you misread al dimond’s quote. “Just click “leaderboards”, sort by WAR, and you know everything about baseball” was meant to have a sardonic tone to make a point. al meant that if WAR were an easy stat to understand and that anyone could use it because it trumped all other reason or stats, then there would be no reason to consider all factors.

the point being, sports writers mishandle, misdiagnose or ignore the information at their disposal now, so why complicate the idiocy further by adding another stat to be misappropriated?

This is where Felix Hernandez will ask for the deed to the state of Washington in exchange for his services in 2010. The Mariners will counter by offering free dinner at the Space Needle. Arguing will ensue. ”

Tee-hee. I didn’t notice the byline on the article, and when I read that line, I thought “Dave. It’s got to be Dave Cameron.”, and, well, I was right.

Very funny, Dave.

And, yeah. The gold gloves just don’t do it for me. MVP and Cy Young I do care about – I think those awards have meaning and they are voted on in interesting ways.

The Gold Gloves are not taken very seriously by their own voters. Look at how little discussion there is. So… Why should I take them seriously? I just ignore them.

whoops, lol.

Also, yes, I almost threw up when I saw Gutierrez denied a GG. I cringed when I saw Andrus denied one, but since everyone loves Jeter so much, it’s understandable that when he FINALLY posts a positive UZR, they wanna go gaga over it.

Not necessarily. Dave chose Mauer over Zobrist for best AL player, despite Zobrist’s higher WAR. Of course he’s accounting for the lack of Catcher defense in the formula. But still, you have to use your brain a little.

Also, for ROY voting, I think future expectations should factor into the decision. I’d like to see the award read as something of a launching pad for future MVP’s and Cy Young winners. Not completely, as the performance during the actual rookie year should be the most important factor, but I think some future value should be weighted in the equation.

Lastly, “Why do we care?” was a great article, but think about it- we DO care. We try to rationalize why the awards are bogus, and at the moment they are, but we are constantly trying to bring our take on what constitutes “value” to the mainstream. One day I think they’ll be a shift in how the writers vote, and it will have come from us caring a whole lot and doing everything we can to make them fix their ways.

Really, I didn’t even flinch. I just don’t really care about the opinions of the uninformed. And, sadly, that’s exactly what gold glove voters are.

That’s when you realize that the voters don’t care enough to put in the effort to be knowledgable and are basing their votes off reputations.

That’s when you realize that they don’t matter.

The Fielding Bible awards are interesting because people use various methods to measure ability, care about the results, and then vote. Some positions are close calls, some aren’t, but there is transparency and the decisions are defensable.