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Monday, January 12, 2009

Salon: Kaufman: Ignorance is not a sportswriting skill

Kindred Spirit: Passarella? Passamathquiz!

Kindred doesn’t boast about his ignorance, but he laughs it off in about the same way I might laugh off some of my shortcomings, such as being handsome and generous to a fault.

I’m sick of this, just bone sick of it. Sorry, Dave Kindred. You were the last straw is all.

This is the current literature in our field. Keep up with it.

It’s one thing to criticize the new stats. VORP and WARP, for example, are proprietary statistics of Baseball Prospectus, which doesn’t show the math behind them. BP’s defensive stats, which are an element of WARP, have been called into particular question by some experts. I don’t have the math chops to take Win Shares apart, but I think some of its assumptions are a little off.

But it’s another thing to simply dismiss them without bothering to figure out what they’re all about. And then to try to pass this off as wisdom.

Repoz Posted: January 12, 2009 at 05:13 AM | 4 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
Tags: hall of fame, history, media, sabermetrics

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1. Dock Ellis on Acid

Posted: January 12, 2009 at 05:48 AM (#3049186)

WHAT IS TEH VORP THAT SOUNDS LIKE A NOISE A ROBOT MAKES WHEN IT IS BREAKING DOWN OR SOME THING LOL

/Kindred, Chass, et al

2. ekogan Posted: January 12, 2009 at 06:01 AM (#3049193)

The by far more interesting article is where King Kaufman discusses watching Don Larsen's 1956 perfect game.

3. Jeff K. Posted: January 12, 2009 at 06:23 AM (#3049208)

I thought this was going to be about the writer that admitted to not knowing what OPS was twelve months ago. We had a thread, King made a couple of comments, thought he'd decided to drag it up front on Salon. This? Meh. KK, I think you're a little harsh on Kindred. He said something tongue-in-cheek. I understand your viewpoint, but hell, in this day and age in this country, I'm mildly pleased when anti-intellectualism isn't overt and aggressive, so lighthearted is okay. Then again, I can see that were I you, I might well feel the same way. This may not be the motivation, but hearing a guy who has gotten as many opportunities as Kindred lightly brush away something as vital as advanced statistics when you haven't (yet, I truly believe you will) gotten them despite a lot of hard work.

Incidentally, you think Salon could change what they call your archive? "Currently in King Kaufman" is not something I care to ponder, though I would bet on it if Vegas was laying odds.

4. JMM Posted: January 12, 2009 at 04:41 PM (#3049409)

Incidentally, you think Salon could change what they call your archive? "Currently in King Kaufman" is not something I care to ponder, though I would bet on it if Vegas was laying odds.

I'll put a couple large on Islets of Langerhans at 15 to 1.

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Monday, January 12, 2009

Salon: Kaufman: Ignorance is not a sportswriting skill

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