It's pretty good. The general idea of it is that we may be relying on "the math" a little too much to evaluate these teams and players, which is creating a huge blind spot.
For example, Daryl Morey is often cited as a revolutionary GM in the NBA, pushing the boundaries of sabermetrics. But his team hasn't been noticeably better than they were before. Denver hired the guy who write "Basketball on Paper", what have they done?
I own Basketball on Paper. I've read it. It's a fine book, very enlightening, very insightful. But all the teams that have won the past few years have won by having one+ star player and molding into a cohesive team when it counted. In other words... the exact same reason why every team has won, ever. How does translating Basketball on Paper to general managing win rings?
As the author points out, the Mavs were outgunned by every team they played in the postseason. Even Portland. And the Phillies, last year, should have wiped the floor with the Giants. They were the far superior team. Yet it wasn't just that the Giants won.. it's that the series wasn't even close. Was it just because the Giants "got hot"? That's the point.
I fear we're getting to a point in "sabermetrics" where the same douchebags that wrecked finance in the 2000's are now moving to the sports world. Actually, in the case of the Rays, it is literally true.
So what are peoples' feelings on sabermetrics?
Last edited by Diff-chan; 28 Jun 2011 at 01:14 PM.
I really only know about baseball sabermetrics and I think they're pretty valuable. That being said, I don't think that it's a "tell all" way of completely evaluating a player and/or a team. The FIP (or DICE or...) stat is generally a good way to evaluate a pitcher and has been a good indication of a pitcher playing above or below his skill level and how it will likely even out (Barry Zito as an overperformer while Jonathon Sanchez would be an underperformer).
There may be a stat for it but I've worked around a little bit with the math trying to calculate team/player match-ups based upon the comparison of overall skills in different areas. I think it's beyond my current knowledge and time, but I'm quite confident that such a comparison could yield pretty good results when determining whether a team will win or not. Basically something like this (this is just an example, not a worked out solution):
Team A has a fielding rating of 92 (things such as range factor, etc. calculated overall and then given a 0-100 number based on league averages), a batting rating of 70 (similar calculations) and a pitching rating of 91 (FIP mostly involved and again averaged). When game time comes along, such ratings are subject to change depending on who starts the game and who may later enter the game. This could be equalized by examining team strategies based upon the likely course the early game will take. Also, depending on the fielding rating, a pitcher with low strike out totals and low walk totals could still be expected to keep runners off of base at an above average rate.
Team B has a fielding rating of 85, a batting rating of 80 and a pitching rating of 79.
Match these two sets of numbers up. Fielding rates could be given alongside pitching rates to determine the overall value both ratings have to the team. On the other hand, batting rates of the opposing team could be given alongside pitching rates of the other team to determine overall values. Put all these numbers together and you should get a pretty good idea of who should win any given contest. It's probably pretty confusing the way I presented it but given some more time, I think I can flesh things out a bit. Why I decided to explain this here, I'm not entirely sure...Somebody else probably does this anyway.
Basically, I think sabermetrics are a good evaluation tool but can't show things such as mental fortitude of certain players under different scenarios. Also, because a lot of luck is involved in baseball, the scale can be dramatically tipped in a smaller sample size.
Also, I don't think the Phillies-Giants series was very far apart. The Giants did win in 6 games but they were outscored by the Phillies overall. They did get "hot" but most of the games were pretty close.
Gohron, baseball is best suited to sabermetrics. It's a bit more individualized, and proceeds in a more or less linear fashion, where a single player can take "credit" for what's happening, which means everything can be wrapped up into a model.
That's a unique sport though. Basketball is nonlinear and free-flowing, where stuff happens away from the rock that can greatly affect the game (think of a pick & roll). I'm not sure you can capture that sport in a model. Look at what happened when the Celts dealt Perkins. That destroyed that team, probably for good. Ainge should be fired for that move. But all the numbers looked good.
And forget about football. Basically, outside of one sport, where it has been fairly useful (but it must be taken into account that the last 2 WS winners were old-school: big money in the case of the damned Yankees, and overpay-for-old-people-and-bums in the case of the Giants), the whole "statistical revolution" might just be a waste of time.
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