Game Thread: 6/5 Champs @ Philth

[msgkings322]

I get advanced stats, they are important tools come contract time, and draft day, and so on. But I get the sense that for some folks these people are numbers machines, and when the numbers turn down then we no longer give a shit. Whether it's a bad year, or a bad month, or even a bad game, it's Broken This Guy and Fuck You That Guy.

Yeah, Lincecum SUCKED for 3 years (but not postseason 2012, and he did pitch a couple of no hitters in those suck years). But he was without a doubt the most exciting, electric, flat out best Giants pitcher since Marichal. He's having a good year (so far)....is anyone enjoying it? Does that part of the game matter?

It's a free country but i don't get it.

Did you need advanced metrics to enjoy Will Clark?

 

[tzill]

I get advanced stats, they are important tools come contract time, and draft day, and so on. But I get the sense that for some folks these people are numbers machines, and when the numbers turn down then we no longer give a shit. Whether it's a bad year, or a bad month, or even a bad game, it's Broken This Guy and Fuck You That Guy.

Yeah, Lincecum SUCKED for 3 years (but not postseason 2012, and he did pitch a couple of no hitters in those suck years). But he was without a doubt the most exciting, electric, flat out best Giants pitcher since Marichal. He's having a good year (so far)....is anyone enjoying it? Does that part of the game matter?

It's a free country but i don't get it.

Did you need advanced metrics to enjoy Will Clark?

you're conflating two things and setting up a straw man argument. First, "enjoyment" and "metrics" are two completely different things. I can enjoy baseball games irrespective of any metric. Metrics help us understand what happened -- even things we saw with our own eyes. No metric, or set thereof, is going to supplant the eyeball test. Will Clark's swing was beautiful no matter what the metrics were.

Some metrics can be used to predict, with the caveat that players aren't "number machines" but rather humans who have up and down cycles. Some players (Vogelsong, e.g.) far exceed what their metrics would predict; others (Timmah, e.g.) fall completely below what their metrics would predict. With a body of work of three years, the metrics tend to be fairly predictive (but not perfect). Thus, Broken Timmy isn't likely to end the year with a FIP below 4.00 or 2.0 WAR or an ERA+ over 100. He's a human and not a machine so there is a chance he will meet or exceed those metrics....but it's a remote chance, IMO.

All of which is to say that there is nothing wrong with hoping for the best and enjoying the ride. Hicks was a gem last year for about 6 weeks, and we all enjoyed that. Timmy has been lucky/good this year and we are all digging that too. Enjoying something and having confidence it will continue are two completely different things though, so I temper my expectations. If you don't "get" that, then that's OK; you're a different type of fan than I. In some ways, I envy that ability to live in the moment -- in other ways I always have enjoyed the bigger picture and the pushes and pulls of armchair GMing around that picture.