Theo Epstein revisited his “bridge” comment a few months back to the Herald on Saturday. After the myriad of conversations we’ve had here recently, I felt the timing of his bridge wrap-up after the past few (excellent) signings was quite poignant.
“What I meant was, we’ve been a good team,” Epstein said yesterday after the press conference to announce the signing of third baseman Adrian Beltre. “We’ve been to the playoffs six out of seven years, we’ve won 95 games six out of seven years, and I know we’re going to be good when projecting into the future. The building blocks are in place to have a really strong foundation going forward starting in a couple of years.”
[picappgallerysingle id=”7177792″ align=”left”] One of the things I think Theo caught a lot of heat for this offseason was the perceived notion that in order for the Red Sox to “compete” in 2010, they had to make a huge offensive splash, especially offensively. Towards the end of the postseason, criticisms abounded that the Red Sox couldn’t score any runs; this notion was clearly shortsighted as 3 games versus the Angels shouldn’t suddenly discount the offensive force the Red Sox were all season.
This seems to be the new struggler within mainstream baseball. Instead of fans like all of us who are learning newer ways to enjoy, analyze, and appreciate this country’s most beautiful game; those in the mainstream are doing their best to sow dissent and partisanism.
Dan Shaugnessy tried this the other day, in his piece unjustly talking down a fine career by Edgar Martinez. After not having any sort of logical argument, he instead decided to go on the offensive.
The stat geeks, those get-a-lifers who are sucking all the joy out of our national pastime, no doubt will be able to demonstrate that Edgar was better than Lou Gehrig and Rogers Hornsby. I’m not buying. Stats don’t tell the whole story. A man can drown in three feet of water.
Responsible media personnel with unfounded opinions like this disgust me. They use catchy obtuse phrases (Hey Dan, you can drown in 6 inches of water too!), and instead of learning about newer ways to view what happens on a baseball, they accuse anyone outside of their protected circle of being a detriment to baseball. To be truly honest, Dan, what makes you a better baseball fan than I? A reluctance to try and solve for X? It’s conceited to think that my interest in choosing to look for newer way to understand and appreciate baseball is somehow less valid or less passionate than yours. If anyone hates baseball, it’s writers that tell people how NOT to enjoy the game.
I’ve learned, especially over the past few weeks writing on Firebrand, that sometimes new information is difficult to accept simply because it’s new. It has nothing to do with the validity of a study, but the context that surrounds it.
Jacoby Ellsbury is our personal case of something where newer methods of analysis caused not just disagreements, but a large chasm between two parties. While different schools of thought tend to disagree on other players (Derek Jeter’s defense was always a question mark, except by members of the media who chose to worship him for his intangibles), Ellsbury’s seems to have caused very hostile disagreements, from the bleachers to the blogosphere.
Firebrand Reader Gerry left a very insightful and valuable comment the other day when we again stumbled upon an Ellsbury disagreement, and I wanted to reiterate a part of it here for emphasis.
At the same time, I am concerned that defensive metrics are still developmental and often as flakey and subjective as determining an “E”, as they still don’t tell the whole story; yet they carry the weight of Scripture, and are being widely accepted as fact when, in fact, they are at this point merely adequate guides as to what might be, if all factors were properly accounted for. Metrics are too important and exciting to “sell” them for more than they are at this point, as this will (perhaps already has) damage their impact long term.
One thing all of us, whether or not the side of the bridge you tend to stand on is more mathematically friendly or observation friendly, is that regardless of the method to use to make a judgement on a player, we all should strive to supply a reason to support our claims. In the latest stats vs scouts argument surrounding Ellsbury, my concern is that the validity of these newer metrics, like UZR are the only claims being criticized.
What evidence have the scouts shown to supplant UZR’s claims? As with any claim, shouldn’t the burden of proof be something both equally share? I hear the cries for establishing credibility to newer statistical studies, but where is this same outrage for the writers who use no metric other than their opinions? Why can someone like Jon Heyman say Player X does Y well, but if I say Player X does Y poorly due to statistical study Z, I’m the only one who needs to “show my work”?
I think moving forward, we should all take Gerry’s comment to heart. No matter which method we use to come to a conclusion, we all should strive to assign an actual why to it; and always have a skeptical and inquisitive mind.
And to be truthful, I’m honestly tired of beating this dead horse. I think most of us probably agree that Jacoby is probably somewhere in the middle of all the extremes concerning his defense, and I’m curious how our readership really views this.
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