“Just like their guy, (Lucas Harrell) I read in the paper: ‘The ball, well, it could have been caught [if we weren’t in a shift].’ That’s weak shit, I’ll tell you that right now. You can’t have them everywhere. Put them where you want them. You want them here? Put them there. We’ll put them anywhere you want them. I don’t want to hear that bullshit. That’s weak shit. That’s what happens with the shift. When it goes where someone would have been if they hadn’t shifted, well, they shifted. You can’t have it both ways. I think I’m pretty good. I can’t be over there at that desk and be over here on the couch. That’s just as fucking simple as it is. And that kind of weak shit pisses me off, I can tell you that right now.
(pause)
“Do you have any other questions about the shift?
”
Jim Leyland
(via Grant Bisbee, Baseball Nation)
Loading...
Target Field
May 14, 2013
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Photo by TS Flynn
Loading...
Summer Base Ball
Hail! to the fast coming joy-days of the “Good Old Summer Time.”
The Swelling Tide of May Sweeps Onward in its course toward the Whirlpool days of Base Ball, when the Greatest Lustre in all the World of Summer is flashed from the Base Ball Diamond
where the grip of strong and valiant athletes in the gruelling struggles for victory are a mighty force and the air vibrates with the crash of bats and balls and shouts of the rallying throngs that ring to the vaulted skies. Then every nerve is tense under strains that almost break, when sudden rifts of skill burst through near victories and turn them to defeats, lifting ardest spectators to their feet and sending the fans away with memories of sensational climaxes that will sing in their hearts over and over again.
Loading...
Adam Dunn’s 415th career home run in flight and in hand
May 15, 2013
Target Field
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Photos by gogowhitesox
Loading...
Guerreros de Oaxaca fan
2013 Mexican League All Star Game
May 12, 2013
Estadio Eduardo Vasconcelos
Oaxaca, Mexico
Photo by Chad Santos via Archive Baseball
Loading...
Jack White and friends
Greer Stadium, home of the Sounds
May 8, 2013
Nashville, Tennessee
Photo via thirdmanrecordsofficial
Loading...
Target Field
May 14, 2013
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Photo by TS Flynn
Loading...
What RBI purports to measure is the number of runs batted in, given the rulebook definition. We can argue about how well that captures a player’s offensive value (not all that well) or how well it measures total value (even less well). But those are questions about how useful that definition of the term is; it’s not being debated whether or not those players actually have those RBI totals. These debates are sometimes had historically, but those are debates over recordkeeping—not to belittle their importance, but that doesn’t undermine the idea that RBI totals are “facts” any more than someone claiming that 2+2 equals five makes rudimentary addition controversial.
WAR, on the other hand, is an estimate, not a mere recording of fact. This is why two people that ostensibly agree both on what is to be measured and the underlying recordkeeping can come to two differing estimates. This is because sabermetrics isn’t content with just counting things. We attempt to build models that relate what’s being counted to how runs and wins work on a team level. I would argue that’s far more useful, but it also means that sabermetrics deals in estimates while “old-school” stats deal far more in the counting of facts.
Sabermetrics shouldn’t be afraid of estimation—it isn’t a dirty word. But it should admit that’s what it’s doing, instead of trying to treat estimates like facts. Which is why defending WAR by comparing it to RBIs is simply a false equivalency in this case. WAR is not a fact, and RBIs are. That isn’t a value claim, and it is not a point in favor of RBIs, but if sabermetricians will not defend the practice of estimation then we shouldn’t be surprised when others shun our estimates.
- Colin Wyers, Baseball Prospectus
Read the rest: “Manufactured Runs: Listen to What Heyman Said”
Screencap via Mop-Up Duty
Loading...
Shoeless Joe and Charlie Herbert “Lefty” Jackson (no relation), Comiskey Park, 1915 (SDN-060439)
Detroit Tigers Ty Cobb and former White Sox manager Kid Gleason at Comiskey Park, 1926 (SDN-062596)
via theshoelessjoe
Loading...
