How do I know other teams made him an offer? I remember you saying the Dodger offers to Ramirez were just rumors until he actually signed a contract, and we shouldn’t take them as real.
Besides that is blatantly false. The Mets could have afforded Teixeria, they didn’t want him. So could the Cubs, the Dodgers, and the Giants. You think they didn’t want him because they thought he sucked? Maybe they didn’t want to allocate their resources that way. If Manny was willing to sign for 500k, 30 teams would be lining up to sign him. Yes even the Red Sox, they would find a way to make up. 29 teams didn’t shun Manny, they simply decided they rather us 20 million dollars a year elsewhere.
Of course the Red Sox could have won 2 world series without him. He may have evewn cost them a shot at the World Series in '08. Varitek was quantifiably a very good cather up until 2006 or so.
How do you know Varitek is good at handling a pitching staff. Because he looks leaderly? Intangilbles matter, but if you can’t measure them you can’t know what they are. There is no evidence that Varitek is any better or any worse at handling a staff than anyone else. It is pretty much you making stuff up, because it fits your world view. Stat geeks don’t like making stuff up. We want to figure out what actually happened.
They aren’t even consistent All-Stars. At any rate, none of them is somebody you could build a team around. So what’s the value of the process used to decide they were?
Youkilis, as HoboStew points out, *did *make it big, but *not *for Moneyball reasons. “The Greek God of Walks” made himself one of the best *hitters *in the game, not walkers, and with fine fielding at two positions, as well. He’s mostly Romanian Jewish, btw, not Greek.
On preview, if you know of any other offers by any other team for Ramirez, even rumors not begun by Boras (it’s one of his fave tactics), let’s hear 'em, m’kay?:dubious:
By paying attention to what his pitchers say about that, and by watching the actual games too. Fascinating stuff, you ought to try it yourself sometime.
And right there you have the foolishness of the stat-geek approach, laid bare for all to see. Of course you can know what intangibles are. Don’t be so silly. You can know what tangibles-but-unquantifiables are, too.
You need to realize that often, very often, even usually, you can’t do that with stats.
The understand most drafted players don’t become stars right? Three solid regulars is a pretty nice draft class.
I have no idea what Moneyball reasons means. Oh right, you are just wildly misinterrupting things again. Have you read Moneyball? If not I’d kindly ask you to stop acting like you know what it says.
No other team was willing to pay him 20 million dollars a year. Given his age and skill set that makes perfect sense. If he was a completely upstanding player, I doubt that anyone else would have given him 20 million either.
The Tigers retooled their infield with a huge stress on defense this year. They were unhappy with the defense all around the infield. They also had catching problems .They gave up bats to get gloves. The pitchers are probably pleased. This year will be a lab experiment of how important defense is to pitchers. If the same pitchers win more and ERAs drop, you will clearly see if defense is over rated or not.
I watch an obsessively large amount of baseball. I’m smart enough however to realize that my eyes can be deceiving. Also playing baseball and analysing baseball are two completely different skill sets.
At any rate, let’s say Varitek makes his pitching staffs better. How does he do that. Do you think his pitchers give up less runs? Strike out more? Walk less? Throw more innings? If he improves the staff, there should be some evidence of it. If there isn’t, well it probably doesn’t exist.
With the distance to the walls in Comerica, the only surprise is that the Tigers didn’t figure out years ago that they had to structure their team that way. HawkeyeOp, if you could have listed any significant successes the Beane approach has had, no doubt you would have done so.
How *could *you do that with a statistical approach, even in theory? By comparing pitchers’ performances with somebody else behind the plate, right? That’s the only mathematically-sound approach, and even then it has weaknesses, right? Okay. Well, almost all Boston games not caught by Varitek are Wakefield starts. Almost all Wakefield starts are not with Varitek. So how could you “analyze” the difference except with your own eyes?
Oh, okay. That’s it. Pretend it just doesn’t exist. Avoids all that subjective, fan-type stuff. Easy, ain’t it?
An endless string of finishing a few games above .500 in a weak division. If consistently being a little better than the Rangers and Mariners seems “pretty good” to you, then you’re welcome to it. Tell me, do the A’s have celebration rallies in Jack London Square every year they have the best ratio of wins to payroll?
Dan Duquette, the former Red Sox GM, claimed the team was a great success one year when it didn’t make the playoffs because they’d spent “more days in first place” that season than any other team in the division. He was laughed out of town for that (and other reasons), and quite properly, too. But it’s the same argument at heart as what you just gave.
You know, people like you make it less fun to argue about sports. First of all, you have this sanctimonious attitude like you know everything and everyone else knows nothing. That would be annoying enough by itself, but you also happen to be totally wrong. Take this Ortiz thing.
So seriously dude. Ease up, and what’s that rule? Oh yeah, don’t be a jerk.
As it happens, I do know the Ortiz story better than you, and just demonstrated it too. (The Bellhorn signing is in the same sentence in Wiki? Wonderful cite there. At least it didn’t mention his role in getting the Sox to sign the stat-miracle Bruce Chen and Rudy Seanez for the bullpen.)
The fun of talking sports with others is learning new facts, seeing different viewpoints, and gaining deeper understanding of the game itself and its players from others. Don’t get defensive about it; ease up and participate and you won’t be tempted to call anybody else in the conversation a jerk.
I already did. Four playoff appearances in six years, including two division titles and two hundred-win seasons, all with a payroll far below league average. Seriously, you’re just embarrassing yourself here; it’s seems clear that you don’t even know what the “Beane approach” actually is. Next time someone asks if we have anyone famous on the Dope, i’m going to suggest Joe Morgan, and point them at your baseball commentary for evidence. Although you probably think that’s a compliment.
And again with the misrepresentations and the insults.
I have never, ever played in a baseball fantasy league.* My love of baseball is precisely that: a love of baseball. I watch it on TV, and when time and money permit i watch it at the ground. I read books about it, and not just books by stat geeks. I love the baseball writing of Roger Angell, of George Will, of Stephen Jay Gould, and a host of others. I’m much more excited by a bases-clearing triple or a well-executed double-play or a vicious curve-ball than i am by OBP or WHIP.
For me, stats are interesting and fun and a way to enhance my understanding and love of the game, not a replacement for it, as you so absurdly keep asserting. I’m not sure if Bill James cut you off in traffic one time or something, but i just don’t understand why you have to act like such a complete asshole in these baseball threads when people disagree with you, nor why you have to make snide remarks about stat people whenever you can slip them into the conversation.
Anyway, i’ve said my piece. I just see no point interacting with you anymore in these discussions.
Full disclosure: i’ve been invited to join one this season, and have accepted, so i’ll have my first experience of fantasy baseball very soon.
You don’t think you could be able to find any statistical difference between “Varitek Games” and “Not-Varitek Games”? Really? If you’re claiming Varitek helped them win more, wouldn’t there be a difference in, well, wins?
And I’m also going to say that you’re starting to come off like a jerk in this thread. Ease up, indeed.
Wonderful cite there. At least it didn’t mention his role in getting the Sox to sign the stat-miracle Bruce Chen and Rudy Seanez for the bullpen.)