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Keeping track of Baseball-Reference.com and the stathead world / RSS/Atom FeedWednesday, January 31
Yahoo! Sports: Major League Baseball - Criticize This
It appears that Yahoo! Sports has teamed up with Rivals.com, so now Rivals websites are submitting material to the Yahoo site. This is more evidence of the democratization of the web.
The author of this piece, "Alan Schuster", is one of the biggest homers that I've ever read. He repeatedly refers to the "experts", without ever saying who they are. I'm guessing he is talking about the media, though you could also read it as sabermetricians.
You could guess sabermetricians because they harped on the D'Backs age and also on the wisdom of signing Randy Johnson, Steve Finley, and Luis Gonzalez to long deals all of which he lambastes them for. He conveniently forgets Matt Williams's horrific year last year (Mike Mordecai 5.17 xRuns/G, Williams 4.45).
You could read it as the media because every sabermetrician I know hated the Batista-Plesac trade. Regardless, I would like to see a bit more to back up his claims.
As for the D'Backs, it is a pretty fascinating team. I can see them winning anywhere from 70-90 games. Every single batter, except for Matt Williams, had the best years of their career playing for Buck Showalter. Each player far exceeded their expectations playing for Showalter. Go down the list. Every one of their first nine has exceeded the expectations sabermetricians had for them. In some cases, like Gonzalez and Finley, dramatically exceeded them. Take a look at the 1999 team. Check out the production from the bench, of the seven guys with 100+ at bats, you have an .879, 1.016, .731, .731 (the two middle infielders), .728 (the catcher), .911, and .857 OPS. Even Turner Ward slugged .652 in 23 at bats. Hitting coach Jim Presley was let go as well.
Will everyone turn back into a pumpkin when Bob Brenly takes over? It could very well turn out that Showalter is a far better manager than people give him credit for being.
It appears that Yahoo! Sports has teamed up with Rivals.com, so now Rivals websites are submitting material to the Yahoo site. This is more evidence of the democratization of the web.
The author of this piece, "Alan Schuster", is one of the biggest homers that I've ever read. He repeatedly refers to the "experts", without ever saying who they are. I'm guessing he is talking about the media, though you could also read it as sabermetricians.
You could guess sabermetricians because they harped on the D'Backs age and also on the wisdom of signing Randy Johnson, Steve Finley, and Luis Gonzalez to long deals all of which he lambastes them for. He conveniently forgets Matt Williams's horrific year last year (Mike Mordecai 5.17 xRuns/G, Williams 4.45).
You could read it as the media because every sabermetrician I know hated the Batista-Plesac trade. Regardless, I would like to see a bit more to back up his claims.
As for the D'Backs, it is a pretty fascinating team. I can see them winning anywhere from 70-90 games. Every single batter, except for Matt Williams, had the best years of their career playing for Buck Showalter. Each player far exceeded their expectations playing for Showalter. Go down the list. Every one of their first nine has exceeded the expectations sabermetricians had for them. In some cases, like Gonzalez and Finley, dramatically exceeded them. Take a look at the 1999 team. Check out the production from the bench, of the seven guys with 100+ at bats, you have an .879, 1.016, .731, .731 (the two middle infielders), .728 (the catcher), .911, and .857 OPS. Even Turner Ward slugged .652 in 23 at bats. Hitting coach Jim Presley was let go as well.
Will everyone turn back into a pumpkin when Bob Brenly takes over? It could very well turn out that Showalter is a far better manager than people give him credit for being.
posted by Sean Foran # 8:40 AM 
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