Simmons on sabermetrics

[Moose Milligan]

Great article by Simmons. Say what you want about him and his dumb Boston bias but I think he's a great writer at times.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/100402

Hits several nails on the head. This should be required reading for O5F

[birrman54]

Good article - I'm not a huge Simmon's fan, but I respect writers that are willing to grow beyond what they've traditionally believed and practiced.

[beaner]

Great article by Simmons. Say what you want about him and his dumb Boston bias but I think he's a great writer at times.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/100402

Hits several nails on the head. This should be required reading for O5F

Awesome. Love Simmons, love Baseball, good to see him embrace this and am looking forward to seeing him write about it again.

[Tony-OH]

Great article. Obviously I don't like his pro-Boston approach, but his articles are normally very entertaining. This one was very informative and should be required reading for everyone on this site who hasn't embraced sabermetrics yet.

[Don Quixote]

Good read, especially for someone like me. I grew up on the basics and never really thought about anything else for several years until I started to lurk here and check out Baseball Reference. It will still be awhile before I'm well-versed, but indeed some of these things aren't as intimidating as they would first seem - they're just different sets of letters and measures than the traditional ones, and take a little getting used to.

[Flip217]

"Fight it, and you're just being stubborn."

...reminds me of somebody... :scratchchinhmm:

[Miller192]

Great article. I'm about 12 months behind Simmons, or where he was.

I'll come around to it eventually.

[byrdz]

Good breakdown on the "fun stats". Am I the only one who thinks it's strange that this guy is "pro-Red Sox" and is just now warming up to sabermetrics??

[Don Quixote]

Well, I think that his initial point of view was a very understandable one - being comfortable with the counting stats, and trying to relax when watching a game, without bringing too much work into it. His point about making newer statistics conceptually accessible to the average fan, who still relies on the counting/"baseball card" types of numbers is possibly the most important. The more readily understandable it is, the more accepted it will be. Though that aspect hasn't been perfected yet on an obvious, casual observer-type scale, there are guys that have made the effort to break many of these down as much as possible. That is what will "bring fans into the twenty-first century" from a statistical analysis standpoint. Most of the more popular sabermetrics will be just as everyday as the traditional numbers we think of.

[Palmoripken]

Good read. Appreciate that Simmons explained the formulas for the statistics too. Would love to take a class on baseball stats if I knew of one. It's amazing how much we used to take the traditional stats seriously i.e. wins, BA, HR, RBI, saves etc. Simmons did a nice job showing how impressive Fred Lynn's rookie year was and even more so. Had no idea Lynn had a 400 OBP that year.

[byrdz]

Good read. Appreciate that Simmons explained the formulas for the statistics too. Would love to take a class on baseball stats if I knew of one. It's amazing how much we used to take the traditional stats seriously i.e. wins, BA, HR, RBI, saves etc. Simmons did a nice job showing how impressive Fred Lynn's rookie year was and even more so. Had no idea Lynn had a 400 OBP that year.

It's a great idea that I would be all over as well. If you lived in the Boston area then you would be set.

[Pedro Cerrano]

I hate the Patriots.

I hate hate the Red Sox.

I hate hate hate the Celtics.

But I never miss a Simmons article. He's an outstanding writer.

[Palmoripken]

It's a great idea that I would be all over as well. If you lived in the Boston area then you would be set.

Yep, looks like a neat class too.

[rhall]

Hes funny, outspoken and very nervy. My only knock against him(and its a common knock from writers in the industry) is that he is just too extensive in his columns. Just too much writing. If its wasnt clever or witty, it would be like getting through the Koran.

I wish I could tell Bill that less is so much more. But then, maybe Bill is getting paid by the word or column size.

Then he would be making Warren Buffett money.

I totally agree. He's a very good writer, but that witty style he brings to the table is the only thing keeping his novella-length columns readable.

[BaltimoreTerp]

Hes funny, outspoken and very nervy. My only knock against him(and its a common knock from writers in the industry) is that he is just too extensive in his columns. Just too much writing. If its wasnt clever or witty, it would be like getting through the Koran.

I wish I could tell Bill that less is so much more. But then, maybe Bill is getting paid by the word or column size.

Then he would be making Warren Buffett money.

I totally agree. He's a very good writer, but that witty style he brings to the table is the only thing keeping his novella-length columns readable.

See, you guys feel that the length is a bad thing. I think that if you have the ability to write for that long and keep the interest of your readers, that is a true talent. One of the great advantages of the Internet is the almost-unlimited space it provides a writer.

Since he also used to write limited-word columns for ESPN: The Magazine that were just as good (though I didn't like them as much because I thought they were too short ), he doesn't need to have unlimited space to write well.