Why 'Moneyball' is Still Relevant

With the release of ‘Moneyball’ (my review should come through in the next few days on The Reeltime Report) this coming weekend there has been a spike in interest in the whole Sabermetric debate.  The Sabermetric debate of course, has always been between the difference of what’s on paper with what’s seen by the “scout’s eye.”  Somebody may be hitting for a high average, but the kinds of pitches they are getting are not what they can plan on seeing consistently.  Adjustments can be made by all players to counteract success, yet the numbers don’t lie, if somebody is hitting a high average with a high on-base percentage (OBP), then they’re helping their team.  Around and around we go.

People who aren’t into baseball statistics and find them confusing and/or annoying (I’m looking at you Jason Whitlock), have decided to take this opportunity to talk about why statistics are ruining baseball.  According to Whitlock Sabermetric honks have “conspired to remove much of the magic and mystery from baseball.”  His inherent point is that the fan loses the “fun” aspect of being a baseball fan if everything can be explained away in numbers.  His argument is that he doesn’t need On-base Plus Slugging to tell him that Albert Pujols is one of the greatest hitters of all time, he doesn’t need WHIP (walks + hits per inning pitched) or xFIP (expected fielding independent pitching) to tell ham that Justin Verland can throw the baseball.

While I agree with Mr. Whitlock to a certain extent, I think his view is misguided and slightly ignorant of exactly what all is out there and why it’s important.  While the impetus for the Sabermetric revolution was most likely the idea of trying to review and predict performance using only numbers.  The people who invented the statistics believed that the numbers that we had been using weren’t telling the whole story and that there was something else out there behind what we all were thinking we were seeing.

For instance, a player might roll up a .260 BA with 30 HRs, and 100 RBIs, and that would be a very good season.  However, when it came to valuing this player, how much value to we put on those statistics?  Scoring runs is the most important thing in baseball, but scoring runs is a team goal, not just one person.  If a batter doesn’t get a pitch to hit and possibly score runs, he does better for his team to get on base and put himself in position to be scored by his teammates than to try and mash the ball and hit a HR every time.  This is where a stat like OBP is useful.  This can show how much more value this player is bringing to this team beyond the black and white stats that we all see.  Whether people want to believe it or not, this is an important part of the game.

The same argument can be made for a pitcher.  A pitcher might have a low ERA, but if his xFIP is above 4 and his WHIP is 1.5, the pitcher is putting a lot of players on base, and is being helped out by luck and good fielding.  His actual pitching is not all that great and, history has shown, that he will most likely be due for a regression.

These types of stats give us a greater window into the “bigger picture” that is baseball.  While the formulas are complex and are hard to understand at times, what they show is generally not, and people don’t have to compute these numbers to understand and use them. 

These statistics are not “removing the magic and mystery” from baseball, they are making the sport more accessible by fans who choose to use them.  If you believe that you don’t need the statistics that are out there, then don’t use them.  I know there are Sabermetric snobs out there who make baseball fans feel inferior if you don’t use them, but those types are in every sport.  The Quarterback rating statistic is more complicated than any in baseball, has been around forever, and nobody really understands what it’s saying, just that the higher the better.  People talk about targets and drops and carries for loss and the like in football.  There is a plus/minus coefficient in both football and basketball and basketball even has an “efficiency rating.” So those people who think they know more than you are out there in any sport, ignore them if you choose.

However, if you choose not to ignore them, then you have many options to open the game up to you.  While most of us aren’t GMs and managers, we can’t watch every game and batting practice and minor league games and such so it becomes hard to tell what we actually have.  Baseball is unique in that it is the only sport in which the sample size is quite large enough that statistics can measure things that we don’t see with our eyes.  The variables are more different in baseball each and every game that statistics do measure something that is relevant.  It is impossible to remember what a player does in 162 games, much more so than in 16 or even 82 games like football and basketball/hockey, respectively.  Therefore, statistics can compile this information and make it useful to us as fans.

It’s easy to look at a player like Mark Trumbo as a baseball fan and say “he’s my favorite young player!  Look at how many home runs he hits!”  Unfortunately, Trumbo also strikes out at a rate of over 20% and walks less than 5% of the time, while barely hitting above .250 with an OBP below .300.  The 29 HRs look good, but wouldn’t Trumbo’s value be even more if he got those homeruns, but also got on base when those pitches weren’t there? 

Instead of fans enjoying the “mystery” behind the game, now fans are more educated to not be blinded by the big stats that make Sportscenter.  The examples could go on and on of players who have the big time stats that jump out at you but might be overvalued (looking at you Ryan Howard), but the ultimate point is that what Sabermetrics bring to the game is more knowledge and what could possibly be wrong with more knowledgeable fans?