Read here.
But I was wondering recently. Why are baseball writers so terrified of new statistics? Second question, why are so many of them morbidly obese?
Writers who vote for the Hall of Fame typically use three statistics for hitters: hits, home runs and RBI's.
I think they've forgotten what the statistics are meant to indicate. Baseball's a team sport and these statistics are meant to evaluate how much an individual player contributes to the team's ability to win. I can understand in a simpler, more primitive age, why they chose statistics like RBI's, Wins and such. But there are patently superior statistics to these: VORP, WARP, Batting Runs, EqA, OPS+, SB%, OBP+, etc. that tell you much more clearly what each individual player is doing to help the team.
"Baseball statistics are like a girl in a bikini. They show a lot, but not everything." -Toby Harrah, 1983
I want to amend that and say that the new baseball statistics are conceptual bikinis. For those who understand, you can't help but stare at the shapely, numerical beauty in each decimal place. The old statistics? Conceptual burkas that gave us a general shape, a rough, hazy idea but they obscured and misled as much as they showed.
Statistics aren't everything. I know that. There's so much more, the human element. Some things can only be expressed with words and human warmth. Courage. That is foremost among them.
The statistics tell me that Andy Pettitte, my favorite player probably, is a pretty decent pitcher. He's not great and probably shouldn't deserve the Hall of Fame. I can't argue with that. But don't for a second doubt his greatness as a man, a man of courage and tenacity.
Baseball should not mix the Human and the Objective. This has been acknowledged over and over. What continually puzzles me is why the hegemonistic baseball media refuse to use superior metrics, the things that would make them better at their job.
I have only one explanation.
They suck at math and they're insecure about it.
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