More recently, statistical analysis has exploded as Major League front offices employ economics and statistics in their quests for better teams. Baseball fans, and baseball writing, seem to be splitting into two camps, defined by their respect for this new area of statistical analysis. Books like "Moneyball" and sites like firejoemorgan.com are proponents of this new school of deeper statistical analysis. They denounce batting average and pitching wins as unreliable indicators of a player's value to a team. On the other side of the barricades are "traditional" fans who bemoan the loss of a simpler game, and fear that their beloved pastime is being hijacked by math nerds seeking to turn it into a Dungeons and Dragons affair.
Yet it is worth remembering and acknowledging the deep connection baseball fans of all stripes have with the accumulation and discussion of statistics. Baseball is unparalleled in American sport in its archival history of statistical representations of players and teams. Baseball has been keeping track of hits, home runs, and wins for more than one hundred years. This accumulation of data has created a special category of deeply satisfying numbers which deserve recognition apart from their debatable merits as accurate representations of player value.
A curious event occurred recently in Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia which provides a useful introduction to this point. Ken Griffey Jr. came to town with the Cincinnati Reds. Philadelphia has some of the most ruthless and critical fans in the major leagues. It is a city famous for once booing Santa Claus. At the time, Griffey was sitting on 599 career home runs and nursing a sore knee. Yet every time Griffey came to the plate, the Philadelphia fans stood and applauded. On June 3rd, Griffey pinch-hit in the 8th inning of a close game and Tom Gordon walked him on four pitches. The crowd booed Gordon.
Why did the crowd do this? Because the fans in the stands appreciated the significance, and the underlying satisfaction, of 600 career home runs. It is an exclusive club, one of the many "clubs" baseball creates to recongize players with certain statistical achievements. Of course, Griffey is also a well-respected, first-ballot Hall of Famer with no history of beating the Phillies in any meaningful game. Yet he was cheered, and Tom Gordon was booed (of course, Tom Gordon is a mediocre, not-particularly-respected Philly with a history of losing meaningful games).
Human beings as a species seem to enjoy big, round numbers. Perhaps this suggests a psychological connection to our primate ancestors' enjoyment of couting their ten fingers and toes. Baseball fans seem particularly succeptible to this enjoyment, however. The game is to blame, for it offers a veritable harem of satisfying, occasionally arousing, big clean round numbers. Consider the following:
- .300 batting average
- .400 batting average
- 3,000 career hits
- 500 career home runs
- 300 pitching wins
- 50 home runs in a season
- 100 RBI in a season
- 100 team wins in a season
The evidence of baseball's appreciation for these numbers is everywhere. The "500 Home Run Club," the "3,000 Hit Club" and the "300 Win Club" are, steroids aside, guaranteors of entrance into the Hall of Fame. A no-hitter and a perfect game are celebrated as great pitching performances, but part of that celebration comes from the numerical perfection of the performance. Both historically and today, the batting title is as prestigous as the MVP and the Cy Young award, even though the latter two are much more representative of a player's phenomenal year. And what gets baseball writers more excited than a hitter with a shot at .400 or the Triple Crown?
Baseball's continued aherence to two critical structural numbers also makes these beautiful round numbers more meaningful and satisfying. The distance between bases has been 90 feet since the 1840s, and pitching rubber to plate has been 60 feet 6 inches since 1893. These two distances are the foundation upon which the game is built. Tinker with either, and the statistics on either side of that change become incomparable with one another.
Consider how far batting averages would plummet if home to first was 100 feet. Fielders could play at today's depths (for the batted ball is not travelling any faster), but would have slightly more time to throw to first. Infield singles become outs, fielders' choices become double plays. Conversely, shorten the basepaths to 80 feet, and imagine the batting averages Ichiro could post. Fielders would have to choose between playing deep enough to stop ground balls, and playing shallow enough to attempt the throw. Likewise with the mound. Back the mound up to 65 feet, and Billy Wagner's 100 mph fastball becomes much more hittable. Shorten the mound to 55 feet, and try to imagine standing in the left-handed batters' box against Randy Johnson. Baseball has kept these two crucial field dimensions consistent, and that continuity adds legitimacy to the comparison of past and present statistics.
This stable of round numbers may not be the best indicator of a player's value to a team. OBP and VORP are being proven to be more useful tools in constructing winning ballclubs. But certain characteristics of the game have created ways to think and write about the game in statistical terms. The arguments over average versus OBP show in themselves that baseball fans of all types care deeply about numbers in their beloved game, no matter to what purpose those numbers are employed.
