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Monday, January 25, 2010
I agree with Bill James 100% on this one thing
In describing his Loss Shares system for 1B he says this:
The way that many analytical systems are constructed, we would say that the shortstop who hits .270 with an .800 OPS is a better hitter than the first baseman who hits .275 with an .825 OPS. He is a better hitter because he is a shortstop.
OK, I’m not arguing with you, exactly, but. . .that’s not the way this system works. He is not a better hitter. A shortstop who has an .800 OPS is NOT a better hitter than a first baseman with an .825 OPS; he just isn’t. He’s a better fielder.
My system is set up to reflect what I think is the reality of the game: that shortstops and catchers are better fielders than first basemen. I’m not saying that every shortstop is better defensively than every first baseman. Wes Parker against Rafael Ramirez, Wes Parker will win in a walk. But, in general, shortstops and catchers make a larger contribution to the defensive success of the team than do first basemen or left fielders.
Many systems are set up to “normalize” these differences out of existence, to say that the average-hitting left fielder is an average hitter, that the average-fielding shortstop is an average fielder. I don’t believe in that. I believe that first basemen are better hitters than shortstops, and shortstops are better fielders than first basemen. I think this is obvious. I think that the mathematical analysis of the game should be set up to reflect what is obviously true, rather than imposing a fictional average on the whole.
Thus, in my system, shortstops tend to be .600 or .650 fielders, whereas first basemen tend to be .400 or .425 fielders. You can agree, you can disagree; I believe that that’s the way it should be.
And my entire presentation of Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is based on this concept. I believe in it precisely for the reasons that James states: it reflects reality. I am so totally opposed to the mathematical gymnastics that analysts go through to present something clean. As noted in Moneyball, Lewis says that James prefers the honest mess than the tidy lie. And I agree wholeheartedly here as well.
You even see it with my Fans Scouting Report, where the average SS has a rating of around 60 (on a 0-100 scale, where the average fielder is 50) and the average 1B is around a 40. Exactly what James is talking about here.
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