I didn't think I had to, I thought anyone who would choose to call out "amateur sabermetricians" in a sarcastic fashion would atleast know what sabermetric stats are. Don't worry, I'll take blame for assuming that.
Yet it took you 4 posts after my original one to come up with a scrap of evidence for your arguement. Next time just google it before your first response, it would save us both a lot of typing.
Well in all honesty, wouldn't it have made more sense to just trust 10P10 in the first place? He, 3&15, and statjeff have shown more than often enough that they know what they are talking about when it comes to all this statistical mumbo-jumbo. I'll admit I had no idea what OPS was until a few months ago, thanks to this board. I kept seeing 3&15 talk about it, so I investigated it. I'll also admit, I hate math. No offense to the math guys out there, I just hated math in all forms in school and I still don't like it.
I didn't have to google anything, that was all pretty common knowledge I'm sure for most baseball fans on this board. Like I said, I apologize for not putting that in my first response, I just assumed that someone who calls out sabermetricians would atleast know what sabermetric stats are. It was silly of me to assume that someone who probably wasn't even alive before the big sabermetric boom of the late 80's-early 90's would know what things were like back then.
Ah, so now it's the old "I disagree with you so you must be 10 years old" arguement. Really well crafted, you must have put some serious time into that one. We're done here.
Well, I'm glad you pointed to that, instead of trying to once again defend that OPS is a SABR created stat. :up:
I'm with you on what you're saying here. However I think even if baseball went back into a "dead ball" era again though it wouldn't change the way I evaluate players. If anything the big time HR hitters would become even more valuable with runs at such a premium.
Yeah, that's a good point. In reality, the game has changed, and it will never be able to go backwards. Honestly, I wouldn't want things to go back to what they were. At this point, it has become entertaining watching the long ball. The only thing I would like to see is some contraction. Let more of the pitching talent be grouped into less teams. Then games would be more competitive, and contain a bit more strategy, as more teams would struggle for that extra run, rather than let a guy swing 3-0 at a lousy pitch, just because "hey, you never know."
I just hope the players union never gets a DH in the National League. The strategy of leaving a pitcher up to hit, when to make a double switch, or to pitch to the #8 hitter or not makes the game alot more interesting to watch, IMO.
I doubt there will ever be a DH in the NL. At that point, it would be more like basketball than baseball. Both leagues would become identical, and interleague play would be meaningless. Plus, you get to see who the really good teams are when they play in opposite parks. It's funny, you would expect the NL to perform better overall, considering their pitchers are used to hitting, their managers are used to coaching in that manner, and when they come to AL parks, they get an extra bat into the lineup. However, the AL seems to be taking the advantage. In the NL this year, only Colorado, San Fran, and Florida have non-losing records against the AL, and Florida is an even 8-8. I think the leagues should definitely stay the way they are. I am an AL fan. I prefer the DH, but that's just me. I think it has a lot to do with your favorite team. The more you see one style over the other, the more you will probably gravitate toward it as a preference.
The problem with your thinking this year is that the AL extra bat that they get on a regular bases is someone paid to hit everyday and are usually the huge producers in lineups, the extra bats from the NL would just be a bench player not good enough to crack the lineup, equate this with the fact that the NL pitching is down this year and the AL pitching is up is a big reason for the big decreptancy this year (however I would say that as the year is ending the gap is closer as the superior pitching of the AL dropping off right now)
That's not a very good argument. Would you rather have the worst hitter on your bench batting ninth, or your pitcher? And if you felt that your current pitcher was a good enough hitter, then he could still hit. (The DH is not required, just available.) Any other factors really don't matter. My point was that the AL dominated the AL in interleague play this year. Look at the records. That's what happened. Only 3 NL teams had at least a .500 record in interleague play. That's not interpretation. I hope you aren't getting defensive because you think I am attacking the NL. I'm not. I love that the NL exists. It separates baseball from all other sports. There is an actual difference between the two leagues, that must be overcome whenever they play each other. All I was doing was saying that I was surprised that there was such a difference in records in favor of the NL. Guys, not every post I make is an attack on the NL or the Mets, or even the Red Sox.
You aren't looking my argument right, look at it this way maybe it will make my point a bit more clear, the Red Sox DH is Ortiz, the Yankees DH is Giambi or Sheffield, The A's is Frank Thomas, the White Sox DH is Thome, if the Mets were to play in an AL park our DH would be Julio Franco. While Julio Franco is better than a pitcher, comparing our "advantage" of having an extra hitter doesn't really equate things if all we have is a bench player to use while you have a cleanup hitter available for that spot, while I agree that during interleague play the gap between the leagues were big, from earlier stats the AL was top heavy, now the teams that were the best in interleague play in the AL for the most part fell off a cliff, Tigers have struggled badly, the White Sox has no pitching, the Twins lost Liriano and the Red Sox well that story is well known, I know for sure that the gap is nowhere near as big now as it was in July
It's not really fair to make a DH to DH comparison, but I think your point is still correct. AL teams are built around 9 everyday hitters, while NL teams have 8. So I think it's pretty clear that the advantage of this 9th starting hitter vs a bench player is greater then a pitcher that hits vs a pitcher that never hits. Of course the reason why the AL won more games in interleague play this year is because on a whole they're a much stronger league.
That's fair enough. Personally, I was trying more to express the NL's lack of success on their home turf this year. I know NLers see the DH as an advantage for the AL, and it is. At the same time, it's a bigger disadvantage to the AL playing in the NL parks than people give credit to. Remember, when the Yankees play in a NL park, they lose a significant part of their lineup. Right now, we would probably lose Cabrera in left, in favor of Matsui's bat. That's a big decrease in defense, and it totally changes the bottom of our lineup. Is that as significant as the other way around? Probably not, but it doesn't mean it isn't significant. Again, I'm just surprised at the big difference in records between the leagues during interleague play. I'm not trying to dog the NL in any way.
