Tweedledee Vs. Tweedledum

A duality of bi-partisan narrow-mindedness popped up this past week to remind us all that there remain pockets of willful ignorance on both sides of the Sabermetric divide, even while most of us have managed without too much effort to balance intuition with statistical analysis.

First, in reviewing the spinning wheel of trading deadline transactions, some of the seamhead community relied on their projection systems to determine whether teams should be buyers or sellers.

Here are two examples from Baseball Prospectus:
"...maybe baseball executives aren't as smart as we think. That's one way to read the White Sox's decision to hang onto Samardzija at the deadline, despite their 9 percent playoff odds at the time of the deadline." 

(With respect to the Blue Jays) "... if PECOTA has the talent levels of everyone pegged correctly, they probably can't do enough to realistically make themselves AL East favorites."

But as the chart below demonstrates, BP’s projection system, PECOTA, provided as little insight into 2012’s final standings as Donald Trump on immigration (or anything else). In this small sample, the system bombed on the Orioles, Red Sox, A’s, Angels, Rays, Indians, A's, Mets, Braves and Reds.

2012 American League

Team   Opening Day Projection    July 4th Projection   Final Win Total

New York Yankees  91.7         95.1                   95

Boston Red Sox    83.5            83.8                   69

Tampa Bay Rays    83.7           83.6                   90

Baltimore Orioles 75.3           80.5                   93

Toronto Blue Jays 76.0           78.7                   73



Chicago White Sox 87.2          88.2                 85

Cleveland Indians 83.6           83.6                  68

Detroit Tigers    86.6               83.1                  88

K.C. Royals         69.7               71.3                  72

Minnesota Twins   69.0          68.9                 66


Texas Rangers     94.9           97.4                   93

Anaheim Angels    90.1        89.2                   89

Oakland A's            73.8        78.3                   94

Seattle Mariners    68.8       68.5                   75


2012 National League 

Team  Opening Day Projection   July 4th Projection   Final Win Total

Washington Nats   80.5       90.5                  98

Atlanta Braves    85.6           85.3                  94

New York Mets     79.1        84.2                  74

Miami Marlins     84.3         78.9                  69

Philly Phillies       86.0         77.6                   81


Cincinnati Reds   86.7          88.4                   97

St. Louis Cards   87.4           87.8                   88

Pittsburgh        74.7             84.3                   79

Milwaukee       90.4            80.4                   83

Chicago Cubs    73.3           67.7                   61

Houston Astros    61.9       63.4                   55


San Fran Giants   86.6         88.7                   94

L.A. Dodgers      80.0           84.4                   86

Arizona D'backs   83.9        82.2                   81

San Diego Padres  78.6       69.9                   76

Colorado Rockies  76.8       66.3                   64


That’s because first half results aren’t destiny, and neither is some statistical formula. Teams are fluid, and even when their lineups don’t vary much, player performance does. Some players improve while others wear out. Teams rise and fall over the course of a 162-game grind. Making personnel decisions based solely on statistical formulas is nonsense; it’s why general managers are people, not robots. They need to evaluate not just the numbers but the people who comprise their rosters.

Sometimes the statheads need to take a humility pill and recognize that they rarely have definitive answers about how humans will act.

And then there's Harold Reynolds
On the flip side, you’ve probably seen Harold Reynolds and Dan Plesac on MLB Network doing their Johnny Appleseed imitations, except what they’re spreading all over the land is wanton ignorance.

In a recent discussion of top rookie hitters and pitchers, they made their picks based largely on reputation and hype, after which Matt Vasgersian offered WAR statistics for top rookies. In each case, the duo had failed to even mention the player with the top WAR number. They’re response was to dismiss WAR with essentially these words:

I don’t understand WAR, therefore it has no value.

The details are irrelevant, though Plesac and Reynolds appear never to have heard of Taylor Jungmann, a first-round draft pick now spinning a 2.26 ERA for the woebegone Brewers (and hitting .316 to boot.)

There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about WAR, particularly for pitchers. WAR accounts for defense with tools that are still as inexact as a Yasiel Puig throw. When applying it to pitchers, WAR attempts to parse the defense of every fielder behind the pitcher and then adjust the pitcher's performance based on how much help he's getting from the defense. Tiny misjudgments in the assumptions can ripple out to very large errors in the final numbers and so should be taken with a sea's worth of salt.

But that doesn't exonerate the two ex-ballplayers. If they are going to comment on player performance, they ought to learn something about the new tools available to them. Announcing their professional ignorance, indeed reveling in it, is akin to Bill Gates refusing to acknowledge that people are accessing the Internet on phones now. Except Bill Gates would be bankrupt while Plesac and Reynolds somehow keep their jobs.

I don't know what the average baseball fan thinks when they see this pair unknowingly admit that they are unintelligent, incompetent and unprepared, but my reaction was to write them off with extreme prejudice. That can't possibly be the reputation they're going for.

Say Goodnight, Gracie

As one of the remaining 47 Americans without cable TV, I am doomed to catch my homeside televised baseball on Fox, Saturday afternoons -- at least until the pre-season football season begins during pennant race time.

Assuming you have been subject to this network's many inanities, I won't regale you with my cavalcade of complaints. You already know that Fox televises only games involving the Yankees, Mets and home team, which in my region is the Braves. You already know about the often ignorant and infuriating chatter of the anchors and of Joe Buck's love interest in Derek Jeter.

This past weekend's broadcast brought us two special absurdities -- one old and one new. First, the inconsequential.

I don't know how many years Fox has been running its "Sounds of the Game" feature, whereby it records and then replays the highlights of onfield banter, but it's at least half a decade. In all that time, have you ever noticed that it has an unblemished record of vacuousness? Really, think back. Have you once heard anyone say anything even mildly revealing? After five years of mindlessness, can't the network suits kill this waste of airwaves, or are they the same people who cooked up the "war on drugs"? Do we really need to hear a player say of the opposing pitcher who has walked six batters, "he doesn't have his usual command today"?

Now, the consequential: the new studio host, Mark dis-Grace. Commenting on Miguel Tejada revealing himself to be two years older than originally acknowledged -- I'm shocked, shocked! -- Grace disparaged the reporter who asked the question, for playing gotcha journalism and trying to make a name for himself by being an investigative reporter.

Now I don't mind former jocks commenting on national television about their sport. I don't mind them having opinions that are contrary to mine. I do, however, believe that they have a responsibility to have a clue what they're talking about. In that regard, say goodnight, Gracie. It is hard to imagine an opinion so utterly ignorant as that one.

For the record, your Grace, it is a reporter's job to ask tough questions. Any reporter who fails to ask tough questions is a publicist, not a reporter. The players may like him more, but his readers/listeners/viewers/editor won't. If asking tough questions puts a player on the spot because he has been lying for 15 years, that's the player's problem, not the reporter's. Any reporter who balks at asking the tough question ought to be fired.

Moreover, every reporter is an investigative reporter. Reporters investigate; that's their job. Contrary to your warped perspective, calling him an investigative reporter is a compliment, not an insult. It would be like me calling you a masher, which of course, you weren't.

Had Mark Grace opined that Miguel Tejada was going to the Hall of Fame, or is going to spank 30 home runs this year, or lead the Astros to the pennant, I might have thought him an idiot, but would acknowledge his right to his opinion, especially if he could articulate a coherent supporting argument. But upbraiding a professional for doing his job requires knowledge of the profession in question that Mark Grace just doesn't have. In that case, the Sound of the Game should be...silence.