BDD: A Theory on the Acceptance of Sabermetrics
by Bill Baer on March 6th, 2010Posted in Baseball Daily Digest, MLB, Sabermetrics | Print | 13 Comments »
At Baseball Daily Digest, I try to put myself in the shoes of a casual fan looking at Sabermetrics.
Despite the popular claim that you can always see something new in a baseball game, there are finite events that can occur on the baseball field. They have been neatly categorized into buckets such as safe or out; ball or strike; ground ball, fly ball, or line drive; single, double, triple, or home run; fastball, change-up, slider, and so on. That makes the data much easier to collect and analyze than in other, more prevalent areas of science. For instance, we know surprisingly little about the human body despite the incredible advancements that have been made over the years. Yet the research of neurosurgeons is never called into question by the average person, but the research of Sabermetricians is constantly taken to task. Sabermetric research has been very thorough and very convincing to many people, resulting in sea change in the philosophy found in baseball front offices.
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13 Responses to “BDD: A Theory on the Acceptance of Sabermetrics”
By Argive on Mar 6, 2010
Interesting article. I think you’re right.
My dad is a great person and a huge baseball fan. He grew up rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and then the Orioles after the Dodgers moved to LA (he started rooting for the Phils after Angelos ripped the guts out of the O’s). So he’s been used to AVG/HR/RBI for about 50 years now. When I started talking about weird stats like “OPS,” “BABIP,” “wOBA” and “FIP” he thought I was crazy. But then he read Moneyball, and he started paying more attention to sabermetrics. He still talks about things like RBI and clubhouse presence, but I think that’s more out of habit than ego. Certainly he agrees with me that Happ will not have another 2.9 ERA season this year.
By Danny on Mar 6, 2010
Totally 100% right.
It’s like the bullies who bother the nerdy kids in grade school. The nerdy kids are so smart, and the bullies just don’t get how they can be so smart, so they yell and scream and make them feel inferior.
It’s no coincidence that pretty much every front office has high-level employees who use advanced statistics. For some reason the fans can’t see that. I really don’t get how.
Advanced stats use logic, and nothing can beat logic. So I’ll just keep making the same points over and over again until people get it.
By Undocorkscrew on Mar 6, 2010
Well, this goes both ways…..in terms of fan bickering.
I’ve been called out countless times for NOT using sabermetrics. I’ve been called a republican that’s scared of change(I’m a liberal, btw), an idiot, ignorant, and countless other insults by people who can’t seem to understand the concept of someone else’s opinion.
Just like sabermetric followers are called ‘nerds’ by fans who don’t follow it.
Personally, I don’t pay attention to the system. Watching a player perform and using general stats have worked for me for years, and I just don’t see any need to change that until it stops working for me. I certainly understand why people use the system and I’m not trying to discredit it. It’s just something I don’t use.
By Danny on Mar 6, 2010
I understand your sentiments with the “idiot, ignorant, etc, etc” arguments, and that’s pretty much used only when someone doesn’t have a viable argument.
But with all the info out there today, it’s too easy to see the shortcomings in stats like RBI, AVG and W.
There are certainly “old” stats that have merit but are not perfect sciences…like ERA.
The great thing about baseball is the neverending quest to build a perfect player or a perfect team. In a game that’s largely built on failure, all people want to do is avoid that failure. By developing all of these advanced metrics, that’s what everyone is trying to do. It will never be perfect because that’s what baseball is about, but it definitely brings a different and more interesting element to the game.
By Undocorkscrew on Mar 6, 2010
[quote]These comments have me wondering why casual baseball fans are so dismissive of Sabermetrics and the people who study them. I know the traditional claim is that people watch baseball for entertainment and don’t want math to interfere with that. However, they could just as easily ignore Sabermetrics without such an emotional response.[/quote]
A lot of them have to deal with sabermetric fanatics who comment on their postings of normal stats when evaluating a player. Saber fans actually do put some of this on themselves, unfortunately. Just like any crowd, there are gonna be some rotten apples.
By Undocorkscrew on Mar 6, 2010
@ Danny..
For the record, I value OBP more than AVG. I don’t really put much stock into RBI or wins either.
By GrandSlamSingle on Mar 7, 2010
I wonder if the Semmelweis reflex comes into play here.
I do disagree with the statement that people don’t question the credibility of scientists. Witness the anti-vaccination crowd, “Intelligent Design”, the pseudoscience surrounding alternative medicine, and outlandish food fads(Breatharianism, anyone?)If anything, I get the impression that American society tends to be anti-science or anti-intellectual.
I think it all comes down to the fact that humans are not hard-wired to think rationally. It’s something we have to work hard at, and it’s not usually taught in school unless you’re studying science, or certain branches of philosophy or math. And even that’s no guarantee that our irrational side won’t overwhelm us as poor Semmelweis found out.
By Argive on Mar 7, 2010
@ Undocorkscrew:
Yeah, I think that has more to do with the fact that people are often jerks on the Internet, no matter the topic.
A brief explanation of the phenomenon may be found here: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/
By Shooter-B on Mar 7, 2010
Ego, probably. That, and the longer someone holds a belief…the harder it seems to change. Whether you’re talking about baseball, creation, or climate change.
Not that I disagree at all with your premise, but one stat I have trouble with is BAPIP. I know it will usually gravitate back towards .300 no matter who the pitcher is, over a long enough sample size.
But I just don’t think that a pitcher has “little to no control” over BAPIP. If Maddux hits his spot with a 2-seamer, a hitter may get a bat on it…but very little chance to hit it solid. That can’t be the same as putting a hanging breaking ball from Oliver Perez in play. I just don’t know that BAPIP accounts for other factors like pitch mix, command, movement, velocity, etc.
The stat is certainly useful, no arguing that. But it seems like a weird number to me when even a full season sample size of BAPIP isn’t always enough to be conclusive.
Ideally, the stat geeks and old-school scouts would work together. Sounds a little bit like politics.
By hk on Mar 7, 2010
Shooter-B, one thing that keeps BABIP’s off Maddux and Perez relatively close is that significantly more of Perez’s hanging breaking balls get hit out of the park. During his career, opponents had a BABIP of .289 vs. Maddux, but they only hit .63 HR’s per 9 IP off of him. Opponents have a .296 BABIP off Ollie, but they hit 1.33 long balls per 9 off of him.
By Bill Baer on Mar 7, 2010
To add to that, hk, Oliver Perez also walks significantly more batters.
Maddux: 1.80 BB/9; 3.37 K/BB
Perez: 4.95 BB/9; 1.86 K/BB
As for BABIP, some pitchers do show repeated ability to keep their BABIP lower than normal, but they are few and far between like Nolan Ryan and Tim Wakefield.
By Shooter-B on Mar 7, 2010
Oops…Not sure I why I referred to it as BAPIP instead of BABIP. I guess BAPIP sounds cooler.
Points taken. Just thought of Maddux as an example of a control guy. In his prime, he kept his BABIP way down below the .300 range. Guess those guys are fairly rare.
Olly Perez might have been a bad example. He couldn’t hit sand on a Sahara sky-dive.
By Bill on Mar 8, 2010
Controlling BABIP basically doesn’t happen much more than controlling the rate stats (GB%, FB%, and LD%), so to a degree a pitcher can influence BABIP by changing those rate stats somewhat. Generally though it’s not possible, maybe with the exception of Rivera.
As far as acceptance of sabermetrics, it will happen gradually, it’s just such a gaping divide at the moment that people feel uncomfortable being told everything they know about baseball stats is wrong. For example; when you’re a kid I looked every day in the paper to see who was leading in BA or HR’s (and I’m not even old). Nowadays when I compare players I don’t even notice their batting average except as an afterthought. ERA is a little different since it indicates something more concrete in terms of performance, but it’s obviously not perfect.
As far as FIP / DIPS – I love it for its value in projection and objectivity, but it doesn’t always do a great job telling the history. Just because a pitcher should regress or improve the next year doesn’t indicate the history (ERA) was incorrect, just that it’s not incredibly value for projecting the future.