Calc 3 was a class I took my freshman year.

/pwned

Used to love watching Carson & “Carnac” was his best character–especially loved that turban.

A surgeon I worked with used to bitch about his car all the time. I knew he drove a Ferrari because I’d seen him in it. One day I got sick of listening to him and offered to trade him straight up because my car never gave me problems. He asked what I drove: “1981 Nissan Sentra!” He never griped about his car in front of me again!

My hate for sabremetrics was at its peak when I had a bunch of nitwits tell me that Adrien Gonzalez’s first 4 years were better than Ryan Howard’s. It was then that I realized that the stat WAR is really a stat created by some college drop-out sitting in his mother’s basement in his Spongebob underoos making up #s to fit his argument

See, this is [sort of] a valid argument. Besides the inherent issues with WAR, a slight advantage of one over the other (for instance, 5.5 vs 5.3) isn’t enough to say, definitively, that one is better than the other. That’s fine, and everyone should agree with it.

The problem is, as evidenced above by halladaysbicepts, is taking one stat he doesn’t like (DIPS* for instance) and using it to trash all of sabrmetrics is like people up a cheesy romance novel and saying “this medium sucks, fuck you Tolstoy!”.

*this doesn’t even get into the issue of not understanding what the stat is/says but trashing it anyway. That’s heading down to Joe Morgan/Moneyball territory.

My hate for sabremetrics was at its peak when I had a bunch of nitwits tell me that Adrien Gonzalez’s first 4 years were better than Ryan Howard’s. It was then that I realized that the stat WAR is really a stat created by some college drop-out sitting in his mother’s basement in his Spongebob underoos making up #s to fit his argument. Because when a guy has 4 years like Howard had to start his career…not mere mortal year, but IMMORTAL years, and have them be put down because “He only did it because he had the truly best player on the team hitting in front of him”…well, it grated at me.

But today, I am happy with the notion that my team won the 2008 world series. And they are right now, the best team in baseball by 4 games. They ave 50 wins and the next highest total of wins is 46. So it would take 4 days for someone to get to where the Phillies are. They spanked the team(Red Sox) that spanked the so-called best team in baseball(Yankers).

So people can whine and cry about injuries to their team, wah wah wah. But at the end of the day, it is the Phillies and not their team, who has the best record in baseball. And it isn’t even close.

Yeah, really. Unbelievable with this sabermetric crap.

I want to clarify something, though. Chris, I guess you are somewhat around my age (40, give or take +/- years). I grew up playing sports everyday of my life. During summers, the only time I came home during the day was to eat lunch and I was back out playing baseball, basketball, football and hockey. That’s all I did as a kid from 6 years old until I was 15 or 16.

However, at times (usually after dark), I would get on my Commodore 64 (I was one of the few guys in the neighborhood at the time that had a computer; I also had the only primitive internet access for the Commodore 64 known as QLink with a 1200 baud modem) and played roleplaying games like The Bard’s Tale, Ultima series games, Wasteland, etc. I would concern myself with such things such as armor class, spell points, luck, dexterity, strength, etc. It was fun and I was very good at it.

With all that being said, the roleplaying crowd has decided to take all of these roleplaying formulas and apply them to baseball. I have played and watched baseball my whole life without these fantasy stats being applied to the game and enjoyed it. Baseball doesn’t need this. SABERMATICIANS: WATCH THE GAME. ENJOY IT FOR WHAT IT IS. THE GREATEST GAME INVENTED BY MAN UNDER THE WATCH OF GOD!!!!

NOW GO GET YOUR @%#$#^@%# SHINE BOX…I mean…EXCEL SPREADSHEETS!!!!!!!

“How do we figure batting average? Well, start with a players’ number of plate appearances. That would be the number of times the player comes to the plate.

Now, subtract the walks. No, seriously, just subtract those. We don’t care about those.

Now, subtract the hit-by-pitches. Get rid of them.

Now, subtract the times that the player hit a fly ball that allowed a runner to tag up and score from third base.

Now, subtract the times the batter bunted a runner from first to second base, or second to third, or third to home but still made an out. Do not subtract the plate appearance if the batter successfully made it to first base. Do not subtract it if he hit a hard smash that accomplished PRECISELY THE SAME THING as a bunt. Do not subtract it if he hit a check-swing dribbler that was KIND OF like a bunt but did not seem from the press box to be a purposeful bunt.

Remember to include the times he reached base but only because of a defensive blunder.

OK, you have that number? We call those “at-bats.” Now, what you want to do it take the number of hits and divide those by at-bats. What is a hit? Any time someone hits a ball that allows him to reach base. No, we don’t care what base he reaches. Double … triple … home runs … they’re all just “hits” when it comes to batting average.

Of course, if the batter gets on base because of a defensive error, that doesn’t count as a hit. That counts as an out. Even though he didn’t make an out. How do we determine if the defensive player made an error? Someone in the press box we call the “official scorer” will watch the game and make the determination based on whatever he happens to be thinking at that moment.

OK, now you divide the hits by at-bats. And that is your hits percentage. We call it batting average even though it is not an average of anything. And the person with the highest average will be named the batting champion, even if we have to carry out the division to five or six or seven decimal points. The team with the highest batting averages will be listed on top of the charts even if they scored 200 runs less than another team.

It seems at least possible that there’s a better way.”

“how do you know what is a good defense?”

I watch the team for some games and see what their glove and range is like. It’s pretty simple after watching a team play to know whether or not they have a good defense.

I apparently read you wrong and apologize. Reading your previous posts I thought you were making fun of my line of thinking. It was a type sarcasm that I did not sense.

Carry on, my disciple. May the Bicepts be with you.

to your point on stats, all that stats are made up, ERA, AVG, saves, if you want to just enjoy what you’re watch by all means do so, but don’t berate people for wanting more.

how do you know what is a good defense?

This is why I think these made up stats are ridiculous. They don’t take into account many factors that make a pitcher great, such as a great defense behind them, which can save alot of runs, hits, etc. It’s nonsense.

Pretty good for year so far for him.

You reek of sarcasm, my ill-informed verbal-masturbator.

Sabermatician, be gone! The devil is within you. Exercise those demons. Be gone, math demons!

many like to unceremoniously wedge arbitrary divides such as top and bottom innings but this is a violation of something sacred beyond your understanding; when I consume baseball I DVR the entire game and play it back at 32x speed and just kind of press my face against the screen

I think maybe halladaysbicepqs and I have more in common than I thought, I misjudged you halladaysbicepks. I also appreciate your bold new experimental way of expressing the word “tries”

no matter how great you are at baseball you can’t fully control where the ball you hit goes, justt he general direction, unless you hit it out of the park in which case it’s a home run. so why is it such a hard concept to understand that a pitcher can’t control where the hitter hits the ball. sometimes a dribbler has eyes and get past the fielders. sometimes it’s a line drive that’s scalded but RIGHT at a fielder and it’s an out. This is DIPS

Define DIPS for me and tell me where it factors in the team’s defense?