saber Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

This Is The Best Fake Law Firm Name We've Ever Seen

We're obviously fond of Parks & Recreation around here—what with FJM's Ken Tremendous being executive producer and all—and tonight's easter egg of a law office name, undoubtedly the work of our pal who goes by Michael Schur these days, was fantastic....

Kill #killthewin: The Fight Over Stats In Baseball Has Gotten Stupid

Television is the worst. Look at what's happened to the MLB Network's house numbers guy, Brian Kenny, who's spent the season preaching to the choir by beating horses to death right in front of them. It's fucking awful....

Which statistic matters most for a pitcher? CC Sabathia: “I guess it would have to be ERA." Sure! What do you think, Brian Bannister? "The most useful stat when you’re out there on the mound is your zone-contact percentage." [Fangraphs]...

Mariners Manager Says Sabermetrics Made Dustin Ackley Suck

The Seattle Mariners optioned once-promising second baseman Dustin Ackley to Triple A yesterday because Ackley has been having a miserable season at the plate. But what's to blame for Ackley's .205 average and .266 on-base percentage? Mariners coach Eric Wedge has a theory, and it has to do with all...

Brian Kenny Loses His Shit On Hawk Harrelson

Hawk Harrelson is the play-by-play announcer for the Chicago White Sox, and he is the worst. During Wednesday night's broadcast of the White Sox-Nationals game, Harrelson said some dumb things about Sabermetrics that essentially boiled down to this: Sabermetrics don't work and the only way to build ...

Tell It To Your Analyst: The Raging Genius Of Earl Weaver

The first and obvious thing about Earl Weaver, for me, was that he was terrifying. I lived about seven blocks from Memorial Stadium, depending on how you walked it, and Junior Orioles packages were cheap, so my parents took my older brother and me to games all the time, from our youngest days. This ...

Here's Ken Rosenthal Comparing The Sabermetrics Community To The Tea Party

Fox MLB reporter Ken Rosenthal was on the MLB Network today, talking about the Hall of Fame vote and bow ties and whatever else it is Ken Rosenthal likes to talk about these days. At some point, the conversation turned to Jack Morris and his continued inability to garner enough votes to get into t...

A Vote For Roger Clemens Was A Vote For Barry Bonds: The Politics Of The Hall Of Fame Ballot, By The Numbers [UPDATE]

Hall of fame ballots follow their own own internal logic. For instance, regardless of how they feel about steroids, almost all voters agree with both or neither of the following statements:...

Does Carson Cistulli's Admittance To The BBWAA Finally Justify His Preposterously Detailed Wikipedia Page?

Earlier today, Carson Cistulli of FanGraphs, along with a few internet-based others, joined the ranks of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, the organization which ensures media access to baseball games, and votes for major awards and Hall of Fame membership....

Do Foreign Footballers Really Dive More?

This Regressing entry is brought to you by our clever friends at the Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective. Today: how Premier League diving might be a cultural phenomenon....

Nate Silver's Braying Idiot Detractors Show That Being Ignorant About Politics Is Like Being Ignorant About Sports

In case you haven't been hanging around the benighted corners of the political internet lately, there's an idiotic backlash afoot against Nate Silver, the proprietor of the FiveThirtyEight blog who made his name as one of the sharpest baseball analysts around....

The Giants Sure Use A Lot Of Sabermetrics For An Anti-Sabermetric Team

The Giants' World Series title is the latest point of retreat for the desperate sportswriter still looking to slam the use of statistics in baseball. In today's San Francisco Chronicle, Bruce Jenkins insists that this championship team got there through hard work, gristle, faces, eyes, shoulders, k...

Cranky Columnist Writes Anti-Stats Column That Reads Like Parody Of Anti-Stats Columns

Chaz Scoggins has been around. The longtime Lowell Sun writer has served as the Red Sox's official scorer for 34 years. He's been a SABR member for nearly as long. He even served as president of the BBWAA. But his hidden talent appears to be master satirist. How else to explain his weekend column, w...

When Good Statistics Go Bad: The Case Against The Case Against R.A. Dickey

R.A. Dickey, objectively speaking, is the greatest human being in history. His knuckleball destroys cities and he climbed a huge fucking mountain. But should he win the Cy Young Award?...

ESPN Personality Rob Parker Pissed Off Every Intelligent Baseball Fan On The Internet Today [UPDATE]

Do you know who Rob Parker is? You probably don't because there's really nothing special about Rob Parker. He currently exists as a member of ESPN's stable of chuckleheads who are periodically rotated into duty on First Take, where their main job is to sit there and let Skip Bayless do his thing....

Pythagoras, Meet Hippocrates: Kevin Gregg's Season Was The Opposite Of Lucky

This afternoon, the Baltimore Orioles released reliever Kevin Gregg. On Tuesday, the team had designated him for assignment. That night, they went out and beat the Tampa Bay Rays 9-2, moving into a tie for first place in the American League East. They beat Tampa Bay again the next night, and again ...

Red Sox Broadcasters Don Orsillo And Jerry Remy Cannot Figure Out How A Lightsaber Works

NESN's Red Sox broadcast team of Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy show up often in these parts, usually due to their inability to hold themselves together due to some wacky fans in the stands. Today's meltdown was self-imposed, as a toy lightsaber that found its way to the broadcast booth (owing to yet...

Why Aaron Cook And His Two Strikeouts Are A Nightmare For Sabermetrics

Aaron Cook, who's now pitching in Boston after years with the Rockies, is doing something amazing this year. Cook has pitched 29.2 innings and struck out two batters. Two. (Both came in one start against the Mariners, naturally, and one was—again, naturally—Chone Figgins.)...

"Sabermetrics" Was A Word In The Scripps National Spelling Bee

The Scripps National Spelling Bee, which alongside poker, cheerleading, and hot dog eating constitute the E for Entertainment in ESPN, featured an actual sports word in the third preliminary round of its competition today in Washington, D.C. as "sabermetrics" made its appearance....

Some Dude From Brooklyn Who Thinks He's A Jedi Master Is Whining About His Light Saber Getting Stolen

"The Bedford-Stuyvesant engineer was at a Myrtle Avenue bar last fall when a thief snatched what Obi-Wan Kenobi once described as 'an elegant weapon for a more civilized age' - a $400 custom sword Michael used to teach young Jedi honor and self-esteem. 'Who steals somebody's light saber? It's like ...