Saber Bombs are MLB FanHouse's introduction to sabermetrics, those new and sometimes unwieldy metrics that are changing the way we think about baseball. Each post highlights a specific stat, player, team or media member either embodying that understanding, or missing the boat completely.Among baseball fans, Bill James is either a pioneer of enlightened baseball thought or some nerd who enjoys math more than actually watching a game. It's that black and white, with staunch proponents on both sides of the "stats vs. scouts" debate often refusing to see shades of gray.
But if those people who completely disregard James' contributions to the game actually took the time to understand where he's coming from, they'd probably be surprised at how much he still respects and values the old school. From his (extremely-long-but-worth-the-time) Q&A with the Freakanomics blog:
Q: Generally, who should have a larger role in evaluating college and minor league players: scouts or stat guys?But for those who still disparage his work, he came through with an excellent retort:
A: Ninety-five percent scouts, five percent stats. The thing is that - with the exception of a very few players like Ryan Braun - college players are so far away from the major leagues that even the best of them will have to improve tremendously in order to survive as major league players - thus, the knowledge of who will improve is vastly more important than the knowledge of who is good. Stats can tell you who is good, but they're almost 100 percent useless when it comes to who will improve.
Q: Has looking at the numbers prevented you from actually just enjoying a summer day at the ballpark? Have we all forgotten the randomness of human ballplayers? By reducing players to just their numbers can we lose sight of the intangibles such as teamwork, friendships, and desire.Zing. Point, James.
A: Does looking at pretty women prevent one from experiencing love? Life is complicated. Your efforts to compartmentalize it are lame and useless.
