Essential Influences on Baseball Thought

I am a huge Seattle Mariner fan.  Recently, the team has been woeful, and many of the solutions the franchise has tried have backfired immensely.  During the anomaly that was the 88-win 2007 season, I got excited about the Mariners contending.  I had recently embraced TrueHoop, an NBA blog, and was learning quickly that ESPN and the mainstream print media are not the only ways of following a team (ironically, TrueHoop, the site that initially alerted me to the knowledge bloggers bring, only came to my attention when ESPN began hosting it).  In reality, especially in baseball, these mainstream media sources can be woefully ignorant of new, more effective analysis.  As I spent my 2007 summer following the Mariners, I started looking for better coverage than I was getting from ESPN and Southern California media.  I found U.S.S. Mariner.  It is easily the best, most comprehensive coverage of a specific topic I have ever encountered in my life.  The primary writers, Dave Cameron and Derek Zumsteg, have embraced sabermetrics and their applications in baseball.  For those unaware, sabermetrics is the use of statistical analysis in baseball evaluation, beyond the tradtional statistics such as batting average, RBI, ERA, etc.  They brought to my attention the (now) obvious fact that defense is important, as saving runs is as beneficial to winning as scoring runs.  I will probably create some sort of primer on the importance of sabermetrics in baseball that includes a definition and a limited history of the field, but essentially, U.S.S. Mariner and their allies in the Mariners blogosphere represent the next phase in the Moneyball era.

Anyway, U.S.S. Mariner ensnared me with its criticism of Jose Vidro.  I had felt the entire season that he was not hitting as well as his traditional numbers bore out, and Dave and Derek agreed.  I kept returning, eventually read the USSM Orientation materials, and ended up over at Lookout Landing.  Now, when I say that U.S.S. Mariner is the best coverage of a specific topic I have ever encountered, a significant amount of that credit goes to the community that regularly reads and contributes to the site.  U.S.S. Mariner is the only blog that I can read through the comments section and not feel dumber, as ignorance is not tolerated.  Aiding this is the presence of an extremely educated group of contributers, several of which are the operators of Lookout Landing.  Lookout Landing may feel more like a fanboys blog, but the content is extraordinary.  The guys at LL are phenomenal at statistical analysis at its most basic level: creating the statistic.  The staff of LL essentially created one of the most accurate measures of pitching available in tRA (and tRA*).  Browsing these sites eventually led me to FanGraphs, which Dave Cameron of USSM and Matthew Carruth of LL write.  FanGraphs is probably the most useful and fan-friendly stats site around, and the writers do a great job of posting interesting and concise entries on a wide variety of topics within baseball.  FanGraphs, more than anything, has helped me understand alternative methods to results based analysis.

The sites I described form the basis for my understanding of baseball beyond the traditional model perpetuated by ESPN and the rest of the traditional media.  They by no means represent my only influences.  Take a look at the links I have posted in the sidebar.  A pretty large amount of them are dedicated to the Mariners.  Most of the Mariners blogosphere has embraced sabermetrics.  However, each blog has its own specialty.  USSM has an incredible ability to take a complex problem or idea (such as win values) and present in easy to grasp, everyday terms.  LL is incredibly statisticaly proficient and posts at a higher frequency than most.  Prospect Insider is Jason Churchills prospect blog, using his experience as a scout to evaluate Mariners prospects.

If you are interested in my baseball thoughts, then start at USSM with their orientation materials.  If you enjoy it, check out a few of their posts or head over to Lookout Landing.  You might be intrigued.