This has to rank up there as one of the worst articles I've ever seen on the Globe website (non-CHB division). Technically the writer, Jason Tuohey, is a producer for boston.com, and so is not affiliated with the Globe sports section, which is good I guess. But oh my god - just the insane amount of fanboy-ism in the article makes me want to throw my computer out the window. I know it's considered cool to write "contrarian" articles...but usually you need to have a decent argument first. Look: Ortiz is not the MVP of the AL. He is not even the MVP of the World Champion Boston Red Sox. Hell, he is probably not even runner-up for MVP of the World Champion Boston Red Sox. God this pisses me off.
Anyway, for a good example of how stats can be used selectively to argue any point you'd like to make, check out this (or any other) article showing how awesome David Eckstein is.
I saw that ridiculous piece as well. With all the changes to the Globe website, when i read the headline I thought someone had accidently relinked an article from 2005. Seriously.
ReplyDeleteHoly crap you're up early. (I was thinking of changing the time stamp to EST, to reflect GYS's East Coast Bias).
ReplyDeleteThis should have been posted here....
ReplyDelete"Ortiz's prolific on base percentage even made his teammates look better. Mike Lowell had the lowest home run total of any Sox player with 120 RBIs since the dead ball era, a direct result of hitting behind Big Papi."
Um, Lowell hit behind Ramirez, right?
"RBI crowns come pretty easy when you hit behind Derek Jeter, but it's a different story when you spend half a season waiting for Julio Lugo to get on base."
Right, and having on-base king Youk in front of you isn't bad, either. Youk had almost identical OBP as Jeter. Not to mention that he just spoke about Mike Lowell's high RBI total coming from having someone on in front of him all the time.
Some of the stats are true. A lot A-Rod's power numbers were not valuable, but you could argue many of Ortiz's numbers were the same. In fact, while this guy argues that Ortiz kept the Sox in first, who was leading the Yankees' way?
Not rooting for A-Rod, but this was pretty obvious this year.