The back-and-forth between those who love baseball statistics and those who do not has been going on for decades, but it crystallized with Bob Ryan’s column for The Boston Globe on Sunday, a piece from a highly respected writer in a city that is mad about the sport and is home of the defending world champions — a team whose success has a lot to do with application of statistics by the front office.
The headline, “Do baseball fans care about new breed of stats?” asks for answers, so, here, line by line (and with a distinct tip of the cap to the great work once done at Fire Joe Morgan), is an answer to Ryan’s question.
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I’ve got baseball on the brain today.
Fantastic! This may have to do with the fact that the Patriots are in the off-season, the Celtics did not make the playoffs, and the Bruins just got eliminated, but let’s think about summer. It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame. Let’s play two!
Baseball is awash in data. Aside from people who make a living out of disseminating and analyzing said data, who else pays attention? Just asking.
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Baseball is awash in data, for sure. It has been for a long time. As a child, I loved the backs of baseball cards as much as I loved the fronts. Batting averages were a good way to learn long division and memorize percentages. Fantasy baseball is an entire industry based on making a game out of the data of baseball, and among the millions who play, very few actually make a living out of disseminating and analyzing said data. So, lots of people.
Anyone who wants to know has a means to know. And I mean everything. What happens on the field in major league baseball has been broken down into the most infinitesimal detail. Who does what on which counts. Where every batted ball has gone, and if it’s airborne, whether it can be categorized as a fly ball, line drive, or something in between. Though not yet as well-defined as the data concerning offense and pitching, defensive analysis is becoming increasingly sophisticated, although some of the defensive judgments are just that — judgments. Should so-and-so have caught that ball? Well, I don’t know. Was the wind blowing at that moment? Was it an opposite-field hit with the ball spinning away from the outfielder? That’s a judgment, isn’t it? And how can a judgment be incorporated fairly into creating a statistic?
Baseball’s highly compartmentalized action lends itself easily to breakdowns of every element of the game, but the information explosion is not a phenomenon unique to the diamond. Several Kentucky media outlets commissioned a poll of their state whose results were released over the weekend: Rand Paul has a four-point lead over Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical 2016 Presidential race. Mitt Romney carried Kentucky by 22 points in 2012. Polling the Bluegrass State more than two years in advance of an election is only useful to people who want data for data’s sake.
As for the nature of defensive statistics being judgments, errors are the judgment of official scorers, and can be appealed. This was big news in Boston last week, in fact. Anyway, technology soon will allow the wind speed, spin of the ball, and an outfielder’s reaction time to be tracked together, allowing for a better assessment of whether a particular fly ball should have been caught. The goal of everyone involved with statistics is to reduce subjectivity.
All the new data is of surpassing interest to the brainiacs in baseball front offices and dugouts, and pretty much woe to the modern skipper who scoffs at the metrics. I think it’s safer to say the Danny Ozarks are gone. The highest compliment that could be paid to someone in Ye Olden Days was that he was a “good baseball man.” This meant that he had a knowledge of situations and perhaps little tell-tale things about players that could be brought into the discussion. When someone said that so-and-so was a “good baseball man,” the rest of us would nod our heads. We kinda knew what was meant.
Yes, woe to the modern skipper who scoffs at the metrics. A person who makes decisions should do so with the influence of all the best information at his or her disposal to influence that decision. In what other area of life would this even be a question? If you’re driving to the emergency room, do you want to have a GPS with traffic information in the car to give you the fastest route, or do you want to sit in a traffic jam? You also still want a good driver, and that’s where the “good baseball men” come in.
A manager with a choice of two pinch-hitters with good career numbers against a particular relief pitcher still has to make a choice, and that choice will be influenced by human factors such as how the manager feels his players have been swinging the bat lately, how well they deal with pressure, what kind of ball he needs to hit, or just a hunch. When all is said and done, each at-bat has something like a 28-35 percent chance of resulting in the batter reaching base. It is the manager’s job to maximize or minimize those chances with his tactical decisions, and small pieces of statistical information, combined with human information, can help nudge those percentages in the desired direction.
Earl Weaver discusses baseball strategy. (AP Photo)
You don’t hear that so much anymore. Being a good baseball man nowadays means a willingness to embrace the new numbers. We have come a long way since Dr. Charles Steinberg was preparing those little index cards for Earl Weaver, the ones that told him Lee May was 2 for 21 against this guy or that guy. No, I’m not making that up. That was the first step in Dr. Charles Steinberg, a dentist who loved baseball, becoming Charles Steinberg, front office man. Anyway, those little index cards gave Earl Weaver an edge.
Being a good baseball man nowadays means using every possible tool at one’s disposal to win, as it always has. Earl Weaver was a good baseball man. He embraced those index cards. Charles Steinberg loved baseball so much, he prepared those index cards. There should not be a disconnect between this and modern technology, but it is presented as such.
Where I’m going with all this is that I’m wondering if all this, to borrow a phrase, Inside Baseball is just, well, Inside Baseball, of interest to the working baseball people and to the new breed of baseball writers and analysts who are perfectly comfortable micromanaging every game they encounter. I read some of these people, and, yes, I learn. But I feel like I have to follow them because I don’t want to be perceived as a baseball Luddite.
If all of this Inside Baseball was of interest only to working baseball people, writers, and analysts, Baseball Prospectus and Fangraphs would go out of business in a hurry. As for not wanting to be perceived as a baseball Luddite, this column is going to undermine that desire.
My question is, does the average person care? Is the average fan still content with batting average, runs batted in, and earned run average being the Holy Trinity of baseball stats, even though the modern Smart Guys have discredited all three? Oh, and — how could I forget? — wins. Speak not to the modern baseball analysts about a pitcher’s wins, those being the most circumstantial of pitching developments, at least in their eyes.
Back up a second here. Batting average, runs batted in, and earned run average are the Holy Trinity? Here are the most famous numbers in baseball: 60, 61, 70, 73, 714, 755, and 762. Those numbers immediately evoke names: Ruth, Maris, McGwire, Bonds, Ruth, Aaron, Bonds. Then there are 4,191 and 4,256, which mean Cobb and Rose, even if Ty Cobb’s hit total has been taken down to 4,189 since Pete Rose broke the record in 1985.
As for wins, they are flawed, an individual statistic dependent upon team performance, much like the RBI. That does not mean it is impossible to appreciate outstanding achievement in wins. Far from it.
Miguel Cabrera, Mike Trout (AP Photos)
I’m guessing that most fans are oblivious to all the new statistical stuff. They just want to watch and enjoy a game. They will continue to evaluate players and teams by giving everyone the Eye Test, just as their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather did. If this means they are then wallowing in some kind of statistical ignorance, then so be it. I think the average fan really didn’t understand the recent fuss over whether Miguel Cabrera was worthy of an MVP. He won the Triple Crown in 2012, didn’t he? Isn’t the Triple Crown supposed to be baseball’s crowning offensive achievement? Hadn’t we been waiting since 1967 to see another one? Of course, Miguel Cabrera was worthy of being MVP. Next question.
Baseball is an entertainment product, and the good thing about that is that fans are free to be as oblivious as they want to be about whatever they want to be. You can choose your favorite players based on how they wear their socks just as easily as you can devote yourself to a left-handed reliever who has remarkable splits against right-handed hitters.
If the Eye Test is good enough for you as a fan, and you still enjoy the game, great. If you’re someone who makes their living from baseball, you should be keen to understand the driving forces in the game, the story told by the numbers. There still will be human stories to tell, so long as the game is played by humans. Weird stuff happens outside the dictation of numbers.
Just don’t pretend that the Eye Test has been good enough for everyone, everywhere, up until a small minority began plugging away at computers a few years ago. This year marks the 60th anniversary of Branch Rickey’s article in Life magazine, “Goodby to Some Old Baseball Ideas.” The quest for more definitive information about player performance is nothing new.
As for the Cabrera debate on the Triple Crown and the MVP award, Ted Williams was the MVP of the American League twice and a two-time winner of the Triple Crown. He was MVP in 1946 and 1949, and won the Triple Crown in 1942 and 1947. The MVPs those years were Joe Gordon and Joe DiMaggio, and according to baseball-reference.com’s calculation of WAR, Williams was the American League’s best in the Triple Crown years, the MVP years, not to mention 1941 and 1951. The “Smart Guys” would have been gaga for Williams.
And didn’t he put up even better numbers last year? He should have been the MVP a second time, and he was.
I love advanced stats, and I was on board with Cabrera being the MVP over Mike Trout, because I think that the MVP is subjective, and for last year, there was no player who made you fearful when he came to town the way that Cabrera did. I also recognize why people say I’m wrong. I’m fine with that, but it’s a personal opinion about what the MVP means. If your criteria say that Cabrera was the MVP, that’s fine, and I happen to agree. What’s important is transparency in the decision-making process and a willingness to recognize that others can be right on their own criteria.
But wait. The New Breed Stat Guys were apoplectic in both 2012 and 2013. They stopped short of declaring Cabrera a fraud, but they did say he was unworthy because, after all, he was out-WARPed by Mike Trout in both seasons, 10.9-7.3 in 2012 and 8.9-7.5 last season. End of story, as Tony Soprano might say.
It really wasn’t just about WAR, but about the fact that Cabrera was a detriment to his team at third base, while Trout is a phenomenal player in all facets of the game. Again, to me, Cabrera’s bat overcame that. To others, it did not.
For those of you old-timers who don’t know, WARP (or WAR), stands for “Wins Above Replacement Player,” and it is the be-all and end-all number for the New Breed Stat Guys. As defined in Baseball Prospectus (an indispensable preseason guide even diamond Luddites can enjoy), WARP attempts to quantify “the difference between the ‘replacement level’ (derived from looking at the quality of players added to a team’s roster after the start of the season) and the league average.” You are allowed to remain skeptical about its validity in my view, but the New Breed Stat Guys swear by it.
Most people who really give serious thought to things would tell you that there is no be-all and end-all number. WAR is an important piece, yes, but the more information you have, the better off you will be to put forward an informed opinion. There is a reason those words have the same first six letters. I might find crust thickness is the leading indicator of how much I like pizza. I’m also willing to say that I would eat at Lou Malnati’s in Chicago a hundred times for delicious deep dish before I would go to Imo’s in St. Louis for cheese-flavored rubber and ketchup on cardboard again.
What ultimately matters is whether you can still appreciate a given baseball game. I wonder if the New Breed Stat Guys ever actually enjoy a game, because they are so obsessed with what the manager is or isn’t doing, based on the data in front of them. They’re often upset before the game even starts, because the lineup isn’t sufficiently stat-based. And God forbid the skipper who doesn’t properly handle what they have termed “high leverage” situations. Sometimes lost in all this is an appreciation of the aesthetics, whether it’s a great play in the hole by a shortstop or a snappy inning-ending 5-4-3 double play or a base runner cleverly taking an extra base. Or even a game-winning hit in the ninth inning if it happens to be delivered by someone other than the guy they thought should have been up at the plate. Sometimes the New Breed Stat Guys aren’t so good about accepting the vagaries of a very complex game.
At the risk of making sweeping generalizations, but based on extensive experience in the field, people who are into stats love watching baseball and get as much joy out of it as anyone. In fact, in statistically inclined circles, there is wonderment about the enjoyment levels of columnists who find endless reserves of moral outrage for performance-enhancing drugs, who chastise Yasiel Puig’s bat flips, who fixate on whatever Alex Rodriguez soap opera is unfolding, and who criticize the way that other people enjoy baseball. Where’s the fun in any of that, you might wonder.
Anyway, yes, baseball is a very complex game, and it is sometimes frustrating to chalk up the vagaries to “small sample size” or “random chance,” because life is easier when things are explainable. In Game 6 of the World Series last year, the Cardinals finally decided to walk David Ortiz, and three batters after they did, Shane Victorino, a career switch-hitter batting right-handed against a right-handed pitcher because of injury, hit a three-run double off Michael Wacha that put Boston ahead to stay. Nobody ripped Mike Matheny for his strategy, it was just accepted that the Red Sox got the performances they needed to win the World Series in thrilling fashion.
On another baseball matter, somewhat related . . .
OK.
Defensive shifting is all the rage. People do it because it works, although it’s kind of irrelevant if one of the targets hits two home runs. It will be interesting to see what the effect will be in the long run, because the obvious answer to it is for lefthanded hitters, in particular, to be more conscious of hitting the ball the other way. I realize that for most people that is far easier said than done, but perhaps sufficient training in the minor leagues can produce a new generation of hitters.
Defensive shifts are based on tendencies, not handedness of hitters. If a left-handed hitter comes through the minor leagues spraying the ball all over the field, and continues to do that in the majors, opposing teams will play him straight up. Putting one infielder on the left side of the infield against a hitter who might hit six ground balls a year that way is just smart business, and not all that different from a basketball team deciding to double-team LeBron James and leave an inferior player open. The reason that Ortiz does not bunt against the shift is that he knows he can beat it by putting a ball over the fence. If that means a few extra groundouts, so be it, but he’s not going to change the approach that made him successful, and teams will still want hitters who can hit balls over walls. Among more average hitters, spraying the ball around should be preferable to hitting it one way, and yes, that will show itself over time.
All sports involve the need for constant adjustment, but this shifting business is a massive challenge that may take years to offset.
There’s nothing to offset it other than hitters no longer having tendencies, and that’s probably not going to happen, because hardly anyone is going to focus on where they hit ground balls when the goal is to hit more line drives.
Goodness, gracious, how far ahead of his time was Lou Boudreau?
68 years, apparently.
68 years, apparently.
Right on.
IS MIKE TROUT GOOD AT BASEBALL?
Yes.
If you are better at baseball than Mike Trout, please send your resume to Andrew Friedman, Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations, Tampa Bay Rays, Tropicana Field, One Tropicana Drive, St. Petersburg, FL 33705. But don’t bother, because you are not better at baseball than Mike Trout.