Fun With Rob Neyer: Let the players vote for everything. Wait, no don't!

Angst over All-Star selections is not something that is limited to saberfans.  Baseball fans of all types get riled up about who was selected and who got snubbed.  Part of the problem is that just about everyone has a different opinion as to what the criteria for making the team should be.

This doesn't stop saberfans from being especially annoying about it.  Saberfans tend to think that because they have advanced stats to back up their argument, they KNOW who the deserving players are.

Naturally, Rob Neyer isn't going to let the All-Star debate go by without putting in his two cents.

I wasn't going to pick on Neyer, because the douchiest part of the column is actually a quote from Joe Sheehan.  Then again, Rob makes a point to mention how much he agrees with Sheehan, so I won't cut him too much slack.

Neyer isn't content to just agree with Sheehan's douchieness.  He needs to add some of his own:

But they're not qualified to evaluate the overall value of players they see a few times a year, because they've got little or no interest in doing the actual work that would require. How many of the players, before filling out their ballots, actually sat down and looked at Baseball-Reference.com or any other source listing something other than batting average and RBI's and wins and losses and ERA? A dozen, maybe?

Is Miguel Cabrera worthy of being an All-Star? 
It's impossible to tell without hours of research.

According to Neyer, only through extensive research can it be determined who deserves to be an All-Star.  Since the players are either unwilling or unable to put in the hard work that is necessary, that responsibility should be reassigned.

Bud Selig should take the All-Star selection duty away from the players and the fans.  He could then assign it to someone who would tirelessly scour reference sites in order to identify the players who are truly worthy of the All-Star honor.  Obviously, there is only one man capable of handling this crucial responsibility: Rob Neyer. 

If Neyer was assigned this sacred duty, he would construct the ultimate All-Star team rosters.  Players would not be foolishly named All-Stars simply because they have a high RBI total. The result would surely be the greatest All-Star Game ever played; one that would be talked about for years to come.

Sigh...if only.

Saberdouchery: Rob Neyer and Dustin Ackley

In my last post, I mentioned that my goal was to find examples of saberdouchery on the web.  Instead, I found an article by Keith Law that made me reconsider my whole anti-sabermetrics stance.

I started to wonder: Have I been too hard on saberfans?  Are they really not as bad as I have made them out to be?  Is this whole site completely misguided?  (That sound you hear is the saberfans who stumble across the site nodding vigorously)

Fortunately, Rob Neyer restored my faith by providing this excellent example of saberdouchery:

Saberdouche

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/5/28/4373416/dustin-ackley-demoted-eric-wedge-blames-sabermetrics#165096129

The article has everything: Snark!  Mockery of announcers!  An irrational defense of sabermetrics! Instant dismissal of a person who criticizes sabermetrics!  More snark!

Let's take a look at all the douchey goodness.

The article begins with Neyer taking issue with Braves announcer Joe Simpson.  Simpson suggested that there is a mental aspect to pitching and that it might be tougher for some pitchers to succeed in late game situations.

According to Neyer, this is absolute nonsense.  He probably would have been gracious enough to allow this comment to pass, but then Simpson had the nerve to suggest that sabermetrics (gasp!) might have been wrong about something. 

That obviously crossed a line, and Neyer wasn't going to let Simpson to get away with it.  He dismissed Simpson a Luddite who "wasn't interested in facts" and only sought to impress his fellow non-believers.

Next, Neyer takes a shot at Mariners' manager Eric Wedge.  Wedge tried to explain the struggles of young hitter Justin Ackley, and implied that sabermetrics might be partially to blame.

Uh oh.  Neyer's not gonna like that one bit.

Wedge notes that some people in the Mariners' organization are encouraging a more sabermetric friendly approach while at bat.  As a result, Ackley has been too concerned with taking pitches and trying to draw walks rather than relying on his natural instincts.

I'm not going to deny that patience and a high on-base percentage are good qualities for a hitter to possess.  But it is foolish to think that all hitters will succeed with a patient approach.  There are some hitters whose success is based on a more aggressive approach at the plate

Ackley could be such a hitter.  If he is indeed trying to be more patient in order to please some organizational figures who are stressing high OBP, then it seems entirely possible that the change could be affecting him negatively.

Neyer dismisses this possibility, and there seems to be no real point to the dismissal except for the fact that Wedge criticized sabermetrics. 

Apparently, in Rob Neyer's world, Sabermetrics are perfect and never to be criticized.  It's slightly frightening how obsessed he seems.  He comes off like a top lieutenant in a cult. 

"What do you mean The Leader is not perfect?  How dare you spread such blasphemy!  We must silence the non-believer!  Burn him!"

"Bill James - I mean, The Leader - is all knowing and all seeing!"

Thank you, Rob Neyer.  I feel much better about everything now.

In Defense Of: Keith Law???

 

I'll be honest.  I was trying to find something to write about, so I perused the web in search of saberdouchery.

Saberdouchery is when a baseball analyst makes some sort of argument that goes against traditional baseball thinking.  He'll make a point to deliver the message in the most arrogant way possible, letting everyone know how much smarter he is than the Luddite traditionalists.

I figured that Keith Law was a good bet to supply me with some material, so I looked through his article archive on ESPN.com.

I expected to find saberdouchery.  Instead, I found this article: 

The Stats I Can't Live Without 

(Article requires an ESPN Insider subscription to read. Sorry for all you non-subscribers)

Law starts out by putting a disclaimer on WAR, pointing out that without knowing how the WAR value was calculated, it doesn't really provide much insight into a player's value.  Next, he points out that because players build their WAR in different ways, it's not necessarily a great tool to analyze players going forward.

What? Was I reading this correctly?

He uses Michael Bourn as an example.  Much of Bourn's value is based on speed.  As he ages, his speed is likely to decrease, meaning that Bourn's value will likely decrease faster than other players with a similar WAR value.



Michael Bourn's WAR may not be indicative of future performance

He then goes on to talk about a few key statistics, what they are designed to do, how they can be misleading, and why they are useful in analyzing and predicting a player's performance moving forward.

I was shocked.  This was a helpful and accessible article from an unlikely source.

Despite what some people may think, I have made an effort to understand and appreciate sabermetrics.  I feel I have gotten a solid grasp on how most of the more prominent statistics are calculated and why they are considered valuable.  But it certainly wasn't easy for me to do so.

If analysts like Law really want sabermetrics to fully gain mainstream acceptance, they need to produce more articles like this one.  This article should have been placed on the front page of ESPN.com and been made easily accessible to everyone who wanted to gain a better handle on sabermetrics.

I'm not saying it's a perfect article.  Law can't completely avoid showing some disdain for the non-believers when he makes a comment about the Trout vs. Cabrera debate.

But had I read something like this a few years ago, it's possible that my whole outlook on sabermetrics might have changed.  Maybe this site would be called "Sabermetrics Rule" instead!

Well...probably not.  There still would have been plenty of saberdouches out there doing their best to earn my disdain.

Regardless, I look at this article as a step in the right direction.  Good job, Mr. Law!