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Eh. He never really read anything I posted anyway...

The Bogaerts thing was merely an example of how people misunderstand advanced metrics. I opened with a statement about one of the problems with advanced metrics is that people don't understand them. And then I said "FOR EXAMPLE" to actually notify people I was making an example. Seriously. I should not have had to explain that. And this "I didn't say that comprehensive is a bad thing. I just believe that "comprehensive" can be used as a metaphor for "unduly complicated"." You exact words. Copied. Pasted. Underlined. Seriously? If you are implying "Comprehensive" is a metaphor (when I think you mean "synonym) for "unduly complicated, but somehow you are simultaneously saying that doesn't mean it's a bad thing!?!!? In the same sentence?!?!!? When you use your lines about things having too many parts being more likely to break down, those "too many moving parts" are exactly the factors that make it more comprehensive. In fact, now you have been touting "KISS" as the logic in determining a defensive metric. Well, keeping it simple does make it far less comprehensive by definition of the word. And please do not tell me that you have a simple method that is more comprehensive, as the words "simple" and "comprehensive" are actually antonyms.

So in your eyes "comprehensive" is a bad thing? If you want a flaw with advanced metrics, its much simpler. Most fans have no idea how to interpret them. For example, say Bogaerts is ninth in the AL in UZR. Too many say things like " That's got to be wrong. I watch every game. Xander does this. Xander does that. He never does the other thing. UZR must be flawed!" And they miss the obvious reason. Xander might be ninth not because of what he does. But because 8 other shortstops do it better. ..

Travis is a very small sample size, but with too many othrt hitters struggling, one has to wonder if Benintendi might relinquish LF duties to him for a while. I doubt it happens, but plenty of hitters better than Benintendi have been demoted early in their careers...

Maybe Sandoval is like Sampson. Except that instead of hair he gets his strength from belly fat...

The expectation for this year's team was they would pitch better and hit worse than last year's team. The hitting worse thing is right on target, but the pitching hasn't been better. Some big factors have been the injuries to Price and Thornburg. Especially Price, who has all of 5 IP under his belt...

By that logic, the best defensive metric would be Defensive Efficiency, which is simply (Putouts/Balls in play). It doesn't get much simpler. It's used for team defense, and it has very few variables. But it does break down when a team play 81 games per year in a ballpark with a 37 foot high wall in left field, since balls hit 36 feet high off the wall are considered in play with no out recorded. Does such a hit really mean there was inefficient defense? Even errors aren't a good defensive stat. If a player doesn't get to very many balls, he makes fewer errors. Does this make him a good defensive player? Fielding percentage would say so. Don't these very simple stats have far more flaws than UZR or DRS?

UZR does include park adjustments, including what is actually referred to as the "Manny Factor" that accommodates the left field wall...

I think you mean Bull Durham, and not Major League. And it was 1 hit pet week, not 2. But that was also based on 500 at bats over 25 weeks for .050 points of batting average Basically most starters get about 25 at bats per week. So each hit is worth .040 on their avetage for that week. So if Bradley is saving 2 hits per week, is that or not worth the same as getting 2 more hits per week? 1-2 plays per week is a bigger difference than you seemed to think in your original post. To a hitter, it can be .2018040 batting average points. Don't you think it helps a pitcher similarly?

The bias is heavily influenced by sample size. As Sox fans watch infinitely more Bradley than Kiermaier or Pillar - two equally elite defensive centerfielders - they will obviously see Bradley make more great plays than they will see the other two make. It's hard to get around it. Are you implying you're not biased by lopsided samples? If so, what's your ranking of Bradley, Kiermaier and Pillar as defensive centerfielders and why?

Not to mention, fans doing the Eye Test tend to have incredibly lopsided sample sizes for players on their own team. Watching 1400 innings of Bradley and comparing it to 70 innings of, say, Kevin Kiermaier doesn't make for a fair and unbiased evaluation

That's because those metrics look at defense differently. UZR is a cumulative total of plays, although it can go negative for poor play. But as it is cumulative, missed time works against it. UZR does include position and park adjustments. UZR/150 is an extrapolation of UZR out to 150 games. Small sample sizes are useless in this extraction DRS is measured against league average for the position, so JBJ's value can go up based on the poor defense of other centerfielder..

But more important, he will take another chance away from Kyle Kendrick

According to Fangraphs, which doesn't have the same data on everyone, the worst pitcher in Sox history is Mark Clear. It isn't. I say it was probably Jeff Sellers. Although the biggest disappointment in Sox history had to be either Danny Darwin or Ramiro Mendoza ...

Was Clement so ghastly when he was in the All Star game that year?

Keep Marrero for now. When July rolls around, make a move for Plouffe or Moustakas or some rental 3B. If Pablo is still injured, it might be time to DFA him like Rusney Castillo (who, with 6 HRs and 6 SBs at Pawtucket, might be more worthy of a 40-man roster spot than Sandoval).

Why doesn't 2 plays make up for a .200 batting average? If some other Major League center fielder is batting .280, that would only be 2 more hits a week than a .200 hitter. Of course, when you consider MLB centerfielders this year are only hitting a combined .247/.313/.480, it does make Bradley's .211/.298/.394 and those 1-2 extra play a week a little more palatable...

One of those last place teams won 78 games. How often does a last place team win that many? I've seen World Series champions that only won 83. And if you look at Sox managers in the past 50 years - which is a more fair way to judge him since managers like Maddon and Shelter are measured using different criteria - where does Farrell rank in your eyes? To me, Francona is the clear top and Hobson is the obvious bottom (or Kerrigan, if you count his brief reign). But you might find Farrell is closer to the top than you realize...

I would say it open their eyes and they started taking it into consideration.I think they got more open-minded and started realizing they needed to be a little more racially diverse and get paid extra attention to African American athletes.

Many people misinterpreted that article as condemnation that the Sox were a racist organization, but his point was that their lack of diversity would hurt them signing free agents, especially African American ones. He was pretty explicit about this in the article. And it obviously struck home. The next few off-seasons, the Sox added Mike Cameron and Bill Hall and eventually Carl Crawford.

I'm picturing them being done by a guy with a box of leeches and a chisel he uses on skulls to let the evil spirits out...

And what makes it even worse than that is this is just OPS, not park-adjusted OPS+...

But the Sox didn't leave 20 men on base. The combined total of runners each batter left on base was 20 (actually 19). As a team, the Sox only left 10 runners stranded. Neither of those numbers lead me to believe this offense is in good shape or unlucky right now...

Seriously, if your example is that your exuberance was quashed when you attempted to cheer for a sac bunt - easily one of the least exciting plays in baseball - I'm not so sure your argument was all that well thought out...

At the very least, I think he will get himself into the argument. I also think that the list of iconic baseball greats will be expanded from "Ruth, Aaron, and Mays" to"Ruth, Aaron, Mays, and Trout."..