I remember reading a column by Steve Wulf, where he said he understood and respected statistical analysis, but he covered the Dodgers in the 70s and, regardless of what the stats say, Steve Garvey was a Hall of Famer, period.

I think the purpose of the question was to call into question Elvis’ ability. The e-mailer is saying that Elvis may be overrated b/c of all of his minor league errors and that the “eye ball test” is the only reason why he will be in Arlington this year. I think the e-mailer is probably wrong.

From a point of view I’d suppose, but wouldn’t you say it’s a different mindset, rather than ignorant? T.R. is not unaware nor inexperienced with statistical analysis.

But I was a little curious too, about the plug for the book. But I see no real harm in it.

At least in this particular answer, he came across as a Joe Morgan “I don’t care what Moneyball’s about. I hate the new statistical analysis and love the old scouting. By the way, here’s a link to my book about a scout who I think is awesome.”

To me, it comes across as borderline anti-intellectual. What’s the point of mentioning the Pythagorean theorem?

Regarding Ed’s reply above: does TR use anything beyond the normal triple-slash stats? I recall him mentioning OPS once and OBP a handful of times, but it’s always seemed to me like he uses them in situations where he’s sure they back up the traditional stats — to me, this comes across as ignorance more than a genuine disagreement, but I don’t read his columns all that often so I could be wrong here.

You can’t really get to stat oriented on mlb.com. But yeah, maybe he does deserve it if he’s playing an ongoing “stats suck” undertone with his writing. Honestly I don’t read him enough to know.