Agreed. If you're just skimming here, take the time to go read the article. You'll be a better baseball fan for it.

Enjoyed the back-of-the-hand to the insupportably pompous little Joe.

That Griffin and Baker are the SABRphobes singled out in Welch's fine piece, suggests that other major league cities aren't as "
well-served" as we are here in TO. Is that so? Or are there Crush Limbaughs in Texas? New York?

I suppose it was beyond the scope of the article, but Welch doesn't really address the many legitimate criticisms leveled at Lewis's book. Some of these are: accepting Beane and DePodesta's pronouncements uncritically (e.g. high schoolers versus college players); or the exaggeration of the A's drafting approach (tools-based scouting abandonded in its entirety for performance scoutings).

Much of Ringolsby's criticism hits the mark: Lewis' work does heavily overlap with fiction writing (if the denials of many passages by Beane and Co. are to be believed), and he doesn't come across as at all knowledgeable about the nuts and bolts of baseball.

The notion that the A's have given up on the notion of OBP is absurd. True they brought in Chris Singleton (which didn't exactly work out well), but they also acquired Durazo and extended Hatteberg, two players whose OBP consitutes most of ther value as baseball players. The writer claims that they "let Jason Giambi go". In that case, they've also "let Miguel Tejada go", even though comparatively little of his value is contained in his OBP. They lost these players (I'm asssuming Tejada will sign with another club) because they couldn't afford them.

It is true that the strength of the team is now pitching and defence, but I'll bet they are looking for ways to acquire high-OBP players as we speak. There isn't much they can do to improve their pitching and defence, so the future success of the A's lies in improving their offence (which was average, but not below average in 2003).

Thanks to the internet I've been able to read quite a few baseball writers in recent years. There are a number of clueless writers around baseball, but I'd say we see more buffoonery in Toronto than in most cities. Griffin and Baker are the worst offenders, but Bob Elliott has been prone to saying silly things of late, and guys like Mike Ulmer, Bill Lankhof and Steve Simmons can never be taken very seriously when they do choose to write about baseball.

If I were to guess, I'd say that nearly half of the baseball writers in Toronto could be called "SABR-phobes."

Meanwhile, Damien Cox, of all people, has become something of a Moneyball convert. I have seldom laughed more delightedly than when listening to him trying to sell McCown on the idea of DIPS.

Matthew - are you serious? Cox is the Richard Griffin of the hockey world, except that I actually enjoy what he writes despite his twitchy hatred for the Leafs.
Although, I've been waiting for the Moneyball revolution to hit the hockey world - certainly a team like the Penguins could benefit from a Billy Beane...

Matthew - are you serious? Cox is the Richard Griffin of the hockey world, except that I actually enjoy what he writes despite his twitchy hatred for the Leafs.

I think Cox does a much better job of mingling reason with bitterness than does Griffin.

Griffin makes blatant, indefensible comments (eg. re: Jackie Robinson) whereas Cox interjects statistics and anecdotes to support his views.

Griffin is a raging moron; I think it's unfair to call Cox the Richard Griffin of the hockey world. I mean, he seems to hold his own on Prime Time Sports on The Fan every night. Could you imagine Griffin carrying on a conversation with Bob McCown?

(I am both a Jays fan and Leafs fan).

Dear Sun Media Empire,

cc: Rogers Cable

Please note the hoards of wannabe stat geeks. Just as reading the stock markets listings makes a reader feel S M R T and intellectually satisfied, thinking that your part of a baseball stat geek secret society has the same effect.

Why don’t you dumb idiots do a Sunday page explaining this alternative view of baseball? Better yet, hire a columnist who represents this POV. Then, you could have a Don Cherry - Don Maclean like exchange.... a tête-à-tête so-to-speak. The possibilities are endless. For example, do a he-said-she said analysis of every trade or signing. Do a 5 part series assessing the OF, INF, SP, RP and C of the team as the season progresses from the 2 points of view. Do an assessment of each team in the A.L. East, or maybe all the divisions. As the season progresses, the opportunity to see which of the schools of thought was correct can be offered. Why do think football predictions are so popular? Somebody has to eat some crow. And don’t forget about the post season preview.

Due to it’s statistical basis and it’s ability to be broken down into individual players that “match up” against each other, baseball is the best sport IMHO. There are so many interesting ways to approach it. This is how to make baseball “hip” and “trendy”. Don’t try to make baseball into basketball. Explain why baseball is better, and make basketball try to be baseball. Baseball is the game of business. The conversion of individual ex-post data into ex-ante predictive data is similar to gambling. No other sport offers this sort of capability in the game itself....maybe football, but not to the same degree (the more players involved, the more "noise" and the more random luck there is.)

Negative kudoos to the Sun for continuing only offer one side of the story, with that side being poorly done at that.

"Better yet, hire a columnist who represents this POV.

I am available for this job.

Fine ideas all, Darth, but spell-checking is a good way to strengthen written argument. I am sure you meant to describe a great many geeks using "hordes" rather than "hoards".

I believe Steve Simmmons is the most underrated moron in the TO media. My favourite this past summer was when he wrote it was odd that the slow Carlos Delgado had scored more runs than the fleet Vernon Wells. You can look it up.

Hey i don't want the job, but I want to read the content... SO BACK OFF. This is a Blog. Only loosers spell cheque... only only bigger loosers point out gramatical errors of other posts. Gheesh.

http://economics.about.com
I date a girl who was looser once. Good times.

Mike

http://economics.about.com
Errr.. dated.

Proofreading *is* for losers. :)

Mike

Sadly, I had managed to avoid Griff for about 2 monthes until I grabbed a Star to read over a hot bowl of Pho this afternoon. The headline almost made me gag.

They should carry a little picture of an ax over his head, with the word 'Grind' written in the background. Awful stuff. Honestly, he should be canned.

So, 20 years from now, will writers like Griff be viewed in the same light as writers who railed against black players not being up to snuff?

Darth - when you're writing e-mails to your friends, you can use whatever psychotic spelling/punctiation makes you feel rebellious. On a website populated by intelligent, educated, people, you should try to write in an intelligent, educated fashion if you want to be taken seriously.
That being said, you had a fine point, though I don't think the Toronto baseball media shows any signs of wanting an objective viewpoint to have a voice.

Plus, said Sunday BaseballBattleBots column would mean having to READ the Sun. And I flat-out refuse to even touch that cage-floor rag ...

Darth, it's not the spelling that'll trip you up, it's the expectation of the Sun to print a reasonable opposition to their bias. I don't believe that there is any such thing as objective journalism but the Sun goes beyond the call of duty when it comes to silencing descent.

Meanwhile, the Boston Red Sox, who hired Bill James and sabermetric wunderkind Voros McCracken in the off season, had a record-setting, playoff-bound offensive season using forgotten players only stat geeks could love.

Yep, nobody but stat geeks would love Manny Ramirez, Nomar Garciappara, Pedro Martinez, Trot Nixon, Johnny Damon, Derek Lowe, et al. It's hard to let that kind of comment pass. I'll give Esptein and Co. some credit for picking up Mueller and Ortiz -- while maintaining that Mueller was brought in as a backup/defensive replacement -- but let's not get carried away and say that the cadre of Red Sox superstars are "forgotten players only stat geeks would love." That's beyond hyperbole. It's flat wrong.

But your paternal lecturing about the effect that grammatical accuracy can have on argument strength is ok? All I am saying that this is a baseball blog... not a newspaper, or a research paper, or a literary classic in the making. Although I try to believe that this site is not some self-flattering mensa fantasy for 400lb computer nerds with no jobs, at times I have to wonder.

I appreciate this board.... actually a lot, but not the non-baseball related advice.

Please don't respond. This issue is dead.

sorry, that last post was for sk only.

Plus, said Sunday BaseballBattleBots column would mean having to READ the Sun. And I flat-out refuse to even touch that cage-floor rag ...

Harry, you're right and I held that point of view for the longest time but if I have the time, running by the Sun's Web site is a sure laugh. Especially the letters to the editor. It's almost a daily occurance that you'll see a reference about the Star (usually it's from the letters but even the columnists do it). Talk about an infiriority complex. One thing that I'll toss to the Sun is that they're now the only opposition to the Liberals in newsprint form...Not that it's a credible one but the Star has definately lost its willingness to take on a government with the teeth they so appropriately used on the Tories.

Yep, nobody but stat geeks would love Manny Ramirez, Nomar Garciappara, Pedro Martinez, Trot Nixon, Johnny Damon, Derek Lowe, et al. It's hard to let that kind of comment pass. I'll give Esptein and Co. some credit for picking up Mueller and Ortiz -- while maintaining that Mueller was brought in as a backup/defensive replacement -- but let's not get carried away and say that the cadre of Red Sox superstars are "forgotten players only stat geeks would love." That's beyond hyperbole. It's flat wrong.

Ok...well, you're just listing the guys who were already on the team beforehand (though Pedro and Lowe have nothing to do with the offensive juggernaut he was writing about), while his point was that after Epstein and Bill James came on, they got rid of all the overpaid/underperforming elements that they could (i.e. Rey Sanchez, Jose Offerman, Tony Clark, Daubach, Baerga) and replaced them with undervalued and efficient players (Mueller, Ortiz, Millar, Walker) who all contributed a great deal to this new record-setting offense. And as far as the Mueller situation goes, the plan was to jettison Hillenbrand from the start and insert Billy as the main man...it's just that it took a couple of months into the season for the D'Backs to become properly disenchanted with Kim.

But your paternal lecturing about the effect that grammatical accuracy can have on argument strength is ok?

See, telling a former college writing teacher not to respond to that is like telling Alfonso Soriano to take more pitches. It's theoretically possible, but ...

Honest point: yes, (lack of) grammatical accuracy negatively impacts the perceived strength of an argument, if not its actual foundational strength. But in this game, perception is argument.

There are thirty-four spelling, style and/or grammatical errors in the 22-line post #38. No, I won't point them out. My only reason for bringing it up is because whether you like it or not, there is a fair percentage of people out there who recoil at errors and think things like "bejeezers, this guy doesn't even know the difference between 'its' and 'it's' and he's calling the people on this blog 'dumb idiots'??" Why should I take him seriously?

Again, this post isn't to belabor the actual errors -- you're right, it is for some reason more acceptable to be presentationally wrong in online forums -- but to disavow the fact that it doesn't affect the argument.

I once wrote a (thank goodness unbylined) editorial for a newspaper that was, frankly, brilliant. And I got the name of the principal involved wrong ("Richard" for "Ronald"). The argument itself was completely dismissed.

So, you hit a hot button there. Go ahead, be less careful -- I think we all are -- but realize that the mistakes do matter to the argument.

And yes, I meant "post #8" not "post #38" ... thus proving my own point.

What I think is happening re: Boston, and to a lesser extent Oakland, is a form of mild self-fulfilling prophecy: stat-oriented analysts are keen to give credit for the A's and Red Sox success to sabermetrics and to those who espouse them, so they spin it any way they can to make it appear so while somewhat ignoring basic facts. Billy Beane signs Singleton and trades for Kotsay? All part of the transition from slow bashers who can't play defense to a new squadron of fleet-footed defensive wizards, with no mention of the current offensive woes nor the talented group of pitchers who, while no doubt aided by their defense, also aid that defense because of their raw talent, in the way a good wide receiver makes a quarterback that much better and vice-versa. The Red Sox score a bazillion runs? Due to players like Bill Mueller and David Ortiz, with no mention of the core of bashers already in place -- and at highly-inflated salaries.

Robert Dudek mentions above that the A's don't simply let their players walk. They leave, mainly, because the A's can't afford them (the Giambi story is more complicated than that, but I won't repeat what I've said before). Accordingly, Bill Mueller and David Ortiz and Todd Walker look awfully nice in a lineup that already features Manny Ramirez and Nomar Garciappara and Johnny Damon and Trot Nixon and Jason Varitek, who didn't leave, and, in the case of Damon and Ramirez, were acquired with millions of dollars, not shrewd scouting or understanding of "free talent" (or some sort of clairvoyance to predict Mueller's breakout). Take all those guys away, and we're not talking about a record-setting offense.

Theo Epstein is undeniably a bright person who believes in sabermetrics and all that entails. He also has an enormous budget to work with, an established core of players, and ownership wrapped up in a never-ending/do-what-it-takes-to-win duel with the Yankees. That kind of combination is tough to beat. (I can't wait to hear the "Theo is a genius" talk when he brings in A-Rod.) Rightly or wrongly, it's hard for me to consider Epstein a good or bad GM -- and whether heavy sabermetrics is indeed the best approach -- because of his financial advantage. More concrete analysis is available from the A's and Blue Jays, and, contrary to what many people say (especially about the A's), the jury is still very much out on them.

http://economics.about.com
Why do I get the feeling that if I asked you what impact the French Revolution had, you'd tell me that "it's too early to tell".

Mike

Mike, my point is that, at least with the A's, because of the influence of Mulder, Zito, and Hudson, we still can't say for sure that the A's success is due to sabermetrics or simply to good fortune in having three pitching prospects who have, to say the least, worked out. And while the Jays appear on the right track, if they stay in the 85 win range over the next four years, I don't know if we can say for sure sabermetrics is the way to go about building a team with limited financial resources. And we simply can't attribute the Red Sox success to sabermetrics, because they have unlimited financial resources. Even you must admit that.

I know for sure that, when faced with financial constraints, signing the likes of Fernando Vina is not the way to do business, but I am far too dim to know for sure what is the best way. Me thinks a balanced attack, with some good luck (!) throw in, would seem to be the solution. But I am dim, so take it from there.

Gitz:
I may be about to respond to something you did not mean to say, but here goes.
You appear to be equating 'the sabrmetric approach' with one particular philosophy of team-building, such as "get a high-OBP offense." I think the lesson of the A's overhaul is that sabrmetrics is about changing with the times and making the best of your resources. Did Beane do a good job last year? I don't know, though guys like Hatteberg and Durazo did not perform as most people thought they would. Is he doing a good job going forward? Again, it is indeed too early to tell. But if the A's system keeps churning out pitching prospects, then I think it's unfair to chalk up the Big 3 to luck.

As for the Jays, I think that a consistent 85-win team is exactly the way to go with a limited budget. Big-market teams can more easily afford wholesale rebuilding because they can swallow big salaries and sign new players to hurry the process up. A team with a $50 million dollar budget must strive to be consistently within striking distance, waiting for the stars to align - 85 wins becomes 95 sometimes (see the World Series champs, 2002 and 2003).

http://economics.about.com
Fair enough.

And we simply can't attribute the Red Sox success to sabermetrics, because they have unlimited financial resources. Even you must admit that.

Hell, I'll go further than that.

I don't think the Red Sox under Epstein have been all that successful. In 2003 they scored in additional 102 runs. But they gave up an additional 144. A pretty lousy tradeoff.

I don't think the Red Sox have "unlimited financial resources", tho. They'll probably still only end up spending about 2/3rds of what the Yankees will this year.

But it does lead me to a couple questions:

1. What will it take for us to conclude that the Ricciardi and Beane regimes have been a success?

2. If Beane isn't one of the top 5 GMs in the last decade, then who are the 5 guys above him?

I'm kind of skeptical of the Beane Cult, but I can't think of anyone post-1995 who has done more with less. Hart? Sabean? Schuerholz?

Cheers,

Mike

My only reason for bringing it up is because whether you like it or not, there is a fair percentage of people out there who recoil at errors and think things like "bejeezers, this guy doesn't even know the difference between 'its' and 'it's' and he's calling the people on this blog 'dumb idiots'??" Why should I take him seriously?

Guilty as charged, your honour! Posts such as the one in question frustrate me to no end. I was literally not sure what exactly he was talking about when I first read that post.

The Box has achieved impressive heights in terms of popularity and recognition from the Blue Jays and traditional media outlets in just one year. Why? A huge part of it is the high quality of the writing supplied by the authors.

Gitz, sabermetrics is obviously not the only aspect of the A's success. I would however not attribute the development of their pitchers simply to good luck. They had an approach to pitching development that was unique among major league teams. Their pitching coach, Rick Peterson, personally viewed video of all potential draftees and had a veto if there were mechanical problems that he could see. They studied and applied biomechanical principles in an advanced way through Dr. Andrews' facility in Birmingham; one of the results apparently was that they were able to add 5 mph to Hudson's fastball by use of increased hip rotation.

Baseball has always had its students of the game- from Ted Williams to Joe Morgan to Curt Schilling (heck, Josh Phelps is a likely candidate to be added to this list in 5- 10 years). The advancements in the numerical study of the game that Bill James' work brought about are really a continuation of this part of baseball history.

Anyways, Rick Peterson is now in New York, and I'll be watching Scott Kazmir closely.

Let's also note that, when analyzing how a team was put together, it's pretty hard to classify different parts of the construction of the team as 'sabremetric' or 'non-sabremetric'.

I also think that this is a really tricky discussion to navigate without a definition of 'sabremetrics' that all the participants accept.

Well said Gitz. Success is rarely as simple as portrayed in the media. I think sabremetrics has something to do with it. I think good drafting and scouting has something to do with it. I think luck has something to do with it. I think minor league development philosophy has something to do with it.

To answer Mike's question I think Beane and Ricciardi will be judged successful, by me, if they consistently field an above average team, with a below average payroll. Beane is getting close. The doubt that remains is what happens after the big three pitchers are gone. Remember the "great experiment" is not that old. Lewis's book about the new drafting philosophy of the A's is 2 years old. It will take 2 more years, at least, to see if the A's new drafting system is successful.

I think it is important to note that JP's background has an important difference from Beane and Epstein. Ricciardi has been both a scout and a farm director. By all accounts he is a great judge of talent. Beane and Epstein do not have that reputation. I am excited about the Jays future as much for JP's "talent eye" as I am for their sabremetric approach.

If you really want to compare organisations, a good test is marginal wins per marginal dollar of payroll. The A's have been the best in those terms for the last half-decade, probably with the Twins in second.

If you equate 'sabrmetric' with 'rational', there's little doubt that it is the best way to go - how can it not be? The mistake some people make is to identify a sabrmetric approach with a particular type of team building. Concentrating on fleet-footed fielders at the expense of OBP isn't sabrmetric; neither is the opposite. There is no single way to build a great club.

I don't think the A's are so limited as to think there is a single formula for success on a limited budget. They are looking to build a team in an efficient way (because of limited resources) and so have to choose the talent they feel is affordable and then fit it all together.

Three pitchers do not make a 95-win team. Every good team has a number of quality players and the fact of the matter is the A's produced the most impressive core of home-grown youngsters in a short space of time since the Indians of the mid-90s (Chavez, Tejada, Giambi, Hudson, Mulder, Zito). I don't really care if it was luck and neither should you. They did it - which is not to say that it's a guarantee they can do it indefinitely. They've also managed to acquire other parts (sometimes only for a half-season) that has resulted in some of the best teams in baseball in recent times.

The A's will need to either keep that core (they're down to 4 of the 6) by raising payroll or else continue to produce great youngsters (so far only Harden appears to be in that category). Preferably both.

My basic point, Gitz, is that you can debate whether the A's have in fact taken the most rational approach or not, but in my mind it's not valid to claim that a rational (i.e. sabrmetric) approach isn't the best one for building a successful ballclub.

It is obviously not all luck that Mulder, Zito, and Hudson have worked out the way they did. For all the reasons listed above, and perhaps for a few more. However, all teams have pitching prospects. Sometimes they all come up at once or over a few years. But they very seldom work out; in fact, they almost never work out. (The Cubs appear to be on the fast track here, but even that track contains some ligaments along the way, with perhaps more coming.) The most obvious failed trio, for me, was the Mets phenoms, Paul Wilson, Jason Isringhausen, and Bill Pulsipher. Physically, they were as talented, maybe more so, than the A's big three. And they flopped. Now, you can credit training all you want, and no doubt that matters, but it's rare for three aces to emerge on one team in so short a time. I find it amusing that people are so quick to dismiss the A's early playoff exits to luck but are not willing to allow a little bit of luck in terms of how Zito, Mulder, and Hudson have worked out. Baseball is littered with the graves of pitching prospects who threw 99 MPH with movement but who never made it. Why? If I knew for sure, I'd be that much closer to being Keith Law. (Of course, when you're in Seattle and Keith is on the East Coast, the best I could hope for would be to get over the Cascades. Literally and figuratively, I've a ways to go.)

My own opinion is that, with the A's big guns, in addition to their good health, their mental edge is greater, especially with Zito and Hudson, who operate with "inferior" equipment or who have battled "you're too small" issues. (Mulder apparently has the reputation of being a rock-head, but one never knows about those assessments.) Roger Clemens had the benefit of being a tenacious competitor who was blessed with a 97-MPH heater. Michael Jordan had that rare combination of pure physical skill and a bang-bang attitude. Obviously I'm not comparing Hudson or Mulder or Zito to Clemens (or to Jordan, but you never know), but the difference between Bruce Ruffin and Mark Mulder really isn't that great, even when you consider something like velocity. We've had this discussion before on Da Box, long ago, in its infancy, but with most physical skills being essentially equal at this level, the mental game must account for something.

Well, Robert, I've never claimed that what the A's are doing is wrong. I didn't say it above, and I don't recall saying it before. In fact, I go out of my way to say that I don't know for sure how to build a team. I do know this: I am an A's fan; I want them to win. And, because I'm a fan, there is an element of bias in there. But I admit it: I am hyper critical of the club, more so than I would be about, say, the USC Trojan football team, and that is due in no small part to Billy Beane and the cult that has sprung up around him. I simply get tired of hearing how brilliant Beane is, especially, as with Moneyball, it comes from the man himself. Is he smart? Sure. As Moffatt says, probably one of the top five GMs the last ten years, maybe even the best. But I don't accept any form of currency that says "It's a good move because Beane did it." That is what I have heard all too often the last two years, especially from the non-traditional media, and I am weary of it.

Beane himself has established the high expectations for the A's. His cockiness that he can win with a small budget (admittedly backed up, but his whining after this year's playoff loss didn't sound good), his irrational pursuit of players like Erubiel Durazo and Bobby Kielty, etc. If Beane had merely claimed that Durazo would make a "nice fit" to the team, I would be OK with Erubiel's year. But, no, he was Beane's "Holy Grail." So, yeah, I confess to having inflated expectations and high standards for the A's. When they come from the top, it's that much harder to accept when you lose in the first round four straight years, budgetary constraints or not. To that end, people here on this board have complained, mildly, about the Jays' public stance that they look to compete in 2005, maybe even as late as 2006. I would like to think that the team can compete as early as 2004, and I am sure there is sentiment in the front office that this can happen, but their public persona is the smart path to take, because there is not much worse in life than expecting the world and being handed Burkina Faso instead.

http://economics.about.com
I find it amusing that you are so quick to dismiss the A's development of Zito, Mulder, and Hudson to luck but are not willing to allow a little bit of luck in terms the A's early playoff exits.

Mike, I know you're a bright guy, so obviously you can read. But apparently you missed this comment by yours truly?

It is obviously not all luck that Mulder, Zito, and Hudson have worked out the way they did. For all the reasons listed above, and perhaps for a few more.

I freely admit that luck has played a part in the A's defeats, but, as I said immediately after this year's defeat, 10 straight losses in games when they could have closed out a series is tough to stomach -- and even harder to attribute to luck.

http://economics.about.com
Mike, I know you're a bright guy, so obviously you can read. But apparently you missed this comment by yours truly?

I didn't miss anything. My comment was intentionally hyperbolic, but my point remains. You seem to attribute anything good that happens to the A's as mainly influenced by luck and anything bad that happens to the A's as mainly influenced by some shortcoming of the team/front office, etc.

Seriously, Gitz, I think you're spoiled. You've been rooting for one of the best run teams of the past few years and you still come off as unhappy. My team has made the playoffs once in the last 35 years! Sometimes it pays to stop and appreciate what you have.

Mike

I'd like to steer the discussion away from luck, since (a) it doesn't matter because what the A's have done is done and (b) none of us has enough knowledge (perhaps no one in the baseball world does) to accurately measure who the best prospects are/were at any given point in time.

The facts are the A's produced those players and they won those games - everything else pales beside that.

Gitz - I appreciate that you acknowledge your bias. I disagree with your opinions, but since at this stage they cannot really be anything more than opinions, I think we can agree that Beane is an outstanding GM who has gotten lucky to some extent (but I won't say HOW lucky).
I agree with your criticism of Beane-worship, though. I still shake my head when recalling Rob Neyer's reaction to the long-term Terrence Long deal: something like "I don't understand why someone would do this, but it's Billy, so I'll trust him." I mean, come ON!