Hall of Famers Discuss Sabermetrics

Ever wondered what some of the all-time great Hall of Famers would have to say about the new wave of sabermetrics sweeping through the coverage of baseball?

Note: The following is a work of fiction. None of the players named were interviewed for this article.

I recently went to a conference on the future of baseball. The discussion focused on how the use of new sabermetrics for the last 15 years will affect the players for the next fifteen years. For instance, which ones are real key to understanding and predicting success?

As the event was held in Cooperstown, NY, I took the opportunity to walk through the Baseball Hall of Fame and speak with some of the great players enshrined there.

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The first person I met was Pete Rose, who was sitting out front.

“Hi, Pete. Great to see you again. Pete, you were a great player and I want to get your perspective. What do you think of things like BAPIP, FIP and VORP?”

“Hey man, I don’t know what the heck you are talking about but you know I deserve to be inside, don’t ya?”

“Well, yes, I guess so but I wasn’t really wanting to talk about that. Those are some of the new baseball statistics that are really driving the game right now. How valuable are they to predicting success?”

“Do any of ’em measure how hard a player is playing? ‘Cause that is the one stat I most care about. Do you wanna buy an autographed baseball?”

“Uh, no, Pete, thanks. But you do make a good point: it is more about effort than Exit Velo.”

“The game has always been about hustle and desire. Hey, do you know the spread in tonight’s Angels/Mariners game?”

“No, sorry. But tell me more about what it means to be successful on the diamond.”

“I love the game! Let me tell you the real secret that all players should know; by the way, do you want to buy an autographed baseball?”

“Uh, you know, I have to go inside and find the bathroom. Thanks Pete.”

I liked what Pete had to say—the hustle part, not the gambling or autographed baseball part. That makes total sense coming from him and it made me wonder which other players might echo the same thought. I walked around inside and tried to find out. I met quite a few Yankees but that is to be expected as it is the Hall of Fame.

First up was the Babe. What a dream: to talk to the most dominant hitter of all time.

“Hiya Babe! I want to get your perspective. What do you think of BAPIP, FIP and VORP?”

“I don’t know, keed, what did they bat last year?”

“Oh, no, those are stats like ERA and Home Runs. For instance, take FIP. A very simple formula, you multiply your home runs by 13, add that to your bases on balls plus the number of times you were hit by a pitch, all multiplied by 3, subtract your strikeouts multiplied by 2 and divide the whole thing by the number of innings pitched. Simple.”

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While I spoke, I got the impression that the Bambino lost interest in our conversation. He drank seventeen beers, ate a dozen hot dogs, and was now chasing a woman through the wing dedicated to the AAGPBL. I moved on.

Ted Williams had been standing near by but now came walking up to me. He scowled at me and asked, “Who the heck are you?”

I explained who the heck I was and what I was doing there. He seemed very interested, although his expression changed little, and began to ask me follow up questions. I explained FIP and OPS and WAR and a bunch of other new saber metrics.

As we spoke, Tony Gwynn and Wade Boggs came over. At first, they just listened but before long they, too, had questions. Some I could answer, like how to establish the baseline for WAR. Soon, however, I was out of my depth with these three.

When Gwynn asked how could you tell if a triple were a true unassisted triple or if the outfielder had misplayed it but not enough to declare an error and what was the reduced rate formula as it must now apply to your total bases, I decided to actually find the bathroom.

By the time I got back, they were engulfed in conversation with each other. In fact, I think at one point they communicated telepathically about baseball. I needed a break from all of the in-depth questions and focus on me.

Fortunately, Rickey Henderson was near by. Without a doubt one of the most exciting players this side of Ty Cobb but without the murderousness.

“Ricky, great to see you! Hey, I have been talking to some of the guys about FIP and WAR, some of the new age stats. What is your take: do they help or hurt the game and the players?”

“Ricky is not sure because Ricky has never seen them before. How would it help Ricky?

“I am not sure they would. They are stats that show a new way to analyze the game and predict success.”

“Well, which ones help steal bases? You know Ricky is the greatest base stealer in this whole place, right?”

“Yes, I know. I am not sure there is one that helps. I think they still use attempts versus successful attempts.”

“Ricky has never been unsuccessful! Even when I was caught I was right. If there is one thing I have learned being here, it is that Ricky is the greatest!”

As soon as he finished his pronouncement, and while our conversation was still going on, Ricky sat down to play cards with a few of the other players as if a playoff game was happening outside. I took that as the signal that our time together was over.

Throughout the afternoon, I spoke with many players and managers. When I asked Casey in front of everyone, he gave me by far the longest answer: “I’ll tell ya all about them stats. Now the first thing you do is take all of the first baseman’s stats, see, and you put ’em all together and then that tells you what kind of player he is but without knowing the man himself, are you ever really sure where to play him?”

“First base, right?”

“Yeah, but for that, you need to know what his stats are.”

I must have stared at him for five minutes after that. During that time, Casey took me aside to a private corner of the room and explained in clear, precise language exactly how smart players and teams use the findings of sabermetrics to gain small but significant advantages, even providing specific examples of World Series games he coached that he would have done differently had he had access to these new numbers.

I could have written a book with all he said but I forgot to write anything down as I was still in a state of shock from his earlier comments.

And he was followed by the also enigmatic—albeit less loquacious—Yogi Berra, who gave the shortest answer: “Stats are useful but they are nothing without numbers to back them up.”

Yogi is always good for a great quote.

Before I could approach any other players, Ted, Tony and Wade came over. They had found seventeen errors within the new stats and wanted to point them out to me. When I explained that I was not important enough to do anything about those, they then proceeded to describe some new stats they had just invented.

They had TBBVF (showing the total number of bases a player got after a walk versus the total possible number had he hit based on the position of the fielders), WAP (showing the difference in pitching performances based on weather conditions in order to create a fair system of comparison to good weather pitching), and AVAPPWC (I have no idea what this one was as they lost me after explaining what the second A stands for).

They probably had about 30 new stats. I told them to email me the rest and left it to Wade to explain what “email” means to the other two.

Mickey Mantle was there; so was Jim Beam. When I asked The Mick what he thought of VORP, he said he saw him fight Buck Rogers once in a quiet Oklahoma movie theater. We actually talked quite a bit but I don’t know how to write slurred words very well.

When I asked Joe D, he politely declined to speak to me.

Then I got a great surprise. Satchel Paige was in the room and wanted to talk. I started by asking why he was over in this wing and letting him know that I planned to come over to the Negro League section to speak with him.

He said, with a big, wry grin on his face, “I have never been a big believer in segregation. Besides, everyone knows I belong in here.” The nodding faces of those within ear shot signaled a general approval.

When I asked about the topic du jour, he responded with questions for me. “Do they have any numbers to show how a pitcher did every time he called in the outfielders before pitching to a guy?

Do they have one to show how each different type of pitch is affected when the pitcher starts his seventh game in 9 days? And what about types of pitches. Is there one that separates out all the different variations of off-speed pitches and them compares them to other pitchers? I had over 27 curve ball varieties and 16 different sliders, not to mention the 19 different slurves.”

Sadly, I had to explain to Satch that those did not exist. I wanted him to speak to David Cone but he does not live there. Now that is a crime.

Finally it was time to go and I headed for the door. Before I could get out, a bunch of murderers surrounded me. I looked up to see Meusel, Koenig, Gehrig, Combs, Lazzeri and Ruth in a circle around me. Only Ruth and Gehrig had smiles on their faces.

Lazzeri spoke for all of them. “I have a couple of questions for you: do you think that all of these stats would help any of us do better? In all these years, with all these stats, has there ever been a better team, even without the help of those numbers?”

I gave the second baseman the only true answer I could: no.

“So you’re saying that it still comes down to hit the ball hard, run fast, and play error-free. And we are still the best team, even without the help from, what did Goose call them, nerds?”

Since they already knew the answer, they simply walked away. Wherever they walked, the other players moved aside. And not because they were each the best at their positions; that was not true. But because they were the greatest team and each individual in that room respects that most. Well, maybe not Ricky but certainly the rest.

Next: Projecting Yankees Budding Star Aaron Judge

As I walked to my car, I thought back on what Lazzeri said and meant. There is no doubt that greater analyzation of the game and what the underlying factors for success are is beneficial. But for the players, it still comes down to playing the game hard and playing it the right way.

Perhaps next time I need to find a conference that studies effort and intelligence between the white lines. If so, I think will wait until Jeter moves here and ask one of the true experts on the matter.