I’m no Beanehead but I’ll look at saber articles and a lot of them are quite interesting. Like everything else, take what you like and throw away the rest.

Saber or back of the baseball card, I hope your right.

T, if everyone will excuse the CAPSLOCK I’d like to share my nonsabre, tip of my finger, estimation of what I see so far; I recently compiled an estimate of this season’s results which I shared the details,reasoning with my small intimate grpoup of family/friends NYM fans which, because I’m lazy, I’ll paste here verbatum;
I’d certainly be interested in how Sabres choose to contend my observations as a way for me to further develop my skills as a veteran observer of NYM baseball here it is:
FORTUNTELY WE ADDED ‘CAPPY’ BEFORE NYY CAME SNIFFING AROUND AS THEY HAVE WITH FRANCIS & DURSHERER, OBVIOUSLY KEEPING THOSE PRICES JACKED-UP BEYOND WHERE SANDY’S WILLING TO TREAD. CAPPY MOST CERTAINLY MAY BE THE “STEAL” OF THE NY OFFSEASON BEING CAPABLE, IF HEALED, OF SUPPLYING UP TO 15Ws FROM THE BACKEND OF THE ROTATION THAT SHOULD BY ASG BE MANNED BY SANTANA(EARLY JUNE RETN) DICKEY(11-9 2.84 1.18WHIP 104K,42BB) DESPITE MISSING FIRST 2 MOS OF SEASON GOING(4-2 2.23 37K, 8BB 1.00(WHIP) FOR AAA BUFFALO TO COMMENCE THE SEASON INCL AN 8.2IP PERFECTO ATTEMPT. WHOM, IN A FULL SEASON THIS YR I FULLY ANTICIPATE A MINIMUM OF 15Ws FROM DESPITE THE OUTCOME OF THIS UPCOMING ARBI HEARING. ROUNDING OUT THE ROTATION, I ANTICIPATE DILLON GEE WILL CONTINUE HIS POST MiLB EDUCATION WHERE IN 5 MLB GS HE WENT 2-2 2.18ERA,1.21WHIP 17K,15BB AS HE REDUCES HIS ACCEPTABLE WHIP BY COMMANDING THE ZONE BETTER. THOUGH IT’S CERTAINLY NO “BROADWAY” CALIBER ROTATION, IT’S CERTAINLY MAIN STREET LEVEL ESP IF SANTANA CONTINUES HIS EARLY PROGRESS(BEING CLEARED TO P/U BALL 1 MOS EARLIER THAN ANYIOCIPATED, LATER THIS MONTH. THEY’LL STRUGGLE AGAINST THE MIGHT OF A PHL,BOS,NYY LEVEL ROTATION; BUT FORTUNATELY THERE AREN’T TOO MANY OF THOSE AROUND IN THE NL, SIMILARLY WITH THEIR LINEUP I ANTICIPATE AS:
REYES(SS)
PAGAN(RF-CF)
WRIGHT(3B)
BELTRAN(CF-RF)
BAY(LF)
DAVIS(1B)
EMAUS/MURPHY/HU?(2B)Murph/Emaus platoon, Hu def repl
THOLE/PAULINO(C)
P
AGAIN, NOT A MURDERER’S ROW OR EVEN A MUGGER’S ROW; BUT CERTAINLY COMPETITIVE AGAINST THE PREPONDERANCE OF NL OPPONENTS. AS OF NOW MY BIGGEST REMAINING CONCERN IS THE BULLPEN WHICH AS OF NOW IS COMPRISED OF:
K-ROD
PARNELL
IGARASHI
BUCCHOLTZ
CARRASCO
MISCH LH (YOUNG(30) MLB RETREAD PROMOTED FROM AAA(11-4 3.23ERA,1.15WHIP)LIKELY AAAA SP)
O’CONNOR(NONROSTER INVITEE-NRI)
PEREZ
STONER(AAA PROMOTEE)
STINSON(AAA PROMOTEE)
HOPEFULLY PEREZ WILL BE JETTISONED PRIOR TO APRIL 1 OPENER; BUT THERE ISN’T AN APPARENTLY DOMINANT LOOGEY NOW THAT PERPETUAL PEDRO IS IN THE AL EAST PENNANT RACE WITH NYY. ALSO WITHOUT PEDRO THERE ISN’T AN APPARENT”RUBBER ARMED” EFFECTIVE RELIEVER CAPABLE OF APPEARING ALMOST NIGHTLY WHICH WITH “THAT” ROTATION I’D FEEL WAS A NECESSITY.

THERE IS, IN MY OPINION EVERY REASON TO BELIEVE FULL SEASONS OUT OF REYES & BELTRAN WITH A BOUNCEBACK COURSE CORRECTION FROM BAY THAT THIS ROSTER CAN CERTAINLY BE A .500 COMPETITOR; BUT I’D EXPECT A TON OF FORTUNE/LUCK, TYPICALLY ABSENT IN FLUSHING OVER THE PAST DECADE, WILL BE NECESSARY FOR A JUMP UP TO CONTENTION, EVEN FOR A W/C SLOT. UNLESS THE BULLPEN IS FUTHER IMPROVED WITH SOME OF WHAT I’VE DETAILED AS MISSING, 1)RUBBER ARM, 2) RELIABLE DOMINANT LOOGEY(LEFTY SPECIALIST) THEIR ABILITY TO JUMP FRPOM 81-81 TO 89-73(w/c minimum) IS COMPROMISED
THE OTHER KEY IMPROVEMENT WHICH SHOULD NOT BE A BUDGET BREAKER IS THE OVERALL IMPROVEMENT IN BOTH AGE & RELIABILITY TO THE BENCH. YOUNGER PLAYERS LIKE EVANS,DUDA,PRICE WHO APPARENTLY HAVE ALREADY REACHED THEIR POTENTIAL AS SUSPECTS INSTEAD OF ‘PROSPECTS’ SHOULD BE SHELVED ON THE MLB BENCH REPLACING THE LIKES OF CORA & TATIS. WITH TC IN THE MNGRS’ OFFICE & SANDY @ THE HELM, I’M PREDICTING AN 84-85 WIN SEASON(JUST OVER .500 & JUST SHORT OF POSTSEASON CONSIDERATION AS W/C) WHERE IT FINALIZES IS ANYONE’S GUESTIMATE; BUT IT SHOULD BE INTERESTING AS LONG AS HEALTH PREVAILS.

Jose getting his OBP up is absolutely important. And Jose just hitting for a solid average does not necessarily mean he’d have a good OBP. Of course AVG helps OBP…hits are a big component of OBP, but its not the only part of it. If you play most of the year and walk only 30 times, chances are your OBP isn’t going to be good unless you are hitting .330+ like Tony Gwynn or Ichiro. Reyes hit .282 last yr, which was relatively similar to what he had done in the prior 4 seasons of his career. But he only walked 5% of the time and 31 times all season, which was a huge reason he was less productive than in other seasons.

Imagine if they had a league avg OB% in front of those HR’s. Their poor OB actually caused them to score far less runs than they could be reasonably expected to. Think about it, 743 RS vs. 257 HR’s. Theoretically they could have hit nothing but 3 run HR’s to score each and every run they scored.

Take the Twins a low HR hitting team last year. 142 768. They could hit a grand slam every HR and still have to find a way to score 200 more runs. No team in the Majors could have scored ALL the runs they did by hitting nothing but Grand slams and yet Toronto could have done it with 3 run HR’s. Kind of proves your point doesn’t it.

I’ve been on many sales calls through the years with engineers. They know exactly where to look and what questions to ask to get to the bottom line on anything. He was kidding around with you, probably just to disprove a blanket statement even though he has to know (especially by bringing up Toronto) that it IS a very reliable indicator (although not infallible.

OK let’s see if I am following this so far between Xtreem & Bayonne.

Bayonne: “Don’t tell me about OBP when we’re discussing the thumpers. That’s the last thing i want to know.”

A reasonable response? Yes. I mean if by thumper you mean a person that drives runs in (which I don’t wan’t to a$$ume that is what is meant for the record) then a “thumper’s obp definitely doesnt tell you how good he is at driving runs in. Also neither does a batting average.

So I “guess” Bayonne is saying he doesn’t want neither the obp nor ba since they both don’t tell how good a player is at driving runs in. Which is what Xtreem also said I believe.

Xtreem: “Oh yeah? If we’re talking about thumpers, how can BA be the most important thing? Tell me how many home runs a .300 hitter hits?
How many doubles? How many RBI does a .300 hitter have?”

Am I following this right so far?

Then to confirm xtreem’s point that ba has little use when discussing thumpers he said,
Xtreem: “Just so you know, Luis Castillo has a higher career batting average than Ken Griffey, Jr.”
Thereby comparing Griffey a known thumper to Castillo who is far from it.

Bayonn’es reply?
Bayonne: “Like I’ve said before you guys (I a$$ume saber people but I may be wrong apologies if I am wrong) like to take things out of context and run with and you just did again.”

Now I am not sure it is out of context since the discussion revolves around the topic of obp and ba but whatever.

Anyway if I am following things so far correctly Bayonne adds

Bayonne: “That ridiculous Castillo/Griffey comment you made can be said for their OBP i could assume although I’m not bothering to look it up.
I said about the thumpers their OBP would be the LAST thing I want to know.”

I agree 100% with Bayonne both obp and ba can be interchanged and the result would be the same. That Bayonne says that obp is the last thing
he wants to know is fair also. I would guess that ba is the 2nd to last thing he wants to know as well since both accomplish the same thing
when discussing thummpers.

Does that sound about right?

Stats that aren’t on the back of a
baseball card

People who discuss stats that aren’t on
the back of a baseball card

David Wright

For me reading narrow minded opinions and closing yourself off to any new ideas makes the whole Wilpon/Minaya error easier to understand.

In any event for what it’s worth (verl lil i suppose) I find value in both stats.

Only in saber can these silly types of debates occur.