Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Dispatch was asked in a chat yesterday about last year’s Cy Young Vote and whether he thought Keith law and “others in the sabermetric crowd” had undue influence in awards outcomes. His response:
There increasingly appears a
campaign to discredit pitcher wins as a consideration. They are
considered by some as a derivative of “luck,” much like RBI, in the
estimation of some spreadsheet voters. Law didn’t give the vote to
Lincecum. However, there is an increasingly strong
smartest-guy-in-the-room element that frowns on more traditional
numbers now assigned the pejorative “peripherals.” Personally, I
thought Wainwright the NL’s best pitcher in 2009 only to later be
informed he was merely “luckier” than Lincecum. Who’da thunk?
I’m guessing that, in the past, there have been other writers who are not named Keith Law and who aren’t “spreadsheet voters” who voted differently than Strauss, with such differences changing the outcome of an awards vote. I don’t recall people responding so defensively to those legitimate differences of opinion, or those voters being called out like Strauss calls out Law and others here.
Likewise, I know of no other field besides sports writing where ignoring relevant data, scoffing disdainfully at advancements in analysis and belittling those who seek to broaden knowledge and understanding of the subject at hand is thought of as a positive thing.
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- Detroit Michael - Sep 23, 2010 at 9:33 AM
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So is Joe Strauss proud to be a technophobe sportswriter? Quite the badge of honor to select for oneself.
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- Matt S. - Sep 23, 2010 at 9:34 AM
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It’s a shame FJM was on Deadspin yesterday instead of today. They could have had fun with this.
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- Chris Fiorentino - Sep 23, 2010 at 9:43 AM
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I don’t know why they don’t just get a bunch of stat geek spreadsheet voters into a room with the old school guys and they spend a weekend hammering out the 30 or 40 mosr relevant stats, figure out how to weigh them, and then just let the computers take over and spit out the winners of ALL the awards. If the newbies want to call the old school guys dinosaurs and the old school guys want to call the newbies stat geeks…what’s the point?
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- Steve C - Sep 23, 2010 at 9:55 AM
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Are you encouraging things like cooperation, understanding, and compromise?
You must live in a different America than I my friend, mine is all back-stab, slander, and greed.
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- Wooden U Lykteneau - Sep 23, 2010 at 9:56 AM
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Likewise, I know of no other field besides sports writing where ignoring relevant data, scoffing disdainfully at advancements in analysis and belittling those who seek to broaden knowledge and understanding of the subject at hand is thought of as a positive thing.
You have heard of the “modern” Tea Party Movement, right?
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- klbader - Sep 23, 2010 at 10:00 AM
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I wonder if he still uses a typewriter rather than a computer, gets all his news in print rather than on TV or over the internet, pops his popcorn in an old pan with oil rather than the microwave, buys ice at the store instead of making it in his freezer, heavily salts his meats rather than putting it in the fridge, and rides a horse to work rather than drive a car?
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I just don’t understand how anyone can argue pitcher wins aren’t a function of luck? Also, I don’t think one has to turn to “sabermetric” stats to determine pitcher effectiveness. Long before I ever knew about WAR or xFIP or any other advanced statistic, I always used to look at ERA, innings pitched, strikeouts, walks, and hits allowed in determining who I thought deserved the Cy Young award. No one says that you have to surrender your body and sole to xFIP or WAR to evaluate who is most deserving. But if one evaluates a pitcher’s performance by looking only at the win column, then I argue that one isn’t in fact “evaluating” a pitcher’s performance.
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- Marty Winn - Sep 23, 2010 at 10:13 AM
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…because there is no evidence that the current administration is doing a lousy job.
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- Bull Durham - Sep 23, 2010 at 10:16 AM
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Post-season awards, like Hall of Fame voting, are ultimately subjective determinations. That there is no consensus on the objective criteria underlying these subjective determinations is all part of fun. What would we talk about over beers if there was a simple numerical formula to decide these things?
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- Kevin S. - Sep 23, 2010 at 10:20 AM
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That doesn’t excuse the utter logicfail that is the Tea Party.
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- kevinapps - Sep 23, 2010 at 10:21 AM
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He may be right. Wainwright may have been the best pitcher in the NL last season. The top 4 were in a virtual dead heat. But he is acting as if Wainwright was far and away the best and the stats crowd screwed him out of an award, when there was actually no meaningful difference between the top candidates. With how close those guys were, that is exactly when I would expect Wins to be used as a tiebreaker.
The people that he really should be yelling at are those voters that won’t vote two pitchers from the same team into the top two spots on their ballot. The real problem for Wainwright was Carpenter (and vice versa).
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- geoknows - Sep 23, 2010 at 10:28 AM
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Well, he’s a St. Louis writer, so of course Wainwright was the best pitcher in the NL last season.
Unless, of course, it was Carpenter.
It certainly couldn’t have been Lincecum. Nah.
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- murd - Sep 23, 2010 at 10:32 AM
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I hate doing this but I can’t pass it up. Would you mind providing examples of their “logicfail?”
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- Gary - Sep 23, 2010 at 10:35 AM
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It doesn’t explain the epic fail that is Obamastan.
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- Dberg - Sep 23, 2010 at 10:49 AM
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Baseball, people! Baseball! Save all the political crap for the Huffington Post and the Drudge Report.
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- murd - Sep 23, 2010 at 10:54 AM
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That’s why I said I hated doing it, but I’m tired of people taking cheap shots like that and not backing it up.
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- Kevin S. - Sep 23, 2010 at 11:06 AM
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Sure!
-Not understanding anything about what the Boston Tea Party meant beyond that it vaguely had to do with taxes.
-Shrieking at Obama for doing the exact same things Bush did.
-Running whack-job candidates who campaign against masturbation and the teaching of evolution in schools while living off campaign contributions.
-Sarah Palin. The next time she doesn’t speak in a generality will be the first.
Need more?
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- Trevor B - Sep 23, 2010 at 11:08 AM
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RBIs are luck he said? I’m sorry but that’s not quite true. How many baserunners are on and where they’re at does influence how a batter swings at a ball, whether it be that he bunts, goes for the sac-fly, tries to slap one down the left or right field line, etc etc. Sure, you’re not going to get a lot of RBIs playing for the Mariners, but you can easily make your RBI numbers go up or down depending on how you play certain situations.
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- Wooden U Lykteneau - Sep 23, 2010 at 11:16 AM
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Thanks for proving my point, which was that anti-intellectualism can be found elsewhere.
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- murd - Sep 23, 2010 at 11:27 AM
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The Tea Party people dislike Bush’s fiscal policy as much as they dislike Obama’s. They do give Bush credit for his defense policy, while they feel Obama’s is weaker.
O’donnell, may be a little different, sure, but let’s stop pretending that Reid and Pelosi aren’t whackjobs. Pelosi actually said “we have to pass the bill to see what’s in it.” How does that get a pass when something that will have absolutely no affect on policy (anti-masturbation & witchcraft) get scrutinized.
Every candidate everywhere lives on contributions, that’s not limited to Tea Party people.
Palin may be generic, but so is Obama, and she looks better in a skirt.
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- murd - Sep 23, 2010 at 11:29 AM
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effect, not affect
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- Michael - Sep 23, 2010 at 11:34 AM
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statsfail
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- Craig Calcaterra - Sep 23, 2010 at 11:39 AM
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The fundamental illogic with the tea party — and mainstream GOP congressional leaders — is that their ire with deficits and taxes does not square with their stated policy priorities.
It’s admirable and understandable to want fiscal sanity. It’s lunacy to suggest that this can be done while slashing taxes, keeping current defense spending (or even increasing it, as some have suggested) and claiming that social security and medicare and Bush’s giant prescription drug program are untouchable.
This is the policy position of the tea party and Republicans in Congress right now. They may very well want to slash entitlements — and despite my lefty bent, I don’t think the subject should be off the table — but they will never, ever, ever campaign on it. They truly wish to make people believe that you can cut discretionary spending and “pork” — which constitutes a fraction of the budget — slash taxes, kick out immigrants and everything will be just fine.
If they were truly serious about fiscal sanity they would be straight about this. They realize, however, how unpopular such positions are with the American people so they whitewash it.
And no, I do not think that Democrats have any better solutions at this point. At least ones they have the guts to run on. But the fact that they and they alone are considered the party of financial irresponsibility is just wrong. No one is talking serious about this. One side is demagoging it.
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- matt - Sep 23, 2010 at 11:49 AM
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Who would win a fight? Mighty Mouse or Superman?
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- murd - Sep 23, 2010 at 12:02 PM
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I think lumping the Tea Party with the mainstream GOP is a mistake. I think the actions of the mainstream GOP are the reason the Tea Party split off. There’s no way to know for sure until they get elected. Once in office, there’s no guarantee the lobbyists won’t get them too. Medicare and Social Security are certainly not off the table for the Tea Party. SS is probably the biggest fiscal disaster on the books, and everybody that has been in power has put their head in the sand. “Oh it won’t be bankrupt for 20 more years, plenty of time.” So far it seems like Tea Party people are more willing to look at things like that, but again, we won’t know for sure unless some of them actually hold office. But again, saying their platform is the same as the mainstream GOP is inaccurate I think.
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- Kevin S. - Sep 23, 2010 at 12:14 PM
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Um, no, not every candidate uses campaign funds for personal expenses. That’s embezzlement, and it’s illegal. Not reporting the money taken from the campaign coffers is tax fraud, and it’s illegal.
No, Obama is not, and was not, generic “like Palin.” He ran on catchphrases, but when it came time for debates he actually had policies (whether they were good ones is another issue). Palin has buzzwords, but absolutely nothing to back it up. And she doesn’t look good in a skirt. She’s “politician hot,” kind of like how the one somewhat cute girl in a unit is “army hot.” Of course, how she looks in a skirt has nothing to do with her utter lack of any form of substance.
