The word Sabremetrics comes from the acronym "SABR" which stands for The Society for American Baseball Research which is an organization created in the 1971 for really smart people who love baseball. SABR's original charter however had much more to do with protecting the game's historical record than igniting the eventual "Moneyball" revolution. I suppose the first Sabremetric thought may have been decades ago when, I don't know, maybe Bill Gates was in little league and he couldn't hit a lick but one of his very smart parents had the thought, "a walk is as good as a hit." That was just common sense - "a walk is as good as a hit" didn't become a genius-level thought until someone finally realized "if you work a walk, you not only get a base but you'll wear down the pitcher and guarantee that every Red Sox-Yankees game between the years 2003-2013 will exceed four hours..."
Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, if you want to be a real student of the game, go to school! As a public service, I want to let you know about a college level course on Sabremetrics at the virtual school edX.org that is available to everyone:
Sabremetrics 101: Introduction to Baseball Analytics
The course will cover the theory and the fundamentals of the emerging science of Sabremetrics. We will discuss the game of baseball, not though consensus or a fan's conventional wisdom, but by searching for objective knowledge in hitting, fielding and pitching performance. These and other areas will be analyzed and better understood with current and historical baseball data.
Learn more by clicking here.
Go back to school...but don't be Frank-the-Tank!
And speaking of the movie "Moneyball," RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of a kind...
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