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Sunday, October 29, 2006
What happens when sabermetricians become mainstream writers?
Apparently they completely lose their minds.
A few days or a week or so ago, I was so disturbed at some of the things that Keith Law was writing on ESPN.com Insider that I thought about starting a “keith Law has lost his mind” thread. I decided against it but after reading his post-game 5 column I can’t contain myself anymore. To wit:
For Justin Verlander to throw the ball bunted by Jeff Weaver to third base after Joel Zumaya had made the same mistake Tuesday is inexcusable. It’s dumb baseball—as if Verlander wasn’t even there three nights ago. All the jokes about pitchers’ fielding practices are misguided; PFPs teach pitchers to field routine plays, but they can’t make a pitcher make a smart decision.
Zumaya’s mistake was nothing like this play! Zumaya got a DP ground ball where you normally go to second for the DP and he elected to go to third which is very unusual. Verlander fielded a bunt and even though cutting down the runner at third with one out is not as important as cutting him down with 0 outs, he simply elected (and was probably instructed by his catcher to do so) to try and cut down the runner at third, which WAS THE CORRECT PLAY and is done all the tine on a less than perfect bunt. In fact, in this case, Molina, the runner on second, would have been out by a mile, but Verlander happened to have thrown the ball away. It was 100% the correct play and I don’t think there is a person on the planet who thought anything at all about the decision by Verlander to throw to third. Except Keith I guess. Verlander could have just as easily thrown the ball away if he elected to go to first. In fact, it would have been a longer throw. I have absolutely no idea what Keith is talking about and I really have to wonder if this guy has ever watched a baseball game before.
Here is another head scratcher in the same article:
Inge deserves even more criticism for one of the biggest baserunning gaffes of the postseason. After doubling with one out in the third, Inge was caught heading for third base after Verlander grounded back to the pitcher. There was no excuse for him to be where he was; at worst, his instructions should have been (and probably were) to stay put until the ball at least passes the pitcher, and probably to stay put on any groundball until it left the infield.
Again, what in the world is this guy talking about? First of all, when you are on second base, you don’t get “instructed” about anything. When you are on third base you do. No one tells you not to try to advance to third until the ball gets by the pitcher. You learn that in Little League. But the real kicker in the paragraph above is ...probaboly to stay put on any groundball until it left the infield. Huh? Has Keith ever played baseball? Again, has he ever watched a game before in person or on TV? I mean that rhetorically of course. Earth to Keith: You advance to third on any ball hit to your left, not on a ball that goes through the IF. Even on a ball that is hit to your right, you have the option to advance if you think you can make it some percentage of the time (80%? 90%?).
This is a guy we are supposed to buy Scouting information from?