I just got around to reading this Rob Neyer piece on why Sabermetrics is color-blind. He's trying to refute the Toronto Sun article and a more recent Ralph Wiley column. Ralph Wiley is my favorite Page 2 columnist, and his column is typically excellent. Rob takes issue with this paragraph:

It is usually the American-born blacks' records and place that are resented instead of celebrated. For example, it's the stolen base that is denigrated as a weapon by baseball sabermaticians like Bill James, at precisely the time when a Rickey Henderson steals 130 bases in a season. There are sour grapes when a baseball man uses stats to tell you a stolen base isn't important. Any time a baseball manager will give up an out for a base, as with a sac bunt or groundball to the right side, any time a base is so precious, then it goes without saying that the stolen base must be important. Not the CS, the caught stealing, or stats of success rates, but the stolen base itself.

To which Rob replies:

Let's start with Bill James, and his supposed disdain for Rickey Henderson's game.

In 1982 -- before Henderson stole 130 bases in a season -- Bill James wrote, "The greatest lead-off man in baseball, Henderson might be on his way to being the greatest lead-off man in baseball history."

In 1983 -- after Henderson stole 130 bases in a season - James wrote, "Henderson ranks as the best lead-off man in the league, which is not news."

In 2001 -- (apparently) near the end of Henderson's career -- James wrote, "Somebody asked me did I think Rickey Henderson was a Hall of Famer. I told them, 'If you could split him in two, you'd have two Hall of Famers.'"

But as I remember it, Bill did make a disparaging comment about Rickey's 130 steal season. His blurb about Henderson in his 1983 Baseball Abstract basically points out that Henderson's stolen base record did little for the team. He estimated that it only added 4.5 runs to Oakland's offense. He finishes the Henderson article with this:

Four and a half goddamn runs, and they want to give him an MVP award for it. But is it even that? What about Dwayne Murphy's hitting 0 and 1 or 0 and 2 all year? What about closing up the hole on the right side 172 times? Rickey Henderson's stolen base attempts didn't mean anything to the Oakland A's -- nothing at all. He's a great young ballplayer, but his selfish pursuit of the stolen-base record did not help the Oakland A's. It hurt them.

Rickey's 42 CS that year were also a record, and James is focusing on that, instead of the positive of the SB record. Wiley suggests that it is racist, but I think James would have made the same argument if Brett Butler had done it.

Rob's piece doesn't work for me because it's basically, "I have (choose your race) friends, so I'm not a racist." It's even weaker when he selectively quotes Bill James positively, without including his negative comments. I think his defense should be stronger than that.

Also, there is a misconception about the Sabermetricians and the stolen base that I want to clear up. Sabermetricians don't think the SB is bad. What they recognize is that the stolen base is a high risk play. Therefore, if you are going to use it, you better be in a situation in which the SB has a high likelihood of working. So you need a high percentage base stealer like Tim Raines, or be facing a team that can't throw out runners, like the Toronto Blue Jays. I believe, in those cases, sabermetricians would say, "Go wild!" But it's a secondary skill, and if you are choosing between Vince Coleman and Wade Boggs, don't take Vince Coleman simply because he can steal bases. Take Wade Boggs because he doesn't consume outs getting to first. Stolen bases themselves are not bad baseball; valuing them too highly is.