Fourth in a 10-part series
Editor's Note: For many people and in many ways, today is a solemn day. And tomorrow we dive back into the most controversial and serious of topics ever covered by Batter's Box, the "White Jays" issue. So today, forgive us as we move ahead with a light-hearted, sometimes tongue-in-cheek look at that other most serious of topics: sabermetrics.
Mark Twain once wrote, "There's three kinds of lies. Them's lies, damned lies ... and statistics." And if you didn't know, ol' Sam Clemens made his name as a writer in the newspaper business. So you have to figure he knew what he was talking about, hey?
Anyway, the titanic clash between sabermetric believers -- those Rich Griffin has tagged "the Zombie-Like Cult" -- and the "baseball guys" championed by Hall of Famer Joe Morgan and his old-school cronies may never reach the pop-culture status of, say, a hit Broadway musical.
Then again ...
Set the scene: Stats Side Story, Act 1, Scene 4.
The players: Enter stage left, J.P. Ricciardi, shadowed by Bill James and their gang, The SABR-rattlers. Enter stage right, Rich Griffin, Geoff Baker and their gang, The Old School.
Cue finger-snapping and music. Ricciardi takes center stage in the continuation of his macabre dance with Griffin and the others.
JP: (Spoken) Against the Yankees, we need every Stat we got.
GRIFFIN: (Spoken) Stats don't win pennants, boy.
JP: Cut it, Griff, man. Bill J and Billy B and me started the Stats.
BAKER: (Spoken) Well, the Stats, like they ain't won nothin' in Oak-town.
JP: Who wouldn't wanna rely on the Stats?
[sings]
When you're a Jay,
You're a Jay all the way
More than just ERA
Gets you to Openin' Day
When you're a Jay,
Well, just ignore all the fans
We want ERA-plus
And OBP, man!
It's sabermetrics ... alone,
We're never disconnected!
At home, on the road
Online, stats can be projected
Won't walk? You're rejected!
CUT!!!
Okay, like we said ... it'll never be a hit musical. In fact, we've calculated the exact statistical likelihood of that happening as falling somewhere between the odds of Alfonso Soriano breaking Barry Bonds' single-season record (for walks, not home runs) and the odds that the Cubs and Red Sox will both win the World Series ... this year.
Without rehashing the entire argument, which is a litany of frustration for both schools of thought, not too long ago, Baker and Griffin each wrote what were perceived as anti-sabermetric screeds -- on the same day, no less.
Conspiracy theories ran amok, and for the most part, to be painfully introspective, the reactions of Boxers generally consisted of a minor flame war of put-downs, insults and the very occasional "We know you are, but what are we?"-type posts.
Before we get back into the fray, step back for a moment, take a deep breath and enter the Twilight Zone that is reality, should you choose to accept it. Richard Griffin, whose name is permanently etched on an award displayed in Baseball's Hall of Fame, partially made his reputation in the game as one of the first front office guys to assist a GM in arbitration hearings by developing a performance-based analytical stats system.
Richard Griffin, Statistics Guy
When Griffin headed off to Concordia to pursue his basketball dreams, his skill with and love of numbers led him to choose an appropriate major -- accounting. "I hated it," he says, "and [so I] decided to apply with the Expos as a statistics guy."
Go back and read that again. Richard Griffin, Statistics Guy. "I kept detailed stats in a unique 10-column system that I invented myself," he recalls. "Even before computer stats were in vogue. My friends called me a geek. Jim Fanning and John McHale used my stats in arbitration" he says.
And Griffin the proto-stats-geek easily remembers the system he developed in detail. "The 10 columns [in my spreadsheet] were inning-outs-runners' positions-score-count-how the ball was
hit-direction-result-runners' bases advanced-good decision or not," he says. "I kept these for all 162 games by myself, [both] live and off the radio."
But don't think for a minute that the "new Griffin," the one writing for the Star rather than battling Tim Foli and Steve Rogers in front of an arbitrator, doesn't understand or pay attention to the "new" stats that Jamesian Logic has brought to the Great Game.
"In fact," says Griffin, "the recent emphasis on OPS ... has already significantly changed my way of looking at stats, and the scrutiny of the readers with regard to stats has made me be more careful on deadline in using numbers off the top of my head."
Besides, Griffin says, sometimes a statistical cigar is not just a cigar.
"I believe that there is a difference [between] 100 Barry Bonds walks and 100 Rickey Henderson walks," he says. And who can argue? A Henderson walk, in the speedster's heydey, was usually the equivalent of a double or perhaps even a triple. A Bonds walk these days isn't a negative on its face, but it takes away the possibility -- and, frankly, the potential entertainment value -- of a "splash hit" into McCovey Cove.
Still, Griffin's linguistic portrayals of the stereotypical sabermetrician have been ... well, less than flattering. Without even getting into his comparison of Billy Beane to William Shatner at a Star Trek Convention, consider this:
They are mathematicians fascinated by the challenge in charting the daily changes of baseball statistics. Most of them play some form of fantasy ball ...
Why do baseball traditionalists dislike them so? If a roomful of sabermetricians got together to watch the sappy baseball movie, Field of Dreams, they would emerge debating the relative OPS of Moonlight Graham and Shoeless Joe Jackson. In general, they miss the point.
SABR has admittedly contributed many legitimate new ways of looking at statistics, but like most cults, one who disagrees with their beliefs is considered inferior. No tolerance.
Good Morning, Geoff. I'm Afraid I Can't Do That, Geoff
Baker is a generation younger than Griffin -- he was born the same year HAL scared the living bejeezers out of North American theatre-goers by making them think it was possible that computers might take over our lives.
Three decades later, albeit in a very different way, that scenario may be playing out for baseball writers. "The Internet leads to the type of statistical analysis that wasn't always possible as quickly beforehand," says Baker.
However, that same preponderance of facts and stats makes playing "devil's advocate" somewhat easier, says Baker -- and that's where the role of "beat writer as research scientist," discussed yesterday, pays off.
"We are constantly analyzing numbers and trying to see if the accepted wisdom of the day is wise at all," says Baker. Bluntly, he continues, "Most of the time, it isn't. As a paper, it's our job to spot these trends and point them out before our competitors do, [while] at the same time allowing for enough of a sample size for the stats to mean anything."
One part of that analysis is provided by the sabermetric approach, Baker admits. "We're learning more about sabermetrics every day," he says, "and I find it a very fascinating way to reconsider certain accepted truths about baseball."
In fact, he says, "I have no problem with what Ricciardi has done with the offence -- boring as it may be to see a multitude of walks at times -- because it is succeeding. My criticism [has been] about the Jays modeling themselves after the Oakland A's, a team that stats show to be winning not because of sabermetrics and a Moneyball offence but because of three Cy Young contending pitchers."
Of course, with Roger Clemens, Esteban Loiaza and Roy Halladay in Toronto ... oh, never mind.
"I have no doubt the Jays would win the AL East with Roy Halladay, Barry Zito and Tim Hudson in the rotation," says Baker. "Just like Arizona won the World Series with Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson. The Jays have yet to explain to anyone how they plan to go about landing their own Cy Young contenders beyond Halladay."
Until that happens, he says, "I remain highly skeptical about whether they can succeed the way Billy Beane has unless [the team] spends more money on the mound. So far, they haven't come close to the A's in the standings, despite a much better offence."
Cue the big finale: Chorus rendition of "Hey, Officer Epstein" and "I Feel Patient" ending with Ricciardi's epic solo, "Tonight, Tonight (We're Gonna Win Tonight)" ...
Next: White Jays Revisited
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20030911025215999