NOW, it seems that sabermetrics only includes the most complex, least understood, metrics out there. The extreme has become the face of the term/topic. It’s ridiculous that we allow this to happen, because it retards or impedes the acceptance of sabermetrics.

[1] The big reason that people oppose or ignore it is that the don’t see the point in it. Why accept something new when ERA and RBIs have worked fine for so long? Supporters of the movement, need to better advocates and ambassadors. Please, don’t be one of the guys that puts the ASS in Ambassador. See #2.

[2] Secondly, and I just mentioned it, are the sabermaticians themselves. Perhaps it’s not the “sabermaticians” that are the obstacle, but the guys that “think they are” or “wish they were”. Sabermaticians could do a MUCH better job being educators rather than obstacles for the acceptance movement. Tom Tango … genius. The guys repeating what TT said in The Book, not so much genius. Get it?

Being more familiar with a topic than someone else, doesn’t make you “smarter” than them …. right?

[3] Thirdly, the ever changing metrics. Good God folks … come to some sort of consensus already. Like religion, you can’t have 9,385 different factions, all touting something different and expect people to take it seriously. Unite the message, trim down the metrics to the most relevant, humble your tone (explain to folks how a new metric is better, now how they are dumb for clinging to traditional metrics, see?), and educate the masses on the HANDFUL (not cargo van full) of the best metrics to evaluate a player’s/team’s performance.

I searched for player statistic evaluation systems the other day, and uncovered about 38 different “systems”. People aren’t going to learn 18 different versions of ERA. UNDERSTAND that. OPS is gaining popularity because it’s ONE metric that combines two metrics that people were already familiar.

Less is more sometimes. Occassionally, I think some sabermaticians (or the wanna-bes) are out there creating new crap just so they have something “all to themselves” or have some sort of the market cornered (as if anyone else wanted). Trim the fat, lower the temperature of the discussion, watch sabermetrics grow like crazy. Baseball fans LOVE the numbers … give them what they WANT in quantities that they can handle. You will have made baseball fandom a better place. Well done.

Less than 1/3rd of Belanger’s PAs came in the leadoff or second slot. If you followed Weaver closely, you know that these generally came when Belanger was hitting better or when facing a LHP, where Belanger was better (if still not very good).

You mentioned RBI. That and W-L for pitchers are probably the most infuriating numbers for me because they just don’t mean anywhere near as much as people like to think and it is impossible to explain this. They’re deceptively easy and give the illusion of being extremely significant. I’ve been trying for years to get my roto leagues to accept QS instead of W as a category, not because QS is all that great a stat, but it says a lot more about how the pitcher actually did and you don’t need a lick of run support. This year I’m going to try to sell them on wOBA instead of Avg.

The AL’s SH total is down since the first year of the DH, though.

But yes, Weaver understood what the “geeks” are talking about. He wasn’t perfect (he batted Mark Belanger 2nd), but he got baseball.

The irony is, most fans get exactly what we’re talking about, but are so indoctrinated still by what they’ve been told defines value for years, that they manipulate their very thought process to fit it. Take J.D. Drew, a .390 OBP, 20-25 HR player. Sounds pretty good, right? Well most people would agree.

But, he doesn’t have a high RBI total. Therefore, his contributions are trivial. Who actually thinks Clint Barmes is a better hitter than J.D. Drew? But a simple, team-dependent stat still carries a lot of weight to a lot of people.

Another example, Mark Reynolds. 44 Home runs, .290 EqA, very Howard-like batting line. But, he strikes out a lot. Regardless of evidence that a strikeout isn’t much difference than a regular out (and that Reynolds’ RE24 is higher than his wRAA, actually, meaning he did produce situationally), people frown on him, not for making more outs than most, but for how he makes them. Why? Because the powers that be tell them it’s bad. Or maybe because their little league coach would get on them for striking out and they have deep rooted mental issues. Who knows.

I blame the media. Case in point: This fall, I saw Vlad Guerrero practically fall to his knees to swing at a pitch 6 inches off the ground. In fact, the ball hit the ground in front of home plate. He wound up getting a single. Good for Vlad, but the fact that he still even went for it is a perfect encapsulation of why Guerrero isn’t as dangerous a hitter as some people think. He simply can’t get it through his head that there is something called a strike zone. Of course, the TV guys could not stop talking about why that completely flukey base hit was actually an indicator of how godlike and awesome Vlad is. Gimme a freakin’ break. I think MLB Network should promote the SABR game of the week, and hire color guys who can break down the deep stats and explain them. If you can explain bloody quantum mechanics to a layman, you can sure as hell do it with sabrmetrics.

But, look at Earl Weaver, one of the deities of the moneyballistas. Weaver probably couldn’t have figured out a standard deviation if you put a gun to his head, but he still grasped the apparently still heretical concept that giving your opponents a free out usually did more harm than good. Some of the same journalists and TV guys who piss and moan about sabrmetrics think Weaver was awesome, without understanding that he was the first guy who really practiced the kind of strategies that they whine about us for supporting.