Posted in The Soapbox
52 comments
10/11 2010

The Geek Shall Inherit … (On Baseball, Bill James, Storytelling & The Simpsons)

Posted by Will Carroll.

Geek met geek when Bill James’ animated self showed up on The Simpsons this weekend. While that was happening, I was at a baseball game.

It might surprise you to know Ryan Howard doesn’t know his VORP.

Roy Halladay didn’t know his xFIP.

Jamie Moyer doesn’t understand BABIP.

The Reds? You think I’m going to ask those questions in Dusty Baker’s clubhouse? Forget it.

While Bill James was drawn yellow and cynical, the Phillies swept the Reds. It was the last time I’ll ever see my name and Baseball Prospectus on the same line of a credential list. I’m okay with that for a lot of reasons. One of them was in the radio booth. Jon Sciambi works for ESPN, doing radio and TV play by play. I met him years ago, actually on the field at Wrigley before the “Bartman game.” He and Len Kasper were working for the Marlins. Broadcasters seem to “get it” more than most when it came to my stuff, so I gravitated to them in the early days.

Sciambi wrote a great article at BPro earlier this year, starting with a story about how a question about stats directed at Chipper Jones ended up with a nasty look up at the booth. It was a great anecdote … and precisely the kind of thing that statheads don’t understand. Moneyball wasn’t an amazing series of facts; it was an amazing story, told by one of America’s master storytellers. Ask any of the millions who saw Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side and try to parse facts about what was and wasn’t true. Michael Oher, the main character of the story, has said it wasn’t all correct, but Michael Lewis, who’s REALLY the main character in all his books, doesn’t let facts get in the way of a legend.

Which reminds me … a few years ago, I was working on a piece regarding Curt Schilling. This was for Mind Game, a BPro book about the Red Sox world title team. Schilling’s bloody sock game is the ultimate legend, both true and great storytelling. I talked to a lot of people about that incident, but one fact kept coming back. Someone who was there just after Dr. Morgan stitched up Schilling’s ankle before the game said he saw Morgan start to cover the area with a large bandage. Schilling stopped him, pulling his sock up over the gauze and tape. Did Schilling know the blood would soak through the gauze and show up, larger than life, on his very sock while on the mound? Schilling never said one way or the other, but I have a feeling that Schilling knows a good story when he sees one.

That anecdote? Cut from the book.

Statheads will never let a good story get in the way of a fact, a decimal place, or a holier-than-thou snark. Don’t know how to do a multivariate regression or a pivot table in Excel? Heathen. They’d certainly never let a good game get in the way of their viewpoint. Put up against Joe Morgan, ex-players, and an entrenched viewpoint ripe to be questioned, statheads might have figured out the right algorithms, but they never figured out the right formula for capturing anyone’s attention. I’m sure some out there – a small, rounding-error kind of niche – like their baseball on an 8-bit platter but most are captured by stories. The statheads never had one.

There’s no “stathead orthodoxy.” They can’t agree enough amongst themselves to get something like park factors or a signature stat right. Even if they did, someone new would pop up with an extra pi or something. They fight their keyboard jihad, barking that the old men don’t take the time to understand and then don’t grasp that they’re the only one’s that understand it. Quick, find me a reasonable, accurate, easy to read book on stats? No, nothing? How about just a series of articles, something like a “101″ series. No? Wait, I know BPro did that one … but that was 2004.

The Phillies are headed deeper into the playoffs and somewhere in their front office, they have a guy that understands the most advanced numbers, has Fangraphs bookmarked, and will help Ruben Amaro this offseason. The players? They just have their big paychecks, big houses, and might someday sit where Joe Morgan or Mitch Williams is sitting now. The statheads? Unless they find their story or their storyteller, right where they are now.

Bill James was that storyteller for a while, but when he stopped being a thinker and started enjoying being a guru, the movement lost. Me? I was never one that followed and now, Prospectus in my rear view, I can easily reject that false god. I’m not rejecting facts, just the inability to tell a story, see beyond a spreadsheet, or acknowledge that other people have some things to teach me, whether it’s a scout, a Trainer, or a writer who’s been watching ball games since before VORP was a twinkle in Keith Woolner’s eye.

I’d rather watch Halladay pitch anyway.

(UPDATE: * I made an error, one of memory, not of fact. When I said that the Schilling anecdote was cut from Mind Game, I believed that to be the case. Looking back through notes and given the prodding of Mind Game editor Steven Goldman, that’s not true. The piece that I had in mind ran in an Under The Knife column and was cut there because the editor was uncomfortable with the anonymous source. In the six years between the events, I’d conflated them. My apologies for the error.)

Share
Posted on October 11, 2010 at 2:30PM

 

USER COMMENTS

Track comments via RSS 2.0 feed. Feel free to post the comment, or trackback from your web site.

  1. Yanks Fan
    10/11 2010

    seems like a strawman of “stathead” you’ve built up here. there are guys out there like posnanski, who are interested in weaving progressive analysis into the story of baseball. its like theres a perception out there that sabermetrically inclined people don’t enjoy the magic of the game. if you had been in the fangraphs chat during the halladay no-hitter, you would see this is not true.

    not to mention, it seems like two separate questions are conflated here. there is the question of whether the community is doing well popularizing itself, and then there is the question of whether they are “right,” as in moving us closer to truth about baseball and value and winning. you seem to say they aren’t doing well on problem 1 (debatable), but that doesn’t mean they aren’t doing well on question 2.

  2. Chaz
    10/11 2010

    Good old fashioned straw-man argument. There are, or were!, plenty of storyminded statheads at BPro itself — Joe Sheehan, Christina Kahrl, etc. — plus Rob Neyer, etc. etc. Very sorry your parting with BPro is seemingly a bitter one, for both you and people like me who read your work daily. But was this minor jihad necessary?

  3. Adam
    10/11 2010

    Agree, stop attacking the straw-man. This reads more like a bitter diatribe than an actual mantra or substantial statement.

  4. Adam
    10/11 2010

    Also, trying to discredit statistical analysis because players don’t use it is a little ridiculous. How very Joe Morgan of you.

  5. Steve
    10/11 2010

    Hardly a straw-man when three (as of now) show up to prove the point.

  6. Yanks Fan
    10/11 2010

    what is the point proven?

  7. Nick
    10/11 2010

    I agree with Chaz. I love your work, follow you on Twitter, read your blog, etc. But why all the negative energy upon your departure from BP? Your general point — that stat heads are putting snark ahead of substance at their own peril — is a good one that unfortunately gets lost because of how angry this post reads.

  8. Eric
    10/11 2010

    Oh, the irony of the “holier than thou snark” line in this article.

  9. Will Carroll
    10/11 2010

    A lot of this is pent up things from the last couple years that I couldn’t say while working at a place seen as a stathead site. But if you think this is a strawman, it’s not hard to put a little meat on the bones. I just chose not to name names, like those movies where they say “names changed to protect the individuals.”

    And if you think I’m discrediting statistical analysis, you didn’t read it well (or I didn’t write it well – entirely possible.) I’m attacking the tone.

  10. Chaz
    10/11 2010

    Perhaps if you wanted to be more constructive, you might have named names of statheads who are able to tell a story and laud them for their efforts. By not offering the counterexample, your piece ends up tarring all stathead writers with the same brush, which surely you didn’t want to do.

  11. Yanks Fan
    10/11 2010

    it was mainly the sentences after “stathead orthodoxy” that implied (to me) that you were discrediting the results of the analysis. as in, they don’t even agree amongst themselves and people will always be popping up with new formulas, so the results are far from reliable. if that’s not how it was intended, then i misunderstood. the fact is there is a great deal that IS agreed upon in a basic sense. arguments about the details between people just trying to get it right should not be used to indict the whole field.

  12. Anonymous
    10/11 2010

    Will,
    This is horribly disappointing to read coming from you. It sounds like your argument is that the stats movement is a failure because its practitioners don’t make as much money as professional baseball stars and they won’t have the opportunity to be professional broadcasters. If you didn’t intend to discredit statistical analysis, you should not have written “It might surprise you to know Ryan Howard doesn’t know his VORP”, because that can only be followed by accusing someone of living in his/her mother’s basement.

  13. Steve
    10/11 2010

    Why would Ryan Howard need to know what his VORP is? Will that make him better at hitting a slider?

  14. Dann
    10/11 2010

    I think calling this a straw-man argument is missing the point. I think trying to tie this to Will/BPro is also off target, because he’s been carrying this torch since long before he left.

    “they never figured out the right formula for capturing anyone’s attention. I’m sure some out there – a small, rounding-error kind of niche – like their baseball on an 8-bit platter but most are captured by stories. The statheads never had one.”

    This isn’t about statheads not enjoying the “magic” of the game. Of course they do, why else would they pour themselves into the sabermetrics work?

    This is about the sabermetric community not having their Joe Morgan (in terms of presence, not competence). Neyer and BPro, as much as they may be story-minded, are behind paywalls. I have abandoned ESPN TV aside from some actual live sports, but I don’t think Neyer has meaningful regular on-screen time. Sheehan’s (excellent) newsletter might be an early step on this path (related or not, he did end up doing a short stint on MLB Network’s Fantasy 411 filling in), but it has less than 10k subscribers. Matthew Berry has gotten to where he is with a combination of schtick and mediocre fantasy advice (pre-emptive: that’s how he describes himself)

    Without that person (hopefully multiple people), the slow creep of sabermetrics into traditional baseball coverage is going to remain just that. Jon Miller brings up OPS, Joe Morgan barely accepts it, and begrudgingly at that. And OPS is probably the best stat to get a foot in the door: Easy to calculate, easy to explain, and no subjectivity (unlike WAR, for example).

    I think Peter Gammons might be as close as it gets to this person, but he is SERIOUSLY outgunned on MLB Network (regardless of how much respect he gets) by ex-players who scoff at advanced stats.

    The other major problem is that the pool of people who COULD represent sabermetrics cleanly and clearly to a wide audience and the pool of people who WANT TO do it is small. The “want to” pool might be pretty large, but it’s the “could” filter that’s the problem.

    Lastly (I think. I tend to ramble), baseball has a deeply rooted resistance to change. How long did it take for teams to add a stathead (or more than one) to the front office? How quickly did they get dismissed or stuck in a closet when it didn’t show quick and obvious results? How much credit do they get when it DOES pay off? I can’t think of anyone other than Beane and Epstein off the top of my head, and Beane and Moneyball are *still* ridiculed as nonsense by a lot of the old guard (Morgan, Larry Bowa…).

    It’s going to take a combination of the old guard phasing out and the next ‘generation’ following with a more open mind for sabermetrics AND a growth in the number of statheads interested / able to work on TV, while bringing saber in slowly and simply. I don’t see that combination happening in the near future, which is kind of a bummer.

  15. Dave
    10/11 2010

    Baseball has always been a sport of statistics, Will. That’s what makes it the breeding ground for the “stathead” you describe. Name a time when BA, HR, RBI wasn’t sprawled across the bottom of the screen. Just because statheads like what they feel are better stats doesn’t mean stats aren’t an integral and important part of the game to a casual fan too. Howard may not know his VORP, but I’m sure he knows how many homers and RBI’s he has (though I wouldn’t be surprised if Halladay didn’t know most of his). As a big fan of yours, I’m happy for you moving on, as I’m not nearly as big a fan of B-Pro, but I don’t think you should let the personalities there get in the way of how statistical analysis is becoming more and more mainstream. Watch any broadcast from now, and one from ten years past and you’ll see that more advanced statistics creep into the broadcast on a nightly basis. As front offices put more and more money into following these stats, they’re also going to want their fans to be educated on them and why they make their decisions so that the fan feels closer to the process and can support it. Just give the movement time and maybe we’ll start seeing WAR listed under the players names along with HR, RBI, and AVG.

    As for the stathead, I’m sure 99.9% of them enjoy the stories too, statistically speaking of course.

    And as always, keep up the good, hard work, and enjoy your new position.

  16. Will Carroll
    10/11 2010

    Dann – yes, you said it better than I did.

    Dave – agree. Like I said, I don’t reject the facts, I reject the tone. I hope someone comes along that can say these things in a way that builds the audience.

  17. Yanks Fan
    10/11 2010

    will,

    would you at least agree that the current crop of “mainstream” baseball writers don’t make it easy? so many dismiss sabermetrics out of hand because they disagree with it fundamentally, the entire idea that baseball can be better (though not completely) understood through statistical analysis. you can tell by so many of the criticisms that they haven’t even taken the time to try to understand the things they dismiss. seems clear to me why this is. most of them are writers by trade. they look for the stories, the narratives, etc. that’s great and it serves a purpose. but is it too much to ask for them to actually build narratives around things that are legitimate and based in fact? seems like they often start with the story they want and cherry pick (or invent) ideas that support it.

    i mean what other field are you allowed to write about while being so ignorant of so much of the study being done in that area. they don’t need to accept it, but isn’t it their responsibility to at least look into it and criticize it fairly?

  18. Phil
    10/11 2010

    “i mean what other field are you allowed to write about while being so ignorant of so much of the study being done in that area. they don’t need to accept it, but isn’t it their responsibility to at least look into it and criticize it fairly?”

    Climate change and its deniers.

  19. Josh
    10/11 2010

    As an aside, I think keyboard jihad could be an excellent name for the right kind of band. Maybe a punk group that plays Emerson, Lake and Palmer covers.

  20. robneyer
    10/11 2010

    Leaving aside the substance of Will’s column/post/jeremiad, it’s been at least two years since I’ve been “behind a pay wall”.

    It’s amazing to me, how many people don’t know I’m free to all.

  21. Collin
    10/11 2010

    Will, I understand the storytelling part and agree. I think Bill Simmons was the first one to really bring this up and he made the point rather forcefully at the MIT/Sloan gathering this past year. If there was someone who could combine the statistical knowledge with the storytelling of Simmons, we’d really have something.

    However, I think the remainder of your post misses the point. You state: “Statheads will never let a good story get in the way of a fact, a decimal place, or a holier-than-thou snark. Don’t know how to do a multivariate regression or a pivot table in Excel? Heathen.” The truth is, I think this is inaccurate for many/most statheads.

    I’ll draw upon my own experience in this regard. I began paying more attention to advanced stats around 2003 when a friend of mine referred me to some of the sites on the subject. I’m someone with a liberal arts background who is currently an attorney, so the advanced calculations are a bit beyond me. However, I could see that these stats could be part of the story, could advance the story, could add some context to following baseball.

    I have a number of friends who have embraced the “stathead” movement, and I’d say that the majority of them are like me – people who don’t have advanced statistical backgrounds but who like getting the “whole picture.” They’re also people who can appreciate a good story aside from the statistical implications.

    No doubt there are zealots out there, just like there are anti-stat zealots. However I don’t think they’re quite as prevalent as you claim, especially as compared to the number of “moderates.”

  22. Will Carroll
    10/11 2010

    As with most debates in our country, the loudest voices are at the extremes, Collin.

    I like Rob’s use of the word “jeremiad.” I’m likely going to be preaching to dust with this anyway.

  23. Collin
    10/11 2010

    Will – thanks for the response. You also responded to my Twitter post earlier and I appreciate it.

    I agree that the loudest voices are at the extremes, and I think that’s why it’s even more important to recognize where the “true majority” lies as to certain topics. As you said on Twitter, we disagree on the topic, but I think it’s interesting to hear different sides of the story.

  24. ADF
    10/11 2010

    @Steve: “Hardly a straw-man when three (as of now) show up to prove the point.”

    You don’t get it at all. The straw man is not “people who like stats and will argue for them,” it’s “people who have a problem with Will Carroll enjoying the mystique of baseball and think he’s wrong to do so.” Carroll’s point about “statheads not agreeing amongst themselves” is patently absurd and it’s equal to saying “I hate the tone of science because not all scientists agree and sometimes consensus changes.”

    If Will Carroll’s point was “I don’t like that some statheads are rude and arrogant,” he should have written an article to that effect, instead of spewing populist drivel like “they fight their keyboard jihad, barking that the old men don’t take the time to understand.” I’m not even going to mention the irony here either.

  25. Or
    10/11 2010

    This is why I was irritated by that Simpsons episode
    There’s this incomprehensible myth that statheads don’t enjoy the game. What the hell is that about? If we didn’t enjoy it, why would we spend all this time doing the research? 99.9% of us don’t do this for profit. We do it because we love the game and love the pursuit of knowledge.
    I’d like for someone, just once, to admit that this whole meme is perpetrated by people who are simply unwilling to accept advanced analytics. They create this whole illusion that we’re passionless automatons to cover up their own shortcomings.

  26. Jon Weisman
    10/11 2010

    I’m not sure where to begin with this. But is this piece arguing that a) there are only two kinds of baseball writers, stathead and non-stathead and b) Only the latter knows how to write?

    I mean, you do realize that if you choose to define the world that way, Joe Posnanski is in the stathead camp, right? And he’s only the greatest print baseball storyteller of our generation.

    As for myself, I’ll never win any awards, in writing much less in math, but I’m pro-stathead, and I’ll put my storytelling appreciation against many in the so-called non-stathead camp.

    In truth, there is a whole spectrum of styles of writing and attitude toward stats, with enough mixing and diversity to render a lot of what Will argues irrelevant.

    “Statheads will never let a good story get in the way of a fact, a decimal place, or a holier-than-thou snark.” People are still actually making these generalizations? It’s rather remarkable.

  27. Collin
    10/11 2010

    Jon – you made my point in a much clearer manner. Thank you.

    Thinking about it a bit more, Will, I guess this post really surprises me. I enjoyed your articles at BP, but it seems like you never really understood your audience. That’s surprising and a little disappointing.

  28. JMK
    10/11 2010

    Bravo Will!

  29. LP
    10/11 2010

    This is hilarious, Bill. Good satire.

  30. Jack
    10/11 2010

    Will, stick to what you’re good at: awkwardly flirting with women who are ridiculously out of your league over the internet and pretending to be a doctor.

  31. mindahaas.net » Blog Archive » Re: Will Carroll and stat geeks
    10/11 2010

    [...] to make this image happen. Because I am a robot.I knew I wanted to respond to Will Carroll’s grumpy tirade against number-crunching baseball geeks. But first, I had to watch [...]

  32. garik16
    10/11 2010

    Will, I understand where you’re coming from. But I think you’re missing a crucial point: There are not one, but TWO different reasons why people write about sabermetrics.

    The First is this: Sabermetrics and Baseball Research is about obtaining more knowledge about the game. When we tinker with a statistic or debate about the merits of different types of WAR or fielding metrics, it’s so that we can truly understand the game better. Writing about our own thoughts and findings provokes responses which helps us understand the game better ourselves.

    The Second is to educate others as to what really goes on in baseball. This is the one that I think you are fixated on. The thought is what’s important is that teaching others about the game and getting them accept certain newer stats as better and more representative of what’s going on in the game.

    Now the second reason is a good one, and of course has a place if only for being a good entry point for new people into the field of sabermetric research. But It’s never really been the focus of the modern sabermetric movement; that’s always been LEARNING more about the game. And you need to understand that. When people seize upon the conflicting WARs as a failure of sabermetrics to be accessible, they ignore the fact that the different WARs is the result of a conflict within the discipline in which both sides are somewhat correct and that the dialogue between the two helps us strive to correct both of them.

    There is definitely a need for those who can tell stories to make the stats more accessible and more known. But that isn’t sole (or perhaps even main) purpose for sabermetric research….that purpose is for US to learn more.

    So yeah, when people tinker with decimal places, or come up with competing advanced pitcher statistics (FIP, xFIP, SIERA, for example) or fielding metrics, the point is for us to LEARN more about the game and try to explain what happens on the field more perfectly. Storytelling has a place…but it’s not the heart of sabermetrics…that’s learning as much as we can about the game as we can. Each bit of research adds to that, even if it seems to be only splitting hairs over a decimal place.

  33. Ernie
    10/11 2010

    It happens that from time to time everyone who puts any hard fought effort into their writing discovers it can turn around and giving them a swift kick in the pants. Unfortunately Will, this is just one of those times. Oh well. I’m looking forward to your next story line while joyfully watching the Phillies and Giants duke it out.

  34. The 1946 World Series Pitcher Workload Tex Hughson
    10/11 2010

    [...] not unfold they way it did in 1946 today, and that makes for a better game. I read something like this “stathead get” and I just shake my head. We all love baseball, we all love watching baseball too. But we’re [...]

  35. Mathew Brown
    10/11 2010

    Several time throughout the read I just wanted to scream “JOE POSNANSKI!” I’m glad some commentors beat me to it. Unless Joe is trapped under something heavy, he’s number 1, 2, and 3 on the list of writers/personalities that will get his story out while appreciating the value of OPS, and without dumbing it down for the more traditional (read: old) fan who doesn’t quite get the new math yet.

  36. Mike Ketchen
    10/11 2010

    Will,

    I think I see where you were aiming this, but I feel you slightly missed the mark. I always look forward to reading your stuff and I love when you phone in fantasy shows for injury updates (Rotowire and 98.5 the sports hub). With that said I love baseball first and Stats (Fangraphs, THT, Baseball Analysts, etc.) a close second. I do not see how this advances anything or any cause. Maybe, you are angry, maybe you feel slighted? But as a simple fan of yours I felt disgusted reading this.

    All the best going forward.

  37. Jamie
    10/11 2010

    “Statheads will never let a good story get in the way of a fact, a decimal place, or a holier-than-thou snark.”

    I find it perfect that this line is right after your anecdote about Schilling. Well done not actually correcting the paragraph until the end of the article. Wouldn’t want facts* (*error in memory) getting in the way of a good story. Being left out of a book tells a better story than column, doesn’t it?

    Hey, Jamie Moyer doesn’t understand BABIP so F U nerds that do. Phillies have a good baseball team so you p*ssies should just go back to your mother’s basement and stop reading all that crap put out there by Joe Posnanski, Rob Neyer, Jon Weisman, et al. cause they sure as hell can’t tell a story.

  38. Nate
    10/11 2010

    It really all boils down to one’s beliefs regarding two subjects: Clutch Hitting and Pitching to the Score.

    Beyond that I think what is bothering Will (aside from any unknown personal conflicts) is that a fair number of stats guys conflate the concepts of “what might happen” with “what might have happened”. The former is highly useful for GMs constructing baseball teams and fantasy players. The latter is a poor way of reflecting on past games compared with “what did happen”.

    Now, there’s a lot of value and debate about divvying out individual responsibility of “what did happen ” to the team, but trying to use sabermetrics to divine “what might have happened” is bad.

  39. Chris W
    10/11 2010

    Obviously you’ve never read any of Bill James’s books, all of which are rich in baseball history and tradition. Good for you for making asinine assumptions though! I guess that really was the point of the piece–never let facts get in the way of a good rant signifiying nothing.

  40. Ett slag för Eastbound and down | Mina dagliga bestyr
    10/11 2010

    [...] Press Coverage – The Geek Shall Inherit … (On Baseball, Bill James … [...]

  41. Hawerchuk
    10/11 2010

    “Statheads will never let a good story get in the way of a fact, a decimal place, or a holier-than-thou snark.”

    Will – Imagine that some “stathead” became a major league general manager and intentionally punted his first and second round draft picks for several seasons, claimed that players over 35 were undervalued, posted five straight losing seasons and called his critics the “lunatic fringe.”

    Can you imagine anyone doing that?

    Because that’s what Brian Sabean did, and he kept his job through it all. The behavior standards are quite different, apparently, for insiders as opposed to outsiders.

  42. Jacob
    10/11 2010

    I agree wholeheartedly, Will. The problem is not that sabermatricians, “statheads” if you will, don’t enjoy the game. The problem is they seem (re: 98% of Joe Sheehan Tweets/Neyer’s columns, and I love Neyer) to filled with a bitterness/anger/abject dismissive “snarkiness” towards anyone that enjoys the game without the knowledge of advanced stats. Why is it wrong for my grandpa to believe Ernie Banks was one of the best hitters he ever saw and enjoy that memory? Staheads believe there’s a CORRECT way to enjoy the game, and that’s the problem. Posnanski is the best out there at combining the two because he’s able to enjoy the game, relate his enjoyment of the game, utilize the advanced stats, and still understand that one can understand and appreciate the game without those same stats.

  43. F. Johnson
    10/11 2010

    I’m not at all surprised Ryan Howard doesn’t know his VORP, and there are undoubtedly more important things for him to know to perform his role. However, general managers and agents undoubtedly do and should know his VORP in order to fulfill their roles. The “stathead” in me likes looking at baseball from a GM’s perspective. The “non-stathead” in me likes watching a baseball game from a player’s perspective. Both perspectives add to my enjoyment of baseball.

  44. Blake Gray
    10/11 2010

    Will: Thanks for writing this, it’s exactly how I feel. I read you for several years at BP, but let my subscription lapse this year because of the mindset that has taken over that site. The one word I’d use is “condescending.” Much of the site now reads like this: “Sure, Pitcher X is 15-10 with a 3.10 ERA, but his xFIP and SIERA aren’t very good so he’s really not any good at all. And you’re uneducated for suggesting that he is.”

    Stats like SIERA, touted as the biggest thing, are an attempt to redefine reality: Not what actually happened, but what could have happened under normalized conditions at a neutral park with average fielders. It’s as if fans of Star Trek — the original version, with a sparkling clean spaceship that goes to planets where the residents all have beautiful humanoid women sexually compatible with Captain Kirk — created their idea form of baseball. Not far off, I think.

  45. William
    10/11 2010

    I definitely agree with Will that too many in the “sabremetric community” seem more concerned about shouting down others than promoting their own ideas, but a lot of that is probably in response to the dismissive “mother’s basement” putdown from the mainstream.

    Where I think Will is 100% incorrect is in his presentation of the divide. After all, why does anyone have to choose sides? I enjoy advanced statistics, but never let them get in the way of a good story. Embracing one doesn’t require letting go of another. Instead of acknowledging this, it seems as if Will has adopted the same extreme “I know better” viewpoint he is criticizing.

    I can imagine how isolated Will must have felt at BP as the site’s focus narrowed over the years (so much so, I never visit it anymore), but he remedied that by leaving. Making generalizations beyond BP seems counterproductive.

    Finally, statistics have always been an integral part of baseball. In fact, they have been the building blocks of its best stories. Does it really matter if those statistics change? The job of statistics is to provide a meaningful accounting of what happens on the field. The job of a story is to make us feel like we were there. I enjoy both.

  46. Linus
    10/11 2010

    As pointed out already, the two biggest foils to Will’s criticism are JPoznaski and Rob Neyer, when it comes to writers who like to tell stories.

    When it comes to snark, that is harder to say, though i personally find both of the above writers deal in much less snark, than say Keith Law (who probably really isn’t in the statheads camp that much, he uses it for sure, but really does value eyes, and scouting just as much.)

    But let’s be clear. Snark or being critical of “mainstream” or other writers or other accepted points of view, IS an attention grabber. I would probably argue that one reason sabermetrics got more popular is because of the snark they employ. Fire Joe Morgan being one such example. One could argue that they dislike the tone, but you can’t really say it doesn’t do a good job of sparking attention. There is nothing more interesting in sports than causing arguments. Before Sabremetrics got as popular, the arguments were focused on either team loyalty, or even more on concepts like “heart” vs “pressure” etc. But arguing is the heart of sports, and civility has never been a huge part of sports enjoyment.

    And to level the playing field, ex-players or those who reject sabermetrics are just as snarking, and just as “holier than thou” as anyone else. They have just been doing for longer and likely their snark doesn’t play as well to the younger audience as they don’t have the “rebel” feel to it. Ironically, as sabermetrics gets more popular, the tables are turning and suddenly it is the geeks in the basement that people are calling bullies.

    I think the state of sportswriting, and the tone they create are just fine. People will continue to write, people will love to argue, and players will continue to try and figure out if any such information will help them play.

    To be perfectly honest, this article reads much more as an objection to personal differences between writers, and that is unfortunate. Personally, I would pay money to sit and drink beers with Rob Neyer, Keith Law, will sheehan, Joe Poz, Bill James, Joe Morgan, Curt Schilling, Theo Epstein and Kenny Williams.

  47. Ben
    10/11 2010

    Will if you were a better writer maybe you’d still be at BP

  48. Thursday Links (14 Oct 10) – Ducksnorts
    10/11 2010

    [...] The Geek Shall Inherit … (On Baseball, Bill James, Storytelling & The Simpsons) (Press Coverage). Will Carroll rants… about something. From the article: “There’s no ’stathead orthodoxy.’ They can’t agree enough amongst themselves to get something like park factors or a signature stat right. Even if they did, someone new would pop up with an extra pi or something.” I think this is intended as criticism, but for my money, lack of orthodoxy is part of what makes sabermetrics so appealing. In fact, if anything, there is too much orthodoxy nowadays. Sabermetrics is more about attempting to uncover the truth than subscribing to any particular dogma. Humans have plenty of other ways to do that already. [h/t BBTF] [...]

  49. howard
    10/11 2010

    Why do you care how others view or analyze the game?

  50. Lee Panas
    10/11 2010

    I don’t think snarkiness is the problem. James is about as snarky as you can get and he’s been the most successful communicator of sabermetrics. I think snarkiness sells just fine. The problem is that writing about sabermetrics without dumbing down the message is a difficult thing to do. There needs to be a balance between rigor and clarity. There are a few writers like Joe Posnanski and Rob Neyer who do a very good job of communicating statistics to larger audiences without watering it down, but many struggle with it.

    I don’t think I’d want to see the hardcore statheads writing for a more mainstream audience. I’d rather they concentrate on getting the stats right. I think the statheads need to work together with more talented writers to get the point across to a broader audience. Even then, I really wouldn’t want to see the audience get too big. I fear if sabermetrics gets too mainstream or if too much of a “story” is told, it will get too dumbed down too much be useful.

    Lee

  51. Jose
    10/11 2010

    I’d also not be surprised to know that Tim Lincecum doesn’t know how many Ks he has, or Josh Hamilton doesn’t know his batting average. I don’t think a lot of players know exactly how well/poorly they are doing from a statistical perspective. Approaching a milestone? Yea, then sure, I’d expect A-Rod to know he’s coming up on 600. But because he follows every day, but because he reminds himself every now and then.

    I wouldn’t discredit the “stats movement” with this kind of blanket post. Not while you have decision makers in baseball still running their organizations based on VORPs and WHIPs and ERA+s. It’s not baseball fault, or statistical analysts fault, if broadcasters are still to naive/entrenched to take these things in to account. It just takes time, and baseball is full of more “purists” than any other sport. So you can assume they’ll be the slowest to catch up.

    For now, I’d never call the stats movement “failed”, I’d just say statisticians are a step ahead of the game.

    The one thing I do agree with, though, is that it won’t be stats that win, or purists that win, or scouts that win. It will be those that look at players, apply stats, and make decisions from as many factors as are available, that win.

  52. Adam Simon
    10/11 2010

    Hey, I’ve read the last 2 copies of Schandler’s Forecaster…mainly taking intrest in the articles rather than the “forecasting”. I’ve been looking into Baseeball Prospectus and saw that the book was over 600 pages long, while the Forecaster is only 400something pages. What’s in Baseball Prospectus that isn’t in the Forecaster??
    Also, I play in a deep keeper league with a 15 player minor league system…what book or periodical do you consider most useful to meet my needs?