Via Baseball Primer Newsblog, the Indians Chris Antonetti talks about ability and luck:
Q: Are all the statistics discovered now in baseball or are there still some things that need to be quantified that aren’t?
A: There are still a lot of areas in which to better evaluate players. A lot of the end results – doubles, triples, singles – those types of results are outcome-based. They are not just the evaluation of how did that batter do in that batter-pitcher performance.
In other words, say Travis Hafner hits a line-drive double into the left-center field gap. One time, hitting that exact same ball off the exact same pitcher, one time there is (the Twins’) Torii Hunter in center field, and one time there is a center fielder who is not nearly Torii Hunter’s defensive equal. Torii Hunter happens to make a great diving catch in left-center field. That other center fielder, the less capable defensive center fielder, doesn’t make that play. Travis Hafner did the exact same thing. He hit the ball in the exact same spot off the exact same pitcher. But one time it’s Torii Hunter. He makes the catch, and it’s an out. The other time its the not-quite-as-good center fielder, and it’s a double. But Travis Hafner didn’t do anything differently.
So to the extent that we can measure those kinds of things more precisely and take more luck out of the equation, I think we have the opportunity to develop better methods for evaluating actual performance on what guys did.
To what extent can this equation take into account a player’s positioning? How about whether the coaches moved the OF’er 5 feet in the correct/incorrect direction of the batted ball just prior to it being hit in play? What about weather conditions? Day games vs. night games? What about the corner OF’ers – does this particular CF “cheat” toward one of them b/c they have notoriously bad range thereby decreasing his chances of getting to balls hit in the opposite gap?
I don’t kow. There’s something way too nerdy and, ultimately, way too inexact about some of these metrics. I understand one person’s desire to quantify everything possible but it seems to me that you begin to rob any essence of enjoyment from the game when you break it down to this level. Not to mention that everyone I know rarely needs an encyclopedia of statistics to measure a player’s aggregate skill. Can stats be fun/informative? Sure. But this is where I personally draw the line.
That would be why Antonetti is the special assistant to one of the better GMs in all of baseball and you’re posting comments on a baseball site.
No offense intended.
pwned.