Outsiders View

A commenter to this post wanted a little outside perspective.

I'm sure there are plenty of biases within the SABR community (as there are everywhere else as well) and it would have helpful and refreshing to see an 'outsiders' take on it.

SABR is the Society of American Baseball Research and they take a strongly statistical approach to analyzing baseball. They lovingly refer to themselves as statheads. I've read probably a dozen or so books that would fall into the 'stathead' category, including some by Bill James one of the biggest names of the movement. In fact, I'm reading a book by him concerning the Hall of Fame right now. I respect what they're doing. But...they've got some blind spots. (And, yes, these are generalizations.)

1) The biggest blind spot is in counting out the opinions of people who play the game for a living. They seem to think that athletes opinions on what's going on during play or over the course of a season is worth very little in comparison to the coldly analytical approach. Batting slumps and hot streaks, for instance, are usually thought of as mental issues by the players but probable injuries by the statheads.
2) Along that same line, they don't believe in hot streaks. They want to treat baseball like a clockwork universe where streaks are just the bunching up of probability. Nevermind that in life we all go through our own hot streaks. Times when we feel on fire. And times when we feel out of synch and nothing quite works. Why wouldn't ballplayers go through the same thing?
3) They put enormous weight on whether a player or team can repeat a trait from one season to the next as if that's the only way to judge whether or not that trait shows skill or just dumb luck. With players this is understandable, but the difference in a team from one year to the next is fairly large. Especially here in the free agency period. Along with that is the use of the word 'lucky' to say 'unusual'.
4) Undervaluing the impact of different payrolls in today's baseball era. Yes, brains can overcome money in the short term. And rich teams can make stupid mistakes. But the richer big market teams have a huge advantage over the small market teams. Just ask the Devil Rays. Related, is the viewing of small market owners as cheap skates that won't shell out for the better players without paying attention to the strict limits on payrolls those owners must keep if they want to remain profitable.
5) Overreliance on the 'Pythagorean' method (where the ratio of runs scored to runs allowed reflects the winning percentage of a team). Seen as a truer value of a teams inherent quality. I can't help wonder if the relationship isn't more casual than they think it is. Good teams tend to overperform their expected wins while bad teams underperform them. (Actually, I wish they'd look into this more.)
6) They seem to think that there's only one way to build an offense. Taking walks and hitting homeruns. Kind of the Earl Weaver approach. Using speed and defense can't possibly work. This is especially galling to hear as a White Sox fan this year. Their continued success has almost driven them mad. Article after article has been written explaining how their luck is about to come to an end. The current trend is to describe how they could have an historically large flop to end the season and miss the playoffs. All of this as they continue to win and their nearest competition (Twins and Indians) play mediocre ball. (Yes, this one is personal.)
7) They rely on computer models to prove how things in the real world are. The don't seem to fear the GIGO factor that all computer models risk.
8) They don't revisit old predictions to assess the value of their methods. (Full disclosure, I could have missed some of this. I've only been reading baseball blogs for the past year and a half or so. Maybe the offseason will be filled with such articles.)
9) They hold grudges and want to judge action by their biases towards certain players. Most anything Billy Beane does is golden while the actions of GM Kenny Williams are stupid regardless of how they turn out. I have huge respect for what Beane has done with the A's, but that doesn't mean he's infallible.
10) Asking us to just make up the 'e' sound in the word 'SABR'. Couldn't they have found another word to make a real word? Why didn't they put their big brains to work there, huh?