being born in 1975, I am quite used to RBI, batting average, home runs, and of course, the stolen base since I lived through the 80’s as a child. Being a fan of the stolen base as a Cardinals fan in the 1980’s goes without question. But it became less and less important and even nearly laughable until now. Things always come back.
Cycles are important to baseball, economics, life. Math. Memory. Hitters go through hot streaks, slumps, ebb and flow. They find their rhythm, or not. Some are just hitting
machines, some never find any kind of regularity in hitting. Pitchers used to hit, and they only got to hit every five days. Maybe it’s easy to forget that. I did.
I used to play baseball, and I wasn’t very good at it, but it was still a lot of fun. When you like to play a sport, you probably like to watch it too. Heck, I’d love watching baseball even if I didn’t play it. At least, that’s what I tell myself. It’s impossible to know, if I didn’t play baseball with my brother and maybe one other person if we were lucky. I watched my little brother get hit in the chest with a line drive when he was about 5 years old, maybe 6. That was terrifying. That’s when I realized that this was a truly dangerous sport.
Baseballs are not unlike bullets, cannon balls, missiles, what have you. But it’s hit off a wooden bat like an explosion into the backing sun. Or whatever the weather is. I used to collect baseball cards and see printed stat lines of years before, like proof and evidence of a player’s talent and ability. It seemed so official, so absolutely real. That’s what happened, that’s what’s bound to happen. And if not, forget about it.
Then the steroid happened, an era of distortions, and newness, and “pro wrestling”-like personas and reality, or lack of it for some. I think of it as just another era, like when amphetamines heavily influenced the game. Asterisks would abound. Home runs and RBI were the primary focus, of pure production from impure sources. It was an arms race based on steroids and hgh. I don’t really know the inner workings of this realm, but I’m sure it would be somewhat interesting. And something like it will happen again, if history teaches us nothing other than about cycles.
Sure there are new things that happen. They have to start somewhere. What the next era of “cheating” will be, or over “progress”, is anyone’s guess. My guess it will be something like technological enhancement, implementation of “cybernetics” or whatever, or maybe nanotechnology which will be even more difficult to detect. And of course they won’t want to detect it at first, while the novelty generates revenue and unfound funds.
Baseball is a game both of moments and of longevity and empirical evidence. It is both scientific and mystical. To me, it’s one of the most real of sports. It waits. It hastens. It goes in between, it rests. It does everything. Where it might not be as real is how it is a turn based system, a game. But it is easily recorded, evaluated, thought about. Fishing, martial arts, painting all come to mind. Its ebb and flow, rhythm, can remind one of music, too.
Economics and baseball are intertwined and have been for a while. Culture, even human rights, were also tied together with America’s past time. Now it’s moreso other sports, football *american, but also soccer. But, since baseball has outlasted them all, I’ll still go with it.
What can be good for some, may not be for others. Baseball has shot itself in the foot for a while now though. Today, they have made some strides back in the right direction. I have no worry that it will die out. It has surely changed though. Now we are years past the “moneyball era” which replaced the steroids era long ago.
What changed about the moneyball or sabermetric era was how teams evaluated hitters. Maybe some people were already aware of this within the baseball world, but looking at things like on base percentage and taking a gander at batting average on balls in play (babip) might help give a new dimension to things. People in any business within a competitive realm are always looking at gaining any kind of edge or knowledge. And if it can be more predictive, well, that is most edgy.
If you see a BABIP anomaly it’s going to look like more than .15 outside the norm. So compare a player’s current statline on his baseball card to the overall stats. I have no idea what baseball cards say these days, but whatever. It’s somewhere between Halloween and Thanksgiving, and I really do feel like half-pumpkin, half-turkey. Went from Shuggah Lagunitas to Night Owl Elysian. Be that as it may, this has always been my goal, to write about baseball and beer and music and whatever. I like the orginal ‘shuggah by Lagunitas better.
By the time I started reading VEB in 2008, it was an increasingly more and more sabermetric blog. If any of the old timers here can elaborate more on that era, that would be cool! I don’t remember it super well other than I learned a lot and commented too much. I feel I was rather sarcastic and annoying, and even though I still am, I hope a little bit less! lol jk i am nothing compared to guayzimi and others who have permanently warped my mind.
Speaking of VEB history, I have to imagine red baron as a punk rocker now, or poet, similar form. We all wish we could read him again, as well as many past VEB writers. And i’m honored to be a part of it now. Please let me know of any ideas, requests of articles from me, whatever! I’ll continue to write week after week, no matter what.
It is an exciting time with a new site manager, it was sad to see Heather go and she did a really good job! She held VEB like a baby in her arms and carried it to the next phase as each site manager has done since lboros! We will miss her but also greet Doc Holliday! I’m excited to read more, his first two posts have been wonderful and part of the great cycle. Thank you for managing, managers! I applaud you, I know how tough it can be. You must be the great juggler but graceful as well.
I recently put in my two weeks at my day job and am looking for new opportunities. Feels like a good time for change! Today I enjoyed happy hour at Gramophone sandwich bar which is just, absolutely incredible. Many many sandwich options some creative and amazing some more traditional and equally awesome plus a daily special, and happy hour deals on beers midweek.
Cannot wait to write more about St Louis’ food scene, venues, etc since I have lived here a few years now, I feel like I have a really good hold on my opinion of the various restaurants and bars, breweries, incredible foodie and beer nerd spots. I think it’s all a little underrated! Can’t wait to write more about food and music along with baseball, but for now I’m sort of getting more in the flow with things. After all, I lived in three different states to begin the covid era.
Somehow I ended up in St Louis after my sister passed away and I got laid off from a decent job near my hometown in western illinois. Strangely enough, I was laid off after a sale on the new company I worked for, but I received severance pay. So I was able to go to St Louis. I had wanted to move there since about 2015. But was stuck in an increasingly more expensive Chicago for a few years. Then I vacated the midwest only for covid to happen and destabilize everyone’s lives, but that’s a whole other story!
Once the statcast era happened though, I’m still really just trying to figure out what’s going on. And that’s been since the covid era. I really don’t know, I’m just trying to keep up. If that seems familiar to you, you’re not alone!
In addition to looking at babip and on base percentage, line drive percentage, launch angle, isolated power, all extremely important to see. But what the sabermetric era also brought was balling defensive value into a player’s overall value. Which is not easy to evaluate, so much as until now, with baseball savant’s outs above average and other insanely more accurate statistics available than before *uzr, etc.
Ok so, I suppose the purpose other than to give you something to read about for a while is to say, there are some stats that are not very interesting anymore. What do you think? What stats are relics of the past?
And should we adhere only to stats in general when evaluating players? How much can managing and coaching effect a roster? We have no idea! And yet, we have a better idea. Integrating information as much as possible with weighting and other methods. And it’s an ever evolving process. No set of numbers should ever outpace humanity and teamwork. But there must be a balance. The Cardinals need to have market maneuverability as well as loyalty to the players. Rely on underlying sustainable numbers, and not on recent trends as much.
And most importantly, make sure the farm system is productive! And ready for the statcast era. Which has been around for a while now. The times do change. I enjoy perusing baseball savant but it’s also a bit overwhelming! I’d enjoy any articles or video on the statcast era. Need to catch up.
Baseball, economics and science.
Not so easy listening 2025: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL17rF8twitIt79mOwPLXX9dpUkzTQDpT0&si=D8IbvrApg4tdWLpm
Touching upon the noise rock genre, amphetamine reptile records releases: the jesus lizard, helmet, godheadsilo, and many more amazing noise rock bands: wiki
