by Rick Furmanek
I have just finished reading Michael Lewis' controversial book, "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game," and found it both a fascinating read and thought provoking adventure. While certain areas of the book made me a little angry (e.g., The treatment of one of my favorite mangers, Art Howe), its overall challenge to revisit and rethink old traditions was well worth the read.
Lewis has sought to bring to light what a number of statisticians are attempting to do . . . change the way we look at baseball stats. Their vehicle is a relatively new method coined, 'Sabermetrics'. While the overall concept is not new, only a few Major League teams, namely the Oakland A's, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Boston Red Sox, have made an attempt to assimilate its premise into the way they conduct baseball business, including the Amateur Draft.
Sabermetrics, having plowed through decades upon decades of baseball stats, continues questioning things such as the need for the sacrifice bunt in the game, the need for base stealing, the importance of a batter's batting average, and a pitcher's ERA. This challenge of baseball's current methodology has raised the cackles of our current 'Guardians of Baseball' who balk at the thought of someone actually challenging the way it's always been. While the majority of baseball executives still flatly reject its premise, if one reads Moneyball with an open mind, it's hard to argue with the fact that we ought to be taking a closer look at On Base Percentage and Slugging Percentage when it comes to wins and losses.
It is obvious the lines have been drawn between the New Guard and the Old Guard of baseball. The New Guard argues that we need to be viewing the game from a different paradigm, while the Old Guard seems to be saying, "Why change something that has worked for over 100 years?" The New Guard would reply, "It hasn't worked according to statistics." The Old Guard would reply, "Our being here today proves that it does." And so the debate continues.
This face off reminds me of the longstanding debate the religious scholars had with Jesus Christ during his time on earth. Trying to use historical ammunition to combat his teachings, referring to their former teachers and even to Moses, the religious scholars of the day made every attempt to discredit Jesus Christ and to put down his 'new' way of doing things. But Christ's message stayed the same. He told prospective followers that God's message was, "I prefer a flexible heart to an inflexible ritual." (Matthew 12).
While tradition and ritual can stifle, squelch and even kill fresh ideas and new ways of thinking, even correct thinking, a flexible heart permits the light of truth to penetrate the dark corners of soul, revealing what needs to be changed, rooted out and discarded. A flexible heart is willing to ask as often as necessary, "Why?" A flexible heart is open to revisiting old methods and is willing to replace them with new ones if based on truth. Bottom-line, a flexible heart permits God to enter in and mold and shape that person into the human being they were meant to be.
So who's right and who's wrong in baseball's statistical debate? Or is there a middle road? The verdict is still out, but you can be sure that it will demand a flexible approach to the game from both sides.
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