Misconceptions About Sabermetrics

[Fike85]

I was over at a friends place last night and someone there made the comment that "Sabermetrics is BS because if you look at the teams that use them (Boston, Toronto, Oakland, they have players signed to inflated contracts."

 

My response to this is that sabermetrics is about using objective evidence to evaluate players contributions to their teams and to identify players that are undervalued for one reason or another.

 

Now is it just me, or is 'Moneyball' the most misunderstood book in the history of baseball? How else would he have gotten that idea about sabermetrics?

[endaround]

Actaully Sabremetrics is just using statistical data to evalaute players. And St. Louis is huge into it.

[rluzinski]

In keeping with James' "objective evidence" definition, I'd say it doesn't HAVE to be statistically based. What it certainly isn't is something like scouting, which is primarily uses subjective evidence to evaluate players.

 

Moneyball spent most of time explaining how sabermetrics can be utilized, not what it actually is.

[mothershipconnection]

All GMs panic. Sometimes, you think you're one or two pieces away from being awesome and thus you overpay for the only available player that you think can give you the necessary boost.

In the case of Toronto, that's an awful division to be in, and they felt they had to get top-tier pitching to be able to compete. The top guys available to them were Burnett and Ryan, and they overpaid to get them.

Moneyball isn't all about being cheap - much of its following is focused on being objective rather than relying on the traditional subjective assessments of players - like stuff Daron and Bill go off about.

[DHonks]

Boston and Toronto obviously have huge payrolls. The A's cannot be accused of that though.

 

But why not call the White Sox or the Yankees disciples of Sabermetrics? They sign the best players, and can mash. Wouldn't Matsui, ARod, Jeter, Sheffield, Giambi, etc qualify the Yankees?

 

What's tricky is that these teams are branded certain ways for their organizational philosophies. Yet we know from our reading that Melvin places a great deal of emphasis on stats. In particular we know he talked to Nix about his declining discipline. Yet the Brewers aren't considered a sabermetric team.

[RightFieldCoder]

You have to have a young hip GM from the northeast to be a Sabermetrics team. Otherwise you're just a team that evaluates players based on stats to field the best team you can.