50 Responses to wRC+ = Follow the Money Trail

1. Peter
   December 26th, 2009 at 2:23 pm

   Fortunately, my street smarts tells me that most behavior in this country is rooted in the pursuit of making the almighty dollar.

   You vastly overestimate your own talents.

2. Mike Fast
   December 26th, 2009 at 4:24 pm

   You say we should follow the money trail, yet you fail to do that. Stats guys are making very meager money in this multi-billion dollar industry, and in the vast majority of cases, they are making none at all. I’d bet you’ll make more from writing this post than Tango will ever make from inventing wRC+.

3. vivaelpujols
   December 26th, 2009 at 5:43 pm

   You are a troll. This is all.

4. dafuente
   December 26th, 2009 at 6:09 pm

   I hear that the guy who invented wOBA has a private yacht now. Those damn slide rule-wielding nerds are trying to take over!

5. Greg
   December 26th, 2009 at 7:36 pm

   Where is all this money coming from? I see two advertisements on FanGraphs. I see many more on NYBD.

6. tangotiger
   December 26th, 2009 at 10:32 pm

   “I suspect deep down they want a bigger role- who wouldn’t want more power in a multibillion dollar industry- but I can’t go by anything other than my own intuition about people.”

   As I keep saying on my blog time and time again, summary opinion without evidence is the very definition of bullsh!t. And Mike’s statement here is pure bullsh!t.

   Just as, for example, I can say that Mr. Silva, who wants power in the mult-billion dollar internet industry, will beg for scraps like a troll that he knows the rest of us will feed him, can get more hits on his site, and sell more advertising.

   I farted that out, just as surely as he did his opinion. Both of which are as worthless as the time that has now elapsed.

   Dude, c’mon.

7. Andy
   December 27th, 2009 at 12:52 am

   Can we just ignore this guy? His intelligence is clearly sub-par, and he just likes to start a fight.

8. MGL
   December 27th, 2009 at 3:15 am

   I cannot speak for Tango, Andy Dolphin, FanGraphs,and other saberists and web sites, although I know a lot more about them, their work, compensation, motivations, etc., than do you.

   Let me estimate for you the sum total of the remuneration and “power” I have personally garnered/received from 20 years and tens of thousands of hours of baseball analysis, other than my salary during my two years of service to the Cardinals:

   ZERO

   Seriously, how does that fit into your paradigm? Why would you make claims and assertions that not only are completely wrong, but you clearly know nothing whatsoever about?

9. Jared
   December 27th, 2009 at 3:47 am

   So, you managed to not only fail to follow through on your thesis, but also didn’t even attempt to evaluate the validity of the stat at the center of your criticism. Brilliant!

   Did your editor tell you, “I want 750 words, but I don’t want you to actually say anything”?

10. firejerrynow
    December 27th, 2009 at 7:03 am

    Mike, you probably make more money from BS like this, than Tango, MGL, etc do from actually doing good work.

11. Mike Silva
    December 27th, 2009 at 9:23 am

    It’s amazing how you guys focused on my belief that advanced metrics are an industry looking for profit, and ignored the fact that I called you guys “part of the fabric” of the game. I never said you did bad work, or it was invalid, I just question it like any other baseball theory (like playing for a tie at home etc.). I don’t care if someone uses science or numbers because, as we saw with the climate change scandal, math, science, and education can be used to manipulate an industry in the name of power and profit.

    Howard makes great points, but where I will disagree is that Bill James never intended to make money off his work. He started out small, developed a following, and leveraged it into an executive position. If it was completely altruistic he would never have charged for his manuals, which I remember were quite expensive back in the eighties when I had the option of purchasing it with my Strat O Matic Game.

    No one ever makes the amount of money they are worth – not a teacher, executive, or writer. When you have a passion for something you will put in countless hours to make it work. Ultimately you want recognition and to get paid, if not, why put the time in? I make no bones about wanting to monetize my ventures. You worked for the Cardinals MGL, and you admitted to getting paid, there is nothing wrong with that, but once money is involved I have to “factor” how your work going forward is impacted by that “for profit” nature. It’s a fair way to look at things to keep it honest in my analysis. Front offices all across the country are riddled with politics, am I naïve enough to believe the advanced metric community is no different?

    Do I have proof? Of course not, I can’t read your mind. Just like you guys don’t have proof that I am anti advanced metrics (as James K often cites whenever he can), but it’s his opinion based on what you believe to konw. You will learn that many things in this world at not x +y = z. Every morning I wake up with that intention, but it rarely, if ever, goes that way. All I know is new stats continue to be churned out and sometimes I really don’t see where they are nothing more than the proverbial rocking chair.

    You don’t need to go to an Ivy League school, create a metric, or understand science to have intelligence (looking at you Andy), perhaps if some of the people skills that, from my experience, many in the sports industry lack, were present you would be able to sell your concepts to the generally public rather than arrogantly responding (looking at you MGL) your critics.

12. Colin Wyers
    December 27th, 2009 at 1:00 pm

    Mike, normally when people don’t want something to be the emphasis they don’t put it in the headline. Your amazement at people focusing on the focus of your article is rather annoying at best.

    I think someone looking to follow the money should look at the number of ads on this site, the promotion of your radio show (which I presume you are paid to do) and then look at Tango’s site, and the number of ads there. Tango, who developed wRC+, gave it away for free, by the way. He did a blog post about it, where he gave the formula away to the whole world free of charge. Fangraphs implemented it without, so far as I am aware, and fiduciary contribution to Tango.

13. Evan_S
    December 27th, 2009 at 1:18 pm

    “It’s amazing how you guys focused on my belief that advanced metrics are an industry looking for profit”

    Hilarious. The why is the title “wRC+ = Follow the Money Trail?”

    “I don’t care if someone uses science or numbers because, as we saw with the climate change scandal, math, science, and education can be used to manipulate an industry in the name of power and profit”

    Equally hilarious, as there has been nothing to disprove climate change except a bunch of nuts who look outside and see it snowing and they say “Whatever happened to global warming?”

14. WY
    December 27th, 2009 at 2:00 pm

    Mike Silva is a bleeping idiot. This article is no more coherent than the sort of essay that would earn a ninth-grader a D in English class. Why is he even allowed this public forum?

15. Mike Silva
    December 27th, 2009 at 2:14 pm

    Well WY lets see

    I put my own money up to build my own radio show, which in became popular enough for this site, and hence my ability to monetize it (very little btw).

    The beauty of the internet is the meritocracy of the whole thing. At any point the public can put me out of business.

    I think it’s amusing how the statistical community doesn’t like debate or to be questioned. Its almost very 1984ish

16. Peter
    December 27th, 2009 at 2:23 pm

    I think it’s amusing how the statistical community doesn’t like debate or to be questioned.

    Seriously?

    The “statistical community” is all about debate and questioning.

17. Mike Silva
    December 27th, 2009 at 2:35 pm

    Peter – you’re correct

    As long as you follow the rules and parameters that are outlined by whomever is deemed the “expert” – it’s not open and free debate, like I have on this site. If I went to any site and cursed at (which I have been today), or called them a moron (which I have been called today) I would be banned. Here at NYBD we allow free commentary as long as it stays PG-13. This site, more than any other, represents what I deem is good about free speech and debate on the net. There is no message board or site that allows more diverse and open commentary and opinion. Howard Megdal disagrees with me, and I applauded his response. Told him so as well. He makes great points and had me evaluate some of the language in my original post.

    Again, the work of Tango et al is tremendous. I think they have done more to advance the game than anyone else the last 30 years. I just think more people, like me, to question the application of these stats in the greater scheme of the game. I have to question because that is how my DNA is programmed. I never trust anything, even math and science, unless I have vetted it internally.

    There is nothing wrong with making money, or creating an industry, but that doesn’t mean I have to utilize all their theories in order to have validity. That is where some of my frustration with that group lies.

18. martin
    December 27th, 2009 at 3:28 pm

    ” I just think more people, like me, to question the application of these stats in the greater scheme of the game. I have to question because that is how my DNA is programmed. I never trust anything, even math and science, unless I have vetted it internally.”

    I don’t think this is the issue. Article does not question the application of the stat, or whether the stat has any merit at all. That would be welcomed.

    Instead, you appear to dismiss this stat out of hand based on what you assume the motive of creating the stat is.

    Open and free debate of the actual stat is one thing. If you can poke holes in its application or theory, I am sure that would be applauded. But to just wave it off as people trying to fatten their wallet is dismissive and insulting, and does nothing to further the debate.

19. Colin Wyers
    December 27th, 2009 at 4:31 pm

    Mike, that’s just it. You don’t ask any useful questions about wRC+. You don’t ask any questions at all. (Or any sort of questions about the merits of wRC+ at all.) Mostly you engage in the ad hominem fallacy:

    http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html

    You claim it’s an “open and free debate,” but you aren’t really debating anything at all. You’re passing off insults as debate.

20. Jared
    December 27th, 2009 at 8:34 pm

    Normally, when journalists ask a question, they usually try to find an answer. It seems Mr Silva is content in asking a question, not addressing it, then dismissing criticism of his ill-conceived article by claiming the other side isn’t playing fairly.

    Mr Silva, if you want to question the intent or validity of a certain statistic or metric, then by all means, look at the metric itself to see if it’s grounded in sound mathematics. Or if you believe someone is paying for a metric to be formulated, then actually follow through and see whether or not soandso is being paid to develop newfangled algorithms. Simply postulating based on nothing more than something you may or may not have read in a fortune cookie isn’t journalism, it’s gossip.

    Either that or you’ve developed some radical new form of existential journalism that totally just blew my mind.

21. Robin
    December 27th, 2009 at 9:10 pm

    Everyone who promotes idiotic ideas (i.e. creationism, anti-saber sentiments, anti-climate change sentiments), tend to call everyone at for shutting them down by saying that it’s so “Orwellian,” as Mike used with his 1984 reference.

    Please, stupid people of Earth, stop doing this. As an Orwell fan, it pains me to use his genius to promote your stupidity.

    “Woah, everyone is ganging up on me for saying that evolution might now have happened. So 1984. Groupthink.”

    No. You’re just a moron.

22. hzl
    December 27th, 2009 at 9:11 pm

    “We need more advanced statistics just like we needed Cool Ranch Doritos, New Coke, or a colorful cover for the iPod. What I mean is the “powers that be” in the statistical community have created a profitable industry for themselves that results in sites like Fangraphs.”

    “I never said you did bad work, or it was invalid, I just question it like any other baseball theory (like playing for a tie at home etc.). I don’t care if someone uses science or numbers because, as we saw with the climate change scandal, math, science, and education can be used to manipulate an industry in the name of power and profit.”

    “Do I have proof? Of course not, I can’t read your mind. Just like you guys don’t have proof that I am anti advanced metrics (as James K often cites whenever he can), but it’s his opinion based on what you believe to konw. You will learn that many things in this world at not x +y = z.”

    “You don’t need to go to an Ivy League school, create a metric, or understand science to have intelligence (looking at you Andy), perhaps if some of the people skills that, from my experience, many in the sports industry lack, were present you would be able to sell your concepts to the generally public rather than arrogantly responding (looking at you MGL) your critics.”

    Grammar and personal attacks aside, you are either making no effort or failing to clearly attack the problem in your logic. First, you aren’t actually asking a question- you just make a series of assumptions and lob a lot of personal attacks. If you were to ask a question, it might go something like, “Are saberists just inventing new stats to keep things fresh so that they can keep making money off of their customers?”

    Even phrasing your thesis as a question exposes the false premises and ad-hominem on which it is founded. If you’d attempted to say, compare wRC+ to another stat instead of listing stats that already exist (including OPS+, an inferior stat) and asking why we need another one, then you’d be making an argument. You fail to confront wRC+ any further than introducing it early on and then equating it with a Doritos flavor (another thing that seems to keep cropping up in new flavors and shapes- perhaps you should accuse the Frito-Lay corporation of profiteering in your next article). You’re asking a question, but it’s a loaded question (with no evidence for its premises) that’s coupled with a baseless ad-hominem attack.

    So, Mike, are you still beating your wife?

23. skyjo
    December 27th, 2009 at 10:21 pm

    This statement is interesting: “…all this analysis is putting the game in a cloud of haze. I couldn’t agree with him more.” If the stats are confusing or seem frivolous, you can simply choose not to reference them. No one needs understand wRC+ in order to enjoy baseball.
    However, some people do enjoy both baseball and analytics. wRC+ (and OPS+, and WPA, and many others) is a summary statistic used to analyze a player’s contributions to their team. Intuitively, doesn’t it seem like a good idea to account for league and home ballpark? Intuitively (and I qualify these statements thusly since you seem like an intuitive guy), wouldn’t a statistic that weights OBP and SLG properly before combining them (wOBA) seem more enlightening that one that doesn’t (OPS)? My intuition says ‘yes’. However, one probably shouldn’t base their conclusions on intuition alone. That’s why the makers of these stats generally provide detailed explanations of their derivations, as well as anecdotal evidence of their effectiveness. If a person wants to point to specific inaccuracy in the derivation or the interpretation of the results, that would be productive criticism. Simply saying, “my gut says these stats are unnecessary, and therefore their creation is based on greed” does not contribute to the discussion. Perhaps if you had evidence of such, (some financial numbers, an examination of the new stats ineffectiveness, etc.), people might take your points more seriously.
    Finally, just how much do you trust your intuition? I have a question for you (taken from some elementary psychology book): First, say it’s possible to fold a sheet of paper in half 100 times (I think you can only fold a regular sheet 8 times or so, so imagine a larger sheet, but one that maintains the original 0.1 millimeter thickness). Now, after folding a paper 100 times, how thick is the result? Well, before the first fold, it is 0.1 mm. After the first fold it is 0.2 mm. After the 2nd fold it is 0.4 mm thick. After 100? Did you come up with your answer yet? What does your gut tell you? Don’t use a calculator, just your intuition. What’s your guess? A couple inches? A couple feet? The hieght of your house? The distance from the Earth to the moon? Did you answer yet? I’m burying to true answer to give you a chance to actually come up with your own guess. Ready? OK. After 100 folds, the paper would be seventy eight billion trillion miles thick. That’s a 78 followed by twenty one zeros. You can think of it as eight hundred and forty trillion times the distance between the Earth and the sun. It’s really thick. How close was your guess? Most people’s intuition results in a staggering underestimate. Moral of the story? Don’t always trust your intuition. Pick up a calculator, write out a formula, do some research. But don’t just say things are the way they are because your guts says so. Too often it can be very wrong. (Unless, of course, you new that the tickness would be 840 trillion times the distance between the Earth and the sun. If that’s the case, then I think it’s time for Tango to stop being so damn analytical about baseball, cuz all we need is you!)

24. B-Chad
    December 27th, 2009 at 10:21 pm

    Come on guys. Lay off Mike. Clearly everyone knows that Wins are a true measure of a pitchers worth to a team and that ERA is completely in a pitcher’s control. I mean duh, even the Baseball Writers of America know this. Who needs fancy stats when we can just look at runs scored, HR’s, RBI’s, batting average, etc.

    P.S. sarcasm is hard to sense in text online.

    That is all.

25. Pizza Cutter
    December 27th, 2009 at 11:05 pm

    I’m trying to figure out what exactly I’m being charged with. Is it the fact that some folks (including me) have made money off of doing baseball stats? If only I made as much money as he seems to think! But, he seems to think that making money is OK.

    Is it because I’ve created a few new advanced stats? You don’t have to read about them if you think that they are a waste of time and there are plenty of sites that will give you the good ole classics if you just want those. But, no he states his admiration for advanced stats and says that he goes to Fangraphs quite often.

    Ah, I get it. I’m being accused of making new stats for money. Sophistry. More than that, I’m apparently doing shoddy work, but playing the “expert” card to buffalo people when they say “but… that’s just the same old fecal matter spray painted a different color.”

    If that’s what’s going on, then that’s a fair criticism. If that’s the charge, then the prosecution should present the evidence.

26. Hawerchuk
    December 28th, 2009 at 2:52 am

    Wow. I’m sorry I clicked through to see this train wreck.

    “where I will disagree is that Bill James never intended to make money off his work. He started out small, developed a following, and leveraged it into an executive position. If it was completely altruistic he would never have charged for his manuals, which I remember were quite expensive back in the eighties”

    This really shows a profound misunderstanding of James’ career.

    In 1977, he was working as a security guard and he wrote an 80-page self-published pamphlet in his spare time. He was a great writer, so his niche ideas got him a book deal to put all of those ideas in the public domain. (I have his 1982-87 Abstracts – I paid a grand total of $11 for all of them.) By 1985, players were seeking him out to help represent them in arbitration hearings. He presented evidence in these pseudo-court cases, and his clients almost always won. But it wasn’t until 2003, 26 years after he officially started his baseball “business”, that he was hired by the Red Sox.

    Let’s compare that John Henry, who started trading commodity futures around the same time James starting writing about baseball. Henry’s worth half a billion dollars and owns the Red Sox. James is but one of thousands of people who work for Henry.

    James may very well have been purely driven by making money, but the earnings ceiling is so low in baseball that the outcome for him isn’t vastly different than if he’d done everything for free. That he was actually able to leverage his passion into a business and then a career is in no way a strike against him. Even religious people who have taken a vow of poverty receive compensation for their time!

    Fundamentally, Silva’s argument here is that James’ ideas are suspect because a major-league baseball team finds them so compelling that they’re willing to pay for them. The only thing that would make James’ ideas valid is if teams – who spend a tremendous amount of time vetting statistical work – actually found them lacking. I suppose Albert Pujols would be a better baseball player if he was barely good enough to play on his office’s softball team?

27. geo
    December 28th, 2009 at 9:49 am

    Mike, you state “…where I will disagree is that Bill James never intended to make money off his work. He started out small, developed a following, and leveraged it into an executive position. If it was completely altruistic he would never have charged for his manuals…”

    James’ first manuals were not expensive, but as he did develop his following he expanded his work (as well as actually having them bound by a publisher, something he didn’t do at first) and the price necessarily went up. Even so, I never thought they were high dollar, but then I bought them independently of Strat-O-Matic, if that matters price-wise.

    What you may not know about Bill James, however, is that before he “leveraged into an executive position,” he offered his services to a major league team…gratis. That was sort of altruistic, don’t you think?

    By the way, the team (which I will not name, but plenty of people out there would know or could guess) turned him down. At the time, sabremetrics was in its infancy and he did not quite yet have the cachet he does now.

28. Mike Silva
    December 28th, 2009 at 10:36 am

    Geo

    It’s a fair point. Anyone with a new idea has to offer a “sample” to get the customers appettite wet. If James, and those that follow, are doing this for nothing more than for the “better of the game”, then they are far better people then 99.99% of the world’s population.

    As for MLB, they are not innocent in this whole process. They exploit people with the ridiculous salaries and often people accept because, hey, you’re working for a big league team. Radio stations, like WFAN, do the same thing. Fortunately the world is changing and new media gives people the ability to build their own brand, like Tango, MGL, etc. so they can prove their worth outside of the game.

    Bottom line: if people don’t ask for fair value for their services they do all of us an injustice. The flip side, with monetary compensation comes corruption of values, and that is what I always am on the lookout for. I am not saying Tango et all are corrupt, but I have to look at their industry with a cynical eye so I can be sure I am not “rused” into the same scams that consumer goods companies are so adept.

    Buyer beware is what I live by when I see something. Unlike others, who accept Tango et all, for whatever they say, I will not give them such power over me.

29. Hawerchuk
    December 28th, 2009 at 11:39 am

    Mike, do you seriously believe that a group of self-critical baseball analysts are pulling a fast one on you? I would encourage you to look at this article by Dave Gassko, just as an example:

    http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/so-how-did-tht-projections-do/

    These analysts you’re so dismissive of look back at their own work to figure out what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong. I know you don’t expect that level of introspection from a mainstream writer. But so many mainstream writers don’t use evidence and don’t show their work – which makes it difficult for their work to be evaluated.

    Ironically, your claim that people like Tango and MGL should be running teams is as ludicrous as your claim that they’re in this for the money and the power. GMs need a lot of skills – motivating players and coaches, negotiating contracts, scouting, hiring and firing, dealing with the press and the fans – and there’s no reason to believe that Tango and MGL have those skills. There’s evidence of their analytical skills, but we have absolutely no idea whether they have everything else that it takes to essentially be the CEO of a huge organization.

30. Dave B
    December 28th, 2009 at 11:47 am

    Good point Mike, Caveat Emptor. Now, please exercise that power. Show your work and let us know if wRC+ is A) valid, B) a thinly-veiled attempt to capture a larger marketshare within the NewStat empire, C) both, or D)Other. I assume that your dedication to top-notch journalism (even in a blog format) would require you to at least look into the question prior to throwing around speculation about the quality of and motivation behind work being done by your peers. Or, should we all assume that you built an inflammatory post with no basis in reality, solely to get eyeballs from intelligent dissenters?

31. birtelcom
    December 28th, 2009 at 1:32 pm

    It seems to me legitimate criticisms can be lodged against new stats coming from Tom Tango, fangraphs, et al. For example, one can ask whether the margin of improvement in accuracy for a new stat such as wRC+ over a little bit less new stat such as OPS+ is worth the reduction in intutive understandability that has helped make OPS+ popular. Certainly, we have come a long way from the days when Bill James was arguing that batting average was a poor measure of offensive value compared to metrics such as RC or OPS tha incorporate contributions such as walks and extra base hits. The gain in accuracy from BA to RC or OPS+ is huge, and well worth the additional complexity involved in getting to metrics based on combining SLG and OBP. But compared to the gain from BA to RC or OPS+, the gain from OPS+ to a stat like wRC+ is relatively tiny. And it is true that Tango at his web site sometimes makes such a move sound like one of monumental importance, rather than the relatively minor improvement that it is .

    The problem with Mike’s argument in this post is not that he may be substantively getting to something true, but that his insistence on making the argument with ad hominem attacks (“it’s all about the money” is just bizarre) and on-going snarkiness about sabermetrics in general, instead of making the real substantive argument, irretrievably damages his intellectual credibility.

    The effort to refine baseball stats to make them increasingly accurate is a valid intellectual pursuit in and of itself. Advocating that each such refinement should be widely adopted as a standard for use in discourse about baseball involves more complex tradeoffs between accuracy and accessibility. But these issues can be discussed on their own merits, without ad hominem attacks or snarky anti-intellectualism.

32. Mike Silva
    December 28th, 2009 at 2:49 pm

    Birtelcom

    I think you give a balance view of the situation. I can see where the execution of the title and article comes across as an “attack”, but I was simply answering the question brought up by 108 stitches

    I am not anti sabermetrics or anti intellectualism, but more trying to “cool the heels” of a community that I believe is too arrogant, too sure of themselves, and way too nasty to criticism.

    I can never prove someone’s motive, but the constant regurgitation of fancy stats in a new package either is “fun with numbers” or part of a greater plan to inundate people with their product. When I was young stats never were an “industry” so to speak (Bill James was an outlier) and I appreciated the lore and artistic part of the game. I fear this industry is attempting to take that away with their constant thesis of “this is the right way to look at this game”

    The point of my post was to let everyone know I am skeptical of their motives, something that I would say for any other facet of my life. As another post said Caveat Emptor, and I am very leery of the intentions of Tango et al.- where is this going? What are we doing with this stuff?

    Sorry to say many people believe the game should be looked at only one way – analytically

33. Spike
    December 28th, 2009 at 4:43 pm

    “a “sample” to get the customers appettite wet”

    Now that’s how to do a malapropism, people.

    “part of a greater plan to inundate people with their product. ”

    Truly, this nefarious cabal has been able to use their powers of mind control to force not only fans, but actual MLB teams to use the fruits of their pointy headed labor. To paraphrase their leader, “These are not the statheads you’re looking for…”

    “The point of my post was to let everyone know I am skeptical of their motives,”

    Skeptical? Surely there is no room left for debate here. The motive is to force honest working class stiffs like yourself to buy more ovaltine.

    “where is this going? What are we doing with this stuff? ”

    Shades of Vice Admiral Stockdale!

    “Sorry to say many people believe the game should be looked at only one way – analytically”

    And this is keeping you (or anyone else for that matter) from looking at the game non-anyalytically exactly how?

    Really, fella, you’ve got to get over your fear of the statistical boogieman. Nobody is stopping you from thinking or writing whatever you want. To a disinterested outside observer, it looks like you are more concerned that your ideas about the game are losing out in the marketplace, and are simply engaging in a low rent effort to discredit your competition. Apparently that’s not going so hot for you.

34. Nick Steiner
    December 28th, 2009 at 4:55 pm

    Why attack the motives Mike? Even if Saberists are creating stats for the sole purpose of making money, which is untrue in probably 95% of cases, why should that impact how you feel about the stat?

    Why don’t you tell us the problems with wRC+, or any other stat, so we can address those?

35. BunsonBurner
    December 28th, 2009 at 5:33 pm

    I think it’s great that the Saber guys are developing new stats for their product. I don’t think it sets a good presecendence in any industry to work for little wage or give the perception the work is free. It’s explotive and I hope their in it to make money on a good product. If not, than its the most time consuming hobby I’ve ever seen. This is the American Way. Build a good product at a competitive price. I see nothing wrong with the Saber guys saying Yes, we want to make money. When you deny it, thats when it looks shady. Just my small opinion

36. WY
    December 28th, 2009 at 5:46 pm

    “I am not saying Tango et all are corrupt, but I have to look at their industry with a cynical eye so I can be sure I am not “rused” into the same scams that consumer goods companies are so adept.”

    But what exactly are they selling? We are talking about one book that has probably earned them very little in the way of profits when you take in to account the time spent on it.

    “I never trust anything, even math and science, unless I have vetted it internally.”

    How can you “vet” these things internally if you don’t even understand how they work? Do you not get on an airplane until you have inspected the airplane and double-checked the aerodynamics equations and formulas involved in its design? Do you inspect the chemical formulas of every drug or medication you ingest? I am guessing that you don’t. Addressing the mathematics behind the “suspicious” formulas you mention would not be anywhere as difficult as “vetting” most other scientific results, yet there is no evidence that you have even done that.

    This whole article is just so loony it is hard to believe that it isn’t a joke or–failing that–that it wasn’t written by a confused high-school or middle-school student. The logic is so muddled, the premises are so muddled, and the grammar and writing are so poor and incoherent that I am actually shocked that this person knows how to operate and maintain a web site.

    Then again, if this writing were floated by an editor, it would get ripped to shreds (as the commenters have been doing). So I guess it makes sense that it is the product of the site owner. But that is no excuse for churning out such poor work and THEN turning around and attacking the work of people who (a) you clearly don’t understand and (b) just don’t stand to be making much, if any, money from these pursuits. Who are you going to attack next for being greedy: High school teachers? Graduate students living on stipend money? Celibate monks?

    Also, keep in mind that all of this “skepticism” you mention can just as easily (and perhaps more justifiably) be applied to your web site. Maybe you are actually an intelligent person who is just writing purposefully illogical and incoherent posts in order to increase web traffic? The sad thing is that that would actually be the best reason I could think of for writing this stuff.

    Note that this has nothing to do with a pro-stats mindset–these are just general impressions from someone who was pointed to this link and found his jaw drop when I read the piece.

37. WY
    December 28th, 2009 at 5:53 pm

    P.S. Speaking of “money trails,” I will also note that I’m not aware of any of these “greedy” stat sites having pop-up ads–unlike NYBD.

38. Nick Steiner
    December 28th, 2009 at 6:23 pm

    It’s worth noting that MGL has said on multiple occasions that he donated all of his profits from The Book to retrosheet. I also believe he has said he spends around 10,000 a year getting the data for UZR and donates it to FanGraphs without compensation.

    So yeah, quit talking out of your ass Mike.

39. Mike Silva
    December 28th, 2009 at 6:29 pm

    WY

    Again, I never said making money was bad, or that I was altruistically doing this without the thought of profit. All of us are in some way being exploited by the multi billion dollar industry called Major League Baseball.

    I never criticized the math behind the stat, I just do see where many of these new stats are going. As the gentleman at 108 stitches pointed out we are in a “haze of statistics” and I have to wonder what the end result is meant to be. Are we having fun with numbers? Trying to show how smart we are? Creating better game simulators like Strat O Matic and Fantasy Baseball (that is where the value of this stuff really lies in my opinion)? I give Tango et al credit for creating something that I couldn’t. On the same hand I know damn well they couldn’t do what I do. So doesn’t that make us even? The difference is I am honest about who I am and what I am trying to do. If this is altruistic then these people are borderline saints.

    To ask me to breakdown the stat is ludicrous when I never questioned that. I will make you deal, when Tango et all can put together a radio show, book guests, and entertain listeners like I have, then I will try to “create my own stat”. I, nor this site, ever challenged his intelligence, but rather where his venture is going. All I know is those that follow this type of thinking tend to belittle those who, quite frankly, see cursory use for the measures. You may be unimpressed with what I have built here, but I am equally unimpressed with some of the work with the sabermetric community. Some of its good, most doesn’t interest me, nor do I think I learn more about players that I didn’t know before. WAR is particularly a baffling stat because I don’t see how you can assign a win share in a vacuum when players do not perform in such a way. If Albert Pujols is only worth eight wins to the Cardinals then I don’t see why he is worth the kind of money he will demand in free agency.

    Again, you guys show your insecure and arrogant side and fail to recruit guys like me – who could be potential believers.

    Everyone thinks different and has different strengths and weakness, I am tired of being told by you people that “this is the only way to think” because “you guys have logic” when some of the biggest quack ideas I have read recently come from the advanced metric community.

40. eitheror
    December 28th, 2009 at 7:12 pm

    You seem to have delusions about your own objectivity. Take this comment:

    “WAR is particularly a baffling stat because I don’t see how you can assign a win share in a vacuum when players do not perform in such a way. If Albert Pujols is only worth eight wins to the Cardinals then I don’t see why he is worth the kind of money he will demand in free agency.”

    You are not saying teach me why you believe this, you are saying I don’t understand and refuse to learn. I fail to see the actual objection other than “I DONT LIKE THIS!”

    If you really want to add context than go into WPA, which factors in game situations.

    To address one of your bigger issues: everything is based on rudimentary basic stats, (hits, walks, etc), the point is, if you think you can look at all those raw numbers and aggregate the value in your head, then by all means do so. What numbers like WAR and FIP attempt to do is simplify this process, and make it uniformly comparable. How would I compare Ichiro’s offense to Ryan Howard’s? How do I compare the value of a second baseman a catcher and pitcher. This is attempted by aggregating and weighting these simple components. Most of the stat community readily understands the limits of human perception and thus strives for objectivity. Just praising stat guys every so often doesn’t absolve you from the fact that you clearly have no thirst for a deeper understanding. Which is fine, live and let live. You are now inviting criticism, so enjoy.

41. Nick Steiner
    December 28th, 2009 at 7:22 pm

    Nobody is trying to recruit you Mike. I think you are a troll and place zero weight on your opinion on anything to do with this matter. Furthermore I don’t care about what you do in your free time, your motivations for writing this article, or what you can do that we cannot do. I just don’t care, it doesn’t have anything to do with this debate. I can’t speak for the rest of the guys here.

    Now answer some questions Mike.

    “If Albert Pujols is only worth eight wins to the Cardinals then I don’t see why he is worth the kind of money he will demand in free agency.”

    Why do you have that opinion? Are you implying that WAR valuations of Pujols are incorrect? What evidence do you have to back that up? Are you going to continue use ad hominem attacks to back your position (see what I did there?)?

    WAR is a useful stat because it attempts to measure how many wins a player would have added to a league average team. It’s not a perfect measure of that, and any sabermetrician will tell you that, but it is the best currently available to the public.

    There have been many pages on the internet devoted to selling WAR to people like you. If you were to email any of us self professed subject matter experts about how WAR is calculated, why it works and why it doesn’t work, we would be glad to help you. Instead you choose not to do that. You choose instead to attack the people who use the stat and attack that stat based on assumptions you have made regarding those people.

    That’s the definition of an ad hominem attack, and circumstantial one at that, and has no place in life. You have a close mind, and despite your profession, I highly doubt you could be a “potential reliever”. If you want to become a believer, ask the questions and I’m sure that everyone here will help you out.

42. tangotiger
    December 28th, 2009 at 8:02 pm

    Mike, why don’t you email every single one of your questions. Everything that baffles you, everything that you reject, everything that you question, everything that you laugh at, mock, or confuses you. Send them all to me. And I’ll answer every one.

    Other than the one post you had on my blog where you asked good legitimate questions, everything before and after is you farting your opinion. You base your opinion on nothing other than your guts. That’s called bullsh!t. So, stop the bullsh!t, and be an investigative reporter.

    And I have to say that the readers in this thread are thoughtful and intelligent. Listen to them.

43. B-Chad
    December 28th, 2009 at 9:36 pm

    Mike Silva, you are in fact a clown. I hate to make personal attacks, but when you simply attack an “industry,” as you describe it based on your “gut feelings,” with no proof, that is clown behavior, something not to be taken seriously. Congratulations though, you accomplished what I’m sure the goal of this garbage article was, you drove traffic up to your website. By writing such a waste of text attacking saber stats and the saber community in order to gain attention and traffic, you are officially trash. What is sad about this post is it holds more supporting evidence of you being a clown/trash then your entire article has of the saber community being money hungry scam artists.

44. birtelcom
    December 28th, 2009 at 11:11 pm

    Mike:
    Regarding you last response to me (2:49 PM today), I appreciate your comment that I am trying to be balanced, and I in turn appreciate the moderate tone of your response. In that respect I hope I am trying to take a different approach than others here.

    I note however that your response to me continues to include oddly anti-saber comments, such as “I appreciated the lore and artistic part of the game. I fear this industry is attempting to take that away….”

    I like to think of baseball like a sunset. You can watch a sunset and simply enjoy its beauty. You can also study the astonomy, chemisty and physics of a sunset. These two activities are not mutually exclusive. For some people it enhances their esthetic appreciation of the beauty of the sunset to understand the science. But if not, don’t worry about it. Taking in the gorgeous grandeur of the setting sun, with its poignant comment on the closing of the day, is its own reward.

    The fact that there are scientists out there working ever harder to understand with ever greater precision the atmospheric mechanics of sunsets need not disturb your esthetic appreciation one whit. And the fact that such scientists are actually sometimes paid for their work certainly does not undermine the scientific value of what they do. That value should be judged on its own scientific merit — the economic motives of any particular scientist should be irrelevant to the discussion of the value of their work, which stands or falls on its own, unrelated to motives. Similarly the fact that a painter of sunsets might make money for his work is irrelevant to the esthetic value of his work, which also should be judged on its own merits.

    I truly have no idea why Tom Tango’s debates about such matters as OPS+ vs. wRC+, which I agree sometimes seem to be angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin discussions (though I also often find some of them very enlightenting), should disturb your enjoyment of the “lore and artistic part of the game” in any way at all.

45. Zach
    December 29th, 2009 at 1:32 am

    Mike, wRC+, among other stats, weren’t created “just because.” Tango wrote a blog post stating the flaws of OPS+ (walks are undervalued, etc) and proposed an alternate stat based on wOBA.

    In addition, he proposed a recalculation of OPS+ (changing the weightings of OBP and SLG) and told his readers to contact Sean Forman, the baseball-reference founder, and ask for a change in OPS+ calculations. As well, he’s also had a thread involving the calculation of ERA+ and how it should be changed.

    It’s a peer-review system, not a money-making system.

46. Hawerchuk
    December 29th, 2009 at 2:43 am

    Mike -

    I have a simple question: how many wins is Albert Pujols worth? How did you determine that valuation?

47. Mike Silva
    December 29th, 2009 at 8:07 am

    Tom

    You’re right. I demand people give both sides of the story and I should put my “money where my mouth is”.

    I am about to email you about this.

    Regards

    Mike Silva

48. tangotiger
    December 29th, 2009 at 8:24 am

    For faster response: tom~tangotiger~net , replacing the ~ as appropriate.

49. Tangotiger
    December 29th, 2009 at 5:04 pm

    My responses to Mike’s sabermetric questions can be found here:
    http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/category/Mailbag/

    I’ll have the other 5 answered tomorrow…

50. Detroit Michael
    December 30th, 2009 at 3:05 pm

    Mike Silva wrote:
    Sorry to say many people believe the game should be looked at only one way – analytically

    This is a straw man argument. I do not know a single person who believes that baseball should only be looked at analytically. Writing something this wacky diminishes the impact of whatever point you are trying to make.

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