Rockin'...

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Matthew Cerrone:  What do you make of the state of statistical analysis in baseball, and sabermetrics, and, as they say, ‘The search for objective knowledge about baseball.’

Bobby Valentine:  I was weaned on sabermetrics as a manager, when I was 35 years old and with the Rangers.  Our GM, Tom Grieve, who gets no credit or mention for it at all, hired a sabermetrician to work full time for the team, Craig Wright, who wrote The Diamond Appraised, and is in the same stratosphere among guys who crunch numbers like Bill James.  So, I think they’re part and parcel to evaluation and managing and I understand they are part of the baseball culture.  But, it’s only a part of the culture.

Dr. D his ownself?, is a sabermetrician first, and a tools-scout wannabe second.

We love saber; our battle is only against the occasional saberdude who believes that he has 950 of 1,000 light bulbs on, and who doesn't concede the important light bulbs that the good old fashioned scout has on.

As James puts it, "We do not have near-perfect measurements of baseball players."

It's clear that this is what Valentine is saying above.  The same baseball guys who roll their eyes at sabertistas, will be completely at home looking over an F/X chart.  We're sure that Valentine is too.

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I think it's very naive to assume that any manager today, even the 60-somethings, doesn't get it from all sides on the data end of it.  I don't think that Lou Piniella and Bobby Valentine have math degrees, but I do know that they are informed daily on UZR and xFIP.

There are exactly 30 MLB franchises, no more and no less, who access Baseball Prospectus on a daily basis.

Valentine shrugs his shoulders and says, "Performance analysis?  We've been doing that for 25 years, kid.  Just don't think you can win a championship with a PECOTA spreadsheet."

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Gordon follows on, himself:

I recall him being rather disdainful of sabermetrics, but only in the sense that he doesn't feel it captures everything about the game that it's proponents think it does.

See: Projections for the Mariners and their win totals this year based on expected performance.

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Baker revealed that, after their 88-win 2007 season, the Mariners did pay a leading sabermetrician (Mat Olkin) to draft them a plan of attack for 2008.

The Mariners followed this plan closely -- and their 88 wins went up in smoke, into the 101-loss season of 2008.  That's right, the 100-loss season was a triumph of saber.

Mat is as good as it gets.  His plan:  maintain the other 23 guys the best you can, and go get two 5.0-WAR starters to replace your #4-5-6 starters.

They did:  Erik Bedard and Carlos Silva.

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There are too many moving parts in a 25-man roster, for ANY sabermetrician to draw up a static "plan of attack" that is scripted aforetime. 

Do you think that Taro could script a roto championship without adapting to the draft as it occurred?

Why then do the Mariners keep asking guys like Mat Olkin to draw them up a static, one-moment plan before the winter starts?

Any sabermetrician who claimed that he could sell the M's a decent pre-winter script ... well, just try it even in the far simpler little sim-world of roto and see how far that gets you.

If the Mariners ever really wanted a sabermetrician, like Bill James, to do them any real good, they'd deploy him as the Sox do James.  They'd have him sitting in the office, kibitzing the battles as they evolve. 

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Part 3

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