Thursday, August 28, 2008

My New Favorite Writer

This guy is hilarious, and he makes a lot of sense. Check out Joe Ponanski.

5 comments:

Dennis said...

I think the point should be, no matter how you play with the numbers, Tim Lincecum is a beast.

Dan said...

Trying to find a magical statistical indicator misses the point. You have to use your eyes and your gut when evaluating players. I think that was part of his point. To use a simple example: Jim Thome is one HR behind Mickey Mantle and will surely pass him. Does anyone in their right mind think Thome is a better player? Only the idiots who get their jollies from calculating VORP.

Dennis said...

If a guy misses 40 games a year because he is hung over or unable to play because of off the field activities, I would argue a player who is on the field for 150 games a season is a better player, or at least a more valuable one. That is especially true if you are talking about career numbers, where longevity becomes just as important as raw talent.

Dan said...

Still, if you compare those two players to the players of their own era (steroids not withstanding), Mantle is in the top 10 perhaps top 5. Thome might be in the top 20, if he's lucky. I'm not trying to turn this into a Jim Thome bashing... just saying.

Dennis said...

Of course if Thome had a 240 foot outfield fence to pull the ball over, he would probably be a hundred HR's ahead of Mantle.

But my point is that people dismiss a stat such as VORP because it hasn't been around for 50 years. Someone like Mantle is going to have good stats no matter what indicator is used. Most of the newer stats are used to differentiate between average and good.