Top Ten Baseball Fallacies

BY DUBS

There are a lot of things that people believe about baseball that are flat out not true. Here are the Top Ten. Basically this is my ode to FJM.

10. Derek Jeter is a good shortstop
This really isn’t news to anyone who actually follows baseball, but here we go. I know math is for nerds and nerds have to wear thick glasses and don’t know how to talk to girls and all that jazz, but two of these nerdy-nerds came up with mathematical equations to determine quality defenders. Defensive ability is the hardest thing in baseball to determine because errors are subjective and range can be difficult to judge because, once again, it is based on a human judgment. So these guys decided to develop some formulas to better understand who is good and bad. And to the chagrin of the entire city of New York -- Derek Jeter ranked at the bottom from 2002-2005. Guess who ranked second during that span? Alex Rodriguez. Mike Celizic’s head just blew off.

9. Baseball Tonight makes any sense

Watch it once, no LISTEN to what comes out of these people’s mouths. I feel so bad for Karl Ravech. He tries to keep things together, but how can he with what he’s surrounded by?

Kruk literally predicted Randy Johnson to win 30 games when he was a Yankee. Fine. But then he stuck by it even though Randy mathematically had no shot in hell (24 starts left, sitting at a record of 4-3 with a 3.94 ERA [May, 21 2005]). 24 + 4 = 28 not 30. He was probably just being lazy and didn’t want to do actual work to figure out if it was even possible, but seriously? 30 wins? That hasn't happened since 1968. But I'm sure he knew that.

EY sounds like a less retarded Emmitt Smith and Steve Phillips literally believes in six tools. Apparently, position players are supposed to be able to pitch awesome as well in order to be considered a Steve Phillips’ SIX TOOL PLAYER. For those of you out there who don't know what the five tools (for normal people, like MLB scouts) are: hit for average, hit for power, run, throw and catch (fielding). Oh, he’s orange too.

8. Dusty Baker knows something about baseball

I have always contended that Dusty would be a terrific assistant or bench coach-type guy. He seems to keep his players loose and in good spirits, which is very important for the fragile psyches of professional athletes. However, he is quite the opposite for actual baseball insight or intelligent thought. He literally hates people who get on-base. He would prefer guys who “[drive] in runs and [score] runs.” Besides the obvious, that you can’t do either of those things without being on base, he continued to say that those jackasses who get on base are only “clogging up the bases.” Or in other words, those potential runs for someone to potentially drive in are stupid-faces and should leave Dusty alone.

Beyond this he once batted out of order here in Chicago and then did it again this year in Cinci. He also tried to bunt with Adam Dunn, the MLB leader in home runs, who, after looking retarded bunting, promptly hit a three-run walk-off bomb. Furthermore, I personally witnessed him leave in Paul Bako, a lefty to face a lefty pitcher, then the next half inning bring in Joe Girardi, a righty, to catch. WTF??????

How is he running a MLB team? Meh.

7. “Moneyball” is strictly about getting on-base a bunch

This book has been misinterpreted so badly it is sick. There are so many haters of “Moneyball” because they don’t understand it. This book was about how a small market team can survive in a league where there is no cap with teams spending over 200 million. So, in order to compete they had to find talents that other teams undervalued, therefore making these players cheap on the market. In those days it was guys that got on base a lot and hit home runs. Teams did not take the time to do the proper research on the difference between college players and high school kids. Well, now other teams have done the research and these factors are no longer undervalued, hence the large tendency to draft college kids this year. Now the smaller market teams must find new ways to find value in the market.

Note to hokey, hackneyed sports writers: "Moneyball" is not about ruining the mystic of baseball, but to better understand players abilities using statistical data.


6. Just because you are Ricky O’Donnell (short, paper-thin, white, gritty-as-balls-after-camping) and play baseball professionally, does NOT make you good at baseball.

Sportswriters tend to disagree with this. If you don’t believe me read this, this and this. Those same players have career OPS+’s of 88, 90 and 94 respectively (100 is league average). Oh, you can also throw in Aarond Rowand if you’d like for the reason I mentioned here (just keep scrolling).

5. Adam Dunn is bad at baseball

This is kind of connected to #6 and #7. The people that love the #6-ers don’t like Dunn because they don’t understand what numbers tell us about a player. They see a slow, white country-boy that strikes out a lot and has a bad average. What they don’t get is that strikeouts are just slightly worse than making a “normal” out. They don’t see the fact that he gets on-base at a career .380 clip, which is about 50 points higher than league average. What they don’t see is that he is about to clip 40 home runs for the fifth straight year. What they don’t see is a career OPS+ of 130. He is an offensive force, yet people are too lazy or stupid to figure out what it means to be a good offensive player. Either way, he gets a bad rap for no legitimate reason.

4. Using All-Star games as criterion for HoF induction

Let’s keep this simple by using this formula: # in increasing order) Fact, i.e. example of why this is stupid. OK, READY? GO: 1) Fans vote the starters, i.e. Kosuke Fukudome 2) Players vote in subs, i.e. Joe Crede 3) Previous years world series manager’s choose pitchers and bench players, i.e. The 2006 AL team.

3. Gold gloves are meaningful

Refer to #10. JETER HAS THREE!!! Plus, they are voted on by coaches and managers who may see teams about 20 times at most a year.


2. The All-Star Game deciding home field advantage for the World Series is good

Why don’t we just flip a coin? This is such crap. Who cares what league has the better “all-stars”? As we have agreed upon in #4, each all-star team is decided by the wrong, biased people that tend to choose lesser deserving players based on team loyalties. So, how could these relatively arbitrary teams decide who has home field advantage for the most important event in sports? It makes no sense. Bud Selig made a bad event (the 2002 all-star game) into the something even worse. Lame.

1. Sports writers are the most qualified to vote on anything

Most MVP and HoF voters are beat writers or columnists for local newspapers. This means they follow ONE team or ONE city. How can they really be objective enough or have the time (I don’t blame them) to make these decisions. Maybe they go on word of mouth like this voter. Many tend to vote for the best story, the “grinder-est” of players or ignore certain aspects of the game, like position or even the dreaded VORP. It seems there must be more qualified people who are less vested in personal relationships (lets remember they have to work with these players for access) and understand the varying teams and statistical methods used to define what a “good” baseball player is.