Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
August 22, 2008
Bad Year for Sabermetric Teams
Manny Acta

Manny Acta argues with Rob Drake.
Photo: Icon SMI

My comment about Manny Acta at MetsBlog.com drew this response from Peter Gammons:
Manny Acta is a sabermetrics student and the only manager who ever dropped a VORP on me. He has the worst team in baseball.

That got me thinking. Sabermetric teams really disappointed in 2008.

  • Manny Acta's Nationals own the worst record in the majors.
  • The Cleveland Indians stand 14 games out of first place.
  • The Blue Jays put together a good pitching staff, but couldn't match it with a decent offense.
  • The Oakland Athletics started in contention but trades threw them into a tailspin.
  • Detroit didn't live up to the hype of their winter trades.
  • San Diego sits in last place in the NL West.
  • Trey Hillman's Royals haven't improved, and sabermetric pitcher Brian Bannister pitched poorly.

The Red Sox and Diamondbacks are still in contention. Arizona hasn't blown anyone away, however, and the Red Sox in a three-way race for the wild card. The biggest triumph was Baseball Prospectus's prediction that the Rays would win 88 games. I'm not sure if the Tampa Bay front office is statistically oriented, but they seem to be making moves as if they were. If true, their success will be a big victory for the science.


Posted by David Pinto at 06:20 PM | Management | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I'd guess this has a lot to do with small-market teams often resorting to sabermetrics before large-market teams. Whether or not you believe in VORP, 40 million extra in payroll goes a long way.

Posted by: Alex at August 22, 2008 07:14 PM

I'd guess this has a lot to do with small-market teams often resorting to sabermetrics before large-market teams. Whether or not you believe in VORP, 40 million extra in payroll goes a long way.

Posted by: Alex F. at August 22, 2008 07:14 PM

I'd guess this has a lot to do with small-market teams often resorting to sabermetrics before large-market teams. Whether or not you believe in VORP, 40 million extra in payroll goes a long way.

Posted by: Alex F. at August 22, 2008 07:14 PM

"Manny Acta is a sabermetrics student and the only manager who ever dropped a VORP on me. He has the worst team in baseball."

Acta has very little to do with acquring talent for his ballclub, so Gammons' comment makes no sense. He could be the best baseball mind of the century and he'd still have dick to work with when filling out his lineup card every night.

Posted by: Joe at August 22, 2008 07:38 PM

I wouldn't just poopoo the accomplishments of the Rays. Sure they've built through the draft, but their emphasis this past offseason on revamping their defense was numbers based. And, while the A's may not be having a successful season in the win column, Billy Beane accurately evaluated his team in early July and acted accordingly. He knew they weren't as good as their record and traded away his most marketable pieces. I think that nearly every team--whether they admit it or not--uses sabermetrics these days. They'd be foolish not to.

Posted by: WillClark4HOF at August 22, 2008 08:20 PM

The STL cardinals, who fired their GM because he wouldn't play nice with the sabermetrician Jeff Luhnow, are doing a lot better than gammons etc expected.

Posted by: sleepyca at August 23, 2008 03:43 AM

I wouldn't lump the Pirates with the sabremetricians just yet; that transition has yet to be completed.

This debate gets less and less helpful with each passing day, though. At some point, someone needs to explore the connection between so-called stats-based analysis and actual wins and losses. When Billy Beane's teams were successful enough to warrant having a book written about them, they were achieving that success with hitters that he crabs about throughout the book, Miguel Tejada being the prime example. Those hitters (and, crucially, Mulder, Zito and Hudson) left, and....?

Both sides have their retreat positions that can't be challenged. Joe Morgan can say that David Eckstein's clutchiness can't be measured; statheads, for their part, have never gotten a prediction wrong -- the player just hasn't regressed to the mean yet.

I'd love to see a neutral analysis of the effect of these principles on winning. Here, we have a bunch of losing teams thrown in the SABR camp, but these teams all HAVE CRAPPY PLAYERS. If SABR-allstars are being run out there every day on these teams, as opposed to other players who don't walk a lot or something, then we've started to draw a connection. But as someone noted, Manny Acta isn't an alchemist.

Posted by: KPatrick at August 23, 2008 08:45 AM

SABR has things ass backwards - you don't play well because you put up good stats - you put up good stats because you play well.

Posted by: Bandit at August 25, 2008 11:50 AM
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