Kudos to Fett for his tremendous index of Saber-101 articles, and kudos to Lookout Landing and others for the articles themselves. :- )

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Q: It just seems like a lot of people at SSI/MC are anti-UZR.

Once you really fully understand it, then you can pick apart at its many weaknesses.

I think its a valuable data point, though I agree with you and Sandy that you'd be nuts to rely on it as your only data point to evaluate D. Thats basically the same thing as relying on ERA to evaluate pitching or on OBP with hitting.

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A. I'm sorry that SSI has generated an impression that we are anti-UZR. We are not.

I love UZR and the other good D-metrics, love RAR (and the RC/27 that preceded it) and use the general Fangraphs $/WAR valuations all the time.

What I do resist, is (e.g.) the dogmatic criticism of a Pat Gillick who signs a Raul Ibanez and is ridiculed for his 'incorrect' decision. These are frequently -- even typically -- based on any difference between a GM's forward-going contract decision, and the rearward-looking valuations on, specifically, Fangraphs.com.

We're not exaggerating in the least when we say that if (1) Fangraphs shows Raul Ibanez as being worth $7m the last two years -- based in part on UZR -- and then (2) if a GM gives Raul $10m a year, then (3) the GM is going to be jeered as being unspeakably ignorant of simple sabermetrics.

The information, we appreciate. The abuse of it, we don't.

I'm sorry that this has been construed as SSI being anti-UZR or anti-Fangraphs. If there was one external link we were allowed, Fangraphs.com might well be the one we'd take.

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BTW, there is almost nothing on Fangraphs (except the wonderful pitch F/X data) that Pete Palmer (defense), John Benson ($/run), and Bill James (offense) weren't doing in the 1980's.

This generation of sabmetricians tweaks those 1980's formulas for 2% or 5% greater precision, and re-calibrates the scales to match AVG or OBP or whatever.

Often I see this called an advancement in sabermetrics -- hey, five years ago we had no way to integrate defensive runs in a player's evaluation, right? Wrong. Palmer and Dewan and James have been doing it for 20 years.

But -- what is different, is that we all have the information in one click. What Fangraphs has done is POPULARIZED information that was less accepted in 1990 or 1995. There is a huge difference in (1) making 'science' or technology easy access vs (2) advancing human understanding of a field.

It's not that the information is new to SSI, or that we need to go investigate it, and definitely not that UZR is the enemy. :- ) Only dogma is the enemy.

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There HAVE been major advancements in sabermetrics, notably the pitch F/X data. You can use it for all sorts of things -- did Jarrod Washburn pitch worse for the Tigers? (No.) Did David Aardsma gain greater command of his fastball? (No. He threw it a lot more often, so walked fewer batters.) Would Erik Bedard's curve be less effective if he threw it more? You can track those trends also.

And, as always, the mini-discoveries accumulate, as they have been doing since the 1990's STATS Scoreboards. Does the wind blow in, in Wrigley, in April? Does CERA persist from one year to the next? Is the #2 spot in the order more important than the #3? These mini-studies proliferate, and they're all interesting.

But is the serious weighting of defense -- as a concrete part of a player's value -- an advancement in baseball understanding? Ask John McGraw. Or Pete Palmer. Or Sparky Anderson -- he had glove-only players at SS and CF for the Big Red Machine.

Ask Dr. D. He is the one who thinks that Jack Wilson, even if his overall WAR were suspect, is a sensible, traditional part of a championship ballclub. :- )

Cheers,
Dr D