Whoa, either general management in MLB is light years better than it is in the NFL, or you're hugely overestimating the objectivity, sophistication, and overall competence of front offices. Every year, millions of dollars and years of franchise opportunity are spent on the basis of illusory considerations and against the weight of statistical analysis.
Or you're underestimating front offices. When I was a kid, I remember front offices regularly making moves that even I knew were stupid. When the Royals way overpaid for Storm Davis following the 1989 season when he went 19-7 despite being a well below-average starter by even the best metrics available at the time, their GM responded to criticism by saying something like, "we're not after ERA, we're after wins." That's like something Nostradumbass would say. When the A's started really going hardcore with scientific decision making in the late '90s and early Aughts, there was a lot of criticism. But today, it's just normal, and it's actually advanced a lot.
Even when you see an apparent bad decision, there's often stuff going on that you might not be considering. I remember a GM discussing a long-term contract given to an older player and saying (again paraphrasing from memory), "obviously from an analytics standpoint, we know that players tend to decline at this point, but we don't get our needs met now if we don't offer a long-term contract--the likelihood of a decline is just part of the landscape." I think the combination of an explosion in information and market pressure has changed things much more than people realize. Especially since these days teams don't just consume advanced metrics, they develop them and keep them secret (look at what the Astros have been doing with spin rates or the Indians with launch angles).
But, even more than that, I would certainly insist that in basketball and football clutchness is absolutely a consideration, whether outright or just due to the fact that it correlates with previous success and with popularity with fans.
I think you're wrong there.
I've both never denied that and have incorporated that stipulation all along the way. It's hard to proceed when your substitute inaccurate characterizations for focusing on actual debate. I'm once again acknowledging it. Somehow I doubt that stops you from refusing to find common ground and obfuscating.
If you acknowledge the point, then no argument remains, and your outrage is not appropriate.
I'm assuming the multitude of his peers that have come out saying he's the most revered of his generation have taken stats into account.
Right. People look at crude measures like points. Plus he has some great highlights. And, again, it's not that he wasn't a legitimately great player. I'm just saying that as our understanding of the game has improved, his status has taken a bit of a hit. Still great, but not close to the best player of Trotsky's adult life.
@Jack V Savage Also, here's a baseball reference for you. The only baseball players that I
ever saw that I would consider clutch is David Eckstein. That dude had ice in his veins.
Dude, no. I think clutchness is even more clearly false in baseball. I think "little white guy who doesn't put up big numbers but we like him anyway and there must be a reason" describes Eckstein better than "clutch."
