from Amazon
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Chemistry
The greatest sabermetric post that you will ever read regarding intangibles. And all without a number. Just fantastically written. Here’s a very few of my favorite snippets:
If it’s how a team came together, or fell apart, something you can only see and use in an after-the-fact explanation, then it’s a story, not an effect.
But in a more general sense, teams do make these choices: when teams weigh a player who can contribute X and could be replaced by a cardboard cutout for interviews against one who offers 75% of that contribution but comes with a reputation as a hard worker and good teammate, this is the choice they make, over and over.
Compare the qualifications and components of chemistry though to any other metric, and we quickly see that chemistry’s effects, if they exist, are pretty limited.
- Is it better to have an offense that walks more, or that plays louder music after wins?
- Is it better to have a pitching staff that strikes out more hitters, or a team that includes two clubhouse leaders and at least one clubhouse jokester?
- Is it better to have a defense that makes more outs on balls put into play, or one that goes out to dinner together after games?
There’s no better example of this than the 2004 Mariners. The organization believed that they needed more veteran leadership and brought in Scott Spiezio, known as a huge work-ethic and makeup guy, to replace Jeff Cirillo, who had a terrible time here and was fingered as a clubhouse problem. They signed Rich Aurilia, also a good clubhouse guy with playoff experience. Ron Villone and Mike Myers for veteran left-handedness in the pen. Raul Ibanez signed as a free agent from Kansas City where he had a great reputation as a clubhouse presence and community leader. Eddie Guardado had a huge reputation as a great teammate and professional who kept everyone loose.
And they already had Dan Wilson, a clubhouse good guy, and Mark McLemore, a long-time veteran leader, a scrappy local boy with dirt on his uniform in Willie Bloomquist, and the steady presence of Edgar Martinez. They dumped Carlos Guillen, who the organization felt was a bad influence on other players.
It was a club overflowing with chemistry. If ever there was a team specifically constructed to maximize its raw chemistry and be better in total than on paper, it was the 2004 Mariners.
It went 63-99.
If a team can make that many moves to bring in great chemistry and leadership guys – and all of those moves were considered great clubhouse moves at the time – and fail on the field so spectacularly, does it make sense to consider chemisty as a significant factor in building a team?.
I’ve had this argument over and over, and it always runs like this:
“You’re discounting chemistry because you can’t see it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
“Yes. But it does mean that it can’t be that large, because then we’d see it.”
“Just because you can’t measure it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
“Yes. But it does mean that it can’t be that large, because then we’d be able to measure it.”
(and so on, forever)
I’ll borrow an analogy from Carl Sagan.
I have a dragon in my backyard.
You can’t see it because it’s invisible.
You can’t detect it using infrared sensors or anything else because it’s magic.
Its wings doesn’t cause the grass to flatten because it’s super-small.
You can’t feel the flames of its breath because it’s so tiny the heat dissipates harmlessly.
It’s biting you right now but you can’t feel the microscopic teeth.
Do I have a dragon in my backyard or not?