ESPN's SweetSpot: Bonds is Right

In a recent SweetSpot column, David Schoenfield discusses the  Hall of Fame candidacy of Barry Bonds.  Schoenfield agrees with a statement made by Bonds that he deserves to be a Hall of Famer.

Hall of Famer?

Schoenfield says that if people are holding Bonds' PED use against him, then they should only consider his career up to 1998, and judge him based on that.

Isn't that kind of like saying when evaluating O.J. Simpson's life, we should only consider what he did up until the point when his ex-wife was murdered?  Up until that point, he sure seemed like a swell fellow, right?

Even if we ignore his post-1998 career, it may be a bit naive for us to assume that Bonds didn't use PEDs before 1998.  Steroids were reportedly prevalent in baseball throughout most of the 1990s, so why should we assume that Bonds only joined the party in 1998?

Schoenfield goes on to demonstrate just how dominant Bonds was prior to 1998.  Based on the evidence presented, it is clear that the ten years of Bonds' career between 1988 and 1997 is about as strong as any player has ever had.  If we only used that as our criteria, then I think just about everyone would agree that Bonds is indeed Hall-worthy.

Schoenfield should have just ended his argument there.  Unfortunately, he follows up by saying that Bonds' alleged cheating should have no impact on whether or not he gets in.  He says that people shouldn't play the "moral police" in determining who deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

Really?  Hasn't baseball always done this?  Last time I checked, Pete Rose isn't in the Hall of Fame.  Should we just ignore the fact that he bet on baseball because he had a good career up to that point?

Apparently, Schoenfield doesn't hold cheating against a player because as he points out, several other Hall of Famers may have cheated in their careers.  I guess since everyone cheated, we can't hold it against anyone?  Even someone who may have ruined baseball's most cherished records because he cheated?

This is one instance where Schoenfield should have just stuck to the numbers.

ESPN's Sweet Spot: Lincecum not unlucky, just pitching poorly

If I'm going to criticize ESPN.com's SweetSpot blog for their bad articles, I suppose it is only fair to give them praise when it is due.

In this article, David Schoenfield discusses Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum and the struggles he has had this year.

He mentions that normally, analysts might point to Lincecum's high BABIP and say his failures are mostly due to bad luck.  But Schoenfield actually takes the time to look a little deeper and see that perhaps there is a reason for Lincecum's poor season beyond just plain luck. 

Schoenfield illustrates that Lincecum's control has been much poorer than in seasons past, and as a result, he has been giving hitters better pitches to hit.  It stands to reason that if a pitcher gives a hitter better pitches to hit, then they're going to have more success.

Well done, Mr. Schoenfield.  It's nice to see you actually look beyond the numbers and put them into a real world context.  I wish all sabermetric analysts would do the same.

ESPN's SweetSpot: Dial it to 11!

I'm back with another look at a post on ESPN.com's SweetSpot blog and comparing it to the work of an enthusiastic 13 year old.

Christina Kahrl talks about the amazing pitching performance by Cliff Lee in which he threw 10 shutout innings, only for his team to lose the game due to the equally brilliant performance by the opposing starter, Matt Cain.

In her second paragraph, Ms. Kahrl goes a little off the rails:

OK, that’s pretty amazing. But what’s even more amazing? He didn’t even have the highest game score in that ballgame. Matt Cain did, outpointing Lee 86-85 by allowing just three baserunners in his nine shutout innings to Lee’s seven hits and seven K's. Admittedly, Game Score might be sort of sabermetrics’ answer to figure skating-style judging, but to put these nights into perspective, neither game would rate among the top 300 starts by game score from 2000-2012. So, really good, but not as good as Cain’s smackdown of the Pirates on Friday the 13th -- his last time out -- when he had a Game Score of 96. That’s awesome, but that’s Cain in a nutshell. Even when the other guy’s getting the immediate attention, whoever that guy may be, Cain might just be the better pitcher.

Maybe this is my ignorance of some of the newer sabermetric terms, but what the heck is a game score?  Is this an actual thing?

Based on this post, I have a feeling that game score isn't going to take off.  If your statistic tells you that a 10 inning shutout wasn't one of the best 300 starts in the past three years, then there's a good chance that your statistic sucks.

It also isn't good when you pretty much admit the shakiness of the statistic you just used by comparing it to the criteria used for judging figure skating.  Of course, if you pretty much admit your statistic sucks, then maybe you shouldn't use it as the basis for a blog post.

Then again, I guess saying that Cliff Lee's start wasn't THAT good garners much more attention than simply saying Cliff Lee was awesome.

How the 13 year old would have blogged about the game:

Cliff Lee was awesome last night!  10 inning shut out!!!  Matt Cain was good too, but Cliff Lee?  Awesome!

Sometimes simpler analysis is better.  Game score my @$$.

Winner: 13 Year Old

ESPN's SweetSpot Blog vs. An Enthusiastic 13 Year Old with a Calculator.

When I was 13 years old, my friend and I created a magazine that reviewed the Phillies 1991 season and looked ahead to the 1992 season.

Using the accepted statistics of the day, I tried to give some predictions about how the 1992 season would turn out for both the Phillies and all of baseball.

If I recall correctly, it was some hard hitting stuff.

I am often reminded of this homemade preview magazine when I visit ESPN.com and read their SweetSpot blog.

The blog's goal is presumably to provide daily baseball coverage with a sabermetric slant.  It used to be run by Rob Neyer, until he decided that ESPN.com was not big enough to contain his douchebaggery, so he left to head up the baseball division at SB Nation.

Replacing him is a committee of writers headed up by David Schoenfield.  Schoenfield seems like a nice enough man.  Unlike some of his colleagues - especially his predecessor - he doesn't come off as snarky or condescending.

And while I can appreciate the difficulty in coming up with new content on a regular basis, some of the blog's posts come unfortunately close to the quality that you might have expected from a preview magazine written by a 13 year old.

SweetSpot's writers use a wide variety of statistics.  But they seem to be used in such haphazard a fashion, that I'm not entirely convinced that they know why they're using them.  It often seems like they just pick whichever statistic will best prove whatever point they are trying to make.  If you ever want a good example of confirmation bias, I recommend you take a look at SweetSpot.

And so, from time to time, I'm going to take a look at a post in the SweetSpot blog, and see how it would compare to the work of an enthusiastic 13 year old armed with the internet and a calculator.

Who can provide better baseball analysis?  The SweetSpot writers or these guys?

For my first example, I'll look at this recent post in which Schoenfield tries to use the Detroit Tigers to disprove the theory of lineup protection.  Or at least that's what I think he's doing.  He doesn't exactly make it clear.

The post points out that Miguel Cabrera, the Tigers' perennial MVP candidate, now has another top hitter (Prince Fielder) behind him in the lineup.  If lineup protection is real, then Cabrera should be seeing better pitches to hit.  As a result, his hitting numbers should be better and his walk rate should be lower.

Except that Cabrera is actually hitting much worse than he did last season, and his walk rate has only decreased by a minimal amount.  Which is evidence that lineup protection is indeed a myth.

But then, Schoenfield then goes on to argue in favor of lineup protection.  He mentions that Fielder -who does not have an MVP candidate hitting behind him - is walking at a much higher rate than he did last season.

So what was the point of the post?  Apparently nothing, since Schoenfield prefaced the post by saying it comes after only ten games, which is a ridiculously short amount of time to draw a conclusion from.

So how does this post compare to the work of an enthusiastic 13 year old?

Most 13 year olds are not known for their patience, so they might make a similarly premature jump to conclusions.  On the other hand, if a 13 year old had a point to make, they probably would not immediately contradict themselves like Schoenfield did.

The 13 year old likely would have just stopped once they found some evidence that supported their case and not bothered to share the contradictory information.  So while I give Schoenfield some points for thoroughness, it still makes me wonder what the point of the post was.

Since all of the evidence didn't support his theory, I'm guessing the 13 year old might have decided that the post wasn't worth writing at all.  Since it's hard for me to argue otherwise, I'm going to have to award this round to the 13 year old.