on what's wrong with baseball

ESPN Page 2 - Page 2: You can keep your fancy stats

The first thing we need to do is go back to our roots stats-wise. Stats pages on this and other Web sites should get back to basics. I suggest these time-honored baseball accounting practices, laid across the page in the traditional format: games played, at-bats, runs scored, hits, doubles, triples, homers, runs batted in, batting average and maybe, if there's room, stolen bases. That's 10 items. For pitchers, there's games, games started, wins, losses, winning percentage, saves, innings pitched, hits, strikeouts, walks and ERA. That's 11, which might be too much. Forget strikeouts. If the guy's getting people out, it will show up in his ERA.

What else do you really need to know about a guy? If you can't tell how good a player is from those basic stats, there's something seriously wrong with you -- I mean brain-damage wrong. If you can't tell how good a player is from those basic stats, then maybe your daddy was drunk when you were a baby and he dropped you on your head and never told anybody because he was too embarrassed or didn't remember. If you can't tell how good a player is from those basic stats, maybe you ate some lead paint in the basement or crashed your motorcycle and hit your head against a telephone pole. If you can't tell how good a player is from those basic stats, maybe Timothy Leary was your family doctor, or maybe it's just that you don't know very much about baseball.


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baseball, more than any other sport, throws a lot of money at men who will never be regular players in the big leagues (see: drew henson). sometimes you spot a bargain who turns into something special (see: mike piazza) but then again, in cases like that, it helps if tommy "slim fast" lasorda is yr uncle.

the writer has an interesting point--there's always a stat that makes an argument for keeping an unproductive player on a team, and we all know stats lie.

what's sad, at least for me, is seeing baseball slide away from the mythic instincts of it's greatest managers, the "well, he was was due, so i put him in" kind of gut feeling that leads to some of the sports greatest moments (kirk gibson's homeruns). it's no secret: i love jim leyland for the same reason. he answered a question between innings last season in the same old school fashion. joe buck (or someone equally as annoying and inane) asked, how can you tell who will be a great hitter? jim leyland: the ball sounds different coming off their bat.

ta da!

crap stats can't replicate that. they can't make a case for keeping todd jones as your closer despite the fact he starts sweating with nervousness before the national anthem is over. they can't explain why marcus thames is still with the tigers and craig monroe is not. those are the instincts of leyland and dombrowski. and, more often than not (def. more often than b.s. stats), these guys are right.