What I continually run into among those at the top of the stat innovating field is just that- a push to see this game we love in a newer, more complete way. Just as Bill James, working nights as a silo security guard, wasn’t writing his abstracts to simply make money- what were the chances such an approach would lead to Bill James becoming who he is?- there’s a hunger to see what is an endlessly complicated game in new ways.
This is the reason I write- whatever other professions are out there, the number of moving parts, new wrinkles and fantastic outcomes that baseball has is what keeps me interested in it, year after year. It wouldn’t be possible to continually see something new in games after viewing thousands of them if this were a simple game.
And this is a matter of opinion- but any advance in statistics that allows me a more accurate view of a hitter’s worth, a pitcher’s worth, or best yet (due to the relative lack of advancement in this area) a defensive player’s worth is a hell of a lot more valuable than ranch Doritos or new Coke. I think we are lucky to have writers pushing the edges of understanding in such a complicated field. Ironically enough, it is the writers from Fangraphs, The Hardball Times and other such outlets- which I understand are far less profitable than Baseball Prospectus- who are making the biggest leaps in thinking. Dan Szymborski also deserves to be singled out here- and it is criminal how little he makes from, for instance, ZIPS.
If they can eventually make enough to allow them to make a living writing about such things, all the better. It can’t- and shouldn’t- cast any doubt on the work they are doing.
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On a less hilarious note...
I never understand people who claim that in depth statistical analysis make baseball boring. After my initial childhood fandom in around 1989-1995 there was a lull where I didn't follow baseball too closely for a few years, and it was sabermetrics that brought me back in. It's like people who say they really love a book or movie, but would never in a million years want to sit in a group and have a discussion about it. As if thinking about things ruined them or something.
However, Cool Ranch Doritos are very good. I can understand deriding lesser Doritos, but not the Lord of Buttermilk Deliciousness.
The Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream and the Drumstick Sundae Cone Ice Cream are out of this world though. Two best new flavors I've had in a long time.
I had the same experience. My late teens to early 20s when I had stopped playing ball competitively were real lulls in my fandom. The internet and sabremetrics were both huge factors in bringing me back to the baseball obsessiveness that I had as a kid.
Same here. Plus I lost my team. Which kind of hurts one's fandom of a game.
Agreed, though, that that piece, by Silva, is not worth reading.
Don Harvey died?
After what's been said in the thread, I'm not going to look up the original post. But I think Howard touches on something here - it has nothing to do with baseball. How do you monetize the Internet? How do you pay people who have good ideas or good skills, while getting the chaff who just happen to have a distribution deal out of there?
I think it'll take the same sort of outside-the-box thinking that got Voros to develop DIPS - a smart guy (or girl, of course) who spends the time and energy to market baseball ideas rather than having new ones. The odds are against this person, though. Many smart people have tried and failed to find a way to make money from ideas on the Net.
And lots have made money from good ideas on the net as well.
Basically the companies that make money on the net are the companies that do all the heavy lifting for you and give simply button clicking tasks to complete your transactions. Amazon.com, EBay, Google, and such all make money because all make your life easier.
I think those trying to simply sell you information are the ones that have the uphill battle.
They're aggregators - for the most part, they sell other people's products, rather than generating their own. Is the future of commerce on the Net only bright for the companies which just compile and make easier the transactions which used to live elsewhere? To use your example from above, does Google make a mint if they're writing news stories, rather than linking to them? The entities that generate the content are taking a bath right now, and I wonder if there's much incentive to create something new, rather than to distribute something old, online.
I like Craigslist. But if all of the technology and all of the distributed ability of Internet users is only capable of an online classified section, then I would say that the Internet has been a failure.
What is a grocery store but an unplugged internet site? A bank? A credit card?
Give us money and we'll make your life easier. Planes, cars, restaurants, malls, so on and so on.
Considering that googling is spending a fortune mapping the country, scannin books, and so forth that it won't be long before they do purchase a news wire simply for the content.
Media companies purchased sports teams simply for content and they would purchase production companies as well if Wasserman had allowed it.
The internet isn't just a giant classifieds. It is so much more than that. It is a bookstore, a television station, a jukebox, giant billboard, a movie theater, a town hall, a garage sale, the local gathering place, so on and so on. And there are people making lots of money for each of those categories.
The problem is that when repackaging "old" media like television and movies on a giveaway platform, there's no money left over for the actual content producers to make scratch. If Google purchases a news wire, how do they make money giving it away? If they don't give it away, how do they make money from it sufficient to cover their costs?
*EDIT*
Agree. The problem is that a grocery store charges enough for its products to pay off the wholesaler, the farmer, etc. The Tubes don't charge that sort of money.
And you obtained your intimate knowledge regarding the taste of decomposing corpses . . . how?
TV and radio give away their product and they have been doing it for decades.
And you obtained your intimate knowledge regarding the taste of decomposing corpses . . . how?
I'm a chef.
Yes, but with ad space due to their mass followings
When the internet can come up with something as good as According to Jim, Mr. Belvedere or the Chevy Chase Show THEN the analogy will be apt.
The internet doesn't have to come up with anything it already exists. TV and internet are not mutually exclusive.
When I moved to DC I did not bring along a TV and yet I've seen every episode of House, Office, Always Sunny, Venture Bros, Eureka, True Blood, and Rescue ME.
EDIT: I also have never seen an episode of Always Sunny on TV, even though it is my favourite show in existence right now. Though that has more to do with the country I live in and its lousy channel options than the TV vs. internet battle
For me it was fantasy baseball (a DMB league to be precise). That led me back to the stat geek stuff, and that led me to try and come up with my own edge.
-- MWE
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