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Change is a scary thing.
It would be a lot easier if changes never occurred. It would also be a lot easier if traditional beliefs were never questioned. In this day and age, information is a few words and a click away. But, if you are already dead set on a belief system, you will refuse to accept any challenges to it.
Baseball’s fandom is a lot like the religion war. There are the traditional believers, and they’re scientific skeptics. The traditionalists think it’s a cut and dry system. If a player is a .300 hitter, he is good. If a pitcher has 20 wins, he is elite. If a player runs hard on ground balls, he is a gamer. You get the point.
Scientific skeptics want to challenge every conventional thought. They want to prove why a widely renowned player isn’t that good. They want to break down why a player is successful, and is not.
It’s just like Christians and Atheists. Christians think it’s cut and dry why we are here, and atheists want to prove everyone wrong. As an agnostic, I can see how both sides can be very hard to listen to.
Sabermetrics is baseball’s version of Evolution.
Questioning traditional thoughts through in-depth statistics can cause conflict. Wins Above Replacement players (WAR) actually starts wars; baseball wars that is. wOBA sounds phony like Joe Mayo. Traditionalists don’t want anything to do with that. A traditionalist will say Derek Jeter is a leader, a .300 hitter, and one of the best in baseball. A SABR junkie will say a clubhouse leader means jack, batting average doesn’t matter, and he has the range of a tone-deaf singer.
This is the main problem with being a baseball fan today; neither side is right. Like many things in life, the answer lies in the middle.
I am heavily influenced with the advances in statistics. I visit FanGraphs when I want to learn about a player. The main reason I am a stathead is because I can’t see everything. Statistics help me learn about a player without even seeing them play. I don’t need to grab four oranges, and take two away, to see that 4-2=2. I just know that 4-2=2. I don’t need to see if Peter Bourjos has the range of a gazelle if statistics tell me that. I don’t need to see the plate discipline of Nick Swisher when statistics tell me that. None of us can watch every player on every team.
Sabermetrics isn’t a perfect science by any means. The human eye is still very important to the game. Scouts still can make or break a team’s future. We also have no clue how much a player’s intangibles mean to a team. I learned my lesson today saying Pete Rose was overrated. I didn’t account what his hustle, hard-nose play, and leadership did for the Cincinnati Reds.
I was wrong.
What I am asking for baseball fans to do is to compromise. We have to ignore the extremists on both sides. They do not help the cause. Juan Pierre is a terrible player, and Ben Zobrist isn’t better than Albert Pujols. Those extreme thoughts do us no good, and just continue the war. I’m asking traditionalists to learn the advances in stats. Don’t become the baseball Amish. Accept advances in technology, and learn from it. Try to understand the point of view of the stat junkies.
Saberheads, I’m asking for you to lay off the snide remarks. The SABR community is a very cynical one. They’re know-it-alls. Not only will they try to disprove every traditionalist point of view, but they will do it in the most condescending way possible. I’m looking at you Keith Law.
This is a war that isn’t going to die soon. It was very clear to me today, that traditionalists are still the heavy majority of baseball fans. All I ask is that we stop the bickering, name-calling, snide remarks, and try to understand each other.
Give peace a chance, will ya?
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