Let’s be honest about something here: The sweeping generality when it comes to those who follow sabermetrics in baseball is that they are nerds who have created a buzzsaw that threatens the “romanticism” long associated with the game. These guys are ruining the fun for everyone, so to speak. They are too worried about Elvis Andrus’ UZR/150 rating and can’t bare to enjoy one of Derek Jeter’s patented jump throws to beat a runner by a quarter of a step. The same baseball nerd would posit that Andrus, with his larger range at shortstop, wouldn’t need to make a jump throw to get the runner, but could backhand the ball, pivot, throw and still get the runner by the same quarter of a step, maybe even a bit more with Andrus known for having a good arm.
But the person upstairs in the press box, the broadcaster, or even the guys on the beat, they might be sitting there in awe of yet another graceful Jeterian display of defensive prowess, and on the other side, might look at the Andrus play as somewhat routine because Andrus made it look that way. It’s a single comparison, but the difference in how something like that is viewed can start a discussion about the need for advanced statistics in the game, and whether or not it’s ruining the game that so many writers grew up loving.
So the writers (the professionals, you know) would type away at their keyboards with 700 words (because that’s the space they’ve been given to fill) about Jeter and how he still has it in his late 30s, fighting away Father Time and still acting as a veteran anchor, a captain and a leadoff hitter of a team that is once again destined to go to the playoffs and make a mark in October, something that is now as frequent as a morning sunrise. They’ll write about how he is the cornerstone of the most successful franchise in sports and how Mr. Steinbrenner would be smiling from his owner’s box if he were still alive to see him. A “romantic” view about baseball if there ever was one.
The bloggers (the amateurs, you know) would type away at their keyboards with 7,000 words (because they don’t have word limits on blogs) and go into intricate details about how Jeter has never really been a fantastic defender at all, even in his prime. They would bring up how defensive statistics that have been getting better over the last few years peg him as average or even below average shortstop, and that he’d be better off manning an outfield position or even third base. They’d even bring up that Alex Rodriguez should have been manning shortstop (The nerve!) instead of Jeter when he got traded to the Yankees due to his superior defensive abilities. They’d also bring up how his offensive troubles shouldn’t have him anywhere near the top of the batting order due to his low on-base percentage and line drive rates, and how he’s coasting on that same captaincy that has Yankees fans swooning over a player whose usefulness is dissolving before their very eyes. Because that’s what the stats say.
But then the writer will look at what the blogger wrote and realize that his tome was nothing more than scientific mumbo-jumbo. A jab at a legend who is still helping a team win even as he winds down his career. He’ll talk about how the stats that were used to describe Jeter’s play are made up and hokey, that they don’t paint the true picture of how good a player like Jeter is, and that he has Gold Gloves, All-Star appearances and World Series rings to prove it. That the intangibles he brings to that team far outweigh anything that could be written on a stat sheet or a spreadsheet. He’ll decry science for the love of the game, citing that on the (new) site of baseball’s most hallowed ground, that we should enjoy watching “#2” play while we still can. Then he might take a jab at the blogger, saying that the blogger will do something nerdy like eat his Cheetos and go back to writing an algorithm that will figure out a spray chart for Joe Morgan’s unprecedented run in his MVP season of 1975. That the nerd will determine the exact value of each hit to a thousandth of a decimal and each fourth ball he took to the millimeter it missed the strike zone by.
A lot of writers who decide to go in that direction fall into one of two categories when it comes to advanced statistics: They don’t understand it, or they don’t accept it. These are two separate ideas that get molded together and end up being the centerpiece of scathing fodder about how nobody cares about how Wins Above Replacement works or how Fielding Independent Pitching is a better indicator than ERA or how wins (God forbid) don’t matter for pitchers.
Therein lies the key point. Writers won’t accept it because those stats represent knowledge that destroys the basis of how they understand the game. It’s how they viewed the game growing up and it’s how they’ve written about the game for years and years. Irreputable facts like if a pitcher doesn’t win 20 games, he isn’t a staff ace. If his ERA is over 4.00, he’s a liability. That if a guy bats fourth and doesn’t have 100 RBIs, he has nobody to blame but himself. They can’t possibly fathom that the value of wins have been cut down thanks to the increased usage of bullpens. Or that a pitcher could have an ERA over 4.00 thanks to a Batting Average on Balls in Play that’s in the .350 range, nearly 60 points above league average and an indicator that bad luck is the culprit of that high ERA. Or how that cleanup guy could hit .315/.390/.520 and have 85 RBIs because the three guys in front of him don’t get on base so he could drive them in.
Those writers in the press boxes take it upon themselves to be storytellers. Stats don’t tell the “romantic” story that they are looking for. When you reduce a player to numbers, you lose that chance to write about him in a way that transcends regular sportswriting, depriving them of the chance to compare a player to the greats of yesteryear. And there are some good stories out there about people giving back to the community and being nice to fans, and that’s great. But there are some instances where the writer takes those off-the-field activites and paints the picture of how those specific activities make him a better player, a journalistic faux pas if there ever was one.
These disciples of Bill James, these Microsoft Excel geeks…what do they know about the love and passion of baseball? Well, how about they hear a stat head talk about how in 2009, Tim Lincecum’s changeup was so incredible that a single pitch basically won him a second consecutive Cy Young Award. Or how Jose Bautista’s meteoric rise into becoming the premiere hitter in all of Major League Baseball were due to a better approach at the plate, a new timing mechanism and a knack for crushing fastballs. Then, there’s Joe Morgan, long bemoaned by statheads for his announcing style and his antiquated thoughts on how baseball should be played. Does anyone realize that those same statheads also regard him as quite possibly the best second baseman ever thanks to one of the best batting eyes of all time, incredible pop at a light-hitting position and terrific defense at a premium defensive position? There isn’t a “romantic” thought surging forth in each one of those ideas?
You, the readers, visit this site and many others like us because you have a view of baseball that might be a little bit different than what normally comes at your doorstep every morning. And just because we decide to sprinkle in Wins Above Replacement instead of batting average doesn’t mean we’re necessarily wrong. It means that we continue to explore and dig for a deeper meaning in a game we’ve fallen in love with. That because of years upon years of research done by some of the brightest minds affiliated with the game, we are gaining a better understanding of what makes players and teams tick. We do it because we love the game and we do it because we love the exploration into what makes a player good, bad or somewhere in between.
Now I don’t know about you guys, but that sounds plenty “romantic” to me.
