Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox
The goal of a baseball game is to score more runs than your opponent.
You don't get it. We know the goal of a baseball game is to score more runs than your opponent. People who write statistical formulas know that as well.
Just because the RBI, Runs Scored (for an individual player) and Batting Average have been around forever does
not mean they're the best at telling how valuable a guy is to his team as far as scoring runs are concerned.
The entire purpose of looking at sophisticated statistics is to find out who is a better player over the long run - who is going to help you score more runs over the course of the year, seeing as how that's the whole point of the game. Just because one guy scores more runs than another guy or has a higher batting average doesn't mean anything. You need to look deeper than that, and there are statistics out there to help you do that.
if I guy draws a walk with 1 out and a runner on third when a fly ball out would score him - statsguy says that's better. Real baseball person says its not.
Well, drawing a walk in that situation leads to an inning that produces more runs on the average.
Click on
this (It's for 2005, but they only vary slightly from year to year).
Runner on third, one out. If hit a
sac fly and score the run, your expected number of runs in that inning is
1.1075 (1 for the run you scored, plus the .1075 for the expected number of runs you would score for the rest of the inning with no runners on and two outs.)
Runner on third, one out. If you draw a
walk your expected number of runs for in that inning is
1.1830, a result of having runners on 1st and 3rd with one out. It's a small difference, but it's a difference.
Obviously, there are situations where the sac fly is better - tied in the bottom of the ninth, for example, where scoring more than one run does you no good - but if you want to sit there and tell me you would rather score 1.1075 runs per inning than 1.1830 runs per inning, you are an
idiot. It completely goes against the 'point' of the game - to score more runs than your opponent.
Obviously you'll sometimes score more runs if you take the sac fly than if you take the walk (that's baseball), but it's all about the long run.
Think of it this way - in blackjack, hitting on a 20 will SOMETIMES give you a 21, but if the numbers show you that you'll win more often by staying, why on earth would you hit if staying earns you more over the long run?
But, its funny when you tell a statsguy that you don't agree with his conclusions (I use 'his' because these people are 99.9% male
) you will get these reactions 100% of the time:
1) You don't understand stats.
Well, you don't!
Funny in this situation as one person gets paid partially to interpret stats.
Get off your high horse. You work in finance. Just because an editor and a writer took the same english courses doesn't mean the editor is going to be any good at being a writer.
The skill is telling what they mean, not memorizing more of them.
You clearly don't know what their uses are bases on your arguments. Just because I'm using them, you have this bizarre assumption that I don't know what they mean.
2) You're some old codger who can't handle the 'new way' of doing things. Well, as a guy in his mid-30's I didn't realize I qualified for old guy status, but okay.
I don't care how old you are, you obviously can't handle the new stats.
What I think a lot of "purists" object to is the dismissive notion that wins, RBI's, runs, and batting average don't matter. Its a riduculous notion.
They "matter," sure, but as far as telling which players are better, using a stat that is more all-encompassing than something that involves a lot that is outside the hitter's control (see: RBI or Runs Scored) matters wayyyyyy more and is way more useful.
However, a bunch of nerds playing fantasy league baseball do not know more than people watching the games
I don't play fantasy baseball. And I don't now what makes you think statisticians don't watch games.
you still need to score more than your opponent to win, and you do that by getting hits and scoring and driving in runs.
You have such a simplistic view of the game. Getting hits will *help* you score more runs, but it's not the be-all, end-all.
You still don't get it. The purpose of stats is to figure out what - what action, which player, what pitching change, whatever - will help you to score more runs than your opponent most often. You don't know what's going to happen, but using statistics, you can tell what is more LIKELY to help you do that.
Some stats - OPS+, Runs Created, Wins Created - are better at telling which player is more likely to help you than others - RBI, Batting Average, Runs Scored.
Why use the crappy ones when there are MUCH better statistics for you to use? Because they're tougher to understand? What? Why wouldn't you use the better ones?
The older stats are fun to play around with, but at the end of the day, you're going to win a lot more games by getting better OPS+ hitters than just blindly picking one stats like RBI and building a team from that.
I think what you don't realize is that the sophisticated stats USE the stats you are using, but deal with far more.
Choose a team based on OPS+ and you get a team based on batting average, walks, extra base hits, and park factors. Choose a team based on batting average and you get a team based on batting average. Clearly, using OPS+ gives you a better idea for the player, don't you think?
I just don't understand why you'd rather use the latter.
In a fantasy league, you aren't looking at the human element of the game. So, if I guy draws a walk with 1 out and a runner on third when a fly ball out would score him - statsguy says that's better. Real baseball person says its not. Who's right? That's an easy one to answer.
What I think a lot of "purists" object to is the dismissive notion that wins, RBI's, runs, and batting average don't matter. Its a riduculous notion. If a statsnerd made the argument that a deep dive helps augment what you can learn from the abovementioned stats, I think they'd get a better reception. However, a bunch of nerds playing fantasy league baseball do not know more than people watching the games, nor have they redone the fundamentals of the game - which is that you still need to score more than your opponent to win, and you do that by getting hits and scoring and driving in runs. 
