And I thought the Wigginton deal was a steal. The only major difference between Wigginton and Hinske is that Wigginton is a slightly better defender and can play second. All this makes KC’s Bloomquist signing look that much more ridiculous.

but I think it’s closer than the Win Value’s indicate. Wigginton had a swing built for Minute Maid and this helped to give him extreme home/road splits
baseball-reference

Although, the more I look at it, Wigginton was effective against both righties and lefties last year, whereas Hinske was terrible against lefties, albeit over a very small sample size. That may well have had something to do with the difference in salary.

and I looked at the Neyer and Lichtman inputs that you linked.

I think that there is a definite place for the “new statistics/sabermetrics” that have spawned a whole new baseball following over the last 25 years or so. I think that there is a definite value, for example, to the ability of getting on base (high on-base percentage), high walks to strikeout ratio for hitters, low strikeout to at-bats for “contact-type” hitters, etc.

But there are many people that, I believe, use statistics in the wrong way. Many think that there is no value to the sacrifice bunt in any situation. Many feel that stolen bases are overrated. I believe that the game situation, the pitcher, the hitter and so many other factors determine the optimal play at any given time.

It is often a mistake to generalize that “such and such a play is a bad strategy”.

Baseball is steeped in tradition and changes slowly!

When I was working in New York City in the late 60s, I met two brothers who had worked for IBM, Harlan and Eldon Mills, who were working on new baseball statistics long before anyone ever heard of Bill James. Their pet statistic was called the “player win average”. They even wrote a soft cover book (“Player Win Averages”) which I no longer have, but I am sure that it is probably available somewhere. They, of course, met with extreme resistance from the Commissioner’s office and from Elias or whoever was keeping official major league stats. They felt that the “player win average” was a better way of determining a player’s true value, much like Beane, through DePodesta, developed their “theories” for finding undervalued players.

Incidentally, it was the Mills Brothers who put together the NBC Sports computer tournament of the 10 greatest baseball teams of all time that run during the baseball game of the week pre-game show in 1970. They used all of the actual player stats and fed them into a computer to determine the winners of each hypothetical game. These pre-game shows were very highly rated. I forget who won.

As for the ability of righties to hit lefties more effectively (and vice versa), I have always
believed this to be true. Most managers also believe it or they wouldn’t pinch hit hitters to have righties face lefties (and vice versa) or they wouldn’t bring in a relief pitcher to have a righty/righty or lefty/lefty matchup. Neyer and Lichtman may say that it reverts to only a 1.09 advantage, but I say that each specific situation dictates the proper move. Writers and researchers can ascribe all kinds of sabermetrics to it, but the fact is that, in most situations, a good non switch-hitter would rather face a pitcher who throws from the opposite side.

A lot of this is psychological, but I can tell you that it is a lot easier to hit a breaking ball that is coming “into” you.

As an aside, in the late 80s, I met with the President of a major league baseball team. I told him that I felt that his left handed hitting first baseman, an accomplished player at the time, was not very effective against left-handed pitching. He told me that this player was equally effective against lefties and righties.

I checked his splits later that day to see that he hit about .290 the previous season against RH pitching and about .240 (if that) against lefties.

The individual I met with in the late 80s is still the President of a major league franchise!