Stats vs. Scouts
From Wiki Gonzalez
Stats vs. Scouts is a BTF thread and running gag based on a landmark web article.
The article
In January 2005, Alan Schwarz of Baseball America moderated a roundtable discussion featuring two sabermetricians and two scouts.
The idea of the roundtable was for Schwarz, as moderator, to throw out big questions about the value of sabermetrics versus the value of traditional scouting in talent evaluation and analysis, and let the panel debate these questions.
- Instead of continuing to report on the gulf between the two sides, Baseball America is bringing them together. For the first time since the great “Moneyball” debate began two years ago, we have gathered two longtime scouts and two statistics experts to discuss all the great issues in this arena: the risks of high school pitchers, the use of minor league statistics, plate discipline as a tool and much more.
The sabermetrics representatives:
- Voros, the inventor of DIPS and statistical consultant to the Red Sox
- Gary Huckabay, writer for Baseball Prospectus and statistical consultant to the Athletics
The scouting representatives:
- Andy Bane, scouting director for the Angels and a critic of Moneyball
- Gary Hughes, assistant GM for the Cubs and a longtime MLB scout
The discussion quickly turned into a contentious throwdown on both sides. Voros advocated pure performance analysis as being a workable form of evaluation, often preferable to traditional scouting ("You [scouts] can only know so much. You’re scouts, you’re not fortunetellers"), while Huckabay seemed to be more accepting of the necessity of scouting as additional information for saber-analysts. Huckabay also said his famous coinage of TINSTAAPP was "an overstatement designed to sell books."
Similarly, Hughes criticized statheads as being numb to anything but "what a guy has done" and incapable of predicting future performance, while Bane accepted the value of some modern statistics in combination with a scout's eye. Bane also said he "resented" Moneyball (the book) for denigrating the value of scouts, which in his opinion inspired MLB teams to cut their scouting budgets and put good scouts out of work.
In the opinion of many Primates, a strong good-cop / bad-cop vibe was created on both sides, with more heat than light.
The discussion transcript was posted as an article on baseballamerica.com, entitled "Stats vs. Scouts: The Great Debate."
The article's effect on BTF
SG in ATL posted a link to "Stats vs. Scouts" on January 6, 2005. The resulting thread moved fast, with over 200 comments being made.
However, denizens of Primer Dugout who found the article independently, or couldn't find the thread, posted a link to the article in the Dugout, urging readers to check it out and/or BTF editors to put up a discussion thread on it.
This went on for several days (and several widely-spaced Dugouts) until the old-timers realized what was going on. They began referring to it ironically as the "stats vs. scouts thread", to the effect of, "Hey, has anyone seen that scouts vs. stats article in Baseball America? I wish someone would post a thread about Alan Schwarz's excellent roundtable discussion."
Repoz nodded to the gag in some of his later article lead-ins.
Ever since, a good way to establish your knowledge of Primer lore is to mention "Scouts vs. Stats" (or "Stats vs. Scouts") and see if anyone bites.
References
- The Great Debate (http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/features/050107debate.html) - the BA article
- Baseball America - Schwarz - The Great Debate (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/25452/) -- the Primer thread
- Primer Dugout, January 15-16, 2005 (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/community/discussion/weekend_dugout_january_15_16_2005/#1081640) - Elvis asks for help
- Primer Dugout, January 22-23, 2005 (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/community/discussion/primer_dugout_weekend_january_22_23_2005/#1095012) - NJASDJDH brings the snark
- June 25, 2005 article on Stats vs Scouts (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/baseball_digest_daily_stats_vs_scouts_do_we_need_to_choose_just_one/) - Repoz: "Hey!...maybe Alan Schwarz could get together a roundtable discussion on this subject."
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