"Ascent into Saber Orthodoxy," or "You're Weak, Admit it"

Because my little league coaches told me it’s the right way to do it. Subconsciously I get a thrill out of Castillo sac bunting in the 1st inning.

the rays played/play “small-ball” to an extent didn’t they?

Talent is obviously the most important thing, but personality can get in the way.

you’ll appreciate the season much moreso, until Omar trades Nick Evans for Yuni after castillo goes down because of his amazing D at SS translating well to 2b

There’s no real way to measure team chemistry or psychological stability, but in really extreme cases, such as Bradley, these things have to factor into the discussion somehow. I don’t think its nearly as meaningful talking about a no-production, “good clubhouse guy” like Alex Cora, more the really unpredictable, volatile players.

I don’t expect everyone to be David Wright in personality, and I frankly don’t want to know a lot of the things they do when the game is over, but there is a line that IMO a player can’t cross where he can divide the team. I didn’t put Bonds there, but I do put Bradley and Sheffield there.

I voted for defense, but I do everything except love smallball and value closers over starters.

I guess I just never got as much into sabermetrics as the rest of us

because by definition, there is such a thing. The clutch hitter is a myth, but clutch hitting does exist, it’s just not a specific skill. There’s no such thing as a player who does extraordinarily better or worse, with a large enough sample size, in the late and close situations.

clutch hitting and small ball was close, but because so much of the info that I get when I’m away from the internets because of stupid MSM

For some reason I read that as knuckleballers. Reading fail on my part.

Not on this list, but I sometimes wonder about the lack of concern over a hitter’s penchant for striking out. It’s not completely dismissed, but saber-wise fans generally don’t worry too much about it. Yet we tend to prefer pitchers with high k-rates, based in part on the idea that they give the defense fewer opportunities to mess up. Shouldn’t we then be a bit more concerned with players who strike out a lot. Often times a high-K guy like Dunn or Howard is defended with the argument that all outs are the same. But they’re not, and we acknowledge as much with our celebration of high-K pitchers.

Obviously a player who strikes out a lot but is otherwise productive – David Wright being a prime example – is valuable and the high number of strikeouts doesn’t drastically reduce his value. Yet there does seem to be a slight double standard at work here.

When a hitter strikes out, he is not advancing a runner. But on the other hand, he isn’t hitting into a double play (unless someone is running with the ptich). So that falls into the category of “do no harm.”

And voted for the “sizzle sticks” fallacy.

Y! E! S!