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Friday, December 21, 2007
Quantum Leap or Wiseguy?
Quantum Leap was one of my favorite shows. The tag line for Scott Bakula’s character was “setting right what once went wrong”. The best episode was when he managed to leap back into his own body as a kid, trying to stop his father from an early heart attack, alerting his brother of his impending doom, and keeping his sister from getting involved with the wrong guy. Fantastic episode, and great ending. Bakula was perfectly cast. This show was opposite one of my other all-timer, Wiseguy, with Ken Wahl. Basically, the show was the precursor to the Donnie Brasco movie. Brilliant show, and Wahl had the perfect charm for the role. Why they would put two such great shows targetting such similar audiences (namely, me) before VCRs would be so ubiquitous, who knows.
Anyway, let’s set the sabermetric world right with what is currently wrong. I’ve made my pleas in various threads here about correcting concepts or improving them. Shows how much influence I have: nada. I end up sounding like a wiseguy.
If by the time you read the rest of this post you are becoming offended in some way, then you’ve missed the intended spirit here. This is not personal, it’s business. It’s about getting things done better, not continuing to do things the same wrong way. Check your egos at the door, stop your defensive mechanism, and let’s leave Karl Rove have his best-defense-is-a-good-offense mechanism to himself.
Let’s come up with all that troubles you and me in the sabermetric world, and I (or we) can prepare a decent primer on what should change, to make it the reference point or launching pad to try to correct things.
Here’s my list:
From Baseball Prospectus:
- entire concept of LEV
- replacement level of WARP
- runs created portion of VORP
- using the term Pythagenport instead of PythagenPat
- the unnecessary complexity of EqA
- [you fill in the blanks]
From Baseball Reference:
- similarity scores (non-separation of counting and rate stats)
- the meaningless of OPS+, to be replaced by some form of RC+ (based on RC, LWTS, or BaseRuns)
- [you fill in the blanks]
From Tangotiger:
- over-reliance on the Fans’ Scouting Report (show us better evidence and application, already)
- WPA?
- WPA/LI?
- [you fill in the blanks]
From MGL:
- the confusion as a reader of his use of replacement level for pitchers
- [you fill in the blanks]
From Bill James:
- the non-use of BaseRuns
- the non-use of Leverage Index (see: THT Annual 2008)
- the non-use of FIP
- the non-use of [you fill in the blanks]
- [you fill in the blanks]
From Hardball Times:
- [you fill in the blanks]
From [you fill in the blanks]:
- [you fill in the blanks]