Why Jonah Lehrer's Criticism of Sabermetrics is so Disappointing

Made a comment on JD’s FanShot after reading Lehrer’s article, and I was just really disappointed by the entire thing. Clearly, the mainstream still hasn’t grasped what sabermetrics is about- figuring out where value lies, and what contributes to winning, not trying to quantify entire sporting events with a series of numbers- and that makes me want to tear my hair out as a saber guy.

Here’s the comment I made before:

I always feel uncomfortable when mainstream writers make the assumption that anyone who loves sabermetrics ignores the existence of unquantifiable variables. The larger point is that we should put more value into things that we can quantify, but I don’t know why the next logical step in that reasoning should be that unquantifiable variables don’t exist.

Not to mention that he’s ignoring the massive idea that the team with less talent does often win the game. Sure, the Mavs won the championship over the statistically superior Heat. That doesn’t mean the Mavs are better team; it just means that they played better over that six-game span.

which sabermetrics sites are THEY reading?

Have any of you ever read that an optimized lineup will overcome the emotions of a petulant Boras rookie thinking he should be higher in the order? Have any of you EVER read that stealing or bunting is NEVER a good idea? Would any of us ever dare suggest that the established aging curve takes notable exceptions for the greatest players of all time? Can any of us agree on the effect of steroids vs. juiced balls?

So many of these type of articles are giant red herrings arguing against that which we’re not really disputing. We know there are assholes, and we know that personality management is something kinda important when dealing with multi-million-dollar type A jocks. Aaaaaand we know that there’s a lot we can’t measure.

Nobody is saying sabermetrics answers everything. Nobody.

I’m really confused.

What are you railing against? A part of your article makes sense — the application of a sabermetrics in a basketball/football idiom — but the rest of it…well, just…yeah. Just keep going.

If you’re making the point that the same sort of analysis that works in baseball doesn’t necessarily work in other sports, fine. I totally agree with you there, dude. Each sport should be treated separately. You see, if you’ve noticed something about sabermetrics, it’s that we often talk about the lack of necessitated team-oriented play in baseball, which sets baseball apart from other team sports in this regard. No, no. I totally agree that we can’t measure everything. Nobody can measure everything. Physicists can’t measure everything that physically happens, and they’ve been going a lot longer than we have.

But there are so many other flaws with your thought process (Sabermetrics is like buying cars?

Really?

And you say you’re an editor? For Wired? The tech magazine?

Hey, I’m a programmer. Do you think we programmers and other IT professionals buy computers based entirely off the GHz number on the processor?

No? You think we know something special about the very things we work with on a day-to-day basis, and have had some particular training, perhaps an education that confers upon us the ability to make better informed decisions than some schlep walking in off the street?

Oh, I see. Because your article makes it sound like completely uninformed random people with no knowledge whatsoever are tantamount to those with years, possibly decades of hands-on experience in precisely the field you’re questioning.

Lord, this was a really long aside. Okay, we’re going back now.)

I do believe that the notion of defense-independent pitching (whether or not you agree with the underlying premise aside, it is a radical idea) came from sabermetrics and is completely counterintuitive to the way that most people experience the game of baseball.

What sort of evidence do you have that leads you to believe that similarly educated people in similar roles in other sports would just walk themselves off a mathematical and scientific cliff? The difference between your atrocious car analogy and the sabermetric analogy is that WE USE SCIENCE. (I know you’re reading this, but just imagine someone like R. Lee Ermey screaming this at you, because hey, it’s kind of important.)

We did not walk into a car dealership without formal training about what to measure and what to not measure and what is immeasurable about cars. We are not random people who walked off the street and were given some faux stock market data to study. We are people who have self-selected for this because we have questioning minds. We are a community of people who question our results.

Stop it.

Cordially,
Some jerk whose post you will never read.