1. Not everyone who writes about advanced baseball stats (“metrics”, or “sabermetrics”) is really a sabermetrician. I define the latter as someone who has created/invented some of the stats, and works with them. Writers and bloggers may be extremely informed/intelligent people, but a health reporter is not a doctor (most of the time), and not every writer can or should speak as authoritatively about these stats as they often do.

2. True sabermetricians are not, that I can discern, real statisticians. Statistics is not a hobby one does with a calculator and a perusal of fangraphs.com. It’s a scientific field that involves both calculations on and interpretation of data. The key thing that statisticians do – the most important thing they do – is to evaluate their statistics for parameters like reliability and significance. In other words, you see a difference in WAR or WPA between 2 players…how do you know that difference is attributable to a difference in ability, and not just random variance.

I’m not an expert at stats or sabermetrics, but I’m trained to interpret scientific papers and I know when a study has good stats and when it’s bs.

The problem I have with most of the arguments in sabermetrics is that the significance of the numbers is almost never called into question. People don’t like to hear that a number might be meaningless. “How can it be meaningless, they watch and record every pitch!!” Well, every pitch is subject to random variance, as well as non-random variance. Unless you know what you’re doing, your stat may not be able to separate the two.

So to the guy who says “I dismiss those who don’t provide evidence for their claims, or refuse to be educated,” I say that sometimes the evidence claimed by the sabermetricians is flawed, or flimsy.

I realize my argument is kind of a pissy one….I’m not offering anything better, I’m just saying “your argument might be wrong.” Well, unfortunately that’s the best I can do; I have a full time job. But what I don’t like happening in baseball is that the reliance on sabermetrics is beginning snuff out all other sources of evlauation of players. The non-quantitative opinion of other players, coaches, scouts, managers, etc., shouldn’t be dismissed.

The ease with which numbers can lead to completely incorrect conclusions, because the numbers weren’t properly put into context, can be seen in yesterday’s post about the proportion of blacks in MLB. The number is at historical lows, we’re told. Yet, when one looks at the percentage of US-born players in MLB, the proportion of blacks in that cohort is higher than ever. So any discussion of a “problem” of insufficient participation by US blacks in baseball is patently false.

“I don’t dismiss those who disagree. I dismiss those who don’t provide evidence for their claims, or refuse to be educated. Refusing to be educated does make you, by definition, ignorant. It’s one thing to have a conversation with someone who is ignorant, it’s another to have a conversation with someone who continues to remain ignorant. One gives me hope, the other is hopeless.
If I shout, it’s to be heard over the gasbaggery of ignoramuses, so that those who want to learn, or want to have a reasonable conversation, can do so. The problem is not those who shout; the problem is those who are on the dance floor who refuse to dance with any rhythm, and don’t even try to. Worse still, they think they have rhythm.”

i guess i will just have to comfort myself with the fact that Mauer will win the MVP cause he has the highest batting avg, and sabathia win the cy young cuase he has the most wins…dont get too upset about it ok? too much stress is no good…

No. What they’re forbidden from doing, however, is thinking that their language is better than the language they refuse to learn and they’re forbidden from thinking that their opinion is right when compared with the opinion of someone who actually has taken the time to try to understand the game on a deeper, more accurate level.

If I refuse to learn Chinese, it doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to go to China and enjoy myself. It does mean I sound like an ass, though, if I say “The English Language is prettier, more poetic, and easier to understand than the Chinese Language even though I intentionally choose to not understand the Chinese Language.”

It also disqualifies me from being an expert on Modern Languages. In the same way that your refusal to learn more about baseball disqualifies you from being an expert on baseball. You are allowed to watch and enjoy the game, but not share your opinion on what player is good and what player is bad, because you’re a counterintellectual dolt who prefers ignorance over wisdom and your opinion is, by definition, less well formed than the opinion of people willing to take the time to be smarter about things than you.