The ultimate debate and battle has been raging on for years
now and there is no middle man or gray area. You’re either on the side of
sabermetrics or you’re on the side of traditional baseball and the eye test.
Just like politics you can have conservative liberals and liberal republicans
who hang around closer to the middle than to either the right or the left but
in baseball there is no Independent Party and there are no Libertarians. You’ve
either seen Moneyball 100 times or you refuse to watch because either you hate
advanced metrics or stats or you can’t stand Brad Pitt. Either way, the line in
the sand has been drawn and by now you’ve picked a side.
I find it interesting to see which side each of the 30 MLB
teams have taken in this ongoing debate and battle and thankfully for us Nick
Cafardo tackled this recently releasing this graph showing all 30 MLB teams and
how their GM’s, managers and organizations stand in the analytical vs.
traditional battle. As you can see by the graph a whopping 16 teams, including
the entire AL West, lean towards analytical while 14 teams, including the
entire NL East, leans more towards advanced scouting and tradition means of
building and running a team. It’s almost an even split, and that is surprising.
|
Analytical
|
Traditional
|
|
|
AL
East
|
Yankees,
Blue Jays, Rays
|
Red
Sox, Orioles
|
|
AL
Central
|
Indians
|
Tigers,
White Sox, Twins, Royals
|
|
AL
West
|
Astros,
Angels, Mariners, Rangers, A's
|
|
|
NL
East
|
Braves,
Nationals, Mets, Marlins, Phillies
|
|
|
NL
Central
|
Cardinals,
Brewers, Cubs, Pirates
|
Reds
|
|
NL
West
|
Dodgers,
Padres, Rockies
|
Giants,
Diamondbacks
|
So who is winning? Major League Baseball, that’s who. Well,
and the fans.
Funny. 5 of the last 6 World Series have been won by the traditional clubs. I hope that makes everyone here reconsider Heyward and his worthless WAR. Especially since it's based on "analytical" defense.
ReplyDeleteI realize stats are very important but, I use stats as a starting point and depend on my eyes as the real final evaluation of a player. Reason being, stats don't let you see why an infielder is a so-so fielder, stats don't tell you about the footwork around the bag or the arm angle of the throw that went into the stands...and what can be done to fix the problem, if at all!
ReplyDeleteI also don't go by "The Back of a Players Card" one year makes a big difference in how a player plays the game. I have seen players (as they get older) have a bounce back year as did Jeter in 2009, and A-Rod did this year then the age comes up and bites them in the ass.