Hitting the Foul Pole

After an unexplained hiatus, we’re back with a vengeance to fisk Jason Whitlock’s tremendously great article about why everything is sucky and boring now and all you damn kids should get off his lawn. This one really riled up my Twitter feed this afternoon.

I won’t be going to see “Moneyball.”

Oh good, my friend Jason Whitlock is emailing me to tell me about his plans for the weekend! I also won’t be seeing Moneyball, at least until it comes out on Netflix*.

* I like the Netflix/Qwikster name change. Now that Netflix only has streaming, when I ask “Is it on Netflix?”, my friends can simplify their responses from “Well, they have the DVD”, to the much more precise and definitive: “No.” It’ll make things much easier.

The movie celebrates the plague ruining sports: sabermetrics.

I thought the plague killing sports was steroids. Or did sports end up not dying from that plague either?

That is not intended as a shot at Bill James, Billy Beane or Michael Lewis.

That’s good, because that’d be totally uncalled for.

James (the inventor of sabermetrics) and Beane (the most adept user of sabermetrics) are baseball visionaries worthy of glorification. Michael Lewis (the author of the book “Moneyball” that celebrated Beane’s use of sabermetrics) is one of the most important writers of this era.

I don’t know if I’d agree with everything you say here, Jason — for example, I personally wouldn’t call Beane “the most adept user” of sabermetrics, perhaps “an adept user” would be more accurate — but those are pretty glowing introductions! I’m sure the three of them will appreciate whatever you have to say about them now that they have just the right amount of smoke in their asses.

Wait. Hell, maybe it is a dis — an unintended one — of James, Beane and Lewis.

As long as it was unintended.

They unwittingly conspired to remove much of the magic and mystery from baseball.

I love everything about this sentence. There’s just so much here! First, of course, I can’t get past the idea of the three of them unwittingly conspiring — is it possible to unwittingly conspire to do anything? Doesn’t the definition of “conspire” pretty much require that it not be done unwittingly? I mean, if you were to “make secret plans jointly”, wouldn’t you have to know about it? And if the plan was to remove much of the magic and mystery of baseball, well, why would they plan to do that? Bill James, if my understanding of him from having read everything Joe Posnanski writes is even close to accurate, was and is driven in large part to understand and appreciate the magic and mystery of baseball. Beane was trying to win ballgames. Lewis was trying to write an interesting book that makes him more rich and famous. Rational self interest, and all that. Not so much an anti-magic conspiracy.

Or are we just using words like “conspiracy” because they sound good? Because, you know, I’m cool with that.

They reduced the game to a statistical bore. It’s no longer enough to be down with OBP (on-base percentage). To talk the game, you now must understand OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging), VORP (value over replacement player), BABIP (batting average on balls in play) and on and on.

Yeah, understanding things is hard! It’s better, if you’re going to talk about something, to do everything possible to not understand anything about the subject. That way everyone will be impressed that you’re able to have such strong opinions about something you don’t care or think about.

There’s a stat for nearly every action in baseball. Little is left to the imagination. Sports were never intended to be a computer program, stripped to cold, hard, indisputable, statistical facts. Sports — particularly for fans — are not science. Sports, like art, are supposed to be interpreted.

And wine is supposed to be appreciated for its earthiness, or the faint aroma of leather or blueberries or summer wind blowing through the leaves of that tree on the other side of the vineyard, or some such wine snobbery; wine is an art, not a science. Therefore, chemistry is bad and scientists have conspired to remove much of the magic and mystery of getting drunk.

It’s difficult to interpret baseball these days. The stat geeks won’t let you argue. They quote sabermetrics and end all discussion. Is so-and-so a Hall of Famer? The sabermeticians will punch in the numbers and give you, in their mind, a definitive answer.

It’s difficult to interpret baseball myopically these days. If, for example, you’re trying to argue that Jack Morris is a better Hall of Fame candidate than Bert Blyleven, you will indeed get both a punch in the numbers and a definitive answer. But not everyone is such a divisive topic — Morris’ legend lives on in the dreams of aging men, who will never forget that great Game 7 he pitched that one time, but all too easily forget all the times he got a W when his team scored 8 runs for him. Other players are borderline statistical candidates, for whom heart and hustle and love of the game and how sweet his swing looks on a crisp September evening may be able to swing him one way or the other. Some guys are just so obviously not good enough that you deserve to be punched in the numbers for caring about their candidacy at all, and others are so obviously in that it really doesn’t matter if they weren’t nice to sportswriters after games. Is this really that complicated?

Thanks for inventing the phrase “punched in the numbers”, by the way. I’m pretty sure I’m going to use that one.

It’s boring. It’s ruining sports.

That’s, like, your opinion, man.

Sabermetrics or analytics are overrunning football, too. ESPN is pushing a new statistical way of analyzing NFL quarterbacks, Total Quarterback Rating.

People are trying to come up with better ways to understand that Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers are really good? I’m intrigued, tell me more.

The nerds are winning.

Can’t have that. They’re nerds!

They’re stealing the game from those of us who enjoy examining the gray areas of sports.

You can still examine the gray areas of sports. Just, here’s the thing, not every area of sports is a gray area.

We’re about 10 years away from a computer program that will write stats-based opinion pieces on sports.

Ah, have we reached the point of this article? The real reason my friend Jason is so scared and angry? Watch out for those computers, they’re going to take our jobs!

I think it’s worth pointing out, though, that while it’s possible today to write a computer program that will write stats-based opinion pieces on sports, the writing isn’t going to be very good. This isn’t really something to be afraid of. Unless you don’t want to understand anything, and you just want to be scared and angry. Which, as Americans, is what we do best!

Last season, the basketball analytics crowd was convinced that LeBron James and Dwight Howard deserved the MVP over Derrick Rose. The fact that Howard’s whiny, immature crybaby-ass was even in the discussion tells you all you need to know about analyzing the game solely on statistics. The Orlando Magic were a joke last season in part because of the immature environment fostered by Howard.

I don’t know if “crybaby-ass” is a technical term, but I like it. It distracts me from what I care about when it comes to basketball, which is dunks. Dwight Howard is good at those.

As for James vs. Rose? Well, James devoured Rose in the Eastern Conference Finals. Rose’s defenders — most notably ESPN’s Ric Bucher — argued that Rose’s inferior supporting cast is what allowed the Heat and James to get the best of Rose and the Bulls. And by the time James disappeared in the NBA Finals, it was easy to see the merit of Bucher’s point.

I don’t … get this, but let’s move on. We’re talking about baseball, right? Or stats? What stats? Does it matter?

It doesn’t really matter who deserved the NBA’s MVP award.

Yeah, I guess it doesn’t matter. Great! Let’s keep talking about it, then.

What matters is that there was a fun, yearlong debate. As much as we enjoy watching the competition on the field or court, we take equal pleasure in interpreting and debating what we just saw.

Right. Which, apparently, you got to enjoy even though some people were considering facts before coming up with their opinions. So we’re agreed, then? Stats aren’t evil?

Sabermetrics/analytics undermines the debate. They try to interject absolutes.

Only statistics would interject absolutes. Jason Whitlock, as you can see from those two absolutely non-absolute statements, would never do that.

No one will ever convince me that John Elway isn’t the greatest quarterback/football player in NFL history. I know what I saw.

See? Jason Whitlock would never make a boldly absolute statement or undermine a debate.

I don’t care that Joe Montana won more Super Bowls. I don’t care that Dan Marino threw for more yards. I don’t care that Peyton Manning’s completion percentage is eight points higher.

Yeah, when it comes to quarterbacks, Super Bowls and yards and complete passes are pretty much irrelevant.

I can and have argued credibly and passionately that Elway is the best QB and player in the history of the league.

You can and/or have argued credibly about something? Prove it!

You are free to disagree. I invite you to disagree. I’d love to refute your erroneous position. Just bring more than stats to the table.

When you say “bring more than stats to the table”, do you mean “don’t consider facts, because those make it much more difficult for me to win arguments”? It kind of seems like that might be what you mean.

The games are about more than stats.

Hello, Mr Strawman? Hi, this is reality calling. Is there anyone, anywhere, who has ever attempted to refute this?

That’s what bothers me about this whole era of sports.

What is? That the games are about more than stats? I wouldn’t have thought that would bother you.

In my lifetime, there have been two innovations that have significantly influenced sports fans: 1. fantasy leagues; 2. sabermetrics/analytics.

Just two innovations? I don’t know, I thought the 24-hour news cycle influenced sports fans, and HDTV, and the internet, and live streaming of games, and Twitter, and a whole bunch of other innovative and cool things that enable fans to enjoy sports as much as they want to.

Again, the stat geeks are winning.

Everyone is winning.

Our perception of athletes and their value are primarily being dictated by statistics.

They don’t have to be, but understanding what “value” means is helpful when you’re trying to determine a player’s value.

Peyton Manning is the king of fantasy football; therefore, he is the king of real football. LeBron James is the king of fantasy basketball; therefore, he is the king of real basketball.

What year is it? You know that Peyton Manning isn’t playing right now and has killed millions of fantasy teams who drafted him, right? And you keep using that word “therefore” in a way that makes me wonder if you know what it means. LeBron and Manning are really good at their respective real sports, therefore they’re really good in fantasy sports. For most people, fantasy doesn’t dictate reality.

Is it a coincidence that James and Manning have both struggled in postseason play?

Um, yes? Also, didn’t Peyton Manning win a Super Bowl? Seriously, what year is it, Jason?

I don’t know the answer. But I want to discuss and debate it. And I don’t want to do it with people who simply want to quote stats.

You mean quoting stats like “Peyton Manning won a Super Bowl”? Yeah, that kind of stat would be really inconvenient for your point. I can see why you wouldn’t want to argue with someone capable of remembering that, or looking it up.

The answers and the questions that make sports special, unique, our collective national pastime, can’t be found on a stat sheet. They’re in our imaginations and our individual interpretation of what we witness.

That’s true. And since stat sheets don’t preclude either the answers or their questions, they can coexist with our imaginations and interpretations. You don’t have to care only about the things statistics can quantify, just like you don’t have to care only about the non-quantifiable things for which stats are useless. Those non-quantifiable things like “heart” and “clutchiness” or “crybaby-ass-itude” can still be enjoyed, they can be feared, they can be talked about. They can be a source of hope or dread. They can be as much a part of a sports fan’s daily conversation as wOBA or WAR, or anything else.

When the “Moneyball” movie hysteria subsides, I hope the sabermeticians STFU.

I thought you didn’t like newfangled acronyms. So, I’ll help you out a little bit. STFU stands for “Shut The Fuck Up”. This might be one of those times where you should heed your own advice.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 4:55 pm and is filed under Fisking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.