Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News asked an excellent question of the saber community.
Attention stats/analytics-oriented community: I'm seeking your help for a project...
If you were to want more "mainstream" fans/media to be more aware of/better understand advanced metrics, can you rattle off 3-5 you think are most important. You can tweet them to me or email me at egrant@dallasnews.com .... Your help would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Former BtB manager (the guy who inspired me to write about baseball again and helped get me this gig at BtB) Sky Kalkman doesn't blog a ton, but he posted a response and it's about the best damn thing you could read on the topic. Very great suggestions. Great accessibility level. Just wonderful:
Runs are runs are runs (are wins). Bartering isn’t so popular these days. Instead, we measure the value of goods and services in currency, at least in part because it gives us a common unit of comparison. In baseball, runs are the common currency. Hitting helps add runs. Baserunning helps add runs. Outfield assists help reduce runs. If you want to compare different players with different skills, you need a common currency. So, measure hitting in runs, baserunning in runs, and defense in runs. Then add it all together.
That's one of Sky's five suggestions. Go read the rest—and share it with your mainstream friends.
While I think Sky touched on many of the basics, are there any other concepts you use to educate your less-initiated friends?