Defensive Indifference

I’m late to the party on this one, but just wanted to point out this clumsy post over at The Big Lead on the sabermetric teams being “bad” or something this year.

There’s a lot wrong with it, but this part is the worst:

Maybe they don’t know anything after all: Statistical baseball analysis is such an attractive discipline because it’s so inclusive, and in some cases, so easy. The numbers don’t care if you’re a novice, tinkering in your study, because analytics is a science, and the numbers speak for themselves. A person doesn’t need years of experience on dusty sandlots with a radar gun and the “right eye,” or the ability to look a prospect and see the types of “baseball moves” that scream “big-leaguer.” All one needs is a calculator, an excel program, a few message boards, and a lifetime membership to baseball prospectus, and voila! Not only can one be smarter (and theoretically have more successful ideas) than the ignorant scouts who have the audacity to practice their craft the same way it’s been done for decades, one also has the license to high-mindedly scoff at the mere mention of the words “hustle” and “character.”

The tricky thing about someone thinking they know everything is that unless they’re, like, a God or something, they don’t, and when they finally realize how wrong they’ve been the intellectual crash is inevitable. It’ll be interesting to see if statistical baseball analysis doesn’t really work what this crash will look like.

Ugh. What in the hell?

I thought we were all past this. The scouts vs. sabermetrics thing is so 2003. Get up to speed. It’s been five years since Moneyball was released and the only people that can’t seem to move on are the people who never got it in the first place. The Red Sox are considered a sabermetric team, but they have one of the deepest scouting staffs in baseball and they value things like makeup highly.

Boston is the best-run franchise in baseball because they leave no stone unturned. It’s not one or the other — sabermetrics or scouting — it’s both, and any (at this point non-existent) team that’s dogmatic about one or the other is doomed to fail in an era where every team uses both to varying degrees.

FJM has a penchant for skewering sports journalism, but I’ve noticed a lot of sloppy baseball commentary from the mainstream blog intelligentsia these days (i.e. the folks that don’t focus solely on baseball). This post in particular is just as worthy of being mocked as the latest JoeChat (OK, well almost as worthy).

Carlos Villanueva’s smack talk awoke a sleeping giant in St. Louis. Or so says Albert Pujols:

“I don’t care what a player does but when you start pointing to the dugout and saying all those things he was saying, a guy like me that respects the game, I didn’t like that and I let him know it,” said Pujols.

“He did us a favor. He woke up a sleeping giant. They beat us all year long. You don’t have to do something stupid like that. I respect the game. I wanted him to know I didn’t appreciate that.”

So that’s why the Cards had their ass handed to them all year by the Brewers — because Carlos Villanueva wasn’t rude enough until tonight. It’ll be easy for the national media to play along with Pujols’ words because of St. Louis’ rally, but I think it has more to do with the fact that he is awesome at baseball (and the Brewers’ bullpen is bad) than anything else.

Also, I love the holier-than-thou “respect the game” stuff Prince Albert. Keep it coming …

The International Olympic Committee is the type of organization that would chastise Usain Bolt for celebrating a gold medal, but willingly ignore decades of human rights violations and blatant rule-bending by the host nation, so I suppose it should be no surprise that they’re basically blackmailing Major League Baseball to get the sport back on the program in 2016.

Jacques Rogge would get a kick out of seeing A-Rod in the Olympics. Probably Dice-K, too. The International Olympic Committee president said Saturday baseball would do itself a big favor toward getting back on the Olympic program by bringing the best from the major leagues, such as the New York Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez or star Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka

“It would do good for baseball, like every sport, to have the stars,” Rogge said while attending the bronze-medal game at Wukesong Stadium, won 8-4 by the United States over Japan.

“We have LeBron James in basketball. We had Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Magic Johnson on the Dream Team. That trend has continued in basketball, and we have all the stars of the NHL. So we would love to have as many stars of the major leagues as possible. I’d love to see Rodriguez.”

I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m no fan of the Olympics, and this is why. The IOC hides behind the banner of amateur athletics, the virtues of fair play and good sportsmanship, but it is just like any other professional sports league: all about the money. They want stars no matter what affect it has on the game. (Ostensibly MLB is a game that is based on rhythm. A two-week break wouldn’t work like it does in the NHL.)

Frankly, any governing body that considers BMX, Synchronized Swimming and Shooting more valid for international competition than the sport I hold nearest and dearest isn’t worth its time.

The Diamondbacks are one of the youngest franchises in Major League Baseball, and as such haven’t had to worry too much about retiring jerseys. This week, they laid out their policy:

“Our policy is that jersey numbers will be retired only after a player enters the Hall of Fame as a Diamondback,” club president Derrick Hall said.

That would seem to rule out former D-backs like Matt Williams, Jay Bell and Luis Gonzalez.

I’m always interested by this type of thing, and in general, I tend to err on the conservative side. The Yankees have retired far too many numbers over the years. On the other hand, I think the Red Sox’s team policy is far, far too restrictive. For those who don’t know, to get your number up on the right field facade at Fenway Park, a player has to be a Hall of Famer and have spent 10 years with the team.

Any policy that’s going to keep Pedro Martinez’s No. 45 from being retired at Fenway is no good in my book.

CC Sabathia did it again, throwing a complete game for the Brewers to run his record to 8-0 since coming over to the National League. He also threw 130 pitches, compiling that total despite Milwaukee’s comfortable lead in the game (it won 9-3).

This is ground I’ve covered here before, but I’d like to cover it again, and echo David Pinto’s sentiments over at Baseball Musings.

Major league pitchers have thrown more than 120 pitches in a game 49 times this season. Seven of those games have been pitched by Milwaukee Brewers. By my count, no other team has stretched its starting pitchers that far more than three times.

When I first complained about the way Ned Yost handled his pitching staff, a couple Brewers bloggers chided me for perhaps being a bit overprotective.

(more…)

Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis both homered Sunday in Boston’s 15-4 loss. That gives Pedroia 13 on the season and Youkilis 23. Considering both were billed as grinders who would get on base but not provide much power coming through the minors, it’s surprising to see them with a shot (albeit slim in Pedroia’s case) at 20 and 30 home runs, respectively.

The Red Sox have had plenty of players that scouts have loved lately, but I think it’s fair to say Youkilis and Pedroia don’t fall into that category, so I guess you can score one for the sabermetricians in their ongoing, bitter and completely non-existent blood feud with scouts. (We’re past all that, right?)

I’m more interested in where they rank in the wide open AL MVP race. Pedroia and Youkilis are No. 1 and No. 3 in the race for the batting title. Youkilis has a higher OBP and SLG than Josh Hamilton, while Pedroia has more home runs than every other second baseman in the AL besides Ian Kinsler and two fewer extra-base hits than Alex Rodriguez.

I don’t think either player is deserving of the award, but because of the way the BBWAA trims down the field (player must usually play for a contender and be strong in the Triple Crown categories), they’re in the group of eight or so players who seem like favorites at this juncture.

With no one running away with the race, either could win the MVP with a particularly strong finish.