Way to go, Wyers

By Matt Imbrogno On June 29, 2011 · 15 Comments · In General Musings

Every so often, something speaks to me and I hear it better than I hear most things. In high school, it was the beautiful prose of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Truman Capote, the wit of Kurt Vonnegut. In college, it was the rhythm of Shakespeare and Chaucer as well as the cinematic grace of Douglas Sirk and Paul Verhoeven (I hope you’re reading, ). Yesterday, something spoke to me as a baseball fan.

Colin Wyers of Baseball Prospectus wrote a rebuttal to a post on Bill Simmons’ new site, Grantland. The last two paragraphs are what connected with me most:

Well, guys, I appreciate your concern, I really do. But do me a favor, would you? Just shut up. I know which end of the bottle the beer comes out of, I really do. I’ve watched ballgames outside, in actual sunlight—no, really. If knowing that a pitcher’s BABIP against rate in a small sample is largely unpredictive of his rate in a larger sample makes it harder for you to enjoy watching a game, I’m sorry. But if knowing more about baseball makes it harder for you to enjoy the game, then I’m really not seeing your case that you’re the better fan than someone like me.

I know those things and I still love baseball. Love love love it. And you can have whatever opinion you want to of people like me and the work we do. But stop, please, just stop questioning whether or not we love baseball. It’s demeaning, it’s insulting, and it’s been a hoary old cliché for longer than I’ve been alive. Let it rest in peace.

In my baseball fan life, I don’t think I’ve ever been vilified too harshly for taking the sabermetric point of view and here on the Internet, I’ve been nothing but accepted. But, in real life, it’s something that I don’t get to show off very often. To my knowledge, I’ve had one real-life, back-and-forth discussion based around sabermetrics. The rest have all featured a lot of talking on my end along with the half-interested looks of my family and friends (though I do remember my cousin’s boyfriend being genuinely interested at some family function). Despite my relatively positive experiences, I have seen the “get your head out of the stat sheet” sentiment that Wyers alludes to and what he says is absolutely true. Just because I enjoy stats and they give me a source of enjoyment during baseball games doesn’t mean I enjoy baseball any less. It doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the game any less.

I’ve loved baseball since I was a boy. I’ve loved watching it; I’ve loved playing it. Now I love talking about it and analyzing it using every piece of information that’s available to me. I’m going to try to get you to do the same, too. It’s only enhanced my enjoyment of the game, and I hope it would do the same for you. If not, cool; I won’t knock you for it as long as you don’t knock me for it.

Numbers and statistics help tell a story of the game; so do the events that happen on the field every ngiht. No matter how I look at baseball, whether it’s the numbers or whether it’s watching the game (not that those things are mutually exclusive), it is beautiful.

 
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15 Responses to Way to go, Wyers

  1. Joe G says:
    June 29, 2011 at 11:21 am

    Simmons is all over the map. Last year he writes a long column about how he’s now accepting and using sabermetrics, and now we get this latest piece. I think his latest piece is just catering to the masses, anything to bring in fans to his new site.

    [Reply]

    Eric Schultz Reply:
    June 29th, 2011 at 11:32 am

    To be fair to Simmons, he didn’t write the article. It was still poorly written IMO, and Colin’s response was right on.

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    MJ Recanati Reply:
    June 29th, 2011 at 12:11 pm

    Agreed on all counts…although it’s fun not being fair to Simmons. :-D

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  2. Phil C says:
    June 29, 2011 at 12:04 pm

    OMG!! An argument over who’s the better (or bigger) fan? That’s so absurd and basically unprovable. If you enjoy the game with sabermetrics, GREAT! If you enjoy the game without them, GREAT! The emphasis, to me at least, is enjoy the game, it doesn’t matter how.

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  3. says:
    June 29, 2011 at 12:04 pm

    “…the cinematic grace of… …”

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  4. Hawaii Dave says:
    June 29, 2011 at 12:37 pm

    Yesterday a guy named Simon had a article on Sabermatic statistical minutia concerning the right side infield hole. You may or may not have seen it on the ESPN Yankee blog site. It’s perhaps 1000 words on how more ground balls are getting through between Cano and Tex than last season. Simon spews forth a bunch of stats that I can’t understand, am not interested in, and that he admits predict nothing. This lured me into making a comment as to the significance of the stats as well as what purpose the stats serve. This of course led to comments by those who love micro stats. The majority of the comments was toward the “we don’t need these micro statistics”. I go to the Yankee blog because I want Yankee information. And I love baseball and love the Yankees. What I resent is not that there are people who enjoy crunching every single solitary number there is to crunch. But rather having what I consider to be insignificant statistics being used as a topic from a writer that seems to be out of things to write about when a deadline is near. Get people who can write creatively rather than those who resort to using a blog that is not their own, to jam Sabermatic nonsense down our throats and then say we are not good baseball fans for not modernizing our belief systems. Read the article. It is a joke. Simon ominously “warns” the reader about the seriousness of this trend (more grounders going through the right side hole) yet posts a chart showing 5 of the 7 worst teams in this department being in 1st or 2nd place in their division. I think that, in itself scientifically proves his statistics to be insignificant. So why would I be accused of not being a real fan because I don’t want my Yankee blog clogged up with nonsense?

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    Moshe Mandel Reply:
    June 29th, 2011 at 1:17 pm

    Simon’s article was excellent, in my opinion. It is a great bit of research than shows where a team is weak defensively, and notes that they had been good in that area in the past. If you do not like that sort of thing, no one is making you read it. You can tell what an article is about within the first few sentences, and you can move on.

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    Hawaii Dave Reply:
    June 30th, 2011 at 12:54 pm

    It is not that I’m forced to read it. It is that there are a finite amount of articles that will be allowed to be printed on any certain day and I prefer something more important than 1000 words on an obscure statistic that doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t prevent you from winning games. And Moshe, now that you have the research and know where the weakness is….what would you do about it?

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  5. oldpep says:
    June 29, 2011 at 1:12 pm

    I agree with the degree of absurdity the remarks of the Luddites almost always contain. The other one-probably more obnoxious to most of us-is ‘have you ever played organized baseball?’ It has the benefit of being stupid and arrogant at the same time.
    I imagine most saber-types watch more games than fans in general.

    One thing I’ve noticed here is the disregarding of sample size when it gets in the way of a point. I also disagree with fielding stats being used just like hitting stats-they’re not nearly as accurate, and shouldn’t be treated the same way.
    The article mentioned above does both things, and adds that it demonstrates something the author has seen with their own eyes. (It’s not something I’ve seen with my eyes-as far as I’ve seen Cano hasn’t lost a step defensively from last year to this.)
    I like every one of the pitching and hitter stats (except those that decide how hard a ball is hit, like line-drive %), but I think well over a thousand PAs are needed for hitting stats, and a couple of seasons starting almost every game for pitchers. (RP usually require several years to get a really good handle on.)

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  6. Buck says:
    June 29, 2011 at 1:26 pm

    But no puny stat can express the subtle grace and grit of a true player like David Eckstein, who has shown time and again that though he may be small and boast a skill set few would argue deserves any kind of praise at all, he, my friends, is a winner. And that, more than OBP or OPP or A&P, tells you all you need to know.

    [Reply]

    MJ Recanati Reply:
    June 29th, 2011 at 2:05 pm

    I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not. Therefore, I cannot tell if I should laugh or cry.

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    Moshe Mandel Reply:
    June 29th, 2011 at 2:12 pm

    Pretty sure that is satire.

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    MJ Recanati Reply:
    June 29th, 2011 at 2:41 pm

    I sort of assumed, but wasn’t sure, that was the case.

    In any case, you’re a better man than I. I find it very hard to pick up on tone via electronic media.

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  7. RubeWaddell says:
    June 29, 2011 at 9:36 pm

    Anything mentioning David Eckstein on a baseball blog with the word “analysts” in the name is probably satire.

    [Reply]

    MJ Recanati Reply:
    June 30th, 2011 at 8:46 am

    LOL, probably true. :-)

    [Reply]

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