Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluenoser
Update the game to modern times, by all means. Has to be optional though, far far too many stats to pick from.
As for the rest of the post - I'm one of those "old folks". I took the time to educate myself, spent weeks over at Fangraphs reading about sabremetrics, bought and read a couple books on it.
I still like the old stats, I don't care if they don't tell me about "runs". I know runs win games. I also know there's a whole lot more to baseball than runs.
The "proper way to view stats"? Please. There's many ways to view the stats, no one being more proper than another.
If it drives you crazy, don't listen. You're going to have to suck it up for a while yet college boy, us "old folks who don't know any better" aren't going away for about another 20 - 30 years.
I honestly wonder how us "old folks" managed to understand and enjoy the game back in the 50's, 60's, 70's without sabremetrics. Maybe it's because we know there's more to the game than just "runs"  |
Agree with so much of this, even though I am a long-time Bill James fan and love the analytical advancements that have been made over the last 30+ years in how we look at the game.
I don't believe in an either/or approach. To say that there are stats that have better predictive value than others, or are more aligned with actual wins for a baseball team, does not have to be equivalent to saying that all traditional stats are rubbish and that we shouldn't look at them. And we need to realize that what might be perceived as rubbish in the present context wasn't necessarily as meaningless in other historical baseball contexts. For example, pitcher wins. Less and less important now, and for good reason. And never a perfect measure, by any means. But in an era when most starters pitched complete games and run scoring was low, couldn't it be true that it was a less flawed metric in that context?
So, most importantly, my main point is that this is a game. It's for fun. To the extent that it can be intellectually stimulating and educational, I think for most of us it just becomes that much more fun. But enjoyment is the key, and one doesn't have to become advanced metrics proficient to still have fun with the game. And if fun for one person is replaying the 1950's and ignoring WAR and FIP, etc, which didn't exist then, while focusing instead on batting average and RBI's and pitcher wins, well, isn't that a completely understandable way to play? I think it would be silly for us to ridicule someone for having fun with OOTP in this way, which might not conform to our current understanding of what the "best" approach is, but does conform to the general understanding of the game at that time.
And I just want to clarify, on the whole I fully endorse what the OP said here. And I think he (sorry, for the gender assumption) was careful to say that he wasn't advocating getting rid of the traditional stats in the game.
But one of the many great things about OOTP is how customizable it is, how it can be a great many things to a great many people. So I also agree that an emphasis needs to be placed on allowing these differences of choice regarding what stats are primary, particularly in historical contexts.
(On a personal level, this is something I struggle with a bit in my primary fictional save. Given that it started in the mid-60's and is now moving into the late-70's it didn't make sense for me to not pay some attention (and report in the threads shown below in my signature) to traditional stats. At the same time, my own approach to management very much includes a good deal of attention to modern metrics. Again, for me it is about balance. My own personal conception of balance, given the context of when historically the league is set but also the context of what I know existing in a much later time.)