Toronto Star: The Richard Griffin Mailbag

With Michael Kay is off trying to lock down Andre Kertesz’s nephew, Glorby and Nana Grizol for his faltering CenterStage…we are stuck with Griff. (apologies to Lorne Greene)

Q: First an apology - I ripped you ruthlessly when Riccardi came to town because I thought you misunderstood the sabermetric arguments about baseball. What I failed to take into account was that General Managers need to know more than stats to be successful. You were certainly right to be cautious of some of Riccardi’s characteristics….

A: Back when SABR was starting up as a loose association of sober, serious baseball researchers, I was with a now relocated NL franchise in an undefined executive role (I am being vague about the actual team and job because I know how much some readers hate any mention of the Expos and me being a PR guy). In any case, I was an honourary, card-carrying member of SABR for all the support I offered. I love sabermetrics. But the word and the concept at some point were commandeered (like jihad and Jihad) and those who looked at baseball any other way than by the numbers were considered weak and uninformed.

The fact is there has always been room for both traditional and stat-based evaluation of players within the same organization and that is the reason why scouts and old-school GMs were upset with the unblinking stat geeks who sought to take over the game. Because while the old-school execs were sincerely in the process of bringing computer-generated data into their own old-school worlds, they were constantly being dissed and dismissed; taunted as dinosaurs of the game. It’s become better now in terms of coexistence and understanding at the executive level now that many of Billy Beane’s protégés have been humbled and/or fired. Beane is still an original. J.P., a former protégé, is a wannabe and that explains the comparative uses of Thomas in terms of money spent for value as you have outlined above.