with the bases loaded are the SABRs already calculating the infinite number of stats involved or just vegging to see what the next batter does?

I'm as big of a stat lover as there is, but sometimes you just wanna watch a pitch and a swing and a glove dude make a play without thinking of 42 instant stats.

And JC, that's correct: They watch a helluva lot more, but at some point does their scientific mind take over and they forget the simplistic beauty of the game?

Edit: "a" legitimate.

 

[FileNotFound]

If your goal is to write a story, you shouldn't really bog it down with numbers of any kind, whether they be batting average or BABIP or WHIP or WAR or QWERTY or whatever. Use numbers to the extent that they add to the story.

If your story, however, is numbers and statistics, there are many better ways to display that with our modern platforms than a string of paragraphs. A graphic can be built that not only tells your story, but has pullouts with explainers for unfamiliar abbreviations.