Doc gets his pants pulled down by Cousin Mose. It’s a real disemboweling, and shows just how great FJM is at this type of thing.

Daugherty’s idiotic column had me riled up this morning, but the reality is that he’s just trolling for page-views. He’s become Jay Mariotti. No surprise, these antics have upped tenfold since he joined Bill Cunningham’s gang at WLW. Twenty bucks says he’s on Around the Horn (and thrilled with himself) by Opening Day.

This is the last time I post or comment about his nonsense. As Mariotti says, when you rip clowns like him and Daugherty, “all you’re doing is making me more famous.”

Like a lot of people, I pretty much dismiss anything Paul Daugherty says or writes. However, the hubbub about this week’s column shows a couple of things:

1) People read his stuff, which means it ain’t going away.

2) He knows his audience. Who in Cincinnati listens to Paul Daugherty AND reads his columns AND views baseball with simple-mindedness? Well, a freakin’ boatload of people. He’s pandering. I can’t say whether he’s doing so on purpose or if that’s just how he thinks, but either way he caters to the lowest common denominator. He might as well run for president. He’ll run away with it on the strength of simple, down-home logic and traditional values.

He could even get Wilford Brimley as VP.

Comment by John — 3/10/2008 @ 12:47 am

---

As JD notes at Red Reporter, Poznanski also calls Doc out for the simplistic and outdated Bill James bashing.

Comment by Chris — 3/10/2008 @ 8:53 am

---

Anyone with a laptop can locate the Web site baseball- reference.com and sound like an expert. Anyone with a library card can pick up one of James’ mind-numbing baseball “abstracts,” in which the author makes the game sound like a first cousin to biomechanical engineering.

This is perhaps one of the dumbest things I have ever heard, and this is coming from a preach who doesn’t understand a lot of the stats listed on baseball reference sites myself. This is the internet age, Doc: every stat you could ever possibly want is available, and should be available, online. It’s a GOOD thing to know numbers.

Will any manager, regardles of how technically saavy and stats minded, always follow the trends regardless of situation? No. And he shouldn’t. I assume that managers are privy to information that I am not: perhaps your on deck hitter twisted his wrist in the field at the top of last inning; maybe your relief pitcher’s shoulder has a little twinge in it; maybe you just saw something in batting practice that either impressed or dismayed you: These are the types of situations which arise and force decisions that may not be popular or understood at the time. This is why we have human beings managing and not robots. This will never change.

The idea of ‘futuristic manager’ sitting in the dugout with a laptop and slide rule crunching numbers is a little silly. But for a manager to have the vast wealth of stats available prior to the game or series is another tool that can be used for planning.

It amuses me when people like Doc use stats to disdain the using of stats. His desire for us to sign Blanton is based on his stats. He says that himself. If that is your criteria, looking at a player’s stats, should you not in turn look at as many stats as possible before making a decision? When I purchase a vehicle, I check more than just the windshield wipers. I bought a car once, for around town use only, in which the cruise control didn’t work. Did it really matter to me that much if it didn’t have cruise? Not really, I only used it for errands. It was a small car and not comfortable on the open road. But I sure used the fact that it didn’t have cruise to get a better price. Sometimes it’s good to have info available for a variety of reasons. If the criteria Doc had used for Blanton were intangibles (character, etc.)only, then don’t bother looking at wins and losses, just do a reference check and grade him on his interview and ‘clubhouse presence’. (Of course, a ‘grade’ is still a stat, isn’t it?)But since he bases his desire to acquire Blanton on the all important “W”, then let’s look at those “W’s” objectively and see how, where, and in what situation they occured. It’s funny how so many “conventional wisdom” blowhards place guys who use metrics in a different category of fan than they are. Guess what, Doc?: Conventional wisdom came from some statistical probability (acutal or perceived) at some point in history. Why do you use lefty-righty matchups? Uh, statistics. And many times it’s a good idea. Except when you use Juan Castro to pinch hit for Josh Hamilton. That’s one time conventional wisdom failed, and common sense should take over. That’s why we have human beings in the dugout.

Comment by preach — 3/10/2008 @ 9:32 am

---

Do you think Daugherty really believes what he’s written? Or is he using almost “shock-jock-style” sensationalism to stir the pot and get people to read his stuff and talk about him?

I really can’t tell.

Comment by Dan — 3/10/2008 @ 10:46 am

---

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website