Sabermetrics

[Tyler]

In response to a recent dust-up down at the OOTP forums, I want to take what I consider a "reassurance poll." I assumed that the OOTP community at large was highly SABR-oriented. Although a few very loud opposing viewpoints can make for a long thread and exaggerate the size of a faction, I was still caught off guard. So, biased introduction aside, all I'm asking, fellow PEBA-ites, is - sabrmetrics: thumbs up, thumbs down?

[Tyler]

"D'oh!" on the spelling in the thread title.

[Badgers]

I am not exactly familiar with what that means. Can you give me a link so I can read?

[Tyler]

Just start playing around with links from here, after giving it a glance-over.

Sabermetrics

[Badgers]

Ah OK, I thought it was along the line of crazy baseball stats.

[Tyler]

Ah OK, I thought it was along the line of crazy baseball stats.

So, thumbs up or down?

[Badgers]

Thumbs up sir. I enjoy looking at those sort of things. The stats are hard to talk with a lot of fans about because they have no idea what they are. I enjoy them though.

[John]

I caught a bit of that dust-up over there. Sabermetrics are probably never going to catch on with the mainstream fan, but yeah, it's still kind of surprising that the kind of fan who would play a game like OOTP would still be out-of-tune with modern ways of looking at the game.

My feeling is you're doing yourself a disservice by ignoring Sabermetrics. It's not that this is some "be all and end all" perfect way of viewing the game of baseball. What Sabermetrics provides you with are additional tools to make evaluations. So while it's not going to necessarily replace the empirical data ye good olde fashioned scout will provide, it's another weapon in your arsenal that most fans won't access.

I can guarantee you that I use Sabermetrics when evaluating PEBA players, and in a game like this I think it's especially beneficial because we lack the ability to see these guys playing ourselves. I honestly believe that owners who commit time to learning Sabermetrics will gain an advantage over those who don't.