[Jestre]

What all of these VORP and RC followers don't seem to understand is that baseball is simply a matter of which team scores the most runs. VORP is completely divorced from that equation. You don't walk away from a game saying wow we outvorped them 7-3 we kicked their butt. To borrow from the above example that player that walked twice and doubled with the bases empty and contributed nothing to their teams score is unfortunately of no impact to their teams success, the hitter that struck out 4 times and then hit a homerun that plated several runs did have an impact and a critical one in determining the winner of the game. Who is more valuable in a "REAL" sense??? VORPists will take the loser, Counters will take the winner.

Since RBI's are a direct method of measuring success then yes RBI is an important stat. Sure there are team effects that have an impact in RBI production on an individual basis, but it isnt as pervasive as the VORPist would have us believe. If that were the case then the Redsox could stick Julio Lugo in the 4 spot and expect similar results as Manny and that just isnt gonna happen in the real world.

But those last three words in the previous paragraph is the dividing line between VORPist and RC'ers and us traditional stat'ers. The former are buried in theory and the latter are results based.

VORP may very well be the best tool to measure a players future value and expected value etc but it is not the best tool to measure past value and that is what this thread is about.