And the award for the stupidest blurb about baseball ever written goes to Jon Heyman. This has...

And the award for the stupidest blurb about baseball ever written goes to Jon Heyman.

This has nothing to do with the Rays, but it is so outrageous I wanted to expose it somewhere. It is posted at Shysterball, and if you follow the link to the Heyman article you will see it stands alone, with no caveat or comment.

I know there are almost an infinite number of candidates for the award of most stupid ever, but Jon Heyman's is inner circle stupid.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/shysterball/article/great-moments-in-notes-columns/#comments

The comment about Freddie Sanchez and the Rays is pretty apt, by the way.

7 months ago bobr 5 comments 0 recs |

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So he is on base 26 out of 39 times in those situations.

And he’s a bum? .6667 OBP. Terrible, those free base runner.

I would be interested to find out how many of those times he scored?

"What the hell is a Labradoddle?"

by davelrogers on Jun 27, 2009 4:45 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Probably 0, too busy clogging the bases

Ask Harold Reynolds about OPS.

Rays Win!

by Sandy Kazmir on Jun 28, 2009 5:34 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Even if they decide to throw to him, they're just going to give him all junk pitches.

In man-on-second and men-on-second-and-third scenarios (with first base open), he will not see one hittable pitch. Or, at least, he should not. So the fact that he’s 1 for 14 when he does swing is the opposite of surprising. Batters don’t tend to do well when every pitch is off the plate. It is also the opposite of surprising to see a weaker hitter have a higher RISP BA than Pujols in certain situations.

So the seemingly negative stat is actually a testament to his abilities. Hopefully he wasn’t being serious by acting all surprised about this.

by Zach Attack on Jun 28, 2009 7:23 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

See, this sort of intelligent analysis is why I got so incensed about the blurb.

In the article, it stands alone without any comment from Heyman. As a result, it will likely enter the public arena as a factoid that casual fans and gossipy sports talk radio and newspaper people will refer to in order to enhance their credibility by sharing what seems to be data.

In fact, by using the phrase “for all his heroics this year” and then comparing his statistic to what Nick Evan (he means Evans, I think) has done in 2 games he clearly intends to leave an impression that Pujols has failed in the clutch. It is dishonest writing.

by bobr on Jun 28, 2009 8:36 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs