THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Dewan needs his head examined. Just a thought…

Care to elaborate?

I can’t put my finger on it, but something doesn’t feel right to me when you compare a voter to the consensus, which includes that voter.  Isn’t that the whole point of a consensus - to get a variety of votes?

One of the problems with that method, of the top of my head, is that if you have a really smart guy among a bunch of dunderheads, you end up throwing out the smart guy.  Even if you have all smart guys, but all but one of the guys use essentially the same method, you also end up throwing out the one guy you really need. 

In this specific case, shouldn’t Dewan be using really smart guys with respect to evaluating fielding, trying to get a nice variety of methodologies?  If he is going to be including “friends” like Murphy or some other guys that have no qualifications to do the job, then the whole thing is somewhat of a waste of time (or at the very least, the one or two bad apples would just essentially get ignored I guess - hopefully).

You can also simply look at everyone’s picks and if anyone gives you a bizarre pick (like Mike Young or McClouth), then you give him one more chance. If he does it again, then he is out.  That is one of MGL’s rules, with a second chance.  If you say something REALLY dumb in a particular arena, you are almost certainly stupid in that arena, no matter what anyone thinks of you. (It should probably be a % of dumb things, as I guess if someone says enough things, no matter how smart they are, they will occasionally say some dumb things - although you should be given a chance to take it back if someone points out that it is dumb - if you don’t - take it back that is - then MGL’s rule definitely kicks in.)

agreed MGL. Dewan might have gone after Ari Kaplan or others to see if they might have an interest instead adding a bunch of yo-yo’s to the party.

Also, it’s highly probable that a lot of these guys use the Fielding Bible +/- numbers in their evaluations, at least sub-consciously. Posnanski references +/- numbers all the time in his blog posts, so he’s at least seen the leaders and trailers in the recent past. The mix should be something like: the +/- numbers, a ML scout or two, the FSR, a not stat-savvy national baseball writer/analyst like Peter Gammons or Tim Brown (of Yahoo), and then maybe Bill James just for kicks. Throw in a few more judges and you have a diverse panel with a wide range of viewpoints on judging fielding.

Yes, if he were really serious about this, he would have a more thoughtful system. I agree that guys like Posnanski and Neyer are probably just going by the Fielding Bible numbers.  Other than by using the metrics, I honestly have no idea how someone could possibly be capable of voting for players league-wide.  I watch as much baseball as anyone.  I have no idea who is the “best.” I would even hesitate to say who I think is good or bad, since I get to watch maybe 10% of all players at most.  To tell you the truth, the only person’s opinion I would give any credence to whatsoever would be a serious fan who watches almost all of a team’s games, and then only for the players on that team.  A good example of what you get when you ask a person to evaluate the entire league from observation, are the GG awards, which I think everyone is in agreement that you pay them no attention whatsoever (obviously they are not far off on most of them).