Baseball Analysis and You: The Top Five Things That Need to Go

I know, I know: Baseball-related articles--aside from the occasional trade or free agent analysis--usually don't being in earnest for about another month at the earliest, so this seems entirely premature, right?

I beg of you to see things from my perspective and grant me clemency.

First off, anyone that says they aren't completely college football-ed out is kidding themselves, got it? There are entirely too many bowls and talk of institution of playoffs is entirely too much for someone to come away looking like a summer rose even before the national championship game.

Secondly, college basketball is too lame and too white (c'mon, Duke) for my tastes and my only team in the NBA, the Bulls, are completely atrocious and only good for an occasional laugh at their basketball follies. And on top of that, the Bears were out of the NFL playoffs in week seven, so what is a sports fan from Chicago to do?

After much thought on the subject, I finally decided to list the top five things that need to leave baseball analysis forever.

Now, this isn't some seething piece aimed at removing Tim McCarver or Joe Buck or, dare I say it, Joe Morgan, but rather a look at how many baseball fans watch and talk about the game.

I promise that if any of you work on just a few of the things on the following list, your general baseball discourse will improve in quality ten-fold, and that improvement will more than likely permeate through to other facets of your sports fandom.

So, without further delay, here are the top five things that need to leave baseball analysis forever:

5.) Fielding errors

These are a horrible, horrible metric by which to judge a player. And while many people may have never had the conscious thought to prove that errors are a supremely sub-par defensive metric, many baseball fans know this intrinsically from just watching the game.

Think about it, how many times have you been watching a baseball game, only to find yourself eventually asking yourself rhetorically how an infielder could bobble such an easy ground ball or mis-play a fly ball so badly, only to hear from the announcer that the official-scorer has ruled the ball a "hit" rather than an "error"?

This happens to all of us, right? We know what should have happened on the routine play, and we know that the player in question just botched the ball, yet he is not being penalized, and no mark will go down on his stat sheet for the muffed play.

The truth is, there is no set standard for what constitutes and error and what doesn't.

There are guidelines, to be sure, but there is no definite standard governing these scorers. Instead, the decision is left up to the official scorer at each individual game, a position that is not standardized across baseball, yet is asked to make decisions on an indefinite set of rules.

4.) Batting average

I will dispense with the long-winded diatribe about why batting average is inferior and instead pose a simple question: who is more valuable to a baseball team, a player that has a batting average of .310 over the season with 10 home runs, 12 doubles and 35 walks, or a player that hits .250 while clubbing 45 HR's, 30 doubles and walks 90 times?

This simple question shows that there are facets of offensive baseball that batting average simply does not account for, whereas other metrics (OBP, in particular) not only take into account the things average seeks to measure, but other facets of the game that batting average simply ignores.

3.) Runs batted in (RBI's)

With the recent statistical revolution in baseball analysis, I had hoped that this metric would simply go away over time, replaced by metrics that are more easily comparable across players.

But no, the RBI is still in existance, being used in discussions by fans and broadcasters alike.

Stop that.

The RBI metric is one that is dependent on things outside of the control of the players said to create those runs.

A batter has absolutely no control over whether someone is on base when they come up to the plate, nor do they have control over who is on base at that time, yet the batter is credited with creating a run that he really had no part in setting up.

Let's say there are two hitters on two separate teams that both hit in the same spot in the lineup for their respective squad, and these players are identical in both their abilities and their output (Player's "A" and "B").

The only difference is that player A bats behind players all with on-base percentages of .400 or better, and player B hits behind guys that seemingly can't get on-base to save their life, all of them having .200 OBP's. 

Now, over the course of a season, or even a career, who is more likely to have the higher RBI total?

All other things being equal and constant, player A will emerge with the higher RBI total by far, but does that mean that he was any better a player than player B?

No, it doesn't. They were the same exact players with the same exact abilities, except one of them had the good fortune of having hitters that could get on base on his team, thus giving him more RBI chances.

The fact is that the RBI is more a benefit of circumstance than a benefit of skill, and thus it is extremely subjective and cannot (nor should it) be applied to players for the purposes of comparison.

2.) Nerd/Mom's basement jokes

Please stop using these types of jokes or comments as retorts to someone's statistically-inclined approach to a facet of baseball, it really detracts from whatever argument you are making (this is the figurative "you" and not literally "you", though if it is you then pay attention).

No, we don't all live in our mom's basement; yes, we do actually watch baseball games, sometimes even at the stadium; and finally, no, we don't secretly wish that computers were able to play baseball.

Got it? Good.

1.) Pitching "Wins"

In the pantheon of pitching statistics, the "wins" metric is thought to be seated near the front row by some (the Cy Young is based largely on wins, as well as All-Star and Hall of Fame voting), but in reality it should be outside, begging for nickels.

Think about it, let's say Freddy Garcia pitches five innings in a given ballgame, giving up seven home runs total. He is then taken out, and the White Sox bullpen shuts out the opponent for the rest of the game, and the opponent is able to score a grand total of seven runs.

Now, let's assume that the White Sox had just one great offensive inning that day, managing to hit eight home runs in the first inning. They promptly went back to being shut out for the rest of the game, but they did score a total of eight runs on the day.

In this little scenario the White Sox would win, 8-7, and Freddy Garcia would be the winning pitcher, even though he did little at all to help the White Sox win that game.

The mere fact a situation like this is even possible under the spcepter of "wins" should banish it from the minds of all baseball fans forever.

Couple that ambiguity of accomplishment with the fact that the metric involves a side of baseball that the "winning" pitcher has little to no control over (his team's offense), and this metric is rendered useless at describing any true abilities of a pitcher, especially in the face of other metrics such as ERA+, WHIP and DIPS.

So there you have it, baseball fans. Just work on a few of these five things and I guarantee that your discourse with other baseball fans will improve immediately, as will your overall enjoyment of this intriguing and wonderful game.

-Jonathan Platek