Are Stats for Dorks?

[Hooded Viper]

I think it is incredibly dismissive to call BABIP or WAR trendy new stats. They have a considerable amount of worth as predictive and descriptive tools.

Thing is . . . Stotle is not as on target with stats as I am. I am not as on target with scouting as he is. We still are able to argue and 'figure' things out. It really should not be a combative us vs them sort of thing. It should be a struggle to find the truth. Sometimes scouting holds that answer, sometimes statistics, sometimes both together, sometimes neither.

Okay, fair enough. My point is, and I would love a GM's perspective here, when do the numbers become too much of a pain??? I mean does AM really sit there and crunch all of the numbers and do his scouts give him all of this numerical data or do they basically have a scale like Ozzie Newsome that says he is good at all of these things so we put him here?

[whatdoiget000]

I'm not sure why playing the game at a high level would make you a better judge of talent than any stat head. Anyone who's read Ball Four knows that there's a good deal of players that are essentially primates.

[theobird]

I'm not sure why playing the game at a high level would make you a better judge of talent than any stat head. Anyone who's read Ball Four knows that there's a good deal of players that are essentially primates.

Thank you very much for that insightful post. With that, I politely bow out of this thread.

[crawdad]

Okay, fair enough. My point is, and I would love a GM's perspective here, when do the numbers become too much of a pain??? I mean does AM really sit there and crunch all of the numbers and do his scouts give him all of this numerical data or do they basically have a scale like Ozzie Newsome that says he is good at all of these things so we put him here?

Depends on the GM. No GM crunches numbers much. Epstein has a group that does it and then presents it to him. He stays on top of what things mean. That statistical information is integrated with the qualitative scouting.

I imagine MacPhail has a small group of folks who try to give him quantitative information. I imagine he leans more on scouting, but I could be wrong. I know when JP was up in Toronto, he was pretty notorious as an anti-stats guy. Ned Colletti is another antistats guy. Rays, Mariners, BoSox, Yanks, now the Blue Jays, and a mess of others devout a great deal of resources to it these days.

Point being, there is a spectrum . . . but everyone has a couple stats guys. Even if they do not fully utilize them.

[Stotle]

I'm not sure why playing the game at a high level would make you a better judge of talent than any stat head. Anyone who's read Ball Four knows that there's a good deal of players that are essentially primates.

Well, to be fair, you do pick-up a ton simply by being around the game. You learn to identify things that are characteristic of successful players, even if you don't know or can't put to words what those things are. This usually comes out as "this kid looks like a ballplayer" or something like that. That's someone who has been around the game and is picking up certain visual queues that trigger an association with a successful player he's seen in the past.

You hear poker players discuss it as a 6th sense at the card table. It's likely just a sub-conscious recognition of a series of events that resulted in a certain outcome in the past.

Does that make any sense? I just read it again and I can't tell.

[LookinUp]

Stotle, you are one of the posters that I really respect on here. Again, I think I am a pretty good judge of talent but I really can't argue with the stats guys bascially because they can throw WAR or BABIP or what ever the new trendy stat is. All I know is I can tell a good player from a bad player. Don't get me wrong, I respect the hell out of the stat guys but I just wonder when enough is enough. To each his own.

How quickly do you think you can do that? I mean, you have to watch enough of any particular player to see how they hit different pitches or pitch to different types of hitters, or field their position. I agree that you can get a sense of a player pretty quickly, but if a guy can't hit a curve ball or locate his pitches, his weakness will be exploited over time.

[crawdad]

Well, to be fair, you do pick-up a ton simply by being around the game. You learn to identify things that are characteristic of successful players, even if you don't know or can't put to words what those things are. This usually comes out as "this kid looks like a ballplayer" or something like that. That's someone who has been around the game and is picking up certain visual queues that trigger an association with a successful player he's seen in the past.

You hear poker players discuss it as a 6th sense at the card table. It's likely just a sub-conscious recognition of a series of events that resulted in a certain outcome in the past.

Does that make any sense? I just read it again and I can't tell.

I agree. Sometimes being around the game turns someone into a good baseball man (i.e. Beane), but it can also make something think really peculiar things (i.e. Joe Morgan).

I guess it boils down to whether you still challenge yourself or just assume you know everything there is to know.

[Stotle]

How quickly do you think you can do that? I mean, you have to watch enough of any particular player to see how they hit different pitches or pitch to different types of hitters, or field their position. I agree that you can get a sense of a player pretty quickly, but if a guy can't hit a curve ball or locate his pitches, his weakness will be exploited over time.

Exactly. This is what I was clumsily trying to touch on with my Martin Perez example.

[Stotle]

I agree. Sometimes being around the game turns someone into a good baseball man (i.e. Beane), but it can also make something think really peculiar things (i.e. Joe Morgan).

I guess it boils down to whether you still challenge yourself or just assume you know everything there is to know.

Haha. Yes, exactly.

[Icterus galbula]

Well, to be fair, you do pick-up a ton simply by being around the game. You learn to identify things that are characteristic of successful players, even if you don't know or can't put to words what those things are. This usually comes out as "this kid looks like a ballplayer" or something like that. That's someone who has been around the game and is picking up certain visual queues that trigger an association with a successful player he's seen in the past.

You hear poker players discuss it as a 6th sense at the card table. It's likely just a sub-conscious recognition of a series of events that resulted in a certain outcome in the past.

Does that make any sense? I just read it again and I can't tell.

Makes sense to me. You watch a player and your brain uses algorithms to judge them and make comparisons to your stored knowledge, even if you aren't aware of all the mechanizations.

Crunching stats through a computer is just another way to judge and make comparisons, but the mechanizations are obvious.

[BRobinsonfan]

Okay, fair enough. My point is, and I would love a GM's perspective here, when do the numbers become too much of a pain??? I mean does AM really sit there and crunch all of the numbers and do his scouts give him all of this numerical data or do they basically have a scale like Ozzie Newsome that says he is good at all of these things so we put him here?

Statistics help to measure reality. So... when do they become "too much?" To me it's like asking when does a tape measure or a ruler become "too much" for a carpenter?

As long as the data behind them is reliable... I don't think stats are ever too much.

[wickedwitch]

Stats can definitely be misused, but that doesn't take away from all the positive aspects. Stats have several purposes. The first is to summarize a game for those unable to view it. It is humanly impossible to watch just all of the MLB games, let alone minor league and amateur games, so there needs to be a way to understand what happened. Secondly, it gives people a way of analyzing the play without bias. Humans, by definition, are not objective. Stats are. They also show things that humans are physically incapable of detecting on their own, like pitch speed. And they may show an alternative view point on a player that hasn't been considered.

But I'm a self-proclaimed dork who never played baseball so take this FWIW.

[Icterus galbula]

Statistics help to measure reality. So... when do they become "too much?" To me it's like asking when does a tape measure or a ruler become "too much" for a carpenter?

As long as the data behind them is reliable... I don't think stats are ever too much.

Agreed. As others have said, you never want to abandon scouting or stats. A mix of each is the most useful. Because you want to always use both, why not strive to create and use more descriptive, predictive, and accurate stats? Improving one aspect of your methods is not necessarily at the expense of the other aspect.

[Hooded Viper]

How quickly do you think you can do that? I mean, you have to watch enough of any particular player to see how they hit different pitches or pitch to different types of hitters, or field their position. I agree that you can get a sense of a player pretty quickly, but if a guy can't hit a curve ball or locate his pitches, his weakness will be exploited over time.

You tell me. That is basically my point, when does the eye ball factor overcome the stats? I am not and never will be a scout but I have it my family, albeit Europen Football, I know that numbers never tell the entire story. If they did then Nolan Reimold would be toiling in AAA ball.

[Big Mac]

If they did then Nolan Reimold would be toiling in AAA ball.

Nolan Reimold had some pretty damn good minor league numbers. Not sure what your point is here.