Thanks for the link!

That goes for me too...thanks!

You know what stinks about being a baseball hater? There's no off-season.

--------------------------------
"If I were in politics and presented myself as a Republican, I would
be admired by Democrats by despised by my fellow Republicans.
If I presented myself as a Democrat, I would popular with
Republicans but jeered and hooted by the Democrats."
--------------------------------

Hello? These two sentences are nonsensical; maybe
from bad typing?

Try this:

"If I were in politics and presented myself as a Republican, I would
be admired by Democrats 'BUT' despised by my fellow Republicans.
If I presented myself as a Democrat, I would 'BE' popular with
Republicans but jeered and hooted by the Democrats."

############################
Xiaolin Student: "What great lesson shall we learn
from this today?"

Master Fung: "Nothing."

Xiaolin Student: "oh."

Xiaolin Student: "Any small lessons?"

Master Fung: "Poor communication skills can
make one appear foolish and unknowledgeable."

#################################

James seems a bit self-satisfied, esp. in the bolded bits. There are Dems who disagree with standard Democratic positions but are well-liked by the mainstream, while others (thinking Joenertia) hold standard substantive positions but like to give cover to the other side and are widely despised as a result. I'm sure it's the same among reality-based Republicans. As long as one has the courage of one's convictions and stays self-consistent, one will get respect.
James isn't working for the anti-sabermetrists: he has a clear thought-out position and is respected for it, whatever the fringe thinks.

The bold part is fine, but the first sentence of the last paragraph serves as a brilliant endictment of much of American social science, and about 99% of economicists in their role as foreign advisers.

There is more to baseball than stats, and Bill James knows it. The bullpen-by-committee approach looks better on paper, and I'd have loved to see that approach succeed just to overturn the status quo. But relievers are people, and people like to know where they stand and what they're expected to do. Which is why bullpens do better when each reliever knows their role (I think it's also why teams that juggle lineups a lot tend to choke in pressure situations). James knows that stats aren't the whole story.

But baseball's statistics are still woefully bad, and thus it's the area James sees with the most room for improvement. One of the reasons closers are woefully misused is because players like having good stats and the save stat sucks ass.

I'm not sure the political comparison was all that apt, since the two camps in baseball are trying to solve the same problems but the two parties have different priorities altogether. But I guess the point is that you shouldn't really care too much about your reputation in either camp (especially in a two-party political system which results in ideologically inconsistent coalitions).

Thanks for the link. James is saying, in a long winded noisy way, something stated more succinctly as "Economics is to the economy as physics is to baseball."

Generally, "sabermetrics" is the accepted spelling, even though the other version makes more sense.

SABRmetrics (SABR: The Society for American Baseball Research)

to the tune of "if I were a carpenter"

If I were a Democrat
and you were a crazy
would you love me anyway?
would you vote against me?

also works with

If I were Republican
and you were a crazy
would you love me anyway?
would you vote against me?

Zevatron: I acknowledged that the other version makes sense. I know what the SABR is-- I was reading James' Abstracts when I was in diapers.

Nonetheless, sabermetrics is the accepted spelling.

Even by the SABR: http://sabr.org/sabr.cfm?a=cms,c,328