Old School vs New School

In reading posts here, as well as articles on ESPN-dot-com and on TV, it seems most people now have completely bought into sabermetrics as the be-all end-all of player evaluation. Just curious as to the SOM mgr viewpoint.

Old School: BA, Slg, runs, RBI, PO, Ass, Errors, Wins, Losses, ERA,

New School: all saber, walks, OBP, BAbip, OPS, zone rtg, Fip, WHIP

My thoughts: when dealing with robots (like here on SOM) sabermetrics is the 90-95% proper method. Since a robot evaluates everything the same it make it very "un-real worldly". But even on here managers ignore the BA stat and screw up because of it. In an RBI position a .330/.360 hitter is far superior to a .240/.440 hitter. That is why I won a championship with Ken Phelps leading off and Kirby Puckett hitting 3rd and 4th. BUT, normally I strive for a lot of OBP and low WHIP.

IF we could build these teams, and somehow time travel back to these player's primes and play them out with all their human emotions I'd choose entirely different teams. Ozzie Smith and Tommy Herr would be near the top of my draft card since they were absolute defensive gurus AND hit like crazy when the pressure was on, whereas Dave Winfield normally shrunk in pressure. Also, pitcher WINS are very IMPORTANT. Jack Morris was a GREAT pitcher (better than Pedro) when he had 2 men on and 1 out...and especially in the post-season. That is why you see so many pitchers with low WHIPs and 3.75+ ERAs and other with 1.35+ WHIPs and sub 3.50 ERAs. Morris and John Franco seemed to thrive with men on base. Unfortunately the SOM cards just can't measure that. Every hitter has the same chance to hit (with small adjustments) whether men are on or bases empty. That is why Morris won 17-21 games per year and "superior" saber pitchers like Jose Rijo struggled to win 14.

Similarly a lot of hitters do well with bases empty and pump up stats (and hit well in blow outs) and others, like Joe Carter, seemed to be easy outs...until there were RBI opportunites.

In SOM world I'd say I'm 95%+ saber...but In the real world I'm 70% old school, 30% new school. And that means Felix Hernandez should NOT have won a Cy Young with a 13-12 record. Steve Carlton was on a much worse Phillie team and went 27-10. My $0.02.

Discuss.

I think BA is under valued today. A walk is not the same as a hit. Walks rarely drive in runs.

Well for a leadoff hitter a walk is the same as a hit. Typically he is a base stealer or at least a good base runner (unless you lead off Ken Phelps) You want that rabbit on base for your 2-3-4 hitters. In Earl Weaver's 3 run HR strategy it didn't matter how those first two runners got on base. You typically can't bury your opponent with solo HRs.

I like players with high OBP even if it is largely due to walks. A double in the gap won't score anyone if there isn't already a runner on 1B. I want lineup positions 1, 7, 8 & 9 to do anything other than get an out, even if it is a walk to help move the lineup back towards my best hitters that much faster.

In the online game all the stats are ball park dependent. If you throw Dennis Leonard (or others like him) in a HR park he will have a nice WHIP but his ERA will be high due to the HRs he will let up.

New School: BAbip, zone rtg, Fip

I don't even know what these are. Does that make me old school?

I think BAbip is Batting average on balls in play or something like that. It's a dumb stat.

I personally value OPS and WHIP pretty high, though WHIP should always be checked along with ERA as you can give up few baserunners, but still give up a lot of runs.