I Seek to Understand Me

This conversation about the presence of advance stats in BBB greatly interests me. I don’t think many of you know but I use to be a frequent contributor back in the day when BBB was still a baby. I was specifically told to avoid being overly technical so BBB can be more accessible to a greater percentage of fans. That was back in 2006. I feel like the knowledge of an average baseball fan has grown exponentially since then, and terms like FIP which was cutting edge back then is now part of the standard vernacular of baseball fans.

I do believe stats have a place in any baseball blog in 2011, that’s where baseball discussion is trending. Do you want the mlb.com draft coverage level of intelligence in the discussions on this site? It is painful enough as it is listening to John Hart and Harold Reynolds talk about how some guy is a ‘baseball player’ or ‘really LOVES baseball’. I hope to find more interesting discussion on sites like BBB.

I think the main issue here is just don’t be a know it all asshole with your opinions. You don’t have to rub it in someone’s face everytime you are right.

…Fangraphs has had some great posts lately on using saber stats in ways that are friendly to a mainstream audience. Even if you don’t adopt all of the ideas, little tricks like using a percentage instead of a number that has no frame of reference for a mainstream fan just seems to make good sense.

Being one of the worst sabermetric offenders, that’s probably all I have that’s productive to add to this discussion :/

I would like people to be able to celebrate in game threads without being shot down with stats (advanced or not). Sometimes I don’t want to know about whether a Jay got lucky or not, I just want to celebrate a 4/4 or a 10k performance.

Just my two cents

how many times people here misunderstand the tone of someone’s post and just respond accordingly. Someone said so and so is an idiot, it must mean the guy who said it knows nothing, is angry, and now must be controlled so it doesn’t happen again. If it bothers YOU, then ask away as if you don’t know what he/she means. Dont assume you know everything and that person knows nothing. You are reading a text not diving into someone’s conscious and getting the exact idea of what they’re thinking.
Another thing is sample sizes as its such a typical response from some of u whenever someone suggests a move such as trade, lineup change, etc. Please don’t fly off the handle if I say rivera and molina should not bat in such a high position or francisco should not be closing games even if its too small of a sample size to make this decision. U can use sample sizes but you dont have to repeat it many times. It makes watching a game so unpleasant cause I cant say anything critical because its “too” early. Also by critical i mean commenting on someone’s struggles on hitting, pitching or fielding.

It bothers me when people dump on him. But if they would only check his splits, they would see he dominates righties and gets butchered by lefties. Used properly (and even Farrell has admitted he didn’t early on) he’s a very effective pitcher.

Above (somewhere), some posters volunteered to review various advanced stats. I would request them to not only tell us how the stats are made, but also why they are useful. In particular, these advanced stats are generally made to exclude data which is not based on individual abilities. One obvious example is “clutchness.” There is no question that clutch hits exist. But there is also no question that there is no ability to hit in the clutch. Years ago, I asked about this, and was told that there was only one player whose clutch hitting was significantly better than his overall hitting — Paul Molitor. So he’s the only outlier (and this is also expected, statistically).

I understand that BABIP is not among a pitcher’s abilities to control. I also get the impression that hitters can control this to some extent (e.g. by their LD%). I would ask the reviewer is to include discussions of this in their reviews.