Kris Benson, UZR Rating, and a Positive Joe B
By Mike Silva ~ April 2nd, 2009. Filed under: Mike Silva.
Our very own Phil Allard told us how Sir Sidney Ponson made the Royals rotation this spring. A piece of information that may go under the radar is that Kris Benson will be in the Texas rotation. I got word of this last night while on the air from Joe DelGrippo. What will be hotter this summer, Arlington Stadium or the dresses that Anna Benson wears?
Sports use to be a sanctuary away from the tedium of school work. Bored with studying for your biology midterm – turn on the Knicks. Don’t care about the regents? Listen to WFAN. Not quite sure if that is the case today with the hostile takeover of SABR measurements. If there is one area of baseball where I will draw the line on numbers it’s with defense. You have to watch a player to know how he is defensively. Not all groundballs and zones are created equal. With that being said, if you’re into UZR, check out a friend of NYBD James K at Amazin Avenue. He breaks down the Mets team UZR over the years. Watch the hate mail I get on this one. Is SABR a research society or a political party?
Is Joe Benigno reading his fan mail? When I heard him tell Evan Roberts that the Mets WILL beat the Cubs if they played in the NLCS I almost drove off the road. Does anyone remember the last positive comment from the immortal mouth of Joe B? Message to Joe – cynicism and negativity has given you a career in radio, but fair, balanced, and intelligent commentary might just keep you there. Not sure if this is an indictment of the Joe B, or the Cubs.
If you missed it, we had two hours of great radio at NYBD. Greg Prince from Faith and Fear in Flushing talked about his just released book. Frank Russo, everyone’s favorite author, gave us the details about the birth of his website The Deadball Era.
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:38 am
Well it is getting to the point where you should probably stop ignoring it. Between UZR and Bill James’ new stat defensive misplays you can get a pretty good idea of how good or bad players are defensively.
I don’t see the point in ignoring something just because it wasn’t on the back of baseball cards 20 years ago. It would be like if you kids completely ignored traditional stats.
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Thanks Bronx Baseball Daily. It’s one thing read about and learn about a stat (such as UZR or +/-) and disagree with it because of a legitimate shortcoming. It’s another to not even learn what the stat is or how it’s calculated and dismiss it altogether. This stuff isn’t some fringe science Mike – major league teams are using stats like this to evaluate talent. Hence the lack of big $$$ for Dunn, Abreu, etc. this offseason. Please forward me any actual hate mail you get for linking to the UZR graph.
P.S. there’s a big difference between SABR and sabermetrics. They are totally different things. Not all members of SABR are into advanced statistics.
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Get with it Silva. Bronx Daily and James K. are right man. You clearly don’t even understand what this stat is yet you’re rejecting it. If sports are your escape from numbers and math and school (oooohhhhh scary!) then I expect you won’t be posting any stats whatsoever on this site in the future.
I look forward to ripping every post your write that lists even one stat. Numbers have no place in sports!
And yeah, SABR does not equal sabermetrics. You are clueless dude.