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The Best Few Paragraphs I’ve Read Today
By Capitol Avenue Club | November 18, 2009
Jerry Crasnick has a new article called Much gray area in defensive analysis. The basic argument in the article is rather simple: We used to not have advanced defensive metrics. Now we do, and that is good. But scouts are still useful. And the smart teams use both scouting evaluations and advanced metrics when evaluating a player’s defense.
It’s rather well written, though, and thus worth the read, since his point is right, no matter how obvious and simple it seems. But it contains the best few paragraphs I’ve read today:
[Oakland A's GM, Billy] Beane listens to his scouts, for sure. But when it comes to analyzing defense, he prefers cold, hard data to knee-jerk conclusions. Even his own.
“You have to be careful when you see something with your eyes, because sometimes your emotions tend to dictate your viewpoint,” Beane says. “I can’t explain why a magician looks like he pulls a rabbit out of his hat. I just know the rabbit wasn’t in the hat.”
Topics: Atlanta Braves | 2 Comments »
November 18th, 2009 at 6:53 PM
maybe beane should trust his instincts more. his fame seems to have outrun his actual success.
November 18th, 2009 at 6:57 PM
Well, the latter statement is true. I do rag on him a lot, but he’s right about this.