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During a recent interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes, baseball-statistics guru Bill James responded, “David Wright,” without hesitation, when asked who he would most want to see on his dream team.
“He does everything I like,” said James, “and he’s very young.”
…james typically makes my head hurt, which is my fault, not his, but this particular in-depth analysis i can totally understand…
For more on James’s interview, go to CBSNews.com.
…thanks to Nathan K for the link…
Speaking of Wright, the following is a video interview he did with NBCSports.com, during which the discuss Johan Santana, ‘The Collapse,’ and having Pedro Martinez’s leadership in the locker room, among other things:
I personally would love to see the Mets begin to take a more sabermetric approach to scouting and player selection. I think it’s prettey clear that you cannot ignore the success of sabermetric statistical analysis in baseball organizations that use it (Oakland, Boston, etc.)
I’m sure that there is a number crunching department, bu with a guy like Omar at the helm, who made his reputation and livelihood on his scouting ability, I doubt sabermetrics will have a prominent place in the Mets scouting dept.
I agree for the most part, though Rick Peterson and most of the guys he brings in are big saberheads. Some of the pitching scouting I heard was based on sabermetrics.
sabermetrics should be considered, but baseball goes beyond that on the field. bobby abreu is great on paper. a sabermetrics dream. the reality is quite different
bobby abreu *was* great on paper. everyone knows he’s declining and is no longer that attractive in a sabermetric sense.
also, fyi: abreu’s career line: .300/.400/.500
i should think a .900 career ops is nothing to sneer at. but that’s just me.
in his prime abreu was great on paper. that .900ops meant little as we saw with the phils taking off after getting rid of him for nothing. rowand had a fraction of his #’s, but was much more valuable.
a .900 ops never means little.
it does when it comes with a moody player. a player who is afraid to get close to the wall on a fly ball. it does when you are more concerned with your personal stats than the team. the latter being the biggest problem with sabermetric.
it use to be that players who battled 3rd or 4th drove in runs when guys were on base instead of taking a walk and letting a lesser hitter come up. it use to be that more players were willing to give up outs to move runners along. abreu was selfish.
hahahaha. are you being serious right now? is your name dusty baker? you’d rather have guys swinging and making outs, rather than “clogging up the bases”?
This is that standard argument against the numbers: look how well they did after that player took off. What that fails to acknowledge is a) sample size and b) the fact that one player, no matter how great, does not make the difference on a club.
I do think there is something more than just stats, but it isn’t nearly as important as old schoolers think it is, and it’s impossible to define, which makes it difficult to acquire. From an efficiency standpoint you are always better spending your money on numbers than you are on intangibles.
the angels who fill their roster with baseball players have been more successful than the a’s who are stat lovers.
i don’t dismiss stats. they are important. not more important than playing the game the right way. ideally you have both in a player like wright.
The Angels have been more successful because they won a single WS?
um, yes. that’s why they play the games.
who would you rather have bobby abreu or paul o’neill in their prime?
what is “playing the game the right way”? having a horrible OBP but getting your jersey dirty every game?
What have the A’s won since Billy Beane took over??
division championships? a few times, they won the same # of games as the yankees. is that not good enough for you?
the resistance to sabermetrics is so hilarious.
Post season is pretty much a crap shoot.
You have to think the Red Sox recent success might have something to do with their hiring of Bill James as a special consultant in 2003 (closer-by-committee experiment notwithstanding).
or maybe something to do with beckett, papelbon, manny, and ortiz.
4 players out of 25. yup, one starting pitcher, 2 hitters, and a closer (who isn’t even that important). makes sense.
papelbon isn’t even that important! hah… argument ends there.
and beckett single handedly turned around their series against cleveland last year. Of course those 4 guys aren’t singlehandedly the reason for their success, but to downplay their presence is just silly.
single handedly.
singlehandedly.
heh repeat yourself much?
to be clear, I respect stats, sabermetrics, etc, but I think the tendency can be pushed too far to an extreme to the detriment of considering a player as a person.. You can’t quantify that badass attitude that Papbelbon and Beckett bring to the mound. Deciding that Wins aren’t important for a pitcher, while ignoring that pitching changes based on game situations is just silly (as one example..)
Stats are a useful tool but should not be the only tool used to make decisions. I am sure the mets consider these things in their decision making processes. Old fashioned scouting, and traditional stats should still be important. ymmv of course.
nah, it really doesn’t end right there. closers are a waste of resources.
and wins are a bad stat for pitchers. there is no debate whatsoever in that.
i’m not understanding your argument here, wins are a bad stat for a pitcher i understand, but how does that matter when you’re talking bout Beckett in the playoffs. What are you saying, it doesn’t matter that he won the game? I’m missing something, because in Beckett’s games, he basically won the game for the Sox everytime out. As for wasting resources on a closer, you’re once again wrong in this instance, because Papelbon makes barely over the league minimum.
when i say wasting resources, i’m not talking about how much he’s getting paid…wow…
wow….that’s all you got? so there just shouldn’t be a closer? Beckett’s win’s in the postseason don’t really matter because wins for a pitcher don’t really matter? man, you are a genius.
The point is, it’s foolish to say Beckett is good in the post season because of all those wins. If the Sox had been shut out in each of his games he’d have zero post season wins, even pitching as well as he did.
Beckett is good in the post season because he missed bats and keeps the ball in the park. That’s why he’s good at any time.
ugh, god, obviously, and if thats the point the other guy is making, then whatever, the point is, Beckett is a good pitcher and the Red Sox won those games mostly because of him. That’s really all that matters.
I think that Beckett has been the most important piece to the Red Sox success. For some reason, I love watching him pitch. He showed what he was made of with Florida and has probably solidified himself as one of the best big game/postseason pitchers ever. I hope Santana can be that guy for us as I don’t think he ever proved that with the Twins.
he didn’t? a couple cy youngs not good enough?
well when you’re talking about big game/ postseason pitchers Santana really hasn’t proven anything. Yeah he has the cy youngs but in 5 postseason starts has only one win and an ERA around 4. You can make a case for John Maine being a better pitcher during crunch time… in the 2006 postseason he was great and the second to last game last year was ridiculous!
that’s called a “small sample size.”
all we can really say about Santana is that he is a really great regular season pitcher. He hasn’t demonstrated more than that.
Exactly, that is really all I was trying to say. Not trying to downplay how good Santana is at all. I just think he still has something to prove in the postseason and I hope he does.
…also, life on the line, gun to your head, game 7 of the world series, who do you want on the mound… Beckett or Santana?
I know I would take Beckett in a heartbeat right now. Over the course of the season, gun to my head, right now I take Santana. Two different animals.
Who’s to say they don’t? now that they’ve ditched loduca, they have a team that sabermetricians would love. they get on base and hit for power (esp with alou in the lineup), which are the two most important basic skills. stats like VORP and WARP consistently show Wright, Beltran, and Reyes at or near the top of the league. Their pitchers all throw strikes (with the exception of OP at times), and all top four starters have high K rates. The only player who’s not ideal is Castillo, because with him at the top of the lineup they get a little too enthralled with small-ball. But even Luis is not terrible because he gets on base, despite the lack of power. I’d also like to see Reyes choose his spots to run a little more wisely, since the stolen base is not typically a great play. all in all, though, they’ve got a pretty intelligently built team, and i think sabermetrics corroborates that.
I agree with you that stealing wisely is important, but I also think that some sabermetricians overstate the perils of small ball.
For example, Moneyball’s presentation of the anti-stealing argument was not at all persuasive. It is true that getting caught stealing can knock a team out of a productive inning. That being said, a team that never runs sets itself up for the double play, which is equally devastating to run production.
There is a happy medium between stealing too much and not stealing at all. I think some sabermetricians lose sight of that.
no, they don’t. they have repeatedly stated that it’s fine to steal if your success rate is around 80 percent (or better, obviously). but do you really think it helps to have a guy who gets caught 35% of the time continue to try to steal bases?
This is exactly right. I JUST finished Moneyball and it absolutely is on the side of stealing if the success rate is above (75% I believe).
The math proves it out.
they are not the be all end all when evaluating a player but should definitely be taken into consideration. unfortunately i agree with ravi3 that i dont see a guy like omar minaya suddenly changing his whole approach to evaluation, moneyball talks about how alot of scouts are stubborn when it comes to sabermetrics vs whatever system they use.
I think the real question for the future is Whats the Mets theme song going to be now their at Citi? Hot dogs hamburgers sold out at Citi Mrs. Met is looking so pretty!?
Okay, am I the only one who was trying to get a better look at the girl standing next to Wright?
I assume she was the interviewer, but she is not seen in the piece, only in the still that is shown on the blog site.
She looks like she could be a cutie.
That was the only reason I clicked on the video…
me too…what a sham!
Me as well. We got rooked.
Also, Vitamin water donating $100 per homerun that Wright hits? Sounds low. Don’t strain yourselves Vitamin water.
am i the only person who is incredibly sick of “wright” puns? the time is wright, the wright stuff, mr. wright, etc etc. for the love of god, somebody think of a new play on words.
Farb:
Wright on!
I hear you.
Nice hat bro!
David Wright is your 2008 MVP!
Bill James needs a girlfriend.