Baseball, Stats, And Building A Winning Team...

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JakeStratham

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Some of you guys have probably read [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Moneyball-Art-Winning-Unfair-Game/dp/0393057658"]Moneyball[/ame], the story of Billy Beane and the A's.


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Columbia (the studio) is making a movie, so there's a lot more interest in sabermetrics among those who wouldn't otherwise care.

Personally, I'm not a baseball fan, but I love the stats. I'm guessing a few of you do, too. There have been a couple interesting articles on sabermetrics lately in the context of whether it should have prominence in sports.

The first article is a roundtable at The Atlantic:

The 'Moneyball' Effect: Are Sabermetrics Good for Sports? - The Editors - Entertainment - The Atlantic

The second is an article by Joe Posnanski at SI:

Joe Posnanski » Posts Statistics and Stories «

Both are good, though Joe goes off the rails a bit (he usually does lol).
 


I felt a bit vindicated when this got more attention, as I always thought that 25 home run hitters would get more credit than they deserved, in comparison to someone like Wade Boggs who was getting on base 45% of the time.
 
Yuckystuff said:
Wade Boggs is probably a bad example since he was a first ballot Hall of Famer.
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There was no doubt he was a hall of fame level player, but his level of dominance was still being overlooked.

The WAR rating is probably the best overall statistical ranking we have. Boggs was 1st for 3 years in a row, and 2nd twice before that. This includes pitchers also. Despite this he would finish at 9th or 7th in MVP voting and once made it to 4th.

His teammate Dwight Evans was 4th in MVP voting in 1987, while Boggs was 9th, yet Boggs was 1st in WAR, with a score nearly double that of Evans.

Rickey Henderson was another that was often 1st or 2nd, but only twice made it higher than 10th in MVP voting.

Oakland had the best record in baseball in 1989. Henderson was 1st in WAR, but 9th in MVP voting. Boggs was 21st in MVP voting that year, but 3rd in WAR.

Ruben Sierra and George Bell finished 2nd and 4th, in part because of their home runs. If you look at walks though, Sierra and Bell only combined for 76, whereas Henderson and Boggs had 233.

My biggest beef is how a guy like Ozzie Smith gets in the Hall on his first year of eligibility with a .262 lifetime batting average and a grand total of 28 homeruns in a 19 year career.
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He's high all time in runs, stolen bases and walks. He's the 4th best defensive player of all time, going by WAR. 117th all time overall.

Trammell should be in. He's 135th defensively, but is ahead of Smith overall at 101st.

Baseball-Reference.com - Major League Baseball Statistics and History
 
Yup, Henderson did win one MVP though. His home run total jumping up to 28 that year probably had a lot to do with that.
 
Just going to leave this here because I'm sure you folks will appreciate it ;)

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vUhSYLRw14]No Mas Presents: Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No by James Blagden - YouTube[/ame]
 
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