It's your world, we just live in it.
I think there's a macro and micro side to this. SABR data is good for the macro, helping GMs figure out how a player is going to perform over the next five years, say. The micro helps managers determine how a player is going to perform over the next five games, at bats or pitches.
Considering how inefficient baseball is at finding and developing major leaguers, anything SABR can do to improve the measuring of performance is golden. And considering what a mental game it is, any given play might come down to unmeasurable factors.
Seems like Bill James spent about 20 years snubbing his nose at the baseball establishment, and he's going to spend the next 20 making amends trying to become one of them. Color me skeptical that he didn't know much of the stuff he claims now to not have known. Some of the things he talks about is fairly common sense that just about any educated baseball fan would understand.
Grape works as a soda. Sort of as a gum. I wonder why it doesn't work as a pie. Grape pie? There's no grape pie. - Larry David
Not really! I mean, are you telling me you didn't know that pitchers throw change-ups way more often to opposite handed batters? I find that hard to believe. That's just common sense. For the RH pitcher, the change-up breaks back in towards RH hitter and away from a lefty, and vice versa for the LH pitcher. It's the exact same reason why lefties throw breaking balls to lefties me often than righties, and the same for RH pitchers vs RH hitters. This isn't earth shattering stuff. Of course they're not going to throw change-ups to hitters of the same side.
All anyone had to do was watch Tom Glavine get right handers out for 15 years with the exact same pitch understand this concept. It's pitching 101. If you're a lefty, you throw change-ups to RH and breaking ball to LH. It's generally better to have a pitch break away from a hitter than back in towards them. It's the same reason why a pitcher can really get burned trying to bust an opposite handed hitter inside with a fastball. It's coming in towards them, so if you miss your spot, or he's able to catch up to it, it's going a long way. No one is going to have trouble catching up to a change-up so having a slower pitch from a RH pitcher coming back in towards the hitter is disaster waiting to happen. If it's a slower pitch, it sure as hell better be headed away from the hitter instead of back over the hitting zone.
It's just an overall observation from watching James post-Moneyball. He seems to want to distance himself from the very movement he created and is now wanting to cozy up with the very people he built his career lambasting. It's not a judgment, just an observation. I may be way wrong.
And just to be absolutely certain, nothing in my comments are meant to devalue the scouts and the value they bring to the table. It's about James and these things he says he never knew. Heck, if James genuinely didn't know this about pitchers, I may have to agree with the idea that he didn't spend enough time paying attention to what was going on in the game.
Last edited by MWM; 03-27-2010 at 08:54 PM.
Grape works as a soda. Sort of as a gum. I wonder why it doesn't work as a pie. Grape pie? There's no grape pie. - Larry David
Actually it's been 22 years since he drew the line in his last abstract, a line that he felt he had to draw.It's just an overall observation from watching James post-Moneyball. He seems to want to distance himself from the very movement he created
I've also got to say, guys, that having done this, I've now done all I can do. I can't help you any more. . .I leave the field to whoever is playing in it. Because four months a year of cyclical depression has gotten too much for me. Because I am no longer certain that the effects of my doing this kind of research are in the best interests of the average baseball fan. Because I wonder if anything I found now could have any real impact on the game. Because I have been repaid for my years of doing this book in anonymity, and no longer have any claim to go on drawing paychecks from it. Because while I have enjoyed doing this book, I have only one lifetime and many dreams. Because I have confidence that I will make a living one way or another. Because I feel that I am on a collision course with my own audience. Because I suspect that my leaving the field may be in the interests of sabermetrics.
Because it is time to go, friends. I'm breakin' the wand, exit stage right. I hereby release any and all of my formulas, theories, and other systems of analysis to any other analyst who wishes to use them and to call them by name (runs created, value approximation method, etc.) either for private or economic use, even by Elias should they so desire. I'll be doing other things, writing other books. I won't be hard to find. I hope that some of you will enjoy those other books. I know that some of you won't, and that's all right, too. It's been good.
Bill James
Sabermetrician, Retired
February 1988
My first impression reading James remark was that he was unaware of the 5x part...not so much the fact that the changeup is thrown more to one type of handed-hitter.
Grape works as a soda. Sort of as a gum. I wonder why it doesn't work as a pie. Grape pie? There's no grape pie. - Larry David
Grape works as a soda. Sort of as a gum. I wonder why it doesn't work as a pie. Grape pie? There's no grape pie. - Larry David
As much as many stat oriented fans hate to hear it, I believe it really is the difference between having played the game and having only observed it, no matter how smart or intuitive the observer may be.
Just because it's taken as an insult to say things like "you never played the game", there is some truth to it in many instances, and I think this is exactly the case here.
We'll go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost effective ~ Kurt Vonnegut
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