For All The Dummies

but I kinda disagree with your premise that sabermetrics is an addiction that is overrunning the site. i’d say RR is saber-friendly or even saber-heavy, but there’s other stuff going on too

also, where do you see the offensive improvement? I think the offense will be a little bit better, thanks to gordon, butler and jacobs, but I dunno if it’ll be good enough to be middle of the pack

it would be an absolute gigantic deal in KC if this happened…

but not that dumb, lol…

The term “run support” kind of defines itself… I just didn’t know if there were any other factors besides bad luck that could factor into it… I just find it odd that Meche has been the recipient of that much misfortune… One of those stats that seems it should “center to the mean”.

I am for sure one of the few that only write stat related articles here. It is somewhat of a hobby that I enjoy. That being said, I love the people pieces more than anything. I usually read Retro’s 100 and the affiliate writeups immediately. I wish there was more of them. I have a few ides of my own (look at the yearly release of Topps baseball Cards and a look at Royals on the cover of SI, etc), but there always that limit on time.

I always feel I am at a disadvantage to everyone in that I rarely see the Royals in action and have to take everyone’s word for it on how they look. I only subscribe to the Gameday audio and besides a few spring training games and the 3 game stretch in Phoenix last year and the few times on WGN vs the Sox, I never get to see them play.

I have rarely seen Butler field 1st base, but everyone says he is a hack (as are most 1st basemen), but his numbers so it differently. He is probably somewhere in between.

I really wish we had a scout person here that could really break down mechanics, but some one that that is probably working for some team out there.

Well, that is enough rambling for now.

Nice to see you post them, FretFriendly. I assume from your handle you are a guitarist.

This is something I’ve been thinking about a fair bit recently, actually. I’m probably going to have a longer post on this on Driveline Mechanics in the next week or two, but Iperhaps sharing some of my thoughts now would help me get them out there.

I realize that some may see me as a “stathead” and as someone who talks gibberish a lot of the time. And there’s a bit of truth in that, although I’m more of a tag-along with the real statheads than anything else. I understand that it can be baffling. Sometimes the tone some of us use can seem to shut people out of an “expert discourse,” or can be a way of asserting authority, a “conversation stopper.” Part of this is due to the tone used, and while I know that I’ve almost certainlly been guilty of this, I hope that i’m getting better about it.

But there’s a different way of looking at it. The truth is, at the beginning of the 2008 season, although I’d been sympathetic to “sabermetric” approaches for a number of years, I only had a vague idea of much of the stuff — I barely knew what VORP was, much less how it worked. That’s why I want to be sensitive — I realize that much of the stuff I post about now I wouldn’t have understood at all a year ago. And that’s why I should be more sensitive on the fan blog.

Having said that, I can also say that, while I definitely don’t think it’s necessary or anything for fans to get into the stuff, that it has not only increased my personal enjoymenet of the game, but that I think that the way sabermetrics has developed on-line is actually more “down-to-earth” than it may come off. Yes, it takes time to get to know it. But in a real way, it’s more “democratic.” It demystifies the game. There is so much great free analysis (and the best is free, for some reason) at various SBNation blogs (here, Beyond the Box Sore), The Hardball Times, Fangraphs, and elsewhere, and just about anyone can at least get the basics. I’m hardly mathematically skilled at all, and I think I have a pretty good grasp on the stuff.

What does this mean? It means that just about anyone with the time can learn the stuff for free — that means that one no longer has to rely on talking heads and newpaper journalists with allegedly “insider information” and/or scouting reports from various sources, from people who have a “special eye” for these things to get pretty good analysis. The statistical approach to baseball opens up very valuable information so that anyone can access it, as opposed to having to exclusively put faith in some people who “just know” that player x is better than player y, or so on.

This isn’t to dismiss scouting or anything — it has a very important place. I very much value those opinions, even from “amateur” scouts. But think about it in the context of the complaint here — what is more “open” to everyone: information that can be viewed on the internet, or calculated by anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of spreadsheets, or something that can only come from an “:established” reporter or former player or professional scout.

And that’s also why we need to make sure our tone is appropriate. Sabermetrics demystifies and democratizes the analysis of the sport. Therefore, those of us who are into that approach shouldn’t set ourselves up as the new priesthood possessing esoteric knowledge. Leave that to the Bud Shanks of the world.

loved this:

Sabermetrics have become more like crack around the Royals Review than actual blog-worthy material

It’s true sometimes, but I think it’s only overkill during the offseason when there really isn’t much to talk about but projections because people can’t wait for games to start. Once the season starts, RR becomes much more readable all across the board no matter which school of thought you subscribe to. Just get ready, if the Royals are losing, there will be a lot of quick backlash and irrationality. It’s fun, though, because that’s what creates discussions.

I’m at work, so I can’t read the whole thing, but from what I gather this is a discussion worth reading whether the original post was or not!
More from me later.