Scout’s Honor: A Review — The Hardball Times
JC on Bill Shanks’ book. If you’re going to spend an entire book on an extended attack on another book, it helps if you’ve read it.
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Scout’s Honor: A Review — The Hardball Times
JC on Bill Shanks’ book. If you’re going to spend an entire book on an extended attack on another book, it helps if you’ve read it.
Use code “Journal” for a 5% discount.
I think the anti-Moneyball backlash has as much to do with Lewis’s framing of the scouts-vs-stats issue as with the relative merits of the two approaches. I found the book to be informative and entertaining, but excessively fawning upon Beane and disdainful of scouts on too personal a level. His depiction of pre-draft meetings that included the scouts and “statheads” tended to ridicule the appearance and frustration of the scouts, which to me was unnecessary.
I enjoyed JCs review of Shanks’ book, particularly this line:
But if Chipper Jones’ willingness to lay out a high school player is more important than his career .400 OBP, then I’ve got some teenagers to punch.
LOL
Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Mac.
I’m anxious to read the book, having read “Moneyball” more than once. This article’s author points out that there’s more than one way to create a baseball team. That should be the real lesson of these books.
Let’s praise these men for their efforts and results in putting competitive teams on the field. In an era where MLB owns and manages one team (not counting the Brewer), it’s a pleasure to know how these successful teams were built.
Update on Billy and Paul, the geniuses.
May 14th in Comments:
“let’s see how well the dodgers are doing 25 games from now.
“why is everyone paying attention to the dodgers’ current success versus, say, the A’s current crappiness? actually, i’d put a lot more money on the A’s to pull out of the slump than the dodgers’ chances of keeping up the wins.”
Well, only half right.
I know, small sample sizes and all.
No one talked about that when the Dodgers’ early success was being touted as DePodesta vindication, though.
Howard,
I think your beef is elsewhere. I have way too much time on my hands, and I couldn’t find anyone here saying that the Dodgers would keep up their pace.
But, hey, what can I say? You’re a genius, man.
Still, they’re only 2 games out. And only one team in that division has scored more runs than they have (by 13). And only one team – a different one – has given up fewer runs (by 16). All this *looks* like a team that is still competitive. But I don’t know, maybe I don’t know how to look at the standings. I’m probably part of the 99% of fans that Carl Everett has proven doesn’t know what he’s watching.
Billy Bean looks at a hitters On-base %, the Braves look for pitcher that get guys out.
I think there are different philosophies that are current for putting a team together, and that these philosophies change just as people change or evolve or forget. Staticians I think are neither more right or more wrong in the evaluation process BUT they can be more consistent than the other forms of philosophies for putting a team together. Then again there isn’t one way to look at statistics. Numbers don’t tell the truth, people do.
Actually, Smitty, most teams look at hitters’ OBP now. Even the Braves do, but they don’t talk about it all that much. I don’t know that it’s a huge focus for them, but they certainly do look at it. It creeps into coments here and there (in fact, it was Cox specifically mentioned it when talking about why Kelly Johson was promted). Maybe a lot of teams wouldn’t yet agree that it is the most important offensive statistic (although I’m confortable in what I’ve seen proving that it is), but most realize that it is incredibly meaningful.
Everybody looks for pitchers that get people out. But I guess it’s easier for some people to make bogus comparisons like that.
Thanks for the comments guys, and thanks for the link Mac.