Which former President? I dunno. You figure out what former President is on the twenty-dollar bill, was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, followed closely the words of pamphleteers, and whose private letter to a Baptist Association gave us the phrase “separation between church and state.”

The short term lesson for you young ones is not to burn your bridges, even once they’ve passed on… I mean, been torn down. You never know when you might need to pull something like this out of your a$$.

I love to trumpet my own horn. Bill James just knocked on my door and told me I’m awesome.

Which major league manager? I dunno. You figure out what major league manager grew up in the Phily area, is in his late 40s, and had two female cousins that I dated in high school.

The short term lesson for you young ones is not to burn your bridges. You never know when you might need to pull something like this out of your a$$.

I disagree, strongly, with your analysis. Statistics are based on the “randomness” of the sample, so it also needs “all other things being equal” for it to give a meaningful result. But baseball is not an “all things are equal” kind of sport. Talk to visiting relief pitchers at CBP, and you start to understand what I mean.

Fielders do not receive the same plays, in the same sequence, and in the same situations. Therefore, “pure statictics” are not accurate in determining a player’s fielding worth. You need to qualitatively figure out what it means. Otherwise, one’s quantitative effort leads to “garbage in, garbage out.”

Range Factor is a valuable statistic, but absolutely worthless without some qualitative discussion describing it’s meaning. For instance, in the real world, major league batters are able to pretty much hit the ball where they want. That means, if they want to avoid hitting the ball to the Short Stop, they can do that. That will mean the Short Stop wil get less opportunities, and the few opportunities he does get, will take far more effort to make.

That’s where pure statistics fails. It cannot, nor does it attempt, to take into account what others intended to do, or the result. That’s why one needs to qualitatively understand the statistics before they make overly broad assumptions regarding what they mean.

~ Squonk64

I believe I am correct on the facts, and thank you for point that out to me. I really don’t know what else to say.

No, I am not familiar with Hanley Ramirez, nor do I give one rats ass about anybody who played for a team in Miami.

I have spent my 43 years living in an area where I saw loads of Phillies games, with an occasional O’s game mixed in. Have you seen Brooks Robinson pull off the front end, meaning the first two outs, of a triple play against the Yankees? I don’t think so.

Look, if you want to debate minutia, find someone else. I just want to make sure my Phillies have a great team next year.

~ Squonk64

Firstly, I don’t agree with any method of computation over the MVP…this year especially. David Wright, apparently, did nothing to get his team into postseason (not that this should neccessarily be a qualifier). When we pour ourselves into mass bundles of statistics, we simply remove the human element from the situation. Obviously, stats are the fingerprint of a great season, but what of the intangibles? How many records did Jimmy set? How about his “iron man” performance? What about the, “preseason prediction?” What about his baton pick up from where Chase was felled? You need to ask yourself, “do stats really aswer these questions?” …which, if you think about it, are all directly related to whether or not a player is Most Valuable.

By the way, you and others are simply reading waaaayyyyy to into the Hitler comments. Conlin should have used more tact with that notion, but his intent is painfully obvious and it wasn’t anti semitism. Get over it people.

Kudos for handling this entire episode with not only grace, but self-examination too. I can’t admit to being a regular reader of Crashburn Alley before, but you’ve won me over.