FTN wrote:whoever made the original comment about "wanting to root for a team good at cheap roster construction" was dead #$!&@ on the money. these guys are soooo concerned with what fangraphs thinks of every move we make, or what the fangraphs monopoly money value of player x's performance was last year, relative to what it might be this year.
my big issue is that people really misuse a lot of the data out there to create faulty, incomplete arguments and then say "but the numbers back me up!!!"
which is why i miss nate silver so much. he understood all the numbers. but he could also synthesize a piece of analysis, and he wrote it in a way that asked just as many questions as it answered. people like dave cameron bastardize Bill James, because they want to be him, but they don't realize his style of writing and analysis is nothing like what they do.
its so easy now to be smarmy and assume you are so much smarter than a typical MLB front office. there are some things I wish the Phillies did a bit better. but their scouting department is second to none. and there are things a scout can see that don't show up in a box score. the numbers matter. the stats matter. but baseball players aren't drones. guys develop at different speeds. some guys piss away their talent because of off the field stuff. and that stuff matters. which is what these guys don't understand. because you can't physically touch something or assign it a value doesn't mean it doesn't have a value. phdave went over this a while back.
if you don't think a player's personal life can impact his on field performance, and that he just might not discuss it, then you're probably a deadeyed drone. everyone's personal life impacts every other area of their life. this #$!&@ happens to everyone.
all of the numbers and "evidence" in the world does you no good if you don't know how to synthesize it and bring it to life. these jerkoffs at fangraphs are creating a whole legion of lemmings who can't think for themselves and stop at the end of the statistical line before figuring out how to apply the numbers and factor in other things that matter. the smugness is too much. its still a #$!&@ game. its still a lot of fun to watch. the best team doesn't always win. the best value signing at the time doesn't always end up the best value signing at the end of the season. its a game of gambles, risks, and unpredictability. no matter how hard you try, you'll never figure it out completely. and thank #$!&@ christ for that, because what fun would it be if we had it all figured out?
I wish I'd written this post. Exactly right: at their worst, these guys have devolved into an indoor version of what they began by fighting against.
