Talk:Sabermetrics

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[edit] Quote

I don't really like David Grabiner's quote to open the article. Specifically, the Ken Griffey Jr. idea should be more along the lines of "how many home runs is Ken Griffey Jr. likely to hit next year" since of course it is impossible to know his future production. I feel like this may give false ideas to the article readers as to what sabermetrics entails. Is there a better quote that could be used that would better protray sabermetrics?

[edit] Anon vanity posts

It appears that a long series of anon edits added a number of new names that are vanity posts to this article in April and May. I have reverted the article back to where it was before the anon edits, but in doing so I may have eliminated legitimate edits as well as clearly self-promotional ones. This article needs to be reviewed by someone who really knows the history of sabermetrics to sort the "buy my computer game" or "subscribe to my service" people who are vanity posts from the real sabermetrics proponents. OverInsured 06:28, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, then DON'T revert it if you're going to delete legitimate content. Delete the spam instead. If you're not knowledgeable enough to do this in the first place, then why are you reverting the article? You should leave it alone and simply bring to other people's attention that there's spam that needs to be edited. Hayford Peirce 18:04, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I wrote too concisely and was unclear. I should have reverted only the prominent contributors section, because it looked like all the edits were there but I did not double check. The edits were anons and looked self-promotional, but I requested review by others to make sure that what I felt comfortable about was STILL double checked by others. I feel comfortable identifying anon vanity posts when I see them, but I believe the entire principle of wikipedia is that we decide these thinghs as a group and invite the opinions of others. I asked for help on the chance that I cut encyclopedic content, but I actually believe that what I cut was self promotional. You're right that my initial post was unclear and sounded too sweeping. I'll correct. OverInsured 19:19, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
You're right. When I looked at the detail I cut too much good stuff with the self-promo. Please check this version. In general, what was in before all the anon edits I left in place, since most of it had stood for some time. The people who seemed to be trying to sell things and did not have high Google hit counts and who were added by anons I cut out. If someone had over 10,000 Google hit counts I left them in. Please review what I did and look for ways to make it better. OverInsured 19:36, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] listing of the heavy hitters

Now that I've edited the caption to say that the list is arranged alphabetically, I wonder if this is actually the way it should be? I myself would start it off with Bill James, then, I suppose Pete Palmer and John Thorn. Then what? Billy Beane? Then who? It's a can of worms, I agree. Any suggestions? Hayford Peirce 21:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I 110% agree that James, Thorn and Palmer stand above all the rest for those who researched the game. You can argue that Beane led the way on deep implementation of the principles within baseball, although as noted Weaver was capturing sabermetric stats even before James published his first book and other managers followed suit. I don't have a great idea on how to turn all that into a merit based sequence to replace alphabetical order. OverInsured 21:32, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Math needed

I think an article realted math should to some math. We need a math needed templete.--Scott3 21:33, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality and Quality of Article

This article is off to a good start but try to write it in a more neutral tone and cite sources. It's pretty obvious to the casual reader that this article was written by a huge fan of Sabremetrics. Quadzilla99 15:48, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

A don't think there is the slightest issue of neutrality here. I think there's a much more serious issue of lack of meaningful content. A WP reader would learn practically nothing from the current article about what it is that sabermetricians do. Lists of a few key concepts and researchers in the field are given priority here, but this should follow a good solid essay on the field of sabermetrics. The entire history of the quantitative analysis of baseball is omitted. Although it was before my time, not only were the canonical books (which are mentioned in bare outline here) an exciting time of rapid development but also the informal and less visible community that grew up on the Usenet brought a fantastic array of minds into discussion and analysis. What were the substantive research problems? What were the main issues? What were/are the controversies? Where does sabermetrics fit in (the scouting vs. analysis controversy)? How did baseball researchers go about measuring offensive production, defense, baserunning, batting order, valuation of players, pitcher usage, and game strategy? None of these topics are mentioned.
These need to be laid out in a master essays with links to smaller essays (some of which are already on Wikipedia). A lot of this research has been cumulative in the best way that science is cumulative; it is rigorous and subject to peer review; and it has much more fundamental structure (in terms of areas of research -- what are all those little terms that are in that list a part of, how do they fit into a field of study?) than this article even hints at. Nor does the article talk about the revolutions in technology, the availability of game and microdata -- and the internet itself -- that has made the rise of sabermetrics possible. Somebody who is familiar with all of this, and who is also perhaps steeped in the cross-currents of past debates, needs to take hold of this article. And let the critics have at it, too.--Mack2 01:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I think a good essay would have a different structure as well, tentatively with the following topics:
  • I. Definition and Origins of Sabermetrics (including analysis of bb stats historically)
  • II. Development of the Field: a. Main Areas of Research (with links to WP and external literatures), with issues and advances in these areas: game strategy, pitching, batting, defense, baserunning, forecasting, business, etc. What have we learned about expected payoffs in wins from SH, baserunning, batting order, marginal run values, etc. b. Types and Sources of Data, including historical game data, player stats, etc. Other topics . . . such as "measurement" of pitch type, location, speed; measuring vectors and speed of batted balls.
  • III. Sabermetric Theory and Practice. a. Use of stats in the game itself, by field managers and general managers), b. Scouting vs. stats. c. Use in sportswriting/broadcasting. d. Changing language of the game.
  • IV. Emerging and Problem Areas: a. measuring defense, b. forecasting, c. the player marketplace. d. Microdata (pitches, batted balls, fielding etc.)
  • V. Main contributors of data, analysis, innovations in the main fields of research (links to WP articles).
  • VI. The Future: new vistas in data collection and analysis.
The above are just off the top of my head, but I aim to suggest some of what's missing as this article is currently structured. I'm sure somebody else will have a better way to go at it. But I think what's in this article now is very inadequate. The main focus should be on the SUBJECT (research field) of sabermetrics, and only a secondary focus on the people who have advanced it, though both are important.--Mack2 17:29, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Runs against average

I'm not gonna delete this entry again, I'll leave that to someone more knowledgeable than I. But -- I'm a member of SABR and for the last 4 or 5 years I've been receiving a daily email message from the SABR group in which various members send comments, queries, etc., to a central List (so they call it) about research matters. Then every day the moderator posts the 10-40 messages that have come in that day in a single email to the subscribers to the service. It's sorta like a chat room or newsgroup discussion area, except it's done by email and it's exclusively about research matters, NOT general baseball discussion, such as "who's gonna win the Series". I've just checked my SABR mailbox on Eudora -- there are 3443 separate emails! That means there are probably at least 35,000 to 50,000 individual emails within that group. I've just done a Search for "runs created" -- that returned 265 entries. I Searched for "total player rating" -- that returned 45 entries. I then Searched for "runs against average" -- and got zero entries. "RAA"? -- zero entries. A Google search for "runs against average" only brings in 65 hits -- many of them on blogs. Surely an extraordinarily low total for a generally accepted research tool. So it looks to me that, whatever the merits of the method, it's almost certainly Original Research under the Wiki definition and shouldn't be here. Nor should it have a separate article in Wiki about it. Hayford Peirce 02:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed deletion of Runs Against Average article

I've just proposed that the above article be deleted from Wikipedia because, in my opinion it is both non-notable and Original Research, at least as Wikipedia defines both terms. If you want to join the discussion about whether this article should be deleted or not, go here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Runs_Against_Average Hayford Peirce 04:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC

I tried to tag the article as Original Research but its author deleted the tag. I agree with your recommendation.--Mack2 05:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
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