2009 Pre-season Picks Revisited

Since the baseball season is by now long over, I figured it was about time to revisit my preseason predictions, and see if I had any ability to predict the future. And without further ado, here goes

AL East:

Well, I was dead on about the Jays and O’s, and feel like I characterized the Red Sox team pretty accurately, but I didn’t give the Yankees enough credit. I got the wild card team right (the Sox), but swapped the Rays and Yanks at 1^st and 3^rd. Contrary to my hopes, the Yankees did not implode, and they ran away with this season.

AL Central

Well, I knew the Royals weren’t going to be any good, and I was right about the Tigers and White Sox, but underestimated the Twins, as per usual. Though, in my defense, who could have predicted that season from Mauer? Ridiculous. And well, I was just miserably wrong about the Indians. Carmona? Ugh, I’m embarrassed to say I wrote that he would pitch well last year. Anyway, nothing special about this division, I was close, and definitely too optimistic about the Indians. And in addition, it was not Gordon’s year…

AL West

I got the division winner right! But, of course, screwed up the rest of the division. I’m going to plead ignorance, as I really had no idea what the Rangers, A’s, or M’s did last offseason. Next year will be a different story.

NL East

Well, apparently I was wrong about the Mets. Not only did they find a new way to implode, but they went all out, and exposed the New York market to the wonders of a replacement level team! The Marlins and Braves were only a game apart, so I feel justified in putting the Braves ahead, especially since the Braves had a better Pythag by 7 games. If not for the Mets historical meltdown, then I would’ve nailed this division, but, I suppose that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

NL Central

In retrospect, the Brewers were not that good at all last year, so, that was another bad pick. Basically, I was just completely wrong about everything except the Pirates. Embarrassing.

NL West

Yay for the resurrection of the NL West, now the only NL division with an average Pythag over .500! Actually, I was pretty spot on here, except for the Diamondbacks. I had everyone else in the right order, but Arizona decided to screw it all up. Two 90 win teams in the NL West? What is this world coming to?

So, all in all, I picked two division winners, and one of the Wild Cards. Not good, but looking at the context of the picks, they don’t seem that bad. I think my process was solid (in most cases), and this year it’s going to be soo much better, I swear. I’ll predict at least four playoff teams next year, I guarantee. Neither of my World Series teams won more than 84 games, nor was I close on either my Cy Young or Rookie of the Year picks. But, I did correctly pick Pujols as MVP, an yes, I know, that one was really hard to see coming. Overall, I could have done much worse, but at least I set the bar nice and low for the upcoming season. I’ve got nowhere to go but up (as do the Rays! World Series 2010! Woo!)!

Fabulously Interesting Read

No real post, but I wanted to post a link to Joe Poz's newest blog piece on PEDs, which I think holds the ideal attitude about the situation, which I hope the mainstream will come around to in due course.

http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/08/13/when-the-moment-is-right/

The Rays and the 2009 Postseason

Back in June, when the Rays were still floundering a little bit, and just dropped below the .500 mark again, I did some simple math to see how good the Rays would have to play for the rest of the season to get to the playoffs. At the time (6/9), they were 29-30, and had 103 games left. Here’s the math

90 wins

61-42 (.592)

91

62-41 (.602)

92

63-40 (.612)

93

64-39 (.621)

94

65-38 (.631)

95

66-37 (.640)

97

68-35 (.660)

Simply, the Rays were going to have to play some very good baseball to make the playoffs, since 90 or 91 wins will almost surely not guarantee a playoff spot this season. By my guess, between 95-100 wins will win the division, and between 92-95 will win the wild card. Since June 9^th, the Rays have gone 31-18 (.633), at their current pace, from the work I did back in June, the Rays will end up with either 93 or 94 wins.

According to Baseball Prospectus, the Rays currently have a 46% chance to make the playoffs (although it drops to 14% when PECOTA gets involved), which is probably about right. Either they keep playing the way they have been recently, and sneak into the playoffs, or they stumble a bit, and can’t quite make up the games they need to. Currently, the Rays have 54 games left, and 60 wins. The ideal situation would be 95 wins at the end of the season, which means the Rays need to go 35-19 (.648) over the final 54 games. In the end, the Rays certainly need a little bit of luck to get into the postseason, but if they keep playing like they’re capable, they’ve got a shot.

Insanity on the Diamond

Albert Pujols is officially a machine- 10 PA's with the bases loaded, and five grand slams? Are you kidding me? I can't really comprehend how someone can do that against major league pitching, but, I suppose, a robot from the future can do whatever it wants.

On another Pujols note, he currently holds a wOBA of .454 (via StatCorner), and yet his regressed wOBA (wOBA*), is even higher! At .466! That's not right! He's been that good, and yet has been unlucky?! Thank Velociraptor Jesus that the Rays are in the AL, and don't have to pitch to him.

And as another aside, do you realize that Ted Williams had 6 consecutive seasons with a wOBA over .500! And that's with the war taking away three seasons in the middle of that run! All of us think Pujols is unstoppable, and yet the Splendid Splinter was sooo far above where even Prince Albert is, its simply ridiculous. To compare, Barry Bonds had only four +.500 wOBA seasons in a row, and all of those are most likely tainted by PEDs and the like. Anyway, these numbers just boggle my mind, and make me appreciate the sluggers of old, and honestly, they give me more reason to dismiss any "steroid inflation" argument garbage, since historically, the type of numbers Bonds put up were not unheard of.

P.S.

Babe Ruth's career wOBA is .510

I think we need to ban hot dogs and beer, because they're obviously quite performance enhancing

2003 Revisited- Did Steroids have an Effect?

Recently, as I’m sure everyone out there is aware, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were leaked as testing positive for PEDs during the 2003 season. First of all, this post is not speculating about whether or not what they did was illegal, or talking about what drugs they took; there is no way to answer either question at this point. What I’m trying to do is to compare that “tainted” 2003 season to the current one, and see if there is any statistical difference between the two seasons. Then, I can take a fairly objective view over whether or not the PEDs had any relative effect on their performance.

Manny Ramirez	2003	2009
OBA	0.427	0.437
OPS	1.014	1.029
wOBA	0.421	0.427
ISO	0.262	0.282

For Manny, his numbers are only better in this PED-less season, and in fact, he’s hitting for more power, as his ISO has jumped from .262 to .282. Take what you will from a fairly small sample size this year, but he did not seem to achieve any sort of large spike in performance from taking whatever PED he took.

David Ortiz	2003	2009	Jun-09
OBA	0.369	0.316	0.409
OPS	0.961	0.748	1.062
wOBA	0.400	0.320
ISO	0.304	0.202	0.333

David Ortiz is a much more interesting case. Overall, he has definitely seen a precipitous drop in his performance. But, if he truly had lost all his ability since stopping taking steroids before this year, how would he have produced a month such as June? His overall decline could easily be attributed to the aging slugger factor (not a scientific term), and his hot streak would not be out of place if he is simply aging in a more typical way than say, Manny Ramirez. For Ortiz, PED use is more plausible, but still is not the only explanation. Two months of poor play is, in my opinion, not enough to prove that steroids are the reason why Ortiz, Ramirez, and countless others played awesome baseball starting in the late 90s.

Alex Rodriguez	2003	2009
OBA	0.396	0.393
OPS	0.995	0.912
wOBA	0.420	0.395
ISO	0.301	0.258
BABIP	0.309	0.263
Career BABIP		0.325

The other big name recently nailed to the 2003 list is Alex Rodriguez, who has had a very interesting year this year. His power has been slightly down, but that is most likely due to his taking more walks, and hitting slightly more ground balls than in years past (16.7% walks to career avg of 11.3%, 44.2% GB to career avg 41.8% GB). The reason why his OPS and BA are so down is because of his quite unlucky BABIP (batting avg on balls in play), which is about 60 points below his career average, and is not something that Alex Rodriguez can control. He is very much the same hitter he was in 2003, even though in 2003, he was 28, and in his supposed prime. Once again, as in the Manny case, I see no evidence to suggest that steroids taint his accomplishments.

Obviously, this is only three players, two of whom are indisputably among the best hitters of this generation, and one who is hanging out on the level below. And, as my analysis shows, Manny and A-Rod are no different on steroids than off them, which leads to my point: there should not be an asterisk placed next to any record that anyone from the “Steroid” Era achieves. There certainly may be outliers that make you scratch your head, such as Brady Anderson’s 50 HR season, but, in my opinion, steroids have had a much smaller effect on the game than those from ESPN and the like would have you believe.

The Latest A-Fraud

Not to beat a dead horse at all, but I do want to bring up the latest issue that people seem to have come up with to attack A-Rod, the idea that he was tipping pitches to opposing players. 

Now, many people out there seem to have it in for Alex Rodriguez at this point (if they didn't before the steroids issue), and this is definitely an iffy topic for A-Rod at best. But once again, this delves into the famous issue of A-Rod padding his stats in "non-clutch" situations, which I just am so tired of. The numbers have been crunched, and A-Rod actually performs slightly better in close games, though he basically is an excellent hitter in every situation. So, he obviously wasn't benefiting from this supposed scenario, and, as Econ 101 will tell you, there is no free lunch. Basically, why would A-Rod help out friends on other teams at the expense of his teammates, if he wasn't getting a bonus from it? 

There are those who have spoken out on both sides of the story, but there is ultimately no way to know what actually happened, since it is in the past, and the numbers can't tell you anything (http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/05/02/tip-sheet/). You either have to believe him, hate him, or just dismiss the issue. I personally will not take a side, as there is no way to prove this happened, and either way, A-Rod is a pretty darned good ballplayer, and in my mind nothing will change that. His talent will always be there, no matter how many smear campaigns are run against him. 

To slightly ramble about something I would like to mention, this whole situation all depends on your take on "cheating" in baseball (and I suppose for sports in general as well). Personally, having played competitive baseball since I was eight, and having watched countless hours of other sports, I feel like I can give a pretty fair assessment of cheating in sports (I'll focus on baseball specifically for simplicity). First of, cheating is a part of baseball, get used to it. I don't care how goody-two-shoes you want to pretend the game is, if you're not taking an edge whenever you can, you're not trying (that's the gist of some famous quote, but I can't place it). Catchers disguise signs because they know runners on second are trying to tell the hitter what's coming, hitters try to steal a look at the catchers signals, any close call that goes your way was absolutely right, even if you know it was the wrong call, players pop painkillers and greenies to keep playing every day, etc. I really don't have a problem with "cheating" in baseball morally, because I think it's as much a part of the game as balls and strikes. Now, there is a level beyond this that is definitely cheating (Danny Almonte, anyone?), and not to say that baseball should be a free-for-all, but getting all worked up about most "cheating" is absurd. 

This is something for everyone to form their own opinion on, but that's mine, plain and simple. I don't want to get myself wrapped up in the discussions about the asterisk years, but I would like to bring up the importance of those years for the sport. Many argue that the McGwire-Sosa race, as well as the offensive explosion, helped save baseball from the strike aftermath, and so I say, is that so bad in retrospect? I wouldn't want to be the person who took the steroids, and caused who knows what damage to myself, but the era was crucial for the sport, and I know that I enjoyed the heck out of watching those two duke it out in '98. Historical records are important to everyone, but with the amount of statistical power that we have now, we can compare years better than ever before. I want to ask, is the stigma that has already been placed on the "steroid era" necessary?

 

I think not

So, since it's six AM, and I am now officially done with my freshman year of college, I figured its time to get back on the horse, as I no longer have any excuse not to, and since its six in the morning, its too late to bother sleeping.

 

And so with no further ado, here are a couple thoughts on the season thus far

 

Man, do I regret picking Josh Beckett to win the Cy Young, I mean, its only one month, but he hasn’t shown any real signs of dominance, especially compared to say, Zack Greinke? Jeez, he’s been ridiculous, enough words have already been written about him (I highly recommend the SI cover story Joe Posnanski wrote), but check out what the people over at baseballanalysts.com have to say about him, they compare his streak to Drysdale’s from a neutral statistical standpoint, and it makes Greinke look that much more disgusting. I don’t think the Royals will keep up the pace they’re setting, but if Greinke keeps pitching like this, I guess you never know.

Moving on, looking at the standings so far, I think the National League has been playing in comparably to how it should end up, with not too many odd hot or cold starts. Obviously the Dodgers starting 13-0 at home is unexpected, and pretty much unsustainable, but they are the best team in that division, so no surprises in that regard. Meanwhile, the AL has been all over the place, with the Royals, Blue Jays, and Rangers currently heading the standings. WTF? Exactly, but don’t expect it to last long, as teams like the Rays have (seemingly) shaken off a rough start, and are ready to reassert their dominance. Also, you can bank on Aaron Hill not hitting .366 for the rest of the year (not to mention Adam Lind at .336, and Rod Barajas (Rod Barajas!!) at .333)). The Jays have been helped out by some unsustainable performances, and their record will correct itself through the season, though their hot start could certainly help make the AL East race that much tighter. Meanwhile, absurdly good pitching has helped the Royals, which should also correct over the course of the season. One thing to remember is to not panic at this point in the season; even if your team is off to a subpar start, there’s a lot of season left.

Now, about the Rays in particular, they’ve been quite frustrating to watch so far. Their starters have been all over the place, with some real gems (mainly Garza), and a bunch of stinkers from every slot in the rotation. Kazmir has been the biggest disappointment to me as of late, giving up 6 earned in 3 of his last 4 outings, while walking the ballpark. Also, Jeff Niemann has been quite successful, at least from my expectations. I don’t think we could ever ask for more out of a rookie #5 starter. Once again, its too early to panic, and the last weekend seems to have turned a corner for the Rays, so lets hope they keep it up. Also, Evan Longoria! Smashing everything in sight, and showing no signs of slowing, even though his .358 average is a tad high, I can’t say anything bad about his performance so far. And Carlos Pena! Once again, certain things about his stats are unsustainable, but lets not let reality get in the way of enjoying his power surge. And Crawford! He’s stolen at least one base in each of the last ten games, in addition to the six steal game. The power isn’t there yet at all, but his speed is definitely back. As depressing as the start of the season has been for us Rays fans, I’m finally starting to feel good about how they’re playing, and am looking forward to them cracking .500 in the very near future.

 

We’ll see how the season turns out, and isn’t it a glorious thing to have baseball back in full swing?!

Season Preview Time!!

Since the regular season is only a weekend away, it's that time of year when every baseball columnist, analyst, and sabermetrician in the nation offers their predictions for the upcoming year. So, since I am absolutely none of those, I'll be offering an much better perspective on the upcoming year, at least as far as I'm concerned. 

As a disclaimer, I don't pretend to have seriously followed most teams in the offseason (read, any team other than the Rays), but I believe I've seen enough by accident to know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I'll go division by division, and then give predictions of the major award winners, which will all be accurate, in case you were wondering. Here goes nothing

AL East

Hands down, the best division in MLB, and this has nothing to do with any east coast bias I may have, and it is a pretty much universally recognized fact at this point that the Rays, Red Sox, and Yankees are three of the top teams in the majors. And you never know, Toronto could surprise if their pitching stays in one piece, even without A.J. Burnett. But the Orioles, well, they're hopeless for this year. Matt Wieters is there for everyone to drool over, but they'll still be lucky to win 70 games this year. 

Final Standings

1. Rays- maybe some bias, but I think the Rays and Sox finish 1-2, in another epic fight for the divisional title, with the Rays coming out on top in the end. As long as their pitching stays healthy it's going to be tough for the Sox or Yankees to challenge the Rays

2. Red Sox- I'm still not sold on Dice-K being any good, and without him dominating, the Sox won't get past the Rays rotation. Their offense will be at least as good, if not better than the Rays, but without Manny, they'll be no fun to watch, and so I'm putting them second. Call me biased, but this is how I want it to (and think it will) finish.

3. Yankees- Really, there's an even chance that any of these top three teams wins the division, but it's much more satisfying to put the Yankees out of the playoffs than in them. Their rotation and lineup could be scary, but I can't believe they won't implode somehow over the course of the season.

4. Blue Jays- Even if they have a surprisingly good season, they won't even be able to smell the wildcard, not with the powerhouses above them.

5. Orioles- They need a couple years, nuff said.

AL Central

From this point on, I cease to have any detailed knowledge of the teams and divisional knowledge. I know more here and there, but I probably won't have as much to say overall. Anyway, this should be a solid division, with some question marks, and possible surprises. Here goes

Final Standings

1. Royals- They have Brian Bannister. You don't need any more than that.

April Fools!

1. Indians- I'm counting on the injuries to stay far away, and for Pronk to come back in a big way (at least, my fantasy team is counting on him), and all of the Indians talent to come together again this year. I don't think Cliff Lee will be as good as he was last year, but that's not to say he won't be good, I just don't think he'll have a sub 3.00 ERA again. 3.50 is more likely, and if I was the Indians, I'd be perfectly happy with that, especially with Carmona roaring back this year (once again, my fantasy fingers are crossed).

2. Tigers- They could definitely make a large run for the division crown this year, and I think they'll pull it all together to do so, they have the talent to overtake the Twins, and I think they will.

3. Twins- I really know nothing about the Twins, other than Joe Mauer is good, that they always overachieve, and that I never think they should be any good. So third place it is!

4. White Sox- They were really not that good last year, so I'm going to predict a big fall for the White Stockings.

5. Royals- Potential surprise? Maybe? I say no, but you never know. I don't think they'll finish higher than fourth, though that wouldn't surprise me. Be sure to watch Zack Grienke and Alex Gordon, Grienke is already a powerhouse, and Gordon is just waiting to break out in a big way, could this be the year? 

AL West

This division really kinda sucks, even though from outward appearances, the Angels won 100 games last year. But, anyone who knows anything about things such as pythagorean win-loss records know the Angels should have sucked, and got really lucky. There's a reason why K-Rod was able to get to 62 saves, which is of course because the Angels weren't able to score enough runs to keep him out of the game. Not to say the Angels won't win the division this year either, no one else here is good enough to challenge them.

Final Standings

1. Angels- Here's to hoping they win the division with less than 82 wins!

2. Athletics- Here's to hoping Billy Beane knows what the hell he's doing out there!

3. Texas- Here's to hoping the Rangers still haven't found any decent pitchers!

4. Mariners- Here's to hoping Jose Vidro and his 65 OPS+ is still DHing!

NL East

There's no way the Mets will implode three years in a row. They can't possibly do that to themselves. If they do though, expect Joe Benigno's head to explode, as well as for every other columnist in NYC to put a spear through Jerry Manuel.

Final Standings

1. Mets- They have the best team in the East, and in my opinion, the National League. No implosion this year- mark my words.

2. Phillies- I don't think they're nearly as good of a team as the World Series ring is making them look. My call here is that they don't make the playoffs. By the end of the year, every sports fan in Philly will have completely forgotten that last October ever happened, and they'll all want to kill every single one of their players except for Cole Hamels. For some reason, he's the only player on the Phillies that people from Philadelphia actually like.

3. Braves- Not winning the division for the last three years has made the team hungry, or at least I'm counting on that.

4. Marlins- They're not a bad team, and they could easily overtake the Braves, but their management doesn't seem determined enough to put together a complete team, or to spend any money, so they'll be stuck down here for the foreseeable future.

5. Nationals- What was once a bright spot, a surprise team a couple years ago has become a laughingstock. Cue the canned laughter- this year's going to be ugly as well, even with Adam Dunn joining the squad.

NL Central

Final Standings

1. Brewers- They'll win the division, at least as long as the Cubs choke as much as I think they will. I think the whole Brew Crew comes together this year in a big enough way to hold off the Cubbies. 

2. Cubs- Yup, they're knocking the Phillies out of the playoffs, wild card team right here, and then they'll lose in the first round again, and break the hearts of Chicago once again. 100 years, and no looking back!

3. Cardinals- Albert Pujols. All you need to know. The sad thing is, even with him, they won't be able to win the Wild Card. 

4. Astros- They might not be very good, but who else is in this division?

5. Reds- They're not any better than last year, especially with the departure of Adam Dunn, though their young players could step it up a notch and make a run at the Astros. Still, I don't think they've got the pitching quite yet to improve significantly. Maybe once Homer Bailey and Johnny Cueto come into their own, but thats not this year.

6. Pirates- They're just sad, pathetic, and all alone at the bottom of the NL Central. Guess how many of their starting pitchers were better than average last year? That's right, one. Well, one is better than zero, I guess.

NL West

Has been a terrible division for the last four years or so, and I'm really rooting for the Dodgers to win the division with a sub .500 record. That would make me so perversely happy, and maybe it would wake some people up to the absurdity of the divisional system (as far as determining playoff berths).

Final Standings

1. Dodgers- MannyBManny (to borrow from the fabulous Joe Posnanski) is enough of a reason to believe their offense will be strong enough to carry them into the playoffs, but they have some other real talent in the outfield in Ethier and Kemp. Overall, not a bad team at all, but they'd still never stand a chance in either the AL or NL East.

2. Diamondbacks- Justin Upton is the one to watch on this team for the next couple years, though Stephen Drew isn't bad either.

3. Rockies- I almost want to put them ahead of the D-Backs, but why? They lost their best hitter, and offense is the only way they'll ever be a good team, due to Coors Field. 

4. Giants- They also have potential to move up, they'll be better, and have some talent, but because they still have Barry Zito, I refuse to give them any more credit than fourth place.

5. Padres- Jake Peavy is amazing, and yet still can't manage to help this team out much. Adrian Gonzalez should also get more attention, but that's what you get for being a part of a miserable team in a miserable division.

AL Wild Card- Red Sox

NL Wild Card- Cubs

AL MVP- Evan Longoria- Yeah, he's that good.

NL MVP- Albert Pujols- He'll have the best numbers at the end of the year again, the only doubt will be whether he gets the votes, and I bet he does.

AL Cy Young- Josh Beckett- He's always been good, but this'll be his real breakout year.

NL Cy Young- Johan Santana- Best pitcher in the league, could've won the award last year, and he'll be even better this year.

AL Rookie of the Year- David Price- Because he's nasty, and because I can't think of any other rookies to come.

NL Rookie of the Year- Cameron Maybin- He's supposed to be really good, but I honestly have no idea. Anyway, he's going to win this award.

AL Champs- Rays

Call me crazy, but as long as the Rays make the playoffs, their pitching will bring them back to the promised land

NL Champs- Mets

All the choking will end this year, they're simply too good of a team to continue on the path of the last two years

World Series Champs

Mets in 6

Not that I necessarily think the Mets are a better team, but I feel like the Rays are going to make all of us fans suffer for a couple more years before they finally come through in the biggest way. I also don't want to jinx it.

There we go, hope you enjoyed it, and I can't wait to watch all of these predictions fall through!

Statistics in Baseball

Why does it make me a Communist to like sabermetrics? I know this subject has been written about a million times, but Joe Posnanski talked about it recently and that's really had me thinking. The mainstream media would have you believe that if you love statistics, you can't be considered a real, true baseball fan. Bloggers who live in their mother's basements are ruining the game, yadda yadda yadda...that sort of stuff. Why is this?

Before I get into the why, let's clarify the argument against sabermetrics. I feel like the mainstream media portrays sabermetricians in an incorrect and rather unfair light in two main ways. One, they claim that stat lovers never watch actually baseball games (they may not even care about baseball games), but just love going over data again and again on the computers, so they don't and can't understand the game. Maybe there are some people like that out there, but I would be willing to guarantee that 99% of people who claim they love baseball stats also watch their fair share of games.

Take me for instance. I love baseball stats and I love baseball, but I don't feel like these two passions are irreconcilable. I don't even think they're two separate passions - I feel like they're one and the same. My love of baseball is what caused me to want to understand it more, to dig deeper into baseball stats, and to get a gain a more comprehensive understanding of the game that I love. These stats have only fed my baseball fever, but they in no way are replacing the fact that I love to watch a game and do it on a fairly regular basis.

Next, the mainstream media turns the stats debate into a zero-sum game. What do you trust more, stats or scouts? If you had to pick one, which would you choose? Do you prefer numbers over people? I want to know, why can't you have both? Statistics are great, but I don't think you'll find a single writer on a popular sabermetrics blog (like FanGraphs or the Hardball Times) that would admit that stats should be used to the exclusion of everything else. Statistics and scouting both have their strengths and weaknesses and when used in the proper combination, they can dovetail beautifully and complement each other.

The trick is, it sometimes appears that bloggers care only about statistics because that's all they're ever talking about. You won't find many blogs (if any at all) out there that specialize in scouting, but there are tons of them on sabermetrics. Scouting information is nearly impossible to get a hold of and it's information that's tough to duplicate on your own. Not everyone has the in depth knowledge about baseball skills and mechanics needed to be a scout, plus even if you did have the knowledge, it takes a significant investment of time and money to get any results. Stats, on the other hand, are freely available in multiple places on the Internet and can be manipulated at will. Blogger are therefore only using the best freely available knowledge that they can to draw their conclusions.

What it all comes down to, at least to me, is critical thinking. Before I make a decision about something, I want to make sure that I have the best possible information that I can. If this includes scouting reports, statistical data, medical records - it's all relevant. I'll listen to everyone's different opinion about a player, but I'm going to take each of those opinions, weigh them myself, consider the information that I have, and then make a decision. To just swallow what the mainstream media says about a player without challenging that with the information I have (which happens to be statistics) seems irresponsible to me. I blame it on my college.

To get back to the "why?" question, then, why is it that the mainstream media trash talks statistics so much? Well, there a couple of reasons. The media is afraid and they're simply lashing back at blogs, which are stealing lots of their business and could run them out of a job. Also, many of the people you'll see on ESPN have either been a player or been around the game for years, which of course would give them a bias towards scouting just as us bloggers have a bias to statistics. And then finally, bloggers, for all that we try and hold the high ground in this debate, haven't exactly helped matters. We're constantly attacking the media over the things they say and write, antagonizing them for not using advanced statistics. What we should be doing is instead reaching out to them, asking for them to be more critical and evaluative in their pieces. It's okay to point out errors, but to rail upon them for having their own understandable biases is just as bad as them railing against bloggers.

Anyway, this is rather hypocritical of me to say since I was always a huge fan of Fire Joe Morgan, but I think we could definitely stand to gain a lot from raising the level of the discussion around baseball statistics. Loving baseball and loving stats can be one and the same thing, and one way or the other, people will come to realize that eventually. The only question is how soon.

Welcome to the OC!

Welcome to the Outside Curve, a new baseball blog dedicated to...well, I don't know what exactly. At first I was going to say "...following the ups and downs of the Tampa Bay Rays", but that's not quite it. I'm a really big fan of sabermetrics, so I want to provide some in-depth statistical analysis on this site as well, but I can't claim that it's going to be a main focus of this site. They're time consuming and as a college student, I don't always have the extra time to be doing some intense number-crunching on the side.

That said, a large portion of this blog is most likely going to be my random pondering about baseball. I do, though, want to make this site a little bit of all these things. I'm going to cover the Rays. I'm going to have some statistical analysis. I'm going to talk about current issues in baseball, alert people to articles I really like, and probably rant about some issues that really get me worked up. All in all, I'm just looking to have some fun and hopefully you'll enjoy what you're reading as well.

Also, I feel like I should probably explain the site title. To clarify: I am not copying my acronym for this site name off of the TV show The OC. Back in high school, a couple of my friends and I started self-publishing a baseball magazine by the name of The Outside Curve, which we shortened to the OC on many occasions. About a year after we'd started, the TV show The OC became massively popular and we felt totally ripped off by ABC or whatever station it's on. Anyway, our magazine covered had a little bit of everything: pre-season projections, who we thought would be hot and not in the upcoming weeks, debates, editorials, creative writing...it was ridiculous. I'll probably bring some of these features back on this blog, but in a slightly new and updated fashion. And who knows, maybe I'll even have guest contributors from my past co-writers...

In the meantime, enjoy your stay at the OC! Let the countdown to Opening Day begin!