Henry Schulman no longer wants to hear about Fred Lewis’s OBP.
This is going to be an anti-Sabermetrics screed, specifically the notion that Lewis needs to be the Giants’ everyday left fielder because his .348 on-base percentage last year was 90 points higher than his .258 batting average. In other words, Lewis can take a walk.
I get e-mails like this all the time. I see this sort of comment on Internet boards. I’ve ignored them, hoping they will go away. Now, I feel compelled to say something after the Sports Illustrated baseball preview issue arrived in my mailbox.
I was told in no uncertain terms recently that I can’t quote more than two paragraphs from the Chronicle. This post deserves a righteous Fisking, however.
Schulman starts off with defense, that Lewis can’t play the outfield. However, Fangraphs rates him as saving runs in the outfield the last two years. Sorry Henry, the sabermetricans have you there.
He then points out that Lewis strikes out a lot, and that Lewis strikes out because, “he couldn’t really see that outside corner pitch very well last year because he backed off the plate, fearing he could not turn on the inside fastballs he was starting to see more often.” That came from Fred Lewis himself. Okay. If this was such a detriment, however, why did Lewis still have a .348 OBP? Lewis did go through streaks and slumps last year, but if he played more, they might have evened out a bit more, too.
So Lewis does a good job getting on base, especially compared to Nate Schierholtz. He plays the outfield just fine. Henry, however, doesn’t like taken third strikes, so Lewis can’t play. You poor people in San Francisco, unfortunately, have the writer, the GM and the manager all on the same page.
So because the SF Chronicle enforces it’s Copyright and thus will not allow you to quote more then two paragraphs you won’t provide a link? How petty. Here it is:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/giants/detail?&entry_id=60414
I will not quote anything either so as to not risk putting your site in violation of the SF Chronicle Copyright. But I will point out that the Joe Sheeham suggestion that Henry Schulman objected to was that Lewis replace Schierholtz in RF. Schulman makes the point (correctly in my view) that AT&T Park’s RF is a whole different animal compared to LF and is not only more difficult to play then LF but likely more difficult to play then CF as well. You can use UZR to quibble with Schulman and the Giants scouting driven view of Lewis as a LFer and I will agree with you. But even UZR recognizes how outstanding of an AT&T Park RFer Schierholtz is and I find it very hard to believe that you actually believe that Lewis could hold his own defensively with Schierholtz in RF at AT&T Park.
@giantsrainman: The link is there. Mouse over the first line.
@giantsrainman: And I would like an apology for being called petty, since you were wrong.
@David Pinto: Everywhere else I can find your links are in red so that one can visually see that you are providing one. Here they are not therefore I see no reason to apologize as you still treated the SF Chronicle differently after bitching about their enforcement of their Copyright.
@giantsrainman: The link is in red on my browser.
The only concern I’d have about Lewis, is that his slugging was under .400. But hey, have you seen his Home/Road splits? He’s great in SF… they need to play him every home game
Fred Lewis in 2009
Home: .288/.385/.418
Road: .228/.311/.362
Fred Lewis in 2008
Home: .331/.388/.525
Road: .233/.314/.353
@David Pinto: Ok, I have switched from Firefox to Internet Explorer and I see that it does show up as red under Internet Explorer but not under Firefox.
Thus I do indeed owe you an apology and you have it as I was indeed wrong to assume you were being petty.
This does leave me wondering, Why does only this link under my Firefox not show up as being red while all the others I can find do?
giantsrainman, in Firefox had you already been to the link before you came to this site? I’m using FF and the link was red. I went to the link, then came back here and it was gray. Well, bluish gray, but gray enough that if I wasn’t paying attention I’d have assumed it was normal text.
Also, I just want to say that I love this site and keep up the good work, Mr. Pinto.
@giantsrainman: My only guess is that you already visited the site. Links show up in different colors if they have been visited or not. The person who programmed my site made the visited color very close to the regular text color, and it’s really tough to tell in Firefox.
Wow, this is the first time I’ve ever seen really puerile behavior on this site. I’ve been reading for over a year, so that is amazing. When it happens this infrequently it just spices things up, and is fun and enjoyable.
That having been said, let me say that I have had pretty serious link-color problems in Firefox myself (not joking), but also that a great part of the appeal of this site is Pinto’s tremendous ethos.
Nate Schierholtz is 25 and had a 950 OPS his last full year in the PCL (I know it’s a weaker league than the International league).
He is a better defensive RF’er than the 28 yo Lewis, and is probably going to improve on his low OBP last year with regular playing time.
In the spirit of this discussion (LOL) I kind of understand his frustration with the saber folks though. They are getting like Climate Scientists, very intolerant of opposing views. Of course, that writer is also sipping the intolerance cool aid. For example, I just got suspended again from SOSH for trying to discuss runs produced with Morgan Ensberg and using JD as an example of how using stats on a rate basis can overstate their value when it comes to actual production over 162 games shedule (especially when you only start 127 games).
RBI’s and HR’s have no value in this new world order, just like CO2 from man will turn turn the planet into a green hell.
Those who say otherwise are deniers or flat earthers.
I guess my point is, I am fine with taking a minority position, and admit that maybe I am not 100% right, but lets stop with the adhominem attacks and censoring (not here, you are cool). If I want to try to convince someone that RBI’s have value if you adjust for opportunities and team, and that BB’s are overvalued in some cases (depending on team, batting order position, and quality of opposing pitcher), disagree with me, convinced me, don’t shut me up. Maybe the science is settled, but I missed much of the debate given my location in Asia for the last 25 years.
IMHO the saber world is getting too attached to their paradigm, which is becoming conventional wisdom. They should be reminded that the greatest obstacle to the truth is the illusion you already know it. Always question the conventional wisdom. Once the majority (including some sportswriters) believe something to be true, you know it must be wrong somehow.
OTOH, there are still some dinosauers working as sportswriters. The SF writer did not make a very good case, which could have been made using the saber stats he dislikes, even if he might be right in terms of who should play RF.
Right conclusion, wrong reasoning.
I was told in no uncertain terms recently that I can’t quote more than two paragraphs from the Chronicle.
On what grounds? That’s a complete misrepresentation of their copyright protections on the part of The Chronicle’s. I understand you don’t want to get sued, David, but they’re completely overstepping their legal bounds.
ptodd,
I have never seen sabermetritian say percentage of runners driven in is useless, specially if player in discussion is constantly above or constantly below average. Only raw RBI numbers are ridiculed, because number of men on base and man in scoring position is vastly different, depending on team and position in lineup.
@7 giantsrainman, I consistently use FF and David’s links always show up in red, including this one.
@12 Benjamin Kabak, I concur. I do think fisking falls under fair use, though there are going to have to be lawsuits & defenses to it. The first cases are going to be very costly so I can appreciate David for not wanting to go into expensive litigation.
Schulman is an idiot of the Dusty Baker variety (base cloggers!) & the sfgate looks very petty.