Yeah, I think that's what it will be too. But that isn't worth Writing a column about.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Definitely not

Its not about the stats though. Its about the larger Intelligent fans vs old timers argument that gets Bernstein hard. He sees this as a major victory. It is not.

up to this point all defensive stats have been sketchy at best. however, this should be the Holy Grail, if done properly. there won't be anything to argue about.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

It's really just route efficiency, isn't it? There's a lot more to fielding than that. I don't think this is a giant leap forward from the work done in The Fielding Bible.

I find a lot of hypocrisy in discussions of so-called advanced metrics and "new" ways of looking at the game. For example, on one hand, so much has become outcome based. In other words, it doesn't matter how the result is achieved, we should examine the result and the result alone. On the other hand, we're looking at route efficiency to the exclusion of the ultimate result. There may be an outfielder that circles balls but makes up for it by overcoming that flaw with other talents and yields better overall results than the man with the most efficient routes.

I have no problem with intelligent fans looking at all the evidence and having a discussion, but that isn't the way it usually goes. It's most often one guy picking and choosing certain elements for argument to pound the other guy over the head with in order to support a conclusion at which he had previously arrived.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

jump, speed, route, release speed, throw accuracy and velocity, all that shit will be facts.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

My thoughts exactly. The vast majority of fans understand sabermetrics provide value. Bernstein, Brian Kenny, Sheehan and other militants don't understand that. They confuse don't really care with hatred. Sports are entertainment and hearing Ron Santo talk about his toupee catching on fire accomplishes that.

I love his deep desire to become a "smart" fan as if there will be a diploma at the end of the tunnel so he can put letters at the end of his name. Daniel Bernstein, RSF

I very much doubt the 'vast majority' of baseball fans will have their entertainment sensibilities offended by stats beyond BA and W-L. And no stat requires anyone watching at home to 'work a spreadsheet' while watching a game ... which in and of itself is a really dopey point to make but is especially so since baseball is the only sport really known for fans KEEPING SCORE on a scorecard.



I fail to see where rambling bullshit (not to mention petty pissypants pouting about a bad call 2 innings or even 2 months ago) is more "interesting" than being shown an objective fact. I very much doubt I'm in some small minority in that thought as well.



What Bernstein thinks about it is entirely irrelevant; his article is only him grinding his axe against Harrelson and Reynolds (which for me is not all that bad but I get not everyone agrees with that part of it). I do think, however, that this column wouldn't have as much board blowback against it if the byline didn't have Dan's name in it.

Regardless, the baseball broadcast presentation will continue to evolve and will include these new stats and I don't think fans will get the vapors and turn off the tv's in droves because somebody took twelve seconds to draw a triangulation on the telestrator.



None of that has jack squat to do with occasionally making mention of a heretofore unfamiliar stat. It would seem that you and others might have this false notion that all that's going to be discussed are these new stats. Maybe half a dozen times or so they might mention these things if they think it's interesting. Nobody is forcing these things onto any given broadcast, certainly not to the point it'll be drowning in stats that threaten the idea of bullshit like TWTW.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

My perfect broadcast is one guy in the booth talking to me calmly and pleasantly about what a great game baseball is. Pretend the listener is a raging lunatic in a straight jacket who needs to be soothed. Harrelson has this thing completely backwards.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Well, Don missed a lot of points as usual in pursuit of a snarky retort.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Oh, Don Tiny disagreed so lets invoke ad hominem.

What was so "snarky" about it? Because I questioned your usage of "vast majority" or your suggestion of people having to "work a spreadsheet"? Because I suggested that what Bernstein says doesn't matter? Because I felt your closing paragrpah had nothing to do with the discussion?

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

I think it is interesting how the idea of smart fans has evolved. I really enjoy driving my car, but I don't know much on how the engine and transmission combine to move the vehicle and that is ok. I'm sure many of you enjoy computers without needing to know how it all works.

I mean, I get it if knowing things that a professional in an industry would know excites you, but I think it's more than fair to be willfully ignorant about something and still enjoy it.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Sure it is. Until a new metric comes along and replaces it. This is what kills me. Just last week Lil Danny was literally SCREAMING about what a terrible shortstop Derek Jeter is because "UZR tells us so." "HE'S COST HIS TEAM MORE RUNS THAN ANY SHORTSTOP IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!" 'HE'S AWFUL!"

Then just yesterday when discussing this new metric with Speigs he says "UZR is irrelevant now. You can throw it out the window." Every metric is the end all be all authority on everything......until a new metric comes along. Then THAT metric is the be all end all authority on everything.

Tell me how this could be improved, theoretically.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

How the hell do I know? Did you think they would ever be able to do this? That's the point. There is no reason to argue to the death that the new shiny thing is the irrefutable authority on everything because something better will come along and make that metric obsolete.

whoa whoa whoa...dan is an english major? pssh answers so much.

Add in speech capabilities so it can do play by play for games and finally get rid of evil Hawk Harrelson.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

yeah, that's what I thought.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

It just occurred to me why Bernsie loves the metrics. I think he either does not have the time with kids and all or the desire to watch out of town baseball much. I think Terry loves this. So with all the numbers on the website he can talk about who is good, better, best without being a complete idiot.

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Elections have consequences.

Nah, he just likes to know a lot about everything, which is cool, but sometimes takes the tone of knowing things to say you know things rather than for any genuine intellectual growth. For instance, barfing out football argot is not genuine intellectual growth.

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I think that may be partially true, but the primary reason is his hatred of jocks and jock culture. The worst thing is when some jackass says, "well, you never played the gaaaaame, so you wouldnt understaaand...."

I can sort of see his point on that.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

You like to invoke ad hominem a lot but the tone of the vast majority of your posts comes across as an attack. I'm sure your answer to that might be something like, "of course, you dope, and I don't give a fiddler's fuck what you or anyone thinks about that" and that's all well and good, but please, please spare me your complaints about ad hominem.

Getting back to the discussion, I feel very confident in saying that most people don't want to think about sports in a way that takes so much effort. All the analysis is great for people working in the business and to point something out occasionally during a broadcast is fine. (Maybe you missed it, but RPB and I had an exchange where we both agreed that occasionally would likely be the way this stuff is used.) If you want to be the enlightened fan and know everything about everything, that's great, but I'm just going to take a wild guess that most of us don't want to pour a whole lot of contemplation into the meaning of Dayan Viciedo taking a 2% better route to a ball than Alfonso Soriano.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

avg. hr rbi errors w l era ip so w

everything else is geek bullshit.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

So I'm at fault for thigns that you're entirely making up I didn't say ... got it.

Also, I can't invoke your poor choice of ad hominem if you don't actually use it.

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Keep on doing what you do. The place wouldn't be the same without you.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

correct. it is meaningless in the course of a game. I guess you might say. "and another ball falls in front of DeAza. Not surprising since he had the worst range rating of any center fielder last season."

Something like that.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Interesting how I try to have a civil discussion, you decide you're not going to, give me the business for it by making things up I didn't say, then laugh it off. Whatever.

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Nobody has made a "Señor Columnist" picture yet?

what up

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All of the different stats are tools. Give a scalpel to a surgeon and you save lives. Give it to a street tough (because I cannot say thug) and you end them.

The problem with baseball stats is that there are far too many street toughs out there who think they are surgeons because they are wearing scrubs.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.