Last week on the ESPN2 show "First Take," one of the commentators said something like "AROD is in serious decline this year." Those may not have been the exact words, but it was words to that effect.
Well, AROD has a 131 OPS+ this year, while last year it was 123. Even in 2009, it was 138, so this year is not too much worse than that. He did have 176 in 2007 and 150 in 2008. So any decline he had was before this year. And he is 35 (and turns 36 on 7-27). So this is not surprising.
He is also 7th in the league in WAR and the last year he was in the top 10 was in 2008. So the commentators of "First Take" could just as easily have said he was having a good comeback season. But they never mentioned WAR or OPS or any stats like that.
This brings me to my point: There is still not much use of sabermetrics in the mainstream media. Some complain about the new statistics ruining baseball. But the mass media, which alot more people are exposed to than stats blogs, keeps saying things that don't make sabermetric sense. So no, the new stats are not taking over and ruining baseball. They have made only a slight dent.
When the show discussed who the Yankees MVP was so far this year, they said Mark Teixeira. But here are Yankee leaders in WAR:
Curtis Granderson 3.8
Alex Rodriguez 3.3
Brett Gardner 2.8
Robinson Cano 2.5
Nick Swisher 2.5
Mark Teixeira 1.8
Teixeira is 2nd on the team in OPS+. But Granderson has 157.
Another example of this is Hawk Harrelson on the game today talking about how the leadoff walk always scores. But no one on national TV or a super station like WGN ever mentions the work of Retrosheet head Dave Smith who showed that leadoff walks only score about as often as leadoff singles. See Leadoff walks.
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2 comments:
WHAT?!? Tex?? Did they even give any stats to support why? I live in Yankeeland and I ain't heard about anything besides Grandson's fantastic season so far. Even by traditional stats, it's clear as a bell.
Teixeira: .246 BA, 52 R, 25 HR, 65 RBI
Grandrsn: .278 BA, 77 R, 25 HR, 62 RBI
Even lookin' just a wee bit deeper, at OBP & SLG... Grandson definitely outweighs Tex at this point.
Ugh!
I can't recall everything that was said. One person said Tex because of the HRs then someone said "Granderson has almost as many" and I forgot the response. I don't think too many stats were used. But WHAT?!? Tex?? was about my response, too.
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