The pendulum has (appropriately) swung away from the older method of scouting and evaluation, primarily due to the rise of sabermetrics. However, it may have swung too far when sabermetricians refuse to consider anything cannot be validated by “cold, hard stats.” That is no better than disallowing agreement based on personal opinion.

As with most things, the best method is somewhere in between.

Peter “Crotchety Old Man” Gammons is simply reminding you of that.

(Side note: see Rob Neyer’s critique of Nick’s post for some examples of non-stat based influences on HOF candidacy)

REPORT COMMENT

Thinking behind that conclusion: bitter divorces affect most people’s ability to perform at work, so why should a ballplayer be any different?

Can you prove that with math? No. Is it nonetheless true? Yes.

All I’m saying is that the same emotional and psychological factors that effect all human beings (except perhaps the tiny percentage of people who are sociopaths) also affect ballplayers. To me, that’s just common sense. Of course, though they’re loath to admit it, the worst of the blogger/SABR wannabe guys hate so-called intangibles largely because it’s a realm to which only real reporters have access. Yes, that means they’re not easily checkable for transparency or accuracy. You might have to just take some beat reporter’s word for it that Chipper Jones is an ass! Quelle horreur.

Maybe you’re not interested in the players as people, but I am. When P-Gam tells me Albert Belle used to do the NYT crossword in 20 minutes flat, I find that interesting. So you don’t find it valuable? Don’t read it.

REPORT COMMENT

It’s also kind of snarky to present your opinions as “just common sense.” If we have no way of understanding what factors affect baseball players (and I have yet to see a good argument saying that we do have a way), then it really doesn’t matter. It gets very tiresome listening to reporters and fans trying to play psychologist. At least with “sabermetrics” the methods are transparent and can be easily checked for accuracy and consistency. The intangible crowd doesn’t bother to state assumptions, walk through the thinking behind a conclusion, or allow serious room for discussion or disagreement. That’s far, far worse than making fun of intangagrit on a message board.

REPORT COMMENT

I share some of Gammons’ frustration with sabermetrics, and that’s as someone who often makes use of them herself. There’s a lot of overlap between SABR-types and bloggers, and both are pretty annoying groups. It’s nice to think that bloggers are these sort of revolutionary firebrands holding the MSM’s feet to the fire, and sometimes we can be, but let’s be honest—how often do we do any real, first-hand reporting? A lot of what we do is just fact-checking with an attitude. If you’re a guy like Peter Gammons, who plies his shoeleather every day, it would get very frustrating to be shouted down by “these guys in their garages.”

It seemed like the first sabermetrics guys were just interested in applying more rigorous models to baseball to study things that had been overlooked before. This brought about vast improvements in scouting, because the previous system was so terribly archaic (with scouts saying ridiculous things like the famous line in Moneyball, “he’s got the Good Face”). But now it just seems to have gone way too far. After all, even “sabermetric” GMs like Billy Beane and Theo Epstein still ask about a guy’s character when they’re evaluating him. But a lot of “these guys in their garages” think that’s bullshit. As much as those snarky asides by Gammons might seem unprovoked, I’ve seen similarly random snark coming from stat-geeks on blogs and message boards, where off-topic mockery of “grit” or “intangibles” is de rigeur. This goes too far in the other direction. Yes, the players *are* human beings. They *are* affected by factors that aren’t always statistically measurable. This is just common sense. It doesn’t surprise me that a solid guy like Peter Gammons would staunchly defend common sense.

REPORT COMMENT

REPORT COMMENT

REPORT COMMENT

get the f*ck over it Gammons.

Gammons is just becoming more and more of a schill for the Red Sox.

which is fine. but when you are trying to pass yourself off as any sort of objective journalist for a national media outlet, it’s a little embarrassing.

REPORT COMMENT

REPORT COMMENT

REPORT COMMENT