DRaysBay

This fascinates me.

The advent of blogging and social media is really changing the landscape of how baseball (and sports in general) is covered. Blogs like this are really pushing the boundaries of what covering baseball can and will look like in the future.

John Gregg - January 25, 2012 reply

It's almost obscene how differently boxing is covered

The sport never had the statistical explosion that baseball did (and really isn’t particularly conducive to it, other than things like looking at third order wins and such), but what receives coverage is just so different. 20 years ago, other than one fighter calling out another in the ring, you never would have heard about contract negotiations. Now, that’s about half of what we end up reporting.

as LindyBear put it yesterday...

He wrote a great piece 2 months ago called “keeping up with the Friedmans”
He now needs to do a “keeping up with the Kalks”

Fast and I go way back – he’s been an engineer by day who has juggled the baseball along with a wife and four kids after hours. It’s a great story of hard work and dedication paying off.

The hard work is the most under-appreciated thing

Even after creating a slick database, which I imagine took countless hours amid frustrations, the actual work he’s doing takes even more time. People think that you can just throw some stuff together and get noticed, but you truly have to do something that no one else has seen before and do it competently. Then do it over and over again until you’re not only respected amongst a small circle, but have a large enough following that your name becomes relatively mainstream. It’s been fun to watch Mike go through this process, but even more enlightening. Hopefully his work doesn’t go the way of Pizza Cutter’s and end up on a defunct site that shuts down as he’s really laid the groundwork for all aspiring Pitch F/x work that’s become commonplace.

More than the hard-work, to me at least, is the thought process that goes in to it.

Figuring out the stringing, coming up with the idea, etc. I think is what sets someone like Fats apart. Granted, I’m lazy.

Yes, totally agreed with both you guys.

It takes a lot of work and creativity to do what Mike’s done. Especially these days, as he’s tackled some really difficult subjects recently — the pitch framing and hit-and-run research jump out.

Yeah. The creavity to come up with the idea, the abilities to attack it, and the hard-work and willingness to find a solution.

It's the combination of clear thinking and hard work that's so special.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve read a Mike Fast article and thought that he had missed something, or overstated the bounds of his conclusion.

I think that comes from the fact he was a semi-conductor engineer by trade

He was definitely able to apply his professional experience into what started as a hobby and now became a career.

Two guys that I’ve know through fantasy baseball for 6+ years now work for my two favorite teams within 2 months of one another. Silly hobby, indeed

How often did you beat Fast?

We never played in a league head to head

He’s been part of the RotoJunkie (now RJBullpen).com community for a long time under the nom de plume of Kevin Seitzer. I’ve advised him on trades and players and he’s done the same for me

you'd think by now there'd be a peer-reviewed journal of sabermetrics, even if it was open access and web-only.

This is something I've thoughts about in the past.

It would make a heck of a lot of sense. And maybe it’d encourage more research…I dunno.

would The Book blog serve as that de facto purpose for now?

That was my thought.

Yeah, I think it does.

I hope the Brooks Baseball reopened forums will grow into that as well.

i was thinking something of a more purely academic nature with volumes and peer reviewing

the book blog seems more like…a blog with some research articles. but they still link to other work. that’s not what i’m talking about.

Why not PLoS (Public Library of Science)? They are web-based, open access and peer reviewed?

Wouldn’t Sabermetrics fall under mathematics or statistics in some way? It would be their job to find the right editor and peer-reviewers. It would be interesting to give it a test run with an article and see what their response is. Submission is free, publication is not. It runs ~$1300, so there is that little problem.

playjoyce - January 25, 2012 reply

just as bioinformatics is a subdiscipline of statistics, so would be sabermetrics

i’m just surprised no well-off baseball statistics lover has organized this sort of thing. I think it would be beneficial for the community as a whole to organize and somewhat standardize sabermetrics. Of course, that requires agreement, and the existence of n types of WAR shows that there isn’t yet the amount of agreement you’d expect of something wanting to be considered scientific.

But then again, that would be up to the peer-reviewers

If they think it is good, it should do well. I would be really interested in knowing whether they would even consider it for review. One argument is that places like PLoS are just cash factories anyway, bilking the $1300 from scientists and then turning a profit on the advertisement they get on their site. The publishing cost are minimal since there is not a paper product. In fact, they might view baseball stats as very worthwhile. If baseball were smart, they would start to offer grants on the topic. Instead of hiring all of these “saberers”, they could read proposals from the public and decide which ones they want to fund. Even teams could do it on their own. Publishing the work would strengthen the applications, just like all other sciences.

playjoyce - January 25, 2012 reply

but the pursuit of knowledge is more esoteric, and you could parallel baseball teams to drug companies.

drug companies may publish, but only on projects that show little process or they are abandoning. they want their science to remain top secret so they can profit off of it. so teams, and therefore MLB, would probably not be in support of this idea. it’d have to come about organically from us the consumers of the product.

SABR does put out one

But it’s not called a journal, and it doesn’t publish in regular intervals. But I received a few of them back when I was a SABR member. There’s a whole committee that reviews. Not peer reviewed in the sense that someone tries to replicate the research, but that’s not how most peer reviews work anyway.

i mean true, and peer reviewing would essentially consist of factchecking spreadsheets and sourcing data.

I think that's what some of us mean about The Book Blog.

They link to other work, but then all the regular commenters there check out the numbers and usually figure out why if there’s something wonky

that's cool, i don't go there so i didn't know about the reviewing. but in general this would be a pre-publication thing. i dunno.

i guess the biggest barrier to this concept is the fact that the discipline is just too fractured at this point, with many different formulas claiming to give the same quantitative information.

The proposed Saber 101 Series may help too.

…and if more sites did the same thing it would help too. As you said the understanding of the game has grown tremendously, but the more people who are exposed to sabermetrics the higher the chance is that more talented people will emerge and use their various skills to help further things. There could be two or three research wizards out there now that don’t even know that sabermetrics is their future yet.

John Gregg - January 25, 2012 reply

if the Fielder contract is any indication

I have no problems with Friedman being as patient as he wants, someone will come.calling by opening day, I’d be shocked if it is another Hammel.

Dbullsfan - January 25, 2012 via mobile reply

Tom Tango, MGL, Matt Klaassen, Syzmborski & Cartwright, Bill Petti, Lewie Pollis, R.J. Anderson, Dave Allen, Justin Bopp, Colin Wyers, Matt Schwartz, Whelk & FIlbert,

Just guys off the top of my head that understand and competently use what is already out there while pushing the envelope to help shed light on what’s next. Some great ones have been scooped, but there’s so much quality work out there for free that it’s like saying the Rays farm system was depleted after Longo and Price made the jump.

While I like and respect a lot of those guys, I do think there's a difference between some of them and a Fast type.

Writing good, thoughtful analysis is a bit different than the kind of research work he does. Applying the principals of sabermetrics and developing them are two different things IMO.

That's in no way meant as disrespct to anyone, but I just want to highlight how special what Mike did was.

Yeah, agreed. I feel like he was in a class by himself re: research.

Well, not entirely by himself….guys like Wyers and Schwartz are also great hardcore researchers. But there’s just not many of them out there these days.

Even Tango and MGL mostly just do analysis and toss out their thoughts on work that others are doing. Love ‘em, but they don’t do the same sort of stuff that Fast was doing.

Harry Pavlidis does great data work - helped Mike with texasleaguers.com

But the differentiator with Mike was his ability to explain it. He is gifted in that regard.

Oops you beat me to it

Fast writes well too making his research appeal to a broader audience.

Probably has a broader appeal. But the other guys are great too.

Steve Slowinski - January 26, 2012 reply

Uh-hremm

I think I called Mike the saberist of the year back in 2008 or 2009, or something. So, I obviously think he’s one of the best around.

As for me: I don’t do anything big publicly, because some other team won’t like it too much. The choice is that I proceed as I have, or do like Dan Fox and Josh Kalk and the rest, and not do anything at all publicly. I’d hate to thing there’s some sort of negative connotation that by playing “injured”, I’m actually hurting the team or something.

I can’t speak for MGL, but I presume he’s quite busy, so he also just does what he can, when the time permits.

We don’t have to get into a comparison of “who’s better than who”, trying to find reasons one is worse than the other.

Mike is great, he’s fantastic, and his contributions to the public will be missed. And that goes double for Dan Fox, who I think I called saberist of the year in 2007 or something. And that goes triple for Joe Sheehan, who really just gave us a glimpse of what he can do. And Josh Kalk as well. I can spend the next ten minutes going down the list, and then forgetting perhaps the best of them all in Tom Tippett.

I have nothing bad to say about any of them. Indeed, I’d love to spend even more time stating all the great work they’ve done.

tangotiger - January 25, 2012 reply

Many thanks for a reply, Tango.

I somewhat figured that was the case…that you can’t share your research due to team connections and such. It’s awesome that at least you’re still contributing to the discussion, as I know I view your Blog as a hub for sabermetrics…lots of great discussions happen there, and all the worthwhile research gets pointed out. That’s pretty huge.

I guess I’m just lamenting the fact that it feels like the public saber community has crested. All the best researchers are now working behind closed doors, and while we can still delude ourselves that we know a lot, I think that’s going to change in the next 5-10 years. Not only are there few researchers left to help push the public into new discoveries, but once Hit F/x and Field F/x data starts spreading around MLB, front offices are going to jump waaay ahead in terms of their knowledge of the sport.

Heck, maybe some teams are already far ahead from what we know. But at least right now, the saber revolution was recent enough that we can delude ourselves into thinking we know about as much as they do. Oh well, so it goes.

+1

mr. maniac - January 25, 2012 reply

I would decidedly subtract myself from the list. Pehaps someday.

But add Bojan Koprivica (loved his pitch blocking study), Harry Pavladis, and Lucas Apostoleris.

Agreed with all of this, I secretly think you're terrible

and I can’t believe I forgot Lucas and Harry

What I learn from that list..

Is I need more vowels in my last name and less consonants

Please no anti-Italian jokes on this

the 210th anniversary of Napoleon elected president of Italian (Cisalpine) Republic

on this

the 503rd anniversary of Giovanni Morone, Italian theologist/diplomat/cardinal/“heretic”

Really? On this, the 1972nd anniversary of

After a night of negotiation, Claudius is accepted as Roman Emperor by the Senate.

B&

Oh come one, on this, the 458th anniversary of

Founding of São Paulo city, Brazil.

Whatever

It is the 433rd anniversary of the Dutch Republic as the Treaty of Ben Utrecht was signed on this date in 1579

On this,

The 508th anniversary of the day the English Parliament passed statutes against retainers and liveries, to curb private warfare?

Never forget

237th anniversary of

Americans drag cannon up hill to fight British (Gun Hill Road, Bronx)

mumble mumble

Yes, good call on those guys.

Did Bojan just spring up out of nowhere? I loved that study, but that was the first time I’d seen his name around.

First time I'd seen him, but that might just mean I'm not reading the right places.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=6395744

He wrote some pieces at Athletics Nation prior to that

under the username elcroata.

Mike Fast - January 25, 2012 reply

OT: Don't know if this was posted here yet or not, but def worth the read about Luke Scott.

DeadeyeRR - January 25, 2012 reply

Good read. Word of warning to potential commenters: let's try to keep this apolitical. GO!

or religion, just to be safe.

What I liked about it

was that you can disagree with his politics and religion but he seems like a stand up dude.

DeadeyeRR - January 25, 2012 reply

As long as you're not a demmycrat

Don't you mean dummycrat?

Seriously, I don’t care what he thinks off the field as long as it doesn’t affect his on-field play or the clubhouse. Then again, some of the sources of clubhouse issues I’ve heard about this past season were surprising. I never saw any myself, but I was only in there after games when players can hide in the training room and showers.

Exactly to your first sentence

Just go out and hit the ball and don’t overstep your bounds in what is already a loose clubhouse full of, at this point, veteran voices that have been here

Does this sound like anyone we know?

Pie arrived from the Cubs before the 2009 season as a former top prospect who had squandered numerous chances. He was arrogant and not completely committed to baseball.

Scott embraced Pie, stressed to him that he was running out of time in his career and that he lacked the qualities of a person with good character — the qualities by which Scott measures everyone. So he brought Pie to the batting cages, taught him how to hit breaking pitches better. He brought him into the weight room, stressed the importance of hard work. He stressed running hard on every play, taking his job seriously and being a better person. It worked.

#contractyear #lukescotttutorial #bjformvp2012

Justin Ruggiano?

Did it work?

Pie’s still bad

Imperialism32 - January 25, 2012 reply

Come on, who doesn't like pie?

nomoredevil - January 25, 2012 reply

I like pie.

Hatfield - January 25, 2012 reply

i think they meant attitude-wise.

What about values?

as long as they support #familyvalues.

As someone who isn't a fan of Scott or his political expression

I have to say that it is very easy to take some of his comments/actions out of the clubhouse context. As we all know from the recent ‘troubles’ in our own community, it is easy to get your panties in a wad when you don’t actually have an actual relationship with someone. Once you develop that relationship, things which might have been offensive at the start, and who might look offensive to an outsider, can easily become part of the banter of friends. There are things that can be said to family and friends that aren’t said to strangers.

nomoredevil - January 25, 2012 reply

Kind of like the OTTOTD.

Well said.

DeadeyeRR - January 25, 2012 reply

lolz

agreed. one thing taht REALLY struck me was his commitmit to learning Spanish.

The fact that he’s fluent in SPanish does a lot to make his comments ring true.

Yeah, that and Pie speaking so well of him

But this ‘Orioles team source comment’ made me shake my head:
“He’s not John Rocker. He took the time to be bilingual; he spends more time with his Spanish teammates than Americans. This ain’t John Rocker, but he says some John Rocker type s—-. My question is, why?”
This is where the distractions can come in. It’s not always the people you are ribbing who are the problem. It’s the people who overhear it.

nomoredevil - January 25, 2012 reply

George Carlin also asid some John Rocker type S---

And nobody called him a racist. It’s called context, and unfortunately it’s hard to pick up on the written page.

so Luke Scott is doing performance art?

if he worships Joe Pesci, I’m in

AndrewTorrez - January 25, 2012 reply

I'll post this one separately in case it's veering too political and/or inflammatory

So it can be deleted by a mod. I’m not trying to be inflammatory myself, but unfortunately way too many people interpret it that way when you describe someone else’s inflammatory actions.

In my opinion, a lot of people are just too damn sensitive these days. Sometimes that also applies to the people who are causing it – don’t dish it out if you can’t take it. But there are appropriate times to be offensive, and just because something is both offensive and has some kind of racial overtone, it doesn’t mean it’s racist. Sometimes it can just be descriptive.

One example is when certain individuals got a lot of crap for calling Colin Powell an Uncle Tom. While it’s inflammatory (and was intentionally inflammatory) and has a racial component, it also turns a concept that would take about 20 words to describe into a 2 word concept, and you know exactly what the speaker means by it. And since it’s America, everyone has the right to publicly disagree with that opinion.

There are probably a hundred other words in American vernacular that have the same effect, which can be racist or not depending on the context in which they are used. I’m not going to repeat a long list of them here (although Clerks 2 had a particularly funny bit about one of those terms), as it’s just not socially acceptable to do so, but maybe people should start to reevaluate whether there’s actually a valid reason for eliminating these terms completely just because some people misuse them.

Once a term becomes "offensive" to any sector of the population.

It no longer has useful meaning. Sure, “Uncle Tom” says in two words a concept that would take much more to explain, but it’s also taken on enough\ baggage that it doesn’t do a good job explaining anything, anymore. Once a term has that type of baggage, abandoning it isn’t a matter of political correctness, it’s a matter of clarity.