Me vs. Marcus Hayes Continued

Allegedly, Marcus Hayes left the following comment on the blog Philadelphia Will Do regarding my blog post here which contains his email to me regarding my love of nerd stats.

Numberheads,

Just letting you blogicians know:
No longer will you, or anyone else, be afforded the privilege (burden?) of corresponding with me. When I reply to an individual it is intended to be a confidential response. Since I can't trust you, I assume I can't trust anyone.
It is not meant to be posted on anyone's blog, and certainly not on a for-profit entity of a direct competitor.
So, no more responses. Can't trust you, so don't bother writing.
But then, if you hold my replies in such low esteem, why bother writing?
Of course, this gives many of you more time for your World of Warcraft RPG endeavors.
Happy gaming.
Hope the eczema clears up.
M

Now, there is zero proof that Marcus Hayes wrote this. I hope he did, for his sake, because it's sort of entertaining and would actually be an improvement for him. I will reply here to certain elements of the above-

"Just letting you blogicians know:
No longer will you, or anyone else, be afforded the privilege (burden?) of corresponding with me."

You call what you wrote to me correspondence? You attacked me for believing in something different from you; something that makes a lot of sense. Are you Catholic by chance, Marcus? 16th century Catholic? I thought so.

"When I reply to an individual it is intended to be a confidential response."

And I would have kept it that way if.. oh wait, no I wouldn't have.

"Of course, this gives many of you more time for your World of Warcraft RPG endeavors."

I play Hearts of Iron II. It's a WWII simulation.

"Hope the eczema clears up."

It's doing very well, thank you.

Again, I have my doubts that Marcus Hayes wrote that comment on Philadelphia Will Do. But I could see him writing something similar to it. What I'd rather him write is something like this-

"You're right, nerds. I am guilty of being yet another sportswriter who practices lazy journalism. Please forgive me. And while I may not totally understand your love of numbers, facts, and reality, I hope you one day will be able to accept my love of pointless posturing, subjectivity, and self-aggrandizing attitude. Cheers."

Sabreboy gets a response from Marcus Hayes

Here is his reply email followed by my rebuttal to his statements. (Pictured here- the Phillie Phanatic obviously preparing to eat a baby. I couldn't find a pic of Mr. Hayes.)
___________________________________________________________________________________
Get a grip, sabreboy.
Burrell is paid to produce runs, not get on base. Period. Any season with fewer than 110 RBI is a flat-out failure. He's not paid $13 million to walk. He misses strikes, he slumps, he tries to hit home runs. He is mediocre, at best, at the job to which he is assigned.
Soriano is overrated. Carlos Lee is an RBI machine. I don't know what your problem is with Ramirez, who is arguably the best offensive 3B in the NL since 2003.
OBP and OPS are geek numbers, especially for run-producers. I'd rather have my 3-4-5 guys drive the best strike they see rather than wait for the perfect pitch and jog down the baseline.
Sabremetrics are the bastion of wannabes who never could quite figure out which hand the mitt went on, a false industry created and fueled by people whose association with the game always will be vicarious, and, frankly, pathetic.
Offensively, scoring runs and driving runs in matter in baseball. Everything else follows.
That's it.
Ask any player.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

We're both busy people so I'll make this quick. I'm not expecting a reply, so I'll say now that this was a fun little exchange.

"Any season with fewer than 110 RBI is a flat-out failure."

The oft-loathed (not by me) Bobby Abreu may end up with 110 RBI this year; do you think he's having a better season than Derek Jeter?

Stan Musial averaged 104 RBI per 162 games played for his career, which is coincidentally the same as Pat Burrell averages. Obviously I don't think Burrell is as good as Musial, but your statement is totally false.

"He's not paid $13 million to walk."

Hey, I wish he could hit 45 home runs a year too. But he can't. So why fault him for not being something he'll never be? What he is is a player who is excellent at not making outs. While that alone is not worth $13 million, it's a great attribute to have.

"He misses strikes, he slumps, he tries to hit home runs"

Are you talking about Ryan Howard? He's the guy who has 147 K's in 104 games. Yet I'd hardly say he's having a bad year.

"Carlos Lee is an RBI machine"

He does get quite a few RBI, but since RBI is a stat dependent on so many other factors, I tend to not care.

"I don't know what your problem is with Ramirez, who is arguably the best offensive 3B in the NL since 2003."

I agree with this, since Miguel Cabrera played in the outfield for a few seasons. My point was that Ramirez is not a much better batter than Burrell.

"I'd rather have my 3-4-5 guys drive the best strike they see rather than wait for the perfect pitch and jog down the baseline."

Mike Schmidt made an okay career out of waiting for the perfect pitch. But since he didn't have many 110+ RBI seasons (just 5 in 18 seasons), you likely think he was overrated.

"Sabremetrics are the bastion of wannabes who never could quite figure out which hand the mitt went on, a false industry created and fueled by people whose association with the game always will be vicarious, and, frankly, pathetic."

Of course you realize many people say the same about sports writing.

Have you considered that sabermetrics aren't designed to ruin the game but to enhance the understanding of it? Sabermetrics and the traditional modes of scouting can live together in analytic harmony. And claiming that sabermetric stats are bunk because of the people who created them is like claiming TV is a worthless invention because Philo Farnsworth was a farmer, not a scientist.

The anti-intellectualism demonstrated regularly by you and most of your writing peers, refusing to even consider why new ways of thinking about baseball are appropriate, contributes to your ever-quickening slide into obsolescence. Enjoy.

"Offensively, scoring runs and driving runs in matter in baseball. Everything else follows."

According to your logic (or complete lack of it) the Phillies lead the NL in runs scored because they lead the league in RBI. Do you see why that is crazy?

And "everything else follows" is completely wrong. Stats like OBP, OPS, VORP, and WARP help explain, better than stats like batting average and RBI, why the players on teams like the Phillies create a lot of runs. RBI and Runs Scored follow.

"Ask any player."

Right, because players are the only authority on their respective sports. That's why so many of them make such great GM's when they leave the game.