Prospectus Matchups: Grab Bag

A Celebration of Ignorance

Here’s a question for you: What do you when you don’t know a lot about a subject? Do you:

1. Attempt to find out more about it?
2. Keep mum on the topic so that nobody realizes your ignorance?
3. Attack it and brag to the world that not only are you blissfully unaware of what it’s all about, you think it’s stupid and worthless?

When it comes to sabermetrics, alas, a number of mainstream media people continue to choose ‘C’ instead of the other two choices. This amazes me. There are countless subjects about which I know precious little, and I always opt for A or B. There is a quote that I always heard attributed to Winston Churchill, (and here I am willing to use A and admit that I am not certain of this), and it goes like this: “Better to say nothing and have people assume your ignorance than open your mouth and confirm it.”

I don’t expect everyone in the baseball world to embrace sabermetrics, but I would expect professional journalists who are bent on attacking it to do so based on its failures, not on its mere existence. Dismissing it out of hand is nothing short of disappointing coming from the highest-paid people in the profession. I’m willing to listen to any sound argument based on facts and research, but what we get instead is hollow condescension.

What amazes me is that their editors tolerate this. A revolution in baseball analysis has been taking place for a quarter century now, and writers and commentators at some of the most widely-read and widely-watched media outlets in the country not only don’t understand it, they refuse to do so, and get paid to celebrate this shortcoming. Would editors tolerate the same from their science writers? From their economics staff? This puzzles me to no end. If I were the editor of a writer who dismissed VORP or the work of Bill James, I would demand to know on what grounds they were doing so. “Why do these metrics fail in the face of the traditional numbers to which you remain beholden?” I would ask them. If they could answer that question successfully, I would be sated, and let them continue working in my sports department.

The problem, of course, is that they can’t.

The Freshmen Class of 2007

For some reason, I think the word “frosh” is one of the funniest terms in the entire English language. In any case, the frosh of 2007 are almost done with their first season, and I thought we’d check in on their progress. What follows are the combined VORP of the top 30 ranked rookies according to BP’s database. One thing to keep in mind is that not all of the pitchers included are necessarily pure rookies. Some may be slightly over the limit in terms of playing time or time spent on rosters. Regardless, this is still a decent measure of the amount of young talent that has been injected into the game in a given year. It is highly unlikely that this year’s group will surpass the showing of the class of 2006.

First, the pitchers. Although 2006’s accomplishments are out of reach, they could well end up second, surpassing the achievements of the class of 1999. If they stopped right now, they’d already be ranked fifth in the last 10 years. Keep in mind that the Class of 2006 was at 611.6 at this time last year, so this year’s group could well crack 700. September is a good time for newcomers to throw up points with the rosters expanding tomorrow.

Year: Total VORP
2007: 581.6 (through August 29)
2006: 820.8
2005: 555.2
2004: 500.9
2003: 602.9
2002: 560.0
2001: 531.9
2000: 595.4
1999: 688.5
1998: 526.7

Turning to the position players, we find a similar situation. Overtaking the showing of last year’s group is not likely, but a second-place finish for the years of the last decade is a strong possibility:

Year: Total VORP
2007: 386.4 (through August 29)
2006: 565.2
2005: 427.5
2004: 377.6
2003: 409.9
2002: 301.9
2001: 401.0
2000: 326.0
1999: 457.7
1998: 329.9

Ryan Braun is headed for the best rookie showing since Albert Pujols put up a 74.9 in 2001. Let us not forget that Braun did have a late start-he’s going to end up with about 50 fewer games played than Pujols had in 2001.

Where are they now? Pitcher version

Last time out, we looked at the offensive players who landed in the VORP top 10 in 2006, and how they were faring with 80 percent of this season gone. This time, let’s take a look at the pitchers:

Pitcher         Team   BABIP   Rank
Felix Hernandez  SEA   .347     55
Scott Kazmir     TBA   .340     35
Andy Pettitte    NYA   .323     25
Bronson Arroyo   CIN   .323    100
Smoltz           ATL   .322     15