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    • Sunday, May 19, 2013

    MLB’s Best and Worst Catchers at Framing Pitches - Bloomberg Sports

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    posted 17 hours ago by Jim Furtado to defense, pitch framing, sabermetrics  |  1 comment(s)

    More on pitch framing.

    Reader Comments and Retorts

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    1. Walks Clog Up the Bases posted on November 19, 2012 at 08:33 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    That's pretty impressive she's able to churn out blog entries on a regular basis with her head plunged so deep into the sand.
    2. dr. scott posted on November 19, 2012 at 08:37 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    So there are high schools where if you are not smart they make fun of you? I thought that was the only benefit to being closeminded and non analytical... you got to be cool in High School.
    3. The District Attorney posted on November 19, 2012 at 08:41 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    For me, the reason I like sabermetrics is because it makes the sport something I can appreciate with my post-childhood brain.

    But I'm sure it is true that some people think this is essentially a form of math, and they don't like math. The ideal way to disavow someone of that notion would be to get them into it via James. Not all that practical nowadays.

    (Seriously, though, lady, graduating high school is a great time to stop talking about "nerds" and "geeks", if not preferably sooner.)
    4. Rickey Fredonia Fudge Duckery Precious Twiddle posted on November 19, 2012 at 08:52 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    So there are high schools where if you are not smart they make fun of you? I thought that was the only benefit to being closeminded and non analytical... you got to be cool in High School.


    First paragraph of TFA:

    "I spent my high school years at what was, at the time, one of the top secondary schools in New York City. After having failed to research the school’s curriculum beforehand, I slipped and fell into a sea of advanced mathematics and college-level science. A lover of words and music, I clung desperately to the few classes that offered those subjects while trying not to drown in formulas and advanced equations."
    5. Rickey Fredonia Fudge Duckery Precious Twiddle posted on November 19, 2012 at 08:53 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    (Seriously, though, lady, graduating high school is a great time to stop talking about "nerds" and "geeks", if not preferably sooner.)


    Hey, you know what will make the nerdist position on the argument more amenable to people not already in the choir? Casually and rudely dismissing anyone who writes an honest accounting of why they're not inclined to enjoy the mathier side of life out of hand.

    You kids are such dumbasses sometimes.
    6. vivaelpujols posted on November 19, 2012 at 09:02 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Wow that's pretty dumb.
    7. Rickey Fredonia Fudge Duckery Precious Twiddle posted on November 19, 2012 at 09:05 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Her timeline seems off to me. She says she joined SABR in the mid-80s, but threw away the newsletters, citing this as a reason for why she ignored sabermetric thinking. I suppose that makes enough sense to be plausible; if she threw away the SABR newsletters from the 80s she probably wouldn't have realized that SABR, the organization, didn't really embrace a statistical analysis bent until the late 90s at the earliest.
    8. AndrewJ posted on November 19, 2012 at 09:46 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Her timeline seems off to me. She says she joined SABR in the mid-80s, but threw away the newsletters, citing this as a reason for why she ignored sabermetric thinking. I suppose that makes enough sense to be plausible; if she threw away the SABR newsletters from the 80s she probably wouldn't have realized that SABR, the organization, didn't really embrace a statistical analysis bent until the late 90s at the earliest.

    This. SABR newsletters of the mid-1980s (I joined at the end of 1984) were still promoting basic demographic information, such as newly discovered birth dates for particular players, not trafficking in Runs Created or Linear Weights.
    9. Morty Causa posted on November 19, 2012 at 09:51 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Wonder if she knows how parse the on and off days in her ovulation cycle? Or would that be too geeky?
    10. OsunaSakata posted on November 19, 2012 at 09:56 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    11. DJ Funky and the Smile Time Variety Players posted on November 19, 2012 at 10:05 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    I love how she describes herself as "boldly" defending Albom's column on Twitter. What feats of heroic daring!

    Thinking too hard gives you wrinkles!
    12. Dale Sams posted on November 19, 2012 at 10:22 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    But I am sad no more. Two things have helped me feel better. The first is a Twitter attack. Several nerds and their sympathizers on my timeline slammed former Major Leaguer Duane Kuiper


    Having just watched The Bunker...every time she says nerd or geek (which she does seven times) I read it as "Jews".
    13. PreservedFish posted on November 19, 2012 at 10:53 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    So she went to Bronx Science or Brooklyn Tech or one of those types of places?

    I dislike math, I guess. I still remember how happy I was the moment I realized that I didn't need to take a single math class in college. But I love what math is capable of, and I love attacking problems with data, and math and baseball seem like good friends to me.
    14. Baseballs Most Beloved Figure posted on November 19, 2012 at 10:56 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Having just watched The Bunker...every time she says nerd or geek (which she does seven times) I read it as "Jews".
    Gotta hand it to you, that is one of the more creative examples of Godwin's Law.
    15. Esoteric throws a 'hard slider' posted on November 19, 2012 at 10:58 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Hey, you know what will make the nerdist position on the argument more amenable to people not already in the choir? Casually and rudely dismissing anyone who writes an honest accounting of why they're not inclined to enjoy the mathier side of life out of hand.

    You kids are such dumbasses sometimes.
    For perhaps the first time in my life, I'm in 100% agreement with Sam Hutcheson.
    16. OsunaSakata posted on November 19, 2012 at 10:58 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    I'm just surprised I haven't seen Hitler Reacts to Cabrera Winning AL MVP.
    17. GGC don't think it can get longer than a novella posted on November 19, 2012 at 11:04 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    I'm just surprised I haven't seen Hitler Reacts to Cabrera Winning AL MVP.


    (Forget) that. Has Chavez chimed in?
    18. phredbird  posted on November 19, 2012 at 11:08 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    19. Long Time Listener, First Time Caller posted on November 19, 2012 at 11:10 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0



    Hey, you know what will make the nerdist position on the argument more amenable to people not already in the choir? Casually and rudely dismissing anyone who writes an honest accounting of why they're not inclined to enjoy the mathier side of life out of hand.

    You kids are such dumbasses sometimes.


    FTA:

    These were the nerds who understood complex formulas and who often scored 100% on state regents (standardized final exams) in subjects like trigonometry and physics. I, myself, was not a nerd. I never scored higher than 79% on any math or science regents.

    Though I never failed any regents, I did fail many a test during the school year. One of those failures prompted a nerdy girl to say to me: “How could you fail it? It was so easy!”

    analogy development goes here

    So there I was, ready to give up and leave the stats to the baseball nerds.



    You're absolutely right. A totally good faith exploration of both those she went to high school with and the SABRmetric community. Especially given the innocuousness of the post you quoted, it seems like you're just pushing an agenda here irrespective of the actual discussion going on here.
    20. Dale Sams posted on November 19, 2012 at 11:11 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Gotta hand it to you, that is one of the more creative examples of Godwin's Law.


    Sorry, it was the whole "..and their sympathizers.." .
    21. Bob Tufts posted on November 19, 2012 at 11:16 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    I was not a fan of advanced metrics and their application to baseball for a long time. It reminded me of my nefarious Wall Street brethren who hired science and math majors to design equations for black box trading systems that almost destroyed the world's financial structure.

    When I left the futures and foreign exchange area and went to the equities side of the business, I was able to see that it was all about determining proper value of an asset and its productive abilities.
    22. zonk posted on November 19, 2012 at 11:26 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    I love how she describes herself as "boldly" defending Albom's column on Twitter. What feats of heroic daring!


    The oppressed have become the oppressors!

    Weren't we supposed to get villas, dachas, or something? Or at least T-shirts, when this glorious day fulfilling the promise of the revolution came to pass?
    23. andrewberg posted on November 19, 2012 at 11:32 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Hey, you know what will make the nerdist position on the argument more amenable to people not already in the choir? Casually and rudely dismissing anyone who writes an honest accounting of why they're not inclined to enjoy the mathier side of life out of hand.

    You kids are such dumbasses sometimes.


    She is not trying to start a conversation and is not asking to be persuaded. She is using ad hominems toward people she irrationally dislikes due to youthful insecurities she couldn't let go. The article is not a dialogue- she literally says she is scared of long division- so dismissing it as stupid is a response in kind.
    24. LooseCannon posted on November 19, 2012 at 11:38 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    The "back to high school" sentiment is pretty obviously a motivator. If you didn't realize that, you might have been one of those nerds who is book smart but doesn't understand people at all.
    25. Los Angeles El Hombre of Anaheim  posted on November 19, 2012 at 11:43 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Concur with #23. She's not just saying that she doesn't understand the big math, but that because she doesn't, nobody else should either.
    26. Bob Meta-Meusel posted on November 19, 2012 at 11:46 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    She is not trying to start a conversation and is not asking to be persuaded. She is using ad hominems toward people she irrationally dislikes due to youthful insecurities she couldn't let go. The article is not a dialogue- she literally says she is scared of long division- so dismissing it as stupid is a response in kind.


    Not to mention that it would be redundant, since the main point of the article is that she's stupid, proud of it, doesn't want to be bothered learning anything complex, and people who are smarter than her are mean.

    Despite that, she admits she's actually learned a few things (like W-L record not meaning anything). I actually take out of this that if she can manage to make progress, however slight, then it's actually an encouraging sign that people who aren't complete Luddites must be doing even better, and continued progress is inevitable.
    27. djrelays posted on November 20, 2012 at 12:52 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    This woman may love music, but it's unlikely she understands it. Harmonic music is absolutely mathematical, and can be understood by the deaf merely by looking at the spacial relationships of one note to another. That's math.

    If you can't understand the math--or choose not to--you can't understand the music. You may like the music, but understanding it and having a more richly rewarding appreciation of it is lost.
    28. morineko posted on November 20, 2012 at 12:54 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Wonder if she knows how parse the on and off days in her ovulation cycle? Or would that be too geeky?


    There's an app for that.

    ...anyway, after RTFA, she thinks Duane Kuiper is a journalist. He's one of the few former players who does play-by-play as opposed to commentary, but that's still not journalism. I'll quit feeding the troll now.
    29. theboyqueen posted on November 20, 2012 at 02:06 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    If you can't understand the math--or choose not to--you can't understand the music. You may like the music, but understanding it and having a more richly rewarding appreciation of it is lost.


    This is as stupid as anything in the article (which is pretty stupid). Everything in the universe is "mathematical". Everything in the universe is also other things.
    30. Arnett Mead (Arjun) posted on November 20, 2012 at 02:42 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    You know what's weird? I know a fair number of people, of several generations, who were never all that interested in math, and became very mathematical people because of how much they loved baseball and, by extension, how much they got into playing around with baseball stats as kids. I don't mean WAR or something - I mean calculating batting average and on-base percentage on their own, for their own players each day, from the box score or ESPN. I know that baseball's been a positive source of mathematics understanding for a lot of people, for a long time, so it's interesting that the author of this piece never felt that way.
    31. Cooper Nielson posted on November 20, 2012 at 03:53 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    If you can't understand the math--or choose not to--you can't understand the music. You may like the music, but understanding it and having a more richly rewarding appreciation of it is lost.

    Nomination for most pretentious comment of the year.
    32. Dr. Vaux posted on November 20, 2012 at 05:14 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    I would say that you can have a more richly rewarding appreciation of anything by understanding aspects of it that you don't already understand. That's why people think it's good to learn stuff, right?
    33. bookbook posted on November 20, 2012 at 05:27 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    I like that we managed to throw a bit of sexism into the conversation. Definitely improves the geeky image.
    34. BrianBrianson posted on November 20, 2012 at 05:53 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Is it a right to remain ignorant? I don't know, but I refuse to find out!
    35. vivaelpujols posted on November 20, 2012 at 06:12 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    The main problem is that most of sabermetrics is really easy to understand. Don't get me wrong I hated high school math as well and I haven't touched a trig or algebra problem in years. But sabermetrics is not about complex math, its about simple, logical concepts.

    So basically the dumb thing about this article is the author kind of stupid and is proud of it. That's kind of like the definition of dumb, right?

    I disagree that you need to understand math to understand music.
    36. jyjjy posted on November 20, 2012 at 08:04 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Don't get me wrong I hated high school math as well and I haven't touched a trig or algebra problem in years. But sabermetrics is not about complex math, its about simple, logical concepts.

    Simple, logical concepts almost exclusively based in algebra.
    37. Lassus posted on November 20, 2012 at 08:22 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    For perhaps the first time in my life, I'm in 100% agreement with Sam Hutcheson.

    Opposite. While I often do, I don't here.

    Disagreeing with you is no problem, though, Eso! :-)
    38. vivaelpujols posted on November 20, 2012 at 08:23 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Algebra got pretty complicated once you got into pre-calc and trig. I should say I haven't had to use anything above 9th grade math (with the exception of statistics, which isn't really math) while practicing sabermetrics, and I've written many complex research pieces.
    39. Double-Spin Mechanic posted on November 20, 2012 at 08:34 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    I would say that you can have a more richly rewarding appreciation of anything by understanding aspects of it that you don't already understand.


    Getting an engineering degree (OK, not getting the degree but taking the classes and learning exactly what's going on) made lava lamps no fun at all.

    They were very little fun in the first place, but now - zero fun.
    40. RMc don't hate anyone Asian posted on November 20, 2012 at 08:52 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    I've been obsessed with numbers since I was a little kid. (Math, especially advanced math, not so much. I've always hated those damn deltas and sigmas.) As I got older, I discovered most other people hated numbers and would do anything to avoid them. (This goes double for my wife, and indeed every woman I've ever met.)

    Trying to figure numbers makes most people feel dumb, so they don't do it; people who are good at numbers are (occasionally) envied or (usually) scorned as "nerds" and worse. And using numbers to evaluate a sporting event? That's just wrong.
    41. Lassus posted on November 20, 2012 at 09:08 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    I've been obsessed with numbers since I was a little kid.

    I was obsessed with numbers AS a little kid, but when literature really got going for me, calculus just started to be annoying.
    42. JJ1986 posted on November 20, 2012 at 09:13 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Even if you only had your eyes and the stats on the back of a baseball card, Trout still seems like the MVP. It doesn't require any calculated stats.
    43. Liver of blaspheming 'zop posted on November 20, 2012 at 09:35 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    This woman went to a mediocre high school and an even worse college and she's complaining about the geeky overachieving math nerds she was surrounded by? Say what?
    44. SandyRiver posted on November 20, 2012 at 10:17 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    I've been obsessed with numbers since I was a little kid. (Math, especially advanced math, not so much. I've always hated those damn deltas and sigmas.) As I got older, I discovered most other people hated numbers and would do anything to avoid them. (This goes double for my wife, and indeed every woman I've ever met.)

    Haven't met my daughter, then, or my (now retired) math teacher sister-in-law. Ü
    However, the above mirrors my experience - quickness in arithmetic/algebra that became aversion to calculus (even when I got good grades - on my 2nd try at the subject.) I've long realized that I was the weird one, not my friends for whom numbers remain something of a mystery.

    Trying to figure numbers makes most people feel dumb, so they don't do it; people who are good at numbers are (occasionally) envied or (usually) scorned as "nerds" and worse. And using numbers to evaluate a sporting event? That's just wrong.

    I had occasion to read a book titled "Innumeracy", wordplay on illiteracy, and it aptly described not just folks' dislike of math but their frequent and blatant misuse of it. I think this lady might qualify on both counts.
    45. Tippecanoe posted on November 20, 2012 at 10:18 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    The blog says that SLG gave her the heebies. So she's talking about arithmetic, not even any sort of statistical concept. The article is the equivalent of facing the camera and declaring "I am @LadyBatting, and I am not smarter than a 5th grader."

    46. jyjjy posted on November 20, 2012 at 10:44 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Yeah, there's so many stats for which that line would have been perfectly reasonable... saying slugging % is beyond you is just sad.
    47. Double-Spin Mechanic posted on November 20, 2012 at 11:00 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    Yeah, there's so many stats for which that line would have been perfectly reasonable... saying slugging % is beyond you is just sad.


    But, but...

    You have to add AND divide!
    48. Tippecanoe posted on November 20, 2012 at 11:59 AM #  hit 0 | hit 0


    But, but...

    You have to add AND divide!


    When I was starting 4th grade, Joe Torre was in the process of winning the batting title for the local team. I remember the playground discussion taking place about exactly what was meant by 'batting average'. The first theory was that it represented 1 for a single, 2 for a double, etc., and added (i.e., total bases). That was quickly shot down -- at least one smarty-pants recognized that you had to divide by at-bats. Only after consulting the back of a baseball card -- I believe Rod Carew's -- did we recognize it for what it was. So the fourth graders figured out SLG, total bases, and BA right there at the monkey bars. This all took place literally among the chickens in rural southern Illinois (Cardinal's fans, even), quite a ways from some MIT-prep academy like Hunter College Elementary on the Upper East Side.
    49. bachslunch posted on November 20, 2012 at 12:03 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    If you can't understand the math--or choose not to--you can't understand the music. You may like the music, but understanding it and having a more richly rewarding appreciation of it is lost.

    One can listen to and enjoy music on many levels, from analytic (such as: hearing how motivic fragments are used throughout) to not (such as: cool tunes! cool sounds!). I'm not convinced it's a bad thing to experience music on one or several levels, including just non-mathematical, non-analytic ones. Some folks never reach an analytic or mathematical level of appreciating music but love it just the same. I've written music before, and it's equally enjoyable for me to hear someone say they liked the work on a purely visceral level, on a purely analytic level, or a combination of these.
    50. Loren F. posted on November 20, 2012 at 12:15 PM #  hit 0 | hit 0

    First, "Innumeracy" is, like illiteracy, a real thing, and it's a real problem in our country. One aspect of this problem is that many people believe that they can't "get" math, and so they don't. That's different from people trying to do math and failing.

    Second, I agree with Sam H. I don't think it serves the best interests of BBTF, baseball or statistics to heap scorn on this writer. She might visit this site and then what will have been accomplished? She doesn't sound stoopid, although she holds some positions that I and many of us disagree with. Judging her may be a nice way of amusing oneself, but it serves no practical purpose. I am sure many posters will disagree with my approach. But I thought that, along with a love of baseball, the premise of this site was to understand and explore what really works in baseball -- what scores runs, what prevents runs, how should a roster really be constructed, etc. And the scorn and judging on display here does not meet the standard of "What works?"

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