3 thoughts on “Decade of Gold”

  1. Crank,
    Clicked around after I got over there and looked at his top 100 players. Thought Jeter was a little high for someone with such poor defense. Reminded me of a question that has bugged me for a long time — how to accurately measure the defensive contribution of an outstanding shortstop. I don’t think the numbers crunchers get it right.
    Take Omar Vizquel. I once had an exchange with one of the stats geeks where he tried to explain that the offense of a 1B was just far more valuable. I replied that we should see more 1Bs playing at SS then. Not EVERY manager is so stupid as to continue giving up offense for defense if the offense is so much more valuable. Now I’m certainly willing to believe that managers and coaches in every sport can make lots of stupid decisions, but I struggle with the idea that everyone is an idiot.
    Do you have any cites to an intelligent discussion on this?

  2. “Not EVERY manager is so stupid as to continue giving up offense for defense if the offense is so much more valuable. Now I’m certainly willing to believe that managers and coaches in every sport can make lots of stupid decisions, but I struggle with the idea that everyone is an idiot.”
    When idiocy is persistent groupthink is what sustains it. If one person tries something crazy and it works that can revolutionize practices.
    It’s actually much more likely that everyone is being stupid about something than almost everyone being stupid about something. That being said, managers have tried to stuff non-shortstops at the position. Kevin Mitchell and Howard Johnson come to mind.
    I’m much more likely to believe that something is a bad idea if it’s been tried a few times than if it’s never been tried at all.

  3. Managers are so afraid of looking like idiots that they won’t try out-of-the-box ideas even if cold logic dictates they should.

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