The boom in baseball sabermetrics has been great for baseball fans who aspire to get as close to the game as possible. We long to be in the dugout to witness the amazing feats that only the best baseball players in the world can pull off. We’d love to be high stepping next to Pedro Strop after Kris Bryant hits a game-winning home run. To be there when Jon Lester and Jake Arrieta sit down and talk pitch sequencing. To be a fly on the wall when everyone on the team heard they’d have to wear onesies on the plane.
But we can’t, and we never will.
The numbers, however, give us a way to get up close and personal with the game and the players we’re so passionate about. We immerse ourselves in them, using their objective powers to make bold statements about what should and shouldn’t be done next. Like toddlers in a sandbox, we relish in letting the numbers run through our fingers as if we too are part of the game we love.
But we can’t be on the field or in the dugout, and we never will be. What we can do is all kinds of analytic gymnastics to try to get to those essential truths that, deep down, we know are only truly known by Major League Baseball players and those with access to them.
We can tell Joe Maddon to play this guy against lefties because of the numbers. We can demand the front office trade Starlin Castro for Tyson Ross because of the numbers. We point to the mockery that Kyle Schwarber is making of major-league pitching and demand he play every single inning, regardless of where he is on the field. We look at the numbers that David Ross puts up and we wonder if he should be playing at all.
Twitter was in an uproar about the amount of playing time David Ross was getting while Miguel Montero was on the DL.
“Look at the numbers!” statheads exclaimed. Look at all the ways that Ross hurts an offense that’s already struggling to score runs on a consistent basis:
- He’s not a good hitter (lifetime .230 hitter, but in last two seasons more of a .180 hitter)
- When Lester pitches, it’s like having two automatic outs in the lineup, which is bad for Lester as it puts pressure on him to be “even better”
- Yes, his pitch framing is good, but not good enough to make up for his lack of offense
- Schwarber should be playing every single day, how can you keep that bat out of the lineup?!
- Ross makes the lineup softer for the other team. Whoever bats in front of him will get nothing to hit. They’ll pitch around that guy to get to Ross and Lester, creating a nice safe haven for opposing pitchers—which comes in very handy when things get hairy. Basically, it’s a rally killer.
- Look at the run support the pitchers have had recently…the team is at a disadvantage when Ross is in the lineup…a big one!
- He’s so bad he bunted with two outs and the bases loaded!! (and almost beat the throw, I should point out)
The counter arguments to this flurry of analytical excess can be summed up in one phrase that swiftly puts all us fans in our place, “You just don’t know how valuable he is in that clubhouse.”
As fans, there’s no counterargument, no retort, nothing we can say to that—at least not one lacking in snark. There are no numbers that can illuminate for us the off-field intangibles that a player like Ross contributes to the team.
And it reminded me: there’s so much more we don’t know.
We don’t know what it’s like to be in a slump and to hear your home fans boo you. We don’t know what it’s like to play baseball every single day for months on end despite the nicks and bruises that inevitably happen. We don’t know what it’s like to carry the rising expectations of an entire nation of fans on our 20-year-old shoulders.
Edwin Jackson was revered despite what the numbers (and our eyes) told us. There’s a reason for that. Did you see the outpouring of love and near-tears when the team released their worst pitcher? There’s a reason for that.
It tells us that there’s something more. Something we can’t and may never have access to.
Which can be depressing. What’s a fan to do about being left out in the cold from the warm confines of the clubhouse?
I’ll tell you what we can do: listen to the people who do have access whose opinions we trust and ask them to illuminate for us. Like Len Kasper:
I'm gonna say it right now. If you don't like/appreciate David Ross, you don't like baseball.
— Len Kasper (@LenKasper) July 27, 2015
Like Sahadev Sharma’s piece on Jake Arrieta that combines both number crunching and old-fashioned “getting to know the player” in a way that helps bring the rest of us closer to the game.
Like former Cub John Baker’s piece on playing the right way and balancing that with having fun. It is, after all, a game.
What I’m trying to say is this: the numbers are great. They’ve allowed us to participate more equally in smart conversations about the game. But there’s more—so much more. And if we really want to call ourselves students of the game, we need to find the right people with the right access and listen closely to what they have to say.
As fans, it’s the best we can do.