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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Easy. If you always had this rule in place, would you ever go back to the original rule?
Ask NHL fans if they would like to abolish reviews on goals. Of course the review rule on HR is needed. Once it’s in place, twenty years from now, the clear majority will not say “get rid of the review rule”.
The DH is another matter. Clearly, it’s not working. Has there been any change in rules in baseball that after 35+ years, it still has not been accepted by the clear majority, or at least reviled by the vocal minority? That’s why I support the “home manager” discretion of whether to have DH or not. You will always have that vocal minority, but at least this way, you are reducing them to a tiny minority, like the tiny minority that prefers things simple in the good ole days (that never were other than in selective memory).
Would you go back to a time where you have 4 teams make the playoffs, or 2 teams? The wild card is a good rule for a 30-team league, if you are going to have playoffs.
If you limited mid-inning relief changes in some form (say by making it a 1-0 count count when the 2nd mid-inning reliever comes into the game at any point not just the same inning, 2-0 the third time, and 3-0 the fourth and subsequent times) say in 1972, would we today say “man, I wish they would remove the disincentive, so we can have more mid-inning relievers come into the game”? No, certainly not. No one would say that. So, this makes this a great rule.
What about stopping a regular season game after 12 innings (tie), or going to Olympic-style OT in 1976? Would the fan complain, and want the game to be prolonged? Of course not, since most fans actually leave the ballpark already. They have already voted with their feet that they do NOT want to see games that go on too long (in the regular season). So, some sort of accelerated end to a ball game would be a good rule.
But, MLB is unique in that they think they need to bend over to the vocal minority that has seen Field of Dreams once too often. The common man will break a lifetime contract of love with his spouse and turn over 50% of his assets before agreeing to prevent runners from bowling over a catcher.
Before you complain about proposed rule changes, or what I’ve said here, think first and ask yourself the question: “If we always had this rule in place, would I ever go back to the original rule?”
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Someone asked me why OBP over BA as the scale for wOBA. To me, it’s always been natural, since the denominator of OBP is PA instead of AB (which is a subset of PA). I also reasoned that logic will trump the tradition of ignoramuses, since the ignoramuses will eventually die off.
But, the reader who asked the question says his son talks about BA and not OBP. Now, why is that? Is it the same position that prevents USA from adopting the metric system? If Canada is any indication, if America ever goes the metric route, you’ll have all the old fuddy-duddies complaining and making a stink, while the kids will be absorbed by the metric system in school, and eventually after 10-20 years that generation and all subsequent ones will measure things in kilometers and liters.
This is my expectation for OBP supplanting BA. And the school of OBP must start with Fantasy Baseball. Why don’t the Fantasyers simply go with OBP over BA? If they do that, they’ll overpower those who pray to the church of BA, and OBP will become mainstream. After we settle that one, then we can figure out Palestine and Israel.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
I love these old articles, and I mean really old articles, that shows how little we’ve come.
What is great about this article is that it gives you a true model. Not all the mathematical gymnastics that gives sabermetrics a (much deserved) black eye. No. The author watches the baseball game like a baseball fan, or baseball expert. SME, or subject matter expert, in the real business world. He observes, and he tries to construct a model around those observations. Once you have that, you can try to construct, and deconstruct, a real-life baseball world.
In one small part, one can do this for the “clogging the bases” theory. It’s all fine and dandy to say that a slow runner will clog the bases for a fast runner. But, now you have to sit down and actually observe things, create a model. Once you do that, once you look at it like an SME, and not a gasbag on parade, you realize how almost entirely foolish the clogging theory is.
So, when trying to analyze fielding, model the baseball world first. The author, a hundred years ago, wrote:
In scoring, I place a small “T” above hits I believe too hard to handle, and a small “D” over hits which are doubtful either through bad bounding of the ball or other cause. Of the 424 hits through the infield, 162 were marked “T” and 49 were marked “D.” So the players reached the ball 211 times and failed to field it; and of the 213 times the ball went through untouched 46 were plain hit and run plays in which fielders were going the wrong way, in other words, blundering or being outgeneraled by the batsmen.
I think the current scorekeepers (STATS, BIS, MLB.com) fail us in some respect. They obviously love baseball, but for whatever reason, don’t treat themselves as SMEs. There is tons that they are not recording, things that a hundred years ago, they thought of, and actually recorded (in an unofficial, yet clearly with great care, capacity).
Look at the images at the end of that article, like this one, and tell me why the heck are we so behind the times in 2008, and yet so far ahead of our time in 1910?
Friday, July 11, 2008
Bill James has given the floor to five new writers, one of which is Scott Ham, where he talks about Yankee Stadium, goes on about all things Yankees, and says (sub required):
I love Yankee Stadium because it’s the only place where I can feel close to the history of a team that has always been a part of my consciousness. As long as I can remember, I have been a Yankee fan. I can’t remember a summer where I wasn’t completely engrossed. And while so much of my life has come and gone, the only things that have remained constant are my family and the Yankees.
The “constant” thing reminded me of Jones’ speech. I responded:
Les Canadiens have as storied a history as the Yankees. You could replace “Yankee Stadium” with “Le Forum de Montreal”, replace “Mickey” with “Rocket”, and replace “Reggie” with “Lafleur”, and you’d have everyone in Montreal on board, when they were saying their goodbyes to the Forum. And yet, 10 years later, no one talks about the loss of the Forum.
I suspect it’s a desire to want to have a tie to something physical, but in reality, you just want to be surrounded by like-minded fans, and you can do that in a new ballpark and new arena just the same. The ties are still bound.
This entire romanticization of baseball really gets to me (and not in a good way). I love baseball, and I don’t see the buildings as some monuments to be preserved and revered. The game can be revered all by itself. And the players’ accomplishments (not the players themselves) can also be held up high. Idolizing players (who are no better as people than you and me) and revering some building that has not even stood the test of time is bunk to me.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Interview with a now 99-yr old former MLB player.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Someone at Bill James Online was talking about an “all-tall” team. Here’s what I found:
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Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Joe Poz, easily becoming my favorite blogger (cranky-old writers, take note how it’s done).
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Good job:
Suppose two shortstops are competing for a roster spot. Shortstop A is a brilliant fielder but barely adequate with the bat. Shortstop B is a decent enough fielder and a star with the bat. Is it conceivable a team might choose B over A? On the other hand, Pitcher A is a decent hurler with a great bat while B is a brilliant pitcher with no bat at all. Is there any chance that the team would select A over B for the rotation?
In other words (assuming we answer the questions the same way), while we ascribe practically no value to a pitcher’s hitting and never evaluate their effectiveness based on their bats, we insist that they should come to the plate to do that which we do not value. We rhapsodize over a game where the pitcher is a “complete” player, but only care about it when arguing theoretically. In practice, it plays no part in our choices.
The case against the DH, by Tevye: “Tradition!”
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
The Hockey News has a magazine out that discusses The 60 Greatest Moments in Hockey in the Last 60 Years.
I thought it would be interesting to find the MLB equivalent of their lists:
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from Amazon
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